The potential effects of continued mirror-imaging on future US strategy and policy in Homeland Security
homeland security is the national program intended to ensure appropriate defense of the country. In fact, this term started to be in use after Sep.11, when President Bush decided to make stronger emphasis on USA security creating separate Department called Homeland Security Department or DHS. It encompasses not only simple defense procedures, but also every mean to prevent any harassment attacks from the outside as well as inside. The evaluation of Homeland Security shows that much has been really accomplished over the years. However, in order to achieve the desired effects there is still much needed to be done.
Homeland Security is an extremely important issue for the USA, as it directly concerns the national interest and well-being. It has to do with such strategic objects as ports, the railroads, the airlines, the utility plants, the food supply, and communications. Moreover, it directly concerns both businesspeople who have to abide to any governmental procedures concerning market expansion and the permission to sell certain products on the territory of the USA, as well as common people, who are to undergo severe checking procedures in the airports and railway stations. Thus, it is crucial that all citizens of the USA know what to expect and whether they are properly protected. The Governmental foremost task is to ensure openness and honesty in the policy of Homeland Security. However, this is exactly the field where Bush’s Administration has done the biggest mistake, for as Lieberman (2004) testifies, the Department of Homeland Security itself is the most secretive of agencies in the most secretive of administrations.
The Term Paper on Security And Confidentiality
To improve security and confidentiality in the workplace, you should: • Not allow computer screens to be seen by unauthorised people • Ensure people can’t see confidential documents that aren’t meant for them • Log off your computer if it is unattended • Use computer passwords that are not easy to guess • Double check outgoing emails before you send them • Never gossip or share ...
It is interesting though that three-quarters of Americans say they are satisfied that the government is doing a good job of protecting them from terrorists. (Lieberman, 2004) However, as Lieberman (2004) assures, “billions of dollars have been spent, vast quantities of data that were once part of the public record have vanished, reams of new regulations have been written, and the largest reorganization of the federal government in half a century has taken place–all in the name of defending the homeland.” This sarcastic mood can be easily understood given that over the last couple of years, coverage of the effort to prevent another 9/11 has been spotty, episodic, reactive, and shallow. Lieberman argues that the true information about Homeland Security achievements or rather the absence of these achievements are thoroughly hidden from people’s ears. In fact, there is no coverage at all of all 24 agencies that work on Homeland Security. There is no reporters or channels that cover the work of at least some of these agencies full-time.
Thus, the reasonable question arises: if so important information for everybody in the USA is kept in such a secret, does it mean that Homeland Security bureaucrats do have a lot to hide? This question does provoke serious worries as to our real conditions of safety. Therefore, it is necessary to assess what has actually been done since the very cruel moment of Sep.11 2001. The Department of Homeland Security was founded in 2002 to lead in protecting our national and globally integrated infrastructure, and organize national capabilities for responding to any catastrophic attacks. (Washington Times, 2005) The organizational structure of Department of Homeland Security is quite complex. It has been told already that it consists of 24 agencies, the main among which are:
• Office of Intelligence and Analysis — responsible for using information and intelligence from multiple sources to identify and assess current and future threats to the United States.
The Essay on Central Intelligence National Agency Cia
In October 1945, the OSS was abolished, and its functions were transferred to the State and War Departments. The need for a postwar centralized intelligence system remained a problem. Eleven months earlier, Donovan, at the time a major general had submitted to President Roosevelt a proposal that called for the separation of the OSS from the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the new organization having ...
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — prepares the nation for hazards, manages Federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident, and administers the National Flood Insurance Program.
• Transportation Security Administration — protects the nation’s transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.
• Customs and Border Protection — responsible for protecting our nation’s borders in order to prevent terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States, while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel.
• Immigration and Customs Enforcement — responsible for identifying and shutting down vulnerabilities in the nation’s border, economic, transportation and infrastructure security.
• US Secret Service — protects the President and other high-level officials and investigates counterfeiting and other financial crimes, including financial institution fraud, identity theft, computer fraud; and computer-based attacks on our nation’s financial, banking, and telecommunications infrastructure. (DHS official web)
Those are just some of the agencies that constitute the extremely large and bureaucratic apparatus of DHS. The strategic goals of DHS are identified as the following:
1. Awareness — Identify and understand threats, assess vulnerabilities, determine potential impacts and disseminate timely information to our homeland security partners and the American public.
2. Prevention — Detect, deter and mitigate threats to our homeland.
3. Protection — Safeguard our people and their freedoms, critical infrastructure, property and the economy of our Nation from acts of terrorism, natural disasters, or other emergencies.
4. Response — Lead, manage and coordinate the national response to acts of terrorism, natural disasters, or other emergencies.
