Counterterrorism and LongRange R

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Counterterrorism andLong-Range RD Needs
UCRL-PRES-147348
Michael R. Anastasio Deputy Director for
Strategic Operations Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory February 28, 2002
This work was performed under the auspices of the
U.S. Department of Energy by University of
California, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory under Contract W-7405-Eng-48.
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Whats the threat?

• Weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
• Nuclear
• Biological
• Chemical
• Radiological
• Explosive/leveraged
• Cyber
• Proliferation of WMD
• To countries with difficult or hostile relations
• To foreign subnational or terrorist groups
• Misuse of U.S. facilities or diversion of
  materials
• By U.S. extremist groups
• By foreign terrorists operating inside U.S.

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Why now?

• Russian instability
• Economic drivers to export nuclear technology
• Shaky protection and control of Soviet-legacy
  nuclear materials
• Former soviet weapons workers poorly paid
• Spread of technology
• Globilization of commerce
• Widespread availability of information (e.g.,
  Internet)
• Revolution in bioscience and biotechnology
• Apparent shift in terrorist goals
• More sweeping agendas (e.g., Islamic
  revolution)
• Capture media attention with major catastrophe
• Barrier to terrorist use of WMD broken
• 1995 sarin attack in Tokyo subway killed 12,
  sickened 5000
• September 11 WTC attack killed 3000
• Anthrax in mail killed 5

Terrorist attacks with nuclear devices or
bioagents could kill 10,000s to 100,000s
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Significance of September 11

• A defining moment
• Pearl Harbor of 21st Century
• Demonstrated terrorist capabilities
• Substantial funding
• Extensive planning
• Innovative attack strategy
• Effective OpSec
• Forced us to better understand costs of U.S.
  way of life
• Exploitation of open society
• Civil liberties vs. rule of law
• Motivated U.S. to act
• Transformed maybe into reality

September 11 and U.S. response will fundamentally
change aspects of everyday life
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Counterterrorism grand challenges

• Detection of terrorist intentions and activities
  before attack
• Interdiction of WMD far from target

• Improved defense against nuclear attack
• Improved detection of a biological agent release
• Forensic attribution of terrorist attack

Biological Materials
Inorganics
ST can make essential breakthroughs, but it must
be closely tied to policy and operations
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ST avenues in radiation detection

• Advanced gamma-ray imagers
• Reconstruction of multiple interactions from
  multi-channel pulse shape measurements
• Image and spectral reconstruction with
  multi-element detector measurements
• Portable, solid-state spectrometers operating at
  room temperature
• Crystal growth, annealing, and processing
• Low-noise-readout electronics
• Neutron imagers
• Detailed modeling of multiple scattering in
  multi-element and distributed-readout detector
  systems
• Large sensor networks (fixed and mobile)
• Statistical methods and modeling techniques to
  correlate sensor measurements and integrate
  measurements with other information
• Active interrogation systems
• Neutron and photon sources and interactions

Key applications Cargo container
inspection Interdiction of ground-delivered
nuclear device or materials
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Enabling technologies required for proliferation
detection

• Tagging, tracking, and locating
• Inertial systems (MEMS gyros)
• Low-power microdevices
• Cooperative behavior algorithms
• Secure communications
• Ultra-wideband arrays
• Configure antennas
• High-bandwidth networks
• Low-probability-of-intercept/detection techniques

• Sensor emplacement
• Miniature air vehicle, robotics, inflatable
  platforms
• Hybrid guidance and control systems
• High-density power sources
• Information science
• Signature analysis and feature extraction
• Distributed data fusion
• Decision immersion tools
• New algorithms for intelligence sensor integration

CAPS WMD
MIDB Archival INTEL
Sensors
GIS
Short Term Systems
Objective Widespread deployment of unobtrusive
technologies for detecting signatures of WMD
activities, together with tools for extracting
actionable information from massive volumes of
data
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Advances in photonics and optics needed for
global surveillance

• Low-power, high-bandwidth communications
  technology
• Low probability of intercept and detection
• Transmit enormous volumes of data and information
• Photonic crystal fiber (PCF)
• Potentially reaches 100 W/fiber (vs. 1015 W for
  conventional fiber)
• Compact, rugged, and efficient

25 m core

• Retro-modulator phase conjugate mirror
• Automatic pointing and tracking
• Atmospheric correction, like adaptive optics
• Low power
• Gbit/s data rates
• Ultra-lightweight optical systems
• Diffractive optics
• Microlaminate mirrors
• MEMS adaptive optics for aberration correction

2mm
2mm
Nonlinear optical phase-conjugation mirror
prototype
Ultra-lightweight optical systems
252-element segmented adaptive optic device
Objective On-demand (anytime, anywhere)
monitoring
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Breakthroughs in information science needed to
turn data into insight

• Build and visualize enormous conceptual graphs
• Software and hardware that allows for scaling
• Populate conceptual graph from disparate data
  sources
• Data sources are constantly updated
• Information in data sources must be deconflicted
• Create chains of relationships within and among
  disjointed information
• Quantify the confidence of these chains of
  relationships
• Identify interesting (suspicious) patterns

This capability is critical to improved
intelligence analysis and a prerequisite of
integrating new data sources into the
intelligence assessment process
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ST challenges in forensic attribution

• Signatures of WMD
• Comprehensive database
• Chemical, radiological, and biological
• Ultratrace levels
• Real-time analysis
• In-the-field sample collection and analysis
• Widely deployed, easy to use
• Meets law-enforcement evidence requirements
  (e.g., chain of custody)
• Rapid nuclear attribution capability
• Source of nuclear material
• Pathway to perpetrator, target

Goal Identification of perpetrators of any act
of WMD terrorism, including origins of weapons or
weapon materials, suppliers, and intermediaries,
to support legal, diplomatic, or military response