  The events of 9/11 brought an increased focus on security in the United
States and specifically the protection of critical infrastructure. Critical
infrastructure encompasses a wide array of critical assets such as the electric
power grid, telecommunications, oil and gas pipelines, and transportation
networks. This paper will focus on telecommunication networks and the spatial
implications of their susceptibility to targeted attack. Utilizing a database
of national data carriers, simulations will be run to determine the
repercussions of targeted attacks and what the relative merits of different
methods of identifying critical nodes are. The analysis will include comparison
of current methods employed in vulnerability analysis with spatially
constructed methods incorporating regional and distance variables. In addition
to the vulnerability analysis a method will be proposed to analyze the fusion
of physical and logical networks, and will discuss what new avenues this
approach reveals. The results of the analysis will be placed in the context of
national and regional security and economic impact.
