Q&A

Port and Cargo Security: How Is the U.S.A. Doing Now?

Stephen E. Flynn of the Council on Foreign Relations is the Ira A. Lipman Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security Studies. Flynn recently spoke with CSO Senior Editor Joan Goodchild about how the US is doing when it comes to port and cargo security

By Joan Goodchild, Senior Editor

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There were always pieces that I thought were essential to that early work. One was to get people to understand what we are really trying to manage as a challenge was more about global supply chain than it was about our borders. Immediately after 9/11, I was concerned the reflex would be: Stop everything and check it at our border crossings. We did that for a little while and found out it wasn't sustainable as everything was backed up at borders and in ports. Fundamentally, now happily, there is much great understanding that things arrive through a very complex cycle known as the supply chain. But people needed to understand that was ultimately the problem we were dealing with.

The second piece was to ID whether were new tools and technology that would give us better transparency for both combination of visibility and accountability of what was moving through the system. Were there tools out there that could be applied? My interest was driven through sensing there were tools out there, but also that there was a lot that would be oversold as a silver bullet.

When you are trying to sort out where to go, you need basic data. What's out there that sounds reasonable and what's out there that is still in the realm of science fiction? The goal there was largely educational. The real partners had to be non-government players.

I wanted to make sure we were going to be very open about what results were. The problem was there was opposite instinct, rather than create open and inclusive process. First responders are always going to be private players, members of the public. But the program ended up being managed as a closed government process. The results were sealed off and not well-shared. Most folks who would be part of the solutions have been mostly kept in the dark.

The opportunity for commerce is to ask: How have you developed tools to ensure you've minimized the risk of exploitation of critical lifelines by an adversary? That is not going to be an inherently governmental activity. What it is at its heart is a business continuity challenge for the inter-transportation system and those who rely on it. So what we have is problem that lies in the private sectors lap. They have to be at heart of tools to safeguard it.

We need a reorientation away from thinking the government will figure out what is going to make us secure and pass these tablets down and set reasonable deadlines and check in once in a while. We need to go in the direction of a true partnership that largely originates with those who operate the business and is validated by government.