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A Comparative Analysis of PRA and Intelligent Adversary Methods for Counterterrorism Risk Management
Author(s) -
Merrick Jason,
Parnell Gregory S.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
risk analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1539-6924
pISSN - 0272-4332
DOI - 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2011.01590.x
Subject(s) - adversary , adversarial system , computer science , risk management , risk analysis (engineering) , bayesian network , adaptation (eye) , decision analysis , event tree , event (particle physics) , probabilistic logic , probabilistic risk assessment , key (lock) , decision tree , task (project management) , operations research , game theory , risk assessment , fault tree analysis , computer security , artificial intelligence , engineering , psychology , economics , physics , mathematical economics , systems engineering , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , reliability engineering , microeconomics , medicine , management
In counterterrorism risk management decisions, the analyst can choose to represent terrorist decisions as defender uncertainties or as attacker decisions. We perform a comparative analysis of probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) methods including event trees, influence diagrams, Bayesian networks, decision trees, game theory, and combined methods on the same illustrative examples ( container screening for radiological materials ) to get insights into the significant differences in assumptions and results. A key tenent of PRA and decision analysis is the use of subjective probability to assess the likelihood of possible outcomes. For each technique, we compare the assumptions, probability assessment requirements, risk levels, and potential insights for risk managers. We find that assessing the distribution of potential attacker decisions is a complex judgment task, particularly considering the adaptation of the attacker to defender decisions. Intelligent adversary risk analysis and adversarial risk analysis are extensions of decision analysis and sequential game theory that help to decompose such judgments. These techniques explicitly show the adaptation of the attacker and the resulting shift in risk based on defender decisions.