International Studies Journal (ISJ)

International Studies Journal (ISJ)

Investigative the lack of the US Government in Dealing with Industrial Terrorism

Document Type : Original Independent Original Article

Authors
Davood Jafari 1
Mehran Khalaj 1
Pejman Salehi 2
1 Associate Prof. at Industrial Engineering Dep., Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Parand Branch, Islamic Azad University, Parand, Iran.
2 Ph.D. of Industrial Engineering, Parand Branch, Islamic Azad University, Parand, Iran.
10.22034/isj.2024.387080.1977
Abstract
Studying the evidence and findings obtained from the research shows that one of the aspects of terrorism, attacking industrial infrastructure, has negative and destructive effects on the economic prosperity of a country. Therefore, the main goal of the current research is to investigate the success rate of the American government in controlling the effects of terrorism on industrial activities in the case study of the American Railway Company; therefore, the current study examines terrorism from the perspective of its effect on industrial activities and tries to do so systematically. To answer this question, has the US government been successful in dealing with industrial terrorism? The hypothesis of the present research intuitively states that the American government is incompetent in dealing with industrial terrorism, and therefore, to test the hypothesis, it is focused on Amtrak (American Railway Company). This research, using the method of content analysis, has explained the inadequacies of the government in dealing with its consequences for systematically and generalizing industrial terrorism in America. Some results of this study show that the economic value of parent industries and the control measures of the American government to protect these industries are directly related to industrial terrorism, and finally, the consequences of industrial terrorism for some parent American industries such as railways lead to political instability, capital reduction and Public trust has resulted.

Highlights

Introduction

From the perspective of industrial governance, industrial terrorism refers to various types of planned attacks and violence. Specific and opposing groups carry out these attacks to affect a country's important industrial, commercial, and vital purposes. These attacks can seriously disrupt the sensitive industrial infrastructure of that country.

 Considering the 10% increase in the demand for cargo and passenger transport in the American nationwide rail network and the existence of numerous security holes in it, such as easy accessibility and vulnerability of stations and rail lines; Making extensive investments to improve the security level of the rail network by the American government, especially in the field of recent rail technologies, has become essential.

Despite the technical and engineering recommendations of security experts in the United States, the amount of investment and preventive measures to improve the security of the rail transportation sector. Compared to other modes of transportation such as air transportation in this country is very small.

Therefore, the management of American rail security has faced many difficulties, and this shows that the governing policies of the American government to maintain the protection of the country's vital infrastructure are weak. Considering the geographic dispersion of the American rail infrastructure, its ease of access by attackers, and its vulnerability to planned vandalism. The main purpose of the current research is to investigate the inadequacies of the American government to maintain critical infrastructure against security crises. This is done in a case study of the American nationwide rail network.

 

Methodology

The present research was conducted using the content analysis method. For this research, five general dimensions have been considered to examine the resilience of America's critical infrastructure based on its strengths and weaknesses. Each of these categories includes a dimension of security applications in the critical infrastructure of the US rail network. The items related to each category in the documents and security content about the American rail infrastructure have been collected and recorded for comparison.

The categories examined in this research are: First: Collecting data and providing information about the current state of the American rail infrastructure and drawing invisible realities in the security of the American infrastructure. Second: Studying the weaknesses and inadequacies related to the railway infrastructure Third: showing how the system's defences work against intruders. Fourth: organizing, summarizing, and combining information. Fifth: Summary of experiences. The statistical population in this research consisted of security and cyber defence documents, reports, and texts of the last 15 years of the United States in the fields related to railway infrastructure. Due to the large volume of documents, only the sections for infrastructure security (fleet, stations, and railway lines) were selected and analyzed.

 

Results and Discussion

A wide range of active attacks on American national railways can be imagined, and the occurrence of them can have significant negative effects on the control operations of train fleets in this country's rail network. According to the findings of the research on the chain of attacks on the rail network. At one end of the chain, there are active attacks that can easily destroy the possibility of any information exchange between the entities of the entire system. This includes blocking all the communication channels of the network. At the other end of this chain are passive attacks that result from intruders' detailed understanding of rail system security breaches. In this type of attack, attackers block the existing channels by exploiting the weaknesses in the communication protocols and using the “denial” technique, which makes it difficult to invalidate data. Other active attacks on the American rail network are mainly from security weaknesses in networks and computer systems. Such as security holes on the sender side, tampering with identity information by unauthorized users, or computer weaknesses on the receiver side, such as malicious and unprotected communication networks., social engineering, or gaining the trust of users, by holding a meeting with a valid recipient, etc., the National Railway of America pursues its goals.

 

Conclusion

The results of the document review and analysis show that the rail transport industry and the US government have taken very important steps to increase the safety and security of the rail network. However, as a significant target, the US rail transportation network remains vulnerable to attacks and potential consequences. Some of these attacks resulted in heavy damages and significant human casualties, among which we can mention the bombing of American railroads and railroad cars. Increasing the resilience of the US rail network against all types of possible attacks requires a lot of costs. It is therefore necessary to rely on accurate and comprehensive information about protection and safety against risks to reduce the success rate of sabotage attacks. Other results show that despite opportunities for improvement, little effort has been made by the federal government to use other options to transport chemicals and reduce hazardous shipments by rail across the country.

Keywords
American government
industrial terrorism
mother industries
Governance failure

Subjects

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