ABSTRACT
Just as past maritime disasters (Exxon Valdez, Erika, etc) have fostered further changes to environmental management, the 9/11 attack has led to an increase in maritime security:
First, physical assets of the transport and logistics system are perceived • not only as targets but also as means to carry out terrorist attacks. Vehicles and ships, goods and cargo, equipment and facilities can all serve as weapons of destruction and terrorism. The same applies to non-physical components, such as information and payment flows that can be used as communication and financial resources by terrorists. The latter aspect is essential in the context of risk analysis since it adds on a new dimension to maritime security. Second, with domestic issues being increasingly linked to international • terrorism, previously perceived differential risk levels have now been equated and altered up to the maximum global scale. As it has been revealed recently, drug smuggling, cargo theft, piracy, illegal immigration and human trafficking are all used by inter-connected local cells as a means of financial, operational, and organisational structuring of international terrorism. Ports throughout the world need therefore to perceive and manage security threats by integrating local/domestic threat levels into a global awareness level. Third, the response to a large security attack should not only remind us of • the wider impacts on international trade and transport, but also on global logistics and production systems. For instance, the immediate US response to the 9/11 attack (closing borders, shutting down the traffic system and evacuating government/company buildings) has caused huge delays and disruptions; with many domestic companies purchasing, outsourcing, manufacturing, and selling products and services on a global and worldwide basis. The economic and financial cost of such disruptions will be
overwhelmingly high if an attack is to involve strategic cargoes such as oil and gas supplies, or target key networks such as busy ports (transhipment, network or multimodal ports) and maritime links (e.g straits of Gibraltar and Malacca, Suez and Panama canals). Last, but not the least, as the threat of international terrorism is far from • being over, firms should manage and organise their logistics and supply chains under increased risk and uncertainty. Companies should acknowledge the vulnerability of terrorism to both in-house logistics and shared supply chain networking systems and thus rely more on agile and collaborative relationships. This is to suggest that the traditional fragmented and conflicting channel relationships in ports and shipping must be replaced by closer partnership arrangements.
