This is a ten page paper presented by Richard Szafranski of Toffler Associates at "The Glocal Strategy" Conference in Italy in May 2002. The author is a retired Air Force colonel; Toffler Associates is the strategic planning and advisory firm run by Alvin and Heidi Toffler.

If terrorism intends to influence an audience, then the targets of terrorism, no matter how terrorism reifies as physical acts of violence, are human minds hosted by human bodies. Others in this session will explore specific tools that our bodies and brains apply to combating terrorism: information operations, network analyses, seizing finances, and so forth. My aim in these remarks is to illuminate more basic ways to use the tool of our brain to deflate terror and defeat terrorism.

The most basic way to rob terrorism of its potency is to be unafraid of it, even while jointly and methodically employing all the tools at our disposal to eradicate it and to remedy the causes from which terrorism springs. Many things are necessary and must be done. We must, of course, harden our networks, add physical security and access control to our buildings and networks, have accurate inventories and inventory controls for dangerous materials -- tracking and controlling the ingredients of weapons of mass destruction -- and become more sophisticated in recognizing the precursor patterns of behavior and the kinds of interactions that may auger attacks. We also must work to eliminate the wide gaps between the rich and the poor. All of these are necessary, and we will cover them in this conference, but they are not sufficient. At the risk of appearing glib, let me assert that terrorism works because we fear it and that we simply must cease fearing it. How?

Asymmetries and Consequences [PDF]