A Time Bomb for Global Trade: Maritime-related Terrorism in an Age of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

• Author: McMillan, Stuart
• Position: Book Review

A TIME BOMB FOR GLOBAL TRADE: Maritime-related Terrorism in on Age of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Author: Michael Richardson Published by: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 2004, 155pp, US$24.90.

In a short book Michael Richardson makes a cogent, credible and therefore greatly disturbing case that a terrorist attack by sea is a major risk. Before 11 September 2001, it had long been feared that terrorists would strike at a major city through a smuggled weapon of mass destruction or at least with a dirty bomb (conventional explosives packed with radioactive material). In the event the New York and Washington attacks were made with aircraft carrying aviation fuel. Whether or not such attacks should have been foreseen, they were not. Other possibilities for attacks are now being envisaged. Richardson has given us a book packed with information which is a valuable contribution to this thinking.

He sees threats to port cities from a ship carrying a nuclear weapon or a radioactive weapon. If such a weapon were detonated, it would not only cause devastation within the port city but also have a huge effect on global trade and therefore on the global economy. The effect would be compounded if the port city were a hub as, for example, Singapore and Rotterdam are. Global trade would be similarly disrupted for an extended period ff the attack were to occur in one of the major shipping straits such as the Malacca Strait or the Singapore Strait.

Richardson outlines terrorist plots that have been uncovered. He examines attacks that have been made at sea with ships packed with explosives. His judgment is sober, not alarmist, though he is well aware that what he writes might sound alarmist. At the present time Richardson is a visiting senior research fellow In the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies In Singapore. Until recently he was very well known and respected as the Asia editor of the International Herald...