5. Recovery — Lead national, state, local and private sector efforts to restore services and rebuild communities after acts of terrorism, natural disasters, or other emergencies.
6. Service — Serve the public effectively by facilitating lawful trade, travel and immigration.
7. Organizational Excellence — Value our most important resource, our people. Create a culture that promotes a common identity, innovation, mutual respect, accountability and teamwork to achieve efficiencies, effectiveness, and operational synergies. (DHS official web)
The Essay on Borders between countries should be banned
In recent years, people discuss many issues in the world. One of them is borders between countries are reason of decline the world economy. However, there are many political reasons which prevent abolishment of borders. This essay will try to explain why borders between countries should be banned. There are several reasons why borders between countries should be banned. Firstly, they impede trades ...
Simply saying the main focus of Homeland Security policy still remains on preventing terrorist attacks, increasing military recognition, and defending borders and increasing internal communications in order for all the citizens to be aware of what is going on within the country.
As for the first strategic task, the White House in 2006 reported the following accomplishments:
• Establishing The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).
The Center identifies, coordinates, and prioritizes the counterterrorism intelligence requirements of America’s intelligence agencies and develops strategic operational plans for implementation.
• Establishing The Terrorist Screening Center. The Center ensures that government investigators, screeners, and agents are working with the same unified, comprehensive set of information about terrorists.
• Transforming The FBI To Focus On Preventing Terrorism. The President has led the effort to transform the FBI into an agency focused on preventing terrorist attacks through intelligence collection and other key efforts, while improving its ability to perform its traditional role as a world-class law-enforcement agency.
• Improving Border Screening And Security Through The US-VISIT Entry-Exit System. US-VISIT uses cutting-edge biometric technology to help ensure that our borders remain open to legitimate travelers but closed to terrorists. US-VISIT is in place at 115 airports, 14 seaports, and 50 land border crossings across the country. Since January 2004, more than 39 million visitors have been checked through US-VISIT.
• Increasing Cooperation And Reform Among International Partners At The Front Lines Of The War On Terror. In Pakistan over the next five years, USA will provide more than $3 billion in security, economic, and development assistance to enhance counterterrorism capacity and promote continued reform, including of the education system. In the last three years, the United States provided more than $4.5 billion in reconstruction, economic, and security assistance programs to Afghanistan. (White House official web, 2006)
The Essay on Homeland security and border patrol
Homeland security is one of the main departments that keeps the United States safe. Homeland security locks down the United States and keeps illegal’s from entering and monitors that the U.S does not go under attack. During the making of the department of homeland security the U.S Border Patrol merged into a new agency called US customs and Border protection known as CBP. The old tradition of ...
As we can see, DHS tries to provide all necessary procedures in order to ensure the proper protection of terrorism. Its long-going security policy is intended not only to enhance the domestic safety using all protective measures, but also to cooperate with other country to ensure future protection and prevent possible terrorist attacks. Those longings of President’s Administration can be qualified as positive and strategically oriented. However, the main problem that arises here is that institutional changes do not necessarily lead to increased output efficiency. The newly build counterterrorism center cannot itself give a guarantee that it won’t double the functions of other agencies. The extension of bureaucratic apparatus seem more likely to be an attempt to create an image of doing something, rather than doing the right thing. Moreover, any additional agencies require additional financing, which means that money is going to be withdrawn from many other also important programs or be allocated irrationally. However, I have to notice that I do not mean by any chance to say that the creation of any additional agency is necessarily evil. Yet, Homeland Security will require from now on more attention on behalf of Bush and his Administration to the proper functioning of any additional institutions. Otherwise, the efficiency of such security policy will be extremely low.
As for implementation of new technological advances in detecting any kind of criminal procedures, this is the right direction to follow. They will help a lot Intelligence Department in gathering the adequate information to prepare any sort of unexpected events. They also require substantial financing. Yet, they show evident results in a form of immediate information, unlike bureaucratic institutions.
Partnership with other countries can be also qualified as an advanced step in Homeland Security, as it helps to ensure allies and strategic partners in the case of emergency. Moreover, partnering and providing help for such country as Afghanistan is important in order to prevent the emergence of terrorist groups there, considering the inherent inclination of this country for this kind of phenomenon.
As for the second strategic task of Homeland Security Department – building proper military-civil relations, some sort of advancement could be noticed as well. Those relations should be approached from two sides:
The Term Paper on European Security Nato Military Operations
Since its establishment in 1949, NATO has been "the main institutional framework for the coordination of the foreign, security and defence policies of Western Europe and North America"1. During the Cold War NATO operated under a bipolar system dominated by intense global ideological and strategic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Most states fell under the sphere of ...
