Paris is a Bitch by Barry Eisler

friend.
    Except at the level of very high-value executive protection (presidents, high-profile businesspeople, ambassadors and other dignitaries), you are not trying to outrun the bear. You are trying only to outrun your friend.
    Let’s combine these two concepts — thinking like the opposition, outrunning your friend — with an example from the realm of home security. And let’s add an additional critical element: that all good security is
layered
.
    If you wanted to burglarize a house, what would you look for? And what would you avoid?
    Generally speaking, your principal objectives are to get cash and property, and to get away (home invasion is a separate subject, but is addressed, like all self-protection, by reference to the same principles). You’d start by looking at lots of houses. Remember, you’re not trying to rob a certain address; you just want to rob a house. Which ones are dark? Which are set back from the road and neighbors? Are there any cars in the driveway? Lights and noise in the house? Signs of an alarm system? A barking dog?
    Thinking like a burglar, you are now ready to implement the outer layer of your home security. By some combination of installing motion-sensor lights, keeping bushes trimmed to avoid concealment opportunities, putting up signs advertising an alarm system, having a dog around, keeping a car or cars in the driveway, leaving on appropriate lights and the television, and making sure there are no newspapers in the driveway or mail left on the porch when you’re away, you help the burglar to decide immediately during his casing or surveillance phase that he should rob someone else’s house.
    If the burglar isn’t immediately dissuaded by the outer layer, he receives further discouragement at the next layer in. He takes a closer look, and sees that you have deadbolt locks on all the doors, and that your advertisement was not a bluff — the windows are in fact alarmed. If he takes a crack at the doorjamb, he discovers that it’s reinforced. If he tries breaking a window, he realizes the glass is shatter-resistant. Whoops — time to go somewhere else, somewhere easier.
    Okay, the guy is stupid. He keeps trying anyway. Now the second layer of security described above, which failed to
deter
him, works to
delay
him. It’s taking him a long time to get in. He’s making noise. At some point, the time and noise might combine to persuade him to abort (back to deterrence). But if he insists on plunging ahead, the noise has alerted you, and you have bought yourself time to implement further inner layers of security: accessing a firearm; calling the police; retreating to a safe room; most of all, preparing yourself mentally and emotionally for danger and possible violence.
    Now another example, relating to personal protection from an overseas kidnapping attempt. Like everything else, this form of protection starts with you thinking like the bad guy. Your objective is to kidnap a foreigner. Not a particular foreigner (high-value targets are a separate problem, although again subject to the same principles), just any old foreigner. So what do you need to do to carry out your plan?
    First, you need to pick a target. This part is easy — any foreigner will do. Next, you need to assess the foreigner’s vulnerability. Where will you be able to grab him, and when? To answer these questions, you need to follow the target around. If he’s punctual, a creature of habit, if he likes to travel the same routes to and from work at the same times every day, you will start to feel encouraged.
    But what if instead, during the assessment stage, you see the target go out to his car and carefully check it for improvised explosive devices. Your immediate thought will be:
Hard target. Security-conscious. Too difficult — kidnap someone else.
    If you’re the potential target, do you see how your display of security consciousness becomes the outermost layer of your security?
    But suppose the would-be