In recent episodes, we have discussed attacks on global shipping, risks facing the oil and gas sector, and threats to sea based infrastructure, among much else. And today, I'm delighted to be joined by Magnus Ranstorp, one of the world's leading experts on terrorism. Magnus built a much respected center for the study of terrorism and political violence at the University of Saint Andrews in the U.K. where he worked for many years. And today, he is a strategic advisor at the Center for Societal Security at the Swedish Defense University, and he is also a special advisor to the EU Radicalisation Awareness Network.
Now, some people in the west may have forgotten about terrorism in the past couple of years, and then news arrived at Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna would be canceled because the authorities had uncovered a terrorist plan against them-- because the authorities had uncovered a terrorist plot against them. Yes, even though Western counter-terrorism efforts have managed to keep us safe in recent years, terrorism is never far away. We have had the Westminster Bridge and the Manchester Arena attacks in the UK, the Brussels attack last year that killed two Swedish citizens, and several attacks in Germany and France, including one where the perpetrator slit the throat of an elderly priest, and many more attacks. But fortunately, we haven't had a 9/11 style attack.
But the terrorists who plan to target a Taylor Swift concert clearly wanted lots of victims. Recently, WTW published its new terrorism pool index. And one of the things that stands out there is the mention of how terrorists are likely to exploit AI. This will clearly add more fuel to terrorist group's incendiary activities.
Magnus, first of all, welcome to Geopolcast. And second of all, how surprised were you to hear of the plot against Taylor Swift?
MAGNUS RANSTORP: Well, thank you so much. And I was surprised, of course, because it's not that concerts by popular artists and so on have not been targeted before, but you're always surprised when these plots occur, particularly the scale and scope of this. Of course, the CIA director recently came out and said, look, these youngsters were planning to kill tens of thousands of individuals by using explosives and knives outside the concert hall where they were playing in Austria. Whether they would have been able to do that is a difficult question. But to cancel the whole tour. So of course, it has massive ripple effect.
And of course, we all remember Ariana Grande's attack against the concert outside the concert hall or the arena in 2017 by a terrorist who blew themselves up outside. So of course, huge venues, huge popular venues, et cetera, are very attractive target. And I was not so surprised that, of course, the Islamic state or ISIS was the inspiration for these youngsters. We've had a number of different plots across Europe that indicate that there is a sort of a resurgence of terrorism plots that we have been spared from, relatively speaking, over the last few years.
ELISABETH BRAW: What we've seen in the past couple of decades since 9/11 is, as you say, terrorism morphing. And you have met-- indeed, you met long before 9/11 some of the most notable radical leaders and practitioners of the day, including in Hezbollah, including in Hamas. What would you say terrorist groups are doing differently today compared to 25 years ago? Or are we talking about just the traditional terrorist or militant extremist groups being joined by new practitioners?
MAGNUS RANSTORP: Well, I think the big difference is, of course, the watershed moment was 9/11. When you when you had this sort of international brigade of terrorists who were coming from across the globe, planning and plotting mass casualty attacks, it wasn't that we hadn't had that before, but the scale and scope of, of course, the 9/11 changed everything.
Groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, they are socially embedded within their communities, just like the provisional IRA and others in northern Ireland, in that they have social, political, and military wings that they use and their violence is very targeted. When you have these sort of groups that you have with Al-Qaeda and ISIS, you have a much sort of unconstrained level of violence. They are also riding-- I know you've written a book on globalization. They're riding on the wave of globalization, the dark underside of globalization.
And they are connecting across boundaries, they are organizing, they are using the latest technology, they are recruiting individuals from afar, using gaming, using all sorts of social media platforms that you can imagine. So I think that the big the big issue is that the level of constraints that sometimes exists on past groups is no longer there and that it is really a multinational enterprise that really require massive intelligence cooperation by the west to really foil these type of attacks that are in the pipeline. I can say, in relation to the Austria attack, it was the U.S. authorities, U.S. intelligence community that actually sort of tipped off their Austrian counterparts who were able then to foil this attack.
ELISABETH BRAW: And since you mentioned the technological tools they use, as said, one of the things that leapt up out at me in the new WTW report on terrorism was the mention of terrorist groups exploiting AI. And it feels like, frankly, totally hopeless situation. AI, once it's out there, nobody can stop anybody from using it. So what does that mean for Western societies, indeed, for any societies? Does it mean that maybe we, as Western societies, should ask AI companies and the wider tech community to do more to help because it's certainly beyond the capabilities and resources of the police?
