One on One With Peter Zeihan, Senior Analyst with Stratfor.com
Thursday, August 10, 2006
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SUSIE GHARIB: Our guest tonight advises corporations on how to prepare and cope with geopolitical risks. Joining us now from Austin Texas, Peter Zeihan, senior analyst with stratfor.com. It`s a political, economic, and security consulting firm. Hello, Peter.
PETER ZEIHAN, SR. ANALYST, STRATFOR.COM: Hello.
GHARIB: President Bush said today the United States is safer today than it was before 9/11. Is that the case? Do you agree with that?
ZEIHAN: Well, it depends upon what your opinion of al Qaeda is, of course. Al Qaeda, before 9/11, was an organization that was looking to pick a fight. Nowadays, it`s looking for survival. Now it`s desperate. Then it was adventurous.
GHARIB: Well, do you believe that the counter-terrorism measures and apparatus that we have in place are the best possible? Is there more things that the United States should be doing?
ZEIHAN: It`s a question of balancing two interests. One, do you want air travel to be efficient and fast? And, two, do you want it to be safe? They`re two largely mutually exclusive concerns. For example, before the terrorists attacks in 2001, we had a system where it was very easy to go anywhere at any time. Security procedures that were in place were really more just a matter of making people look like there was something in place. As we get further away from that date, we`re looking at a much more robust system, but as a result, things slow down a great deal more. With some of the new systems that we`re seeing developed in the United Kingdom right now, there`s more in store.
GHARIB: The airlines are now banning travelers from taking laptops on board, cell phones, Blackberries. If these security measures stick, what impact do you think global terrorism is going to have on business and business travel?
ZEIHAN: Those are the measures that we`re seeing in the United Kingdom. It`s not yet clear whether or not those are going to become permanent features, much less on an international scale. But that is the direction that the trend is heading. Once that happens, companies that are dependent upon management, senior consultants and other folks who deal with various service industries are going to have a hard time. A lot of these people spend a considerable portion of their week traveling, and if you
have someone who is employed by you or contracted by you who loses 20 hours a week in travel time and can`t work at all during those 20 hours, then your labor costs have gone up dramatically. They`re going to be looking at companies needing to staff permanent positions in places where`s normally they`d only bring people in for a day or two.
GHARIB: So what were you telling your clients today on how to deal with these new terrorist threats?
ZEIHAN: It`s time to become much more flexible in the way people think of simply things like commuting and telecommuting. The technology exists today to have real-time conference set ups, trans-Pacific, trans-Atlantic, anywhere in the world where people in different rooms can real time conversations. We at stratfor have an excellent system like this that allows us to keep in touch with a number of people around the world. That`s going to have to become more popular, despite the cost. This is something that companies just can`t deal with. Because if you have somebody flying, for example, from London to Sydney, you lose them for an excess of a day right now if you don`t have a laptop.
GHARIB: Is there any one takeaway lesson out of today`s news and the terror plot?
ZEIHAN: Be flexible. Be nimble because one can guarantee that the militants that are behind this sort of operation are not done yet. We`ve seen a rapid evolution in tactics that target civilian industries like the airline industry and the airline industry is uniquely vulnerable because it`s only place where you can get a tightly contained group of civilians and literally give them no place to go. It will always be a prime target and so companies, investors, have to always be thinking one step ahead. How can they be faster?
GHARIB: An unfortunate truth. Thank you very much, Peter. We`ve been speaking with Peter Zeihan, senior analyst with stratfor.com.
