Threats to Homeland Security

Reassessing the All-Hazards Perspective

Richard J. Kilroy, Richard J. Kilroy

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781119251989
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Terrorismo

Addresses threats to homeland security from terrorism and emergency management from natural disasters

Threats to Homeland Security, Second Edition examines the foundations of today's security environment, from broader national security perspectives to specific homeland security interests and concerns. It covers what we protect, how we protect it, and what we protect it from. In addition, the book examines threats from both an international perspective (state vs non-state actors as well as kinds of threat capabilities—from cyber-terrorism to weapons of mass destruction) and from a national perspective (sources of domestic terrorism and future technological challenges, due to globalization and an increasingly interconnected world).

This new edition of Threats to Homeland Security updates previous chapters and provides new chapters focusing on new threats to homeland security today, such as the growing nexus between crime and terrorism, domestic and international intelligence collection, critical infrastructure and technology, and homeland security planning and resources—as well as the need to reassess the all-hazards dimension of homeland security from a resource and management perspective.

• Features new chapters on homeland security intelligence, crime and domestic terrorism, critical infrastructure protection, and resource management
• Provides a broader context for assessing threats to homeland security from the all-hazards perspective, to include terrorism and natural disasters
• Examines potential targets at home and abroad
• Includes a comprehensive overview of U.S. policy, strategy, and technologies for preventing and countering terrorism
• Includes self-assessment areas, key terms, summary questions, and application exercises. On-line content includes PPT lessons for each chapter and a solutions key for academic adopters

Threats to Homeland Security, Second Edition is an excellent introductory text on homeland security for educators, as well as a good source of training for professionals in a number of homeland security-related disciplines.

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THE CHANGING NATURE OF NATIONAL SECURITY: Understanding the Nature of Threats to Homeland Security and the US Response

Richard J. Kilroy, Jr.

Department of Politics, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SC, USA

Starting Point

Go to www.wiley.com/go/Kilroy/Threats_to_Homeland_Security to assess your knowledge of the basics of national security and homeland security.

Determine where you need to concentrate your effort.

What You’ll Learn in This Chapter

• The definitions of national security and homeland security
• The key players who formulate national and homeland security policy
• How changing international and domestic security environments affect national and homeland security policies
• The threats in a post‐9/11 world that impact national security policy issues
• Contemporary challenges to national and homeland security

After Studying This Chapter, You’ll Be Able To

• Analyze security environments and assess national and homeland security policy choices during specific historical periods
• Distinguish between national and homeland security policy players within government and outside government
• Appraise the threat situation in the post‐9/11 security environment
• Examine US national and homeland security and policy as a response to the changing security environment and threat perceptions

INTRODUCTION

Within the disciplines of political science and international relations, the study of war and conflict has been traditionally included under the umbrella of international security since the primary threats to states have been viewed as other states. The rise of non‐state actors, such as terrorist groups or criminal gangs, has broadened the concept of threats to a nation’s security to include both domestic and international dimension. For example, the United States, throughout the nation’s history, has faced a variety of threatsor adversaries (foreign and domestic) possessing both capability and intent to do the nation harm. To counter these threats, various policy choices emerged, each reflecting the nation’s security interests at different periods of time. As a result, the nation’s political leaders developed national security policies, which are those policies that served to protect the United States, its citizens, and its interests through the threatened and actual use of all elements of national power.

During the first half of the twentieth century, the United States changed from a nation with the seventeenth largest military in the world to one of two military superpowers. It was the leader of the free world against a physical and ideological threat in the Soviet Union and communism. This change was not preordained, however, as strong domestic political challenges also shaped foreign policy outcomes. Fifty years after the end of World War II, the United States again found itself in a new kind of security environment with both domestic and international security implications. At the turn of the twenty‐first century, the nation was faced with the new threat of terrorism at home. This led to the development of homeland security policies, which emerged following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), to encompass the collective efforts of local, state, and federal agencies to keep the country safe, initially against terrorism, but later expanded to include an all‐hazards perspective. Sixteen years later, the threats to homeland security have further evolved, and the United States faces a prolonged conflict against the particular threat of terrorism, domestically and internationally.

In this chapter, you will analyze security environments and assess national and homeland security policy choices during specific historical periods. You’ll also learn to distinguish between the various national and homeland security policy players both within and outside government. Finally, you’ll appraise the threat situation in the contemporary security environment, as well as examine US national and homeland security policy as a response to the changing security environment and threat perceptions.

1.1 Foundations of American Security Policy

When the nation’s founders were crafting a new system of government based on a republic (vs. a monarchy), they struggled over the concept of security. How much power should be vested in the central government versus the state governments? Should the United States have a standing army or rely on the state militias alone for the nation’s security? The Federalist Papers (authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay) argued the need for a central government strong enough to protect the nation against the threats it faced at the time while also protecting states’ rights and individual liberties. As James Madison noted in Federalist No. 41, “The means of security can only be regulated by the means and danger of attack… They will in fact be ever determined by these rules and no others” (Hamilton et al. 1961, 257).

Upon achieving its independence from Great Britain, the United States faced the possibility of British reinvasion, attacks by other European colonial powers in the region, and challenges to commerce. Its national security policy reflected George Washington’s admonition in his Farewell Address to avoid entangling alliances with European powers, which would draw the United States into Europe’s sectarian wars. Thus, for over a century and a half, isolationism, a foreign policy based on avoiding alliances with other countries, produced an American national security policy of limited military power, depending instead on the ocean boundaries, diplomacy, and commerce to keep the country safe.

Prior to its entrance into World War I, US security interests were primarily focused regionally rather than globally. An example of a security policy reflecting this regional focus was the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Although the United States did not have the military power to back up such a policy, the Monroe Doctrine reflected the principle that the United States should support the desire of the new democratic nations of the Americas to break from their colonial past and exist as free nations, secure from overt European influence. This principle was tested throughout the nineteenth century by various European powers, such as the French occupation of Mexico and the continuing Spanish and British presence, primarily in the Caribbean region. With the US defeat of Spain in 1898, however, the United States displayed the capacity to live up to its principles.

Why did the United States enter these new domains? For most of America’s early history, security meant maintaining territorial integrity, but it also involved protecting American trade overseas. As the United States grew economically, so did other countries, so American traders found themselves clashing more frequently with foreign interests over resources and markets. The clashes could be simply commercial competition, but violence could break out with local populations, with other commercial enterprises, or with governments. Trade was not only enriching the country but also redefining the government’s duty to protect American citizens to include events that were increasing in both scope and frequency.

Figure 1‐1 The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere (Charles Green Bush, 1842–1909). Uncle Sam—“What Particular Country Threatens Us, Theodore?,” March 12, 1905, New York World.

Source: Reproduced with permission of MS Am 3056 (489) Houghton Library, Harvard University.

1.1.1 Geopolitics at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

The emergence of American military power (primarily sea power) at the beginning of the twentieth century expanded US national security interests in the Western Hemisphere and beyond. Whereas the original Monroe Doctrine was a statement of principle, the Roosevelt Corollary (Figure 1‐1) to the Monroe Doctrine under President Theodore Roosevelt signaled a more aggressive US security policy to exert its hegemony over the Western Hemisphere. The ability of the United States to project military power to other regions further increased our nation’s ability to leverage other elements of national power, including the use of diplomacy, economic power, and informational power. The threat of military force therefore broadened the expression of national security interests, leading to a more expansionist role for the United States. Broadening the context of national security further affected US foreign policy interests toward Europe and European affairs. Whereas in the past the United States was comfortable in its isolationist role, in the early 1900s, the changes in the geopolitical makeup of Europe were...