MAGNUS RANSTORP: Well, a really good question. I mean, you have these sort of leaps and bounds. Whenever you have a technological leap, you have terrorists utilizing that. And that has been constant throughout history. And before I go into AI, let me just sort of say that the way in which the 9/11 hijackers sort of communicated was going very low tech. They actually used draft messages in Hotmail, Yahoo! Accounts, et cetera, and they wrote drafts. And then the messages wouldn't be sent.
So, intelligence community and signals intelligence would have to sort of break in to internet cafes in faraway lands, Pakistan and other places, to be able to sort of detect what are they doing, what are they-- and they're also using code. So they use code words, code names, and all terrorist groups have been using that. In other words, they have predetermined code words and places which they use when they try to communicate to try to sort of be smarter than the signals intelligence community.
And what we what we really are seeing is you have two battles going on at the same time. You have the cells, the physical fight, the war on terror happening. You're arresting, finding, arresting people. And then you have the virtual dimension where they are chasing individuals through the social media, intercepting communication, et cetera.
Now, AI comes into this whole world, and what can I do for terrorist organizations, et cetera? Well, first of all, it can identify vulnerable critical infrastructure protection, which is, of course, a problem depending on how smart they are putting in questions. Secondly, you can use other sort of type of technologies. Terrorists are now using drones, they are using 3D printing, they're using all the sort of ways in which makes it more difficult to be able to be detected.
So you can sort of see that, for the intelligence services, it's a real nightmare. They go from the low scale, no footprint, all the way up to sort of AI, asking I what can we attack and how should we attack it. And that is, of course, something that we have to sort of ask the AI providers, et cetera, to see if they can also foil that.
But let me also say one thing that we should not underestimate the ability of our signals intelligence community, the government communications headquarters, GCHQ, NSA, other signals intelligence community, their ability to be able to sort of detect anomalies and detect different threats. So they have a pretty good handle. They have a pretty good way of following how terrorism evolves, but also its interface with technology. But of course, they can't guard everything, they cannot sort of make foolproof way in which you can protect society.
ELISABETH BRAW: Indeed. And turning the table around a bit, AI will help them better spot anomalies because they can't be everywhere all the time. But with use of more AI, that will help their ability to notice when things are out of the ordinary.
MAGNUS RANSTORP: Definitely. I think AI can make life a lot easier also in relation to seeing what are the real signals from the massive information that's out there that's being sent, et cetera. And I think that will also help. And therefore, I mean, there's huge discussions within the intelligence community, et cetera, with different companies that can provide really high resolution mechanisms to use AI in a very intelligent way. So we're on the cusp of a real sort of revolution in this.
But you can also sort of see the sort of dilemma because in the future, we will have also self-driving cars, et cetera. And you can imagine that terrorists would maybe use self-driving cars as a delivery mechanism, or they can use drones as a delivery mechanism in relation. We've already seen that in Syria where ISIS was using drones, both in terms of reconnaissance, but also in terms of delivery.
And you saw that in the Hamas attack. Hamas had send up about 140 drones with cameras, but also with bombs that they sort of took out the entire Israeli defense force's eyes and ears. They targeted the communication in the sea and shoot the portals on the iron wall. So they sort of completely took out, in one swoop, the entire defense mechanism for the iron wall that surrounds Gaza.
ELISABETH BRAW: Yeah. Another thing I want to ask you about, Magnus, is other forms of terrorism. So we are seeing, in the Western world, increasing left wing terrorism, far left terrorism, we're seeing increasing far right terrorism. And so it seems like we have this plethora of groups that are trying to harm our societies. And that raises a question, do they ever collaborate or are they in fierce competition against one another. And I think both are frightening prospects because if it's collaboration, then that's frightening, clearly. But if it's fierce competition, then they try to outdo one another.
MAGNUS RANSTORP: Well, I think what we're also seeing-- and we've been speaking a lot about the Salafi Jihadi, the Al-Qaeda, ISIS, other radical Islamist groups. But you also have sort of a movement of right wing, far right populism. Far right populism, you have Neo-Nazi groups that are collaborating. They are collaborating with Russia, they are collaborating, and they have been for a long time, with each other as well.
