ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to provide the groundwork for researchers and non-technical experts on the topic of car bombs. First, it provides an operational definition of the topic. Second, the chapter proposes a framework to help understand how and when they are used with the goal of underlining detection methods. The chapter discusses current force protection measures to protect against their threat in a US domestic context. The potential displacement of a car bombing by car ramming should be further analyzed as it has the potential to be a more problematic type of attack for security analysts to detect. The protection of urban centers in the United States has already been spurred by major domestic and foreign attacks such as the 1995 Oklahoma and 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Finally, the literature on risk management and risk analysis offers ways to conceptualize those trade-offs in an operationalized fashion that will allow policy-makers to make informed decisions on potential threats.
