Mapping Workshop  (April 7, 2006)

At the Fund’s invitation, twenty leading thinkers in the fields of weak and failing states, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction met on April 7th, 2006. Charged with shaping an agenda for a larger conference of experts, the workshop participants concluded that a “supply and demand” approach to conceptualizing threat convergence offered the most fruitful path for identifying conceptual, geographic, transactional, and social network points of intersection.

The mapping workshop highlighted weak and failing states as a point of entry to the problem of threat convergence and generated scenario parameters to inform an “end-to-end” analysis of the chain of events that would permit a nuclear attack by a terrorist group.

In November 2006, the Fund for Peace convened a Conference of Experts to explore points of integration of ongoing work in the fields of counter terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction WMD), and weak and failing states. The Conference aimed to develop scenarios and initial policy recommendations on safeguards and protections appropriate to the new threat environment. The Conference also identified knowledge gaps and questions for future research.

The Conference participants confirmed that thwarting the potential catastrophic consequences of threat convergence begins with a systemic and comprehensive approach to understanding the factors fueling supply and demand for WMD, motivations and means for the acquisition of WMD, and the intermediate routes of transmission and delivery.

View Plenary Panels including panelists’ issue papers

View and Download the Conference Report

In March 2007, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the United States Department of State jointly sponsored a workshop to address issues concerning threat convergence. The Fund for Peace provided expert support to the workshop, attended by representatives of 34 states of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) and the Partnership for Peace (PfP).

The workshop focused on ways to synchronize ideas on threat convergence within the 2002  EAPC/PfP Partnership Action Plan Against Terrorism, which is enhancing cooperation and integration of counter-terrorism efforts across the EAPC countries.  The workshop refined threat convergence scenarios and generated several suggestions about future activities, including recommendations for a ten-point agenda for NATO and EAPC countries to combat threat convergence.


For more information on the NATO workshop, please visit http://pforum.isn.ethz.ch/.