The Right Path

A great honour to attend the Police Academy, Vienna, Austria to advise police negotiators and SWAT tacticians from across 14 European countries on many of the challenges, dynamics, and tactics in responding to hostage-taking perpetrated by terrorists.

Perhaps the most important part of any decision-making model is our ability to access good quality information and intelligence. Shared Situational Awareness is achieved by sharing information and understanding between the involved organisations to build a stronger, multi-dimensional understanding of events, their implications, associated risks, and potential outcomes.

Honoured to review this book by Lina Kolesnikova:

Where to begin…I cannot begin to understand the anguish, trauma, and fear that the lightening Taliban insurgency in recapturing the many provinces across Afghanistan brought to many of my friends and staff that have continuously served the people since 2005; it must have been terrifying. Throughout, I have vicariously lived this experience with them to literally move mountains to keep them safe from harm and help those most at risk, flee their homeland to begin a new journey in life.

It is always a challenge to maintain your currency in a specialist field after leaving policing, but I have been fortunate to not only to continue to use my skills in hostage/crisis negotiation within the humanitarian sector but also in contributing chapters to the 5th edition and now the 6th edition of this publication.

Despite the significant increase in airport-based and inflight countermeasures, hijacking remains a threat to aviation. Andrew B Brown questions how, despite, and perhaps specifically because of, the reduction in the number of incidents and their severity, we might increase our competence in dealing with such life-threatening incidents. As with a health pandemic, we must remain prepared to professionally respond to rare, or unlikely, incidents as if we were managing them on a daily basis.