Close Protection Courses Help Keep Terrorism At Bay
Terrorism is now, more than ever, a part of everyday life for citizens of every country on earth. While such violence is not new, it has reached an epidemic level in recent years partly due to the increase in global communications. Keeping a potential victim safer is the goal of those who take close protection courses.
Thanks to creative minds and the magic of the silver screen, the notion of a bodyguard has become as scintillating as the world of spies. Ironically, both professions are far more pedestrian in real life than they are in the movies. Those who would protect another person are serious about the task and approach the it professionally and carefully, as they can be in a the same dangerous situation as the individual they are charged with protecting.
Although it has been a part of the interaction of man for centuries, it did not become a daily thought until the Al Qaeda attacks over a decade ago. Since that horrific opening volley, the senseless attacks on innocent people have burgeoned across the globe. Now it is a notorious but understood requirement of the planning of almost every event.
Hundreds of years a go a book called the art of war described the point to terrorist acts in the famous phrase; kill one, fright ten thousand. The idea was that it was not necessary to physically threaten the masses to get the point across, on need only visit frightening violence in public to sway the views of the many. Sadly such sociopathic logic continues to be effective today.
While the individual or group take a significant risk in perpetrating violence on an individual in a developed society, it is frighteningly simple with enough planning. Even people in the public eye are relatively casual in the execution of personal security, even when fairly simple methods can be effective. This lackadaisical approach makes kidnapping a favorite method of individual terrorism.
Professionals who make it their occupation to keep vulnerable people safe understand that while terrorism seems random, it is not. Approaching the possibility of terrorism systematically can result in successfully preventing it. The secret is in thwarting the terrorist fro gaining access either physically or through technology.
There are a finite number of ways to gain access to an individual, especially those who are in the public eye. The aim of those who would keep them safe is to methodically identify the avenues of access and ensure they are not available. It is time consuming and it requires a determined, persistent and diligent effort to take into consideration all the different ways that a person can be vulnerable in a public setting.
Ironically, much of the work of keeping people out of harmful situations is common sense. The places the person will be, the people they will come into contact with and the means of their transportation must be carefully vetted. How it is done thoroughly is the target of close protection courses, a study in how to defeat individual terrorism.