Mathematician Devises Model to Track Terrorists
By John B. Stafford
STANFORD, Jan. 26 - Ask someone on the street to describe a terrorist and you might hear words like "crazy" or "desperate." Ask Dr. Gordon Woo and you will probably hear "rational" and "intelligent."
Woo, a mathematician who specializes in the modeling of natural disasters, believes mathematics may offer a solution to predicting terrorist attacks. On Jan. 20, Woo spoke at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, presenting a new kind of mathematical model based on game theory that he believes can help predict terrorist behavior.
"Winning the war on terror is about more than guns or bullets; it is about thinking as well," said Woo to an audience of about 30,who came to hear his seminar titled "Terror Risk Assessment: The View from Londonistan."
Game theory is a mathematical technique used to study how people should or are likely to behave in strategic situations, in which they must interact with other people, and what they must do to take into account the behaviors of other people to achieve their desired result. Game theory featured prominently in the movie about Nobel laureate and mathematician John Nash, A Beautiful Mind.
To use game theory for modeling terrorist behavior, Woo said at the seminar one must start with the premises that terrorists are rational and intelligent actors. He argued terrorists are both.
"What we know about terrorist actions is that there is a disengagement of their emotions." Woo said. "They are acting in a robotic fashion, which makes it possible to model their actions."
It is that robotic behavior that suggests to Woo the terrorists are acting rationally.
Such modeling might allow Woo, who received degrees from Cambridge University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his colleagues to predict what buildings or locations terrorists are likely to strike in an attack.
"The actual modeling of targeting is something one can get a handle on using these principles," Woo said.
The economic implications of Woo"s research are potentially big. Woo is also a consultant for Newark, Calif.-based Risk Management Solutions, Inc., which helps insurers model risks so they can properly price insurance contracts. After the Sept. 11 attacks, many insurers drastically cut or eliminated coverage for terrorism. If the companies are able to accurately measure the probability of a terrorist attack, many could be willing to underwrite terrorism insurance again.
Woo declined to name his clients or the terms of their agreements with his firm but said, "The application of quantitative study is important for insurers."
Woo also said his model is designed for use in national security applications. He would like to see government adopt his theories to more effectively allocate resources in preparing for terrorist attacks. He believes the U.S. government has not done enough to understand how terrorists act and what motivates them.
"Terrorists understand us better than we understand them," Woo said. "Osama reads English. Who in Washington reads Arabic?"
Since 2002, when Woo introduced his model, he claims all major terror attacks worldwide have been consistent with his predictions.
In a subsequent interview Woo said the July 7, 2005 bombing of the London Underground fit his firm's model. He also pointed to President Bush's revelation that the U.S. and its allies foiled a plot a month after Sept. 11 to crash a jet into the Library Tower in Los Angeles as consistent with his predictions.
Contact John Stafford at jstaffor@stanford.edu
