Outlook: The need for ‘critical’ critical infrastructure protection studies

In this final ‘outlook’ chapter, I pull out three main issues that should be taken home as the main lessons of this book. Firstly, I draw attention on the importance of the art of critical infrastructure protection (CIP) as an effort to ‘control the uncontrollable’. Secondly, I highlight the urgent need of a ‘critical’ critical infrastructure protection approach that steers away from the solely technocratic approach chosen so far. And thirdly, I conclude with the warning that a focus on counter-terrorism technology as a ‘silver bullet’ to the detriment of addressing the root causes of terrorism might lead to an ‘arms race’ between terrorists and counter-terrorists that cannot possibly be won especially not by us ordinary citizens who might well end up ‘temporarily’ surrendering civil rights in vain, and without getting them back any time soon since the war on terrorism is an interminable one.