Antagonistic Gateways in the Transport Network in a Supply Chain Perspective

Sammanfattning: The World Trade Centre terror attack in 2001 changed the world and with it the conditions for logistics world-wide. The aftermath to the attack brought needed attention to the vulnerability of modern supply chains. This vulnerability can in many cases be described as “unwanted effects” in the supply chain, caused by either internal or external forces that create disturbances larger than the supply chain is designed to handle. The disturbance can be unintentional or deliberate and also either legal or illegal. This thesis addresses the problem of deliberately caused (antagonistic) and illegal action against legal logistics.There are basically two types of illegal and antagonistic threats to logistics, theft/sabotage and smuggling. The theft/sabotage problem is directly aimed toward the logistics activities, while smuggling abuses the logistics system for illegal purposes. The reasons behind these problems can vary from case to case as well as the different countermeasures to prevent these problems to occur. This thesis addresses only this problem in the transport network and sees the network as a part of a supply chain. In each part of the transport network there is a certain risk associated with the goods. All these risks together form the total risk for the transport or the transport network. The research in this thesis follows the tradition in logistics to use a system approach to treat the research questions. The system approach also implies a top-down perspective on the system, or in this case the two systems, but the research questions address only the cross-over points between the two systems. The main method for this thesis is deductive. Both primary and secondary data are used to support the deductive and theoretical conclusions. This thesis is also based on the result of five different studies within this topic.The perpetrators’ decision process is the key issue to understanding the usage of antagonistic gateways in the transport network. The preferred risk management approach is therefore contextual instead of statistic, when preventing the usage of antagonistic gateways. In other words, the countermeasures need to be based on an understanding of this decision process, the antagonistic dynamics of potential perpetrators. This understanding is to a large part also an understanding of the context in which the perpetrators act. The difference in perpetrator context is easily described with the difference between regular cargo thieves and ideology-driven perpetrators or terrorists. The thieves are after the monetary value that the cargo represents, therefore they prefer to steal high-value, untraceable and highly demanded products. The ideological perpetrator or terrorist wishes to make a statement with the attack, therefore he will sabotage products, which will give the statement attention and (if possible) understanding for it. If a potential terrorist desires to finance an upcoming terrorist attack by means of cargo theft, the perpetrator will act as a regular cargo thief. This difference in perpetrator context is vital for applying the right type of countermeasures in the transport network. Security against these types of antagonistic threats in the transport network aims to alter the contextual perception of the network and thereby reduce the problem of antagonistic gateways.