Airport Security and the Maginot Line
Post World War I, France was, with good reason, worried about the threat of German invasion. To counter this threat, France created the Maginot Line — an impressive line of near impregnable fortifications, pillboxes, tank traps and underground bunkers along the length of the border between France and Germany. With its impressive array of cannon, armored turrets, layers of barbed wire, air conditioning, caches of ammunition and underground tunnels connecting it all, the Maginot Line was thought to be among the greatest defensive lines ever constructed.
Germany made the decision to invade France in 1940. Confronted with the insurmountable obstacle of the Maginot Line, the Germans devised the only way to defeat it: don’t engage it. Instead of invading across the French border, their armies invaded Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and swept into France, completely circumventing the Maginot Line. France, not regarding Belgium as a threat, had not fortified the French-Belgian border. Six weeks later, their armies surrounded, France surrendered.
Modern airport security shares parallels with 1940 France. No effort has been spared to protect aircraft and the passengers they carry: metal detectors, x-ray machines, advanced imagery through backscatter, random checks of luggage, ID checks, air marshals, pat downs, hardened cockpit doors, shoe checks and gate passes are all part of the layered security effort to avoid bad actors in the air.
But is it really about the planes? Understandably, aircraft when hijacked or downed create a huge media splash and loss of life. However, terrorists make their mark through fear. Human life and the psychological impact of its loss are what drive the “terror” in terrorism. Planes were just a convenient way to gather the human life into a confined space to kill.
Now, our airport security measures have made it much more difficult to do so. However, as the defenses have improved, have we inadvertently created a Maginot Line in the airport? If you look at a typical airport terminal layout, security begins just before the gates. Because it takes time for security measures to pat down, scan, x-ray and check papers, we see huge queues of people form to wait for these procedures — often, they serpentine back and forth like the line for a ride as Disneyland.
The area of the terminal in which these people wait, with their baggage, has very little security at all. We have created huge crowds of people in a confined area, carrying bags that no one has checked. Why bother with trying to smuggle an explosive through security, when, like the Germans in 1940, a terrorist can take the path of least resistance and still achieve his goal? An explosion in security lines would kill a large number of travellers, paralyze the air travel industry and cause as much terror as any bomb on a plane. By building the Maginot Line that is airport security, we may have simply shifted the focus of attacks to an easier target.
