Global Business, Transportation, Trade, and the Concept of Unacceptable Danger

Abstract The purpose of security is to ward off unacceptable danger. Narrowed in translation to cargo security, it means to keep the goods, merchandise, or passengers transported in domestic and international commerce free of unacceptable dangers. Sounds reasonable, correct? But, there is an issue begged: what constitutes “unacceptable danger” when it comes to commercial goods, merchandise, or passengers? It is a question no less thorny than and directly related to the question of what constitutes unacceptable danger in a larger cultural, economic, and political context. How a person answers the question of what constitutes “unacceptable” danger, in any context, is dependent upon his or her perceptions derived from the different layers of culture in which he is embedded. People strike a balance in their own minds among competing priorities and probabilities of disaster. Collectively this balancing act is the basis for how we determine public and private policy, including policy on cargo security. There is a real problem with this general approach when we realize that it isn't the probability of an event that matters, but whether or not it can actually happen, whatever the unlikelihood of it. The implications of a nuclear bomb being hidden in the cargo hold of a ship anchored in New York harbor make most nightmares wimpy things in comparison; such an event may be unlikely, but it can happen. The question is whether the improbable event is an unacceptable danger that is worthy of being warded off by a significant investment of time, money, and human resources.