1 GAME THEORY CONTRIBUTIONS TO TERRORISM ANALYSIS IN MERCHANT SHIPPING: AN APPLICATION TO PORT SECURITY

This paper concerns merchant shipping security and proposes a game theory framework for modelling terrorism threats and counteractions. First, the security considerations associated with merchant shipping in the post 9/11 era are reviewed, as well as the main current issues in maritime security, and the approaches developed in the academic literature. It is argued that game theory is suitable to address such security issues and its contributions to counter-terrorism in other security settings are reviewed. The purpose is to identify the relevance to merchant shipping security of concepts and insights developed in other security settings, and then accordingly apply them to the former. In this context, such a game theoretic model is applied to a port security setting, where “port” and “ship ” targets must decide on the level of their security measures and their associated costs, in order to respond to a potential attack by terrorists. The interaction settings involve the actors, their available options, their preferences and strategic goals, and other important parameters and assumptions. Defensive measures and potential damages are associated with cost variables