So you have them creating podcasts, interacting with each other, using cryptocurrencies. And the real sort of scary is that far right populism and right wing extremism is really increasing a lot. And that is also creating huge problems because they fuel, of course, polarization in society. So in some sense, even though radical Islamist and right wing do not really sort of collaborate physically or operationally, but their intended outcome is to create massive polarization in society. And they use violence to that effect.
Of course, now also, we have left wing groups that are reacting to right wing groups, but also they are using the Israeli war in Gaza against Hamas, the issue of Gaza as a rallying point, as a rallying cry. So you also have the merger of left wing forces with Islamist forces that are sort of coalescing. And this is what we sometimes see in relation to what I call the woke Islamist, using postcolonial identity politics to be able to target the west, target, also Israel.
What unites all of these sort of groups is, of course, anti-Semitism. In relation to the radical Islamist, they go against Israel. The far right, of course, also against Israel. And of course, the left wing now are also against Israel and Jews and they use anti-Semitism as a sort of-- the uniting ground is that they are anti-Semitic, in that they believe in conspiracy theories, and that they also, because of west support for Israel, target the west. And that is a huge issue, huge problem. The geopolitics is the most important thing. And I know this is what the pod is about.
ELISABETH BRAW: But it's also about the effect of geopolitics on business. And one thing that we're seeing is obviously somebody paying the price, the financial price, and obviously psychological and so forth, but also the financial or the economic price of terrorist attacks. And what is obvious and what's interesting in this WTW report that just came out is how hard governments try to work out schemes where they do ultimately guarantee any terrorism risk simply because the potential costs to privately operated companies would be too severe. And yet, they are being targeted or they are always under threat.
But I'm keen to understand from you, Magnus-- this is the last question-- is what companies can do to reduce the terrorism threat directed against them considering that they are being targeted or hit simply because they happen to be Western companies? Is there anything companies can do short of saying, please don't attack me, and hope that the threat goes away? Clearly, judging from the situation in the Red Sea, where many shipping companies have sort of made the case to the Houthis that, please don't target us, we are harmless, it doesn't work. So what else can Western companies do?
MAGNUS RANSTORP: Well, it's a huge question because you're operating sort of globally in different sectors and businesses. But I think that's why we have security companies that can provide lots of different training. If executives go to hostile places, how do you protect yourself? If you do business in China, you never bring any electronics with you because if you have any sort of secrets, and then I am sure that they will get to those secrets if you enter the country, et cetera.
So, I mean, these kind of advice have been around a long time. Protecting against insider threats is quite important. Who are you employing, what are background checks on them, and also who do you do business with. Know your customer. You do not want to do businesses with shady players.
But there is a sort of a whole architecture for companies. I mean, you also have kidnap and ransom. There are lots of corporate individuals or others who get placed in a situation where either they're blackmailed or maybe they are kidnapped or face bodily harm. And I know a lot of different companies that can provide life saving advice, but also can be absolutely critical to be able to handle the whole spectrum of these different aspects. They do background searches on employees, prospective employees, they can help you if you're out in different parts of the world, in different regions.
For example, Africa right now is incredibly the epicenter of Jihadism because ISIS and the forces are spreading not only in the Sahel area, the east Africa, but also in central Africa and southern Africa. So you have to really sort of know the place where you're traveling to, if you're traveling, and you have to be able to handle it.
And let me tell you-- I mean, I've been doing this work for over 35 years around the world. It was a lot easier before because there were rules to the game. It was safer to move around. Today, going to Africa, to parts of the middle east, to different countries, you don't want to do that without having really good backup.
ELISABETH BRAW: And on top of that, it's obviously terrorism. But in combination with Russia then helping or being asked, being invited to help those governments in Africa and probably soon elsewhere experiencing that terrorism in that country. So it's a couple of layers of instability facing Western companies.
MAGNUS RANSTORP: Yeah, I just wanted to add just two things. And that is that you have also these hostile states who are trying to buy up properties or establish themselves close to military installations or critical infrastructure, et cetera. So you have to sort of be very wary of that and orientate around this issue. And also, you have to be very wary about how they try to also infiltrate not just businesses, but also government, different government agencies, et cetera, to be able to either gain access to information or gain access to money for whatever reason.
ELISABETH BRAW: Indeed. And that's something we'll come back to on a future episode of Geopolcast. And that is to say, thank you, Magnus, very much, and you're welcome to come back and discuss further developments because there will be developments in terrorism. And I was going to hope to end on a somewhat hopeful note. I didn't manage to do that. But the hopeful note is that we'll come back to this issue and discuss more.
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