Stealing the Sword: Limiting Terrorist Use of Advanced Conventional Weapons

This book examines one manifestation of the general technical competition between terrorist groups and security organizations the balance between the potential use by terrorists of advanced conventional weapons and the responses available to deter or counter them. Use of the term advanced conventional weapons is inclusive and broad any new or unusual conventional weaponry developed for ordinary military forces. All weaponry is obviously designed to do damage, but new design features might enable new, or at least unfamiliar, terrorist attacks. At the same time, the usual limitation of weaponry to militaries implies that various controls could be applied. One example of this competition has received much attention the balance between terrorist use of man-portable air defense systems MANPADS and U.S. responses. The November 2002 attacks in Mombasa, Kenya, using Russian-built MANPADS against an Israeli airliner, demonstrated that terrorists are able to acquire and use that type of advanced weaponry. In response, the United States has negotiated a multinational agreement that calls for imposing both technical and procedural use controls on new MANPADS, and also has started a pilot program within the Department of Homeland Security to demonstrate technical countermeasures suitable for protecting commercial aircraft from MANPADS. But MANPADS are only one of a long list of advanced conventional weapons that are potentially attractive to terrorists. This monograph explores a range of other weapons, both those still under development and those already available but relatively unused by terrorists. These weapons are as follows sniper rifles and associated instrumentation, improved squad-level weapons of several types, long-range antitank missiles, large limpet mines, and precision indirect fire systems.