| Deciding how to invest homeland security resources wisely in the United States can often appear to be an intractable problem because the large, open American society seems to be so vulnerable to so many threats in every corner of the country. This monograph is intended to help bound the problem in order to aid policy and resource decisions about one type of potential threat to the homeland: cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Importantly, the methodology used can be applied to other modes of attack, and the insights gained from this methodology extend to other threats as well. The focus of the research is on a specific class of weapons, but those weapons are not assessed in isolation; rather, it considers class of weapons as one of many options open to a potential attacker and seeks to identify investment strategies that are effective against multiple threats.
This monograph should be of interest to homeland security policymakers, military and defense planners, analysts examining the terrorist threat, technology and defense system designers, and individuals charged with protecting potential targets in the U.S. homeland from terrorist attack.
This research was sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community. |