• The awareness of young people of necessity to serve in a Federal Army;
• Change of public perception of the image of soldier.
In fact, those two approaches are very interconnected. Military-Civil relationships are very important to ensure that US society can rely on its members in case of war or any other unpredicted things. It is an important task to change the minds of those young men to make them consider the issue of national security the top priority for them personally. Moreover, the internal role of Military is not clearly defined yet. As Guttieri (2003) notices, “given that the US military is the government entity charged with primary responsibilities for national defense, many naturally expect the armed forces to play an important role in homeland security. Instead, military leaders are very clear that their forces will protect the homeland, but will play only a supporting role to civil agencies in homeland security”. However, the appropriate national security strategy requires the cooperation between all the sectors and all the agencies. As Guttieri (2003) continues her thought, domestic military operations require the military to operate in sensitive civilian environments under constitutional constraints, and to work with multiple civilian agencies that may have very different ways of doing things. The military has performed many civil-military activities requiring such sensitivity in the past, including:
• support to law enforcement (counter drug operations and riot relief),
• disaster relief (after hurricanes),
• management of immigration crises (housing Cuban émigrés at Guantanamo Bay).
Guttieri (2003) is sure that United States military does not lack experience conducting civil-military operations. However, what it does lack is enthusiasm for such chores. The reason for this are both social (primarily the public perception of military servicemen) and bureaucratic issues. Thus, the Homeland Security procedures cannot be possibly efficient, if the military-civil relationships do not change for better. It is important that each and everyone realizes that serving in a military is a deal of dignity, it is an honorable task that should be accomplished by every man in the country.
The Essay on Security Communities European Countries
Security Communities and Multilateralism 1. The United States and Canada have enjoyed a very peaceful relationship over the past 125 years, even though they share a border that is 5, 000 miles long and undefended. Shore says that? neither side regards the other as even a potential military threat, despite the fact that interstate anarchy supposedly makes war an ever-present possibility. Conflicts ...
The third strategic task of Homeland Security is defending own borders. It can actually be considered as part of anti-terrorist attacks prevention. Yet, I would like to analyze it as a separate one, cause it has certain peculiarities. The main of these peculiarities is that all antiterroristic measures are intended to detect any suspicious thing or person within the country, while borders defense is intended to let any stranger to enter the country and to let any country to threaten the USA. After Sep 11, It became clear that the U.S. border is porous not only to terrorists wishing to enter, but to their weapons, including weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
One easy mode of entry has been the nation’s seaports. It became also known that less than 2 percent of the over 11 million cargo containers entering the United States every year were inspected. (Scardaville, 2002) The USA cannot completely close its borders, cause this kind of measure will simply contradict its democratic declaration. As for each cargo and each person inspection, it would cost a huge some of money. According to Scardaville (2002), the Administration has adopted a multi-pronged approach, relying on both traditional means (such as new immigration regulations and additional border security officers) and innovative approaches (such as using advanced technology, signing new international agreements, and establishing public-private partnerships on security issues).
In March 2002 the Smart Border Agreements with Canada and Mexico were signed. Both agreements include new intergovernmental customs standards and public-private partnerships to speed non-threatening people and products across the border and allow border security officials to focus on less secure travelers and goods. Companies that enter the program are permitted on the accelerated inspection lanes at enhanced ports of entry. They must first satisfy the government that their entire supply chain, from manufacturing to the showroom floor, is secure. The first such operational port is in Detroit near the border with Windsor, Ontario. Such agreements are very favorable for the USA, cause they both enhance security and provide friendly measures for the other countries thus proving US democratic declarations. Moreover, they prove to be beneficial for the economy as they do not interrupt or prevent any foreign trade. The U.S. Customs Service also unveiled the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) to provide similar advantages to security-minded foreign companies from nations that trade with the United States. Another important step was made by Bush in 2002. He signed the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2002, which
• authorizes appropriations for additional border security personnel and technology,
• requires that the law enforcement and intelligence community better share terror-related information with the Consular Affairs division of the State Department and INS,
• establishes additional requirements for INS implementation of an entry and exit monitoring system,
• restricts visas to citizens of countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism, reforms the visa waiver program, and establishes a program for monitoring foreign students studying in the United States. (Scardaville, 2002)
Thus, as we see there are also substantial developments in securing borders of the USA. Unfortunately, despite such serious advancements in Homeland Security that are probably felt by each person no matter what is his/her profession or status, the fourth important task of DHS – namely improvement of internal communication – was failed. I have to again return with what I have started and emphasize that DHS has to report more openly to all US citizens telling about all procedures that have been made. Otherwise, there will always be suspicions and the lack of trust towards this governmental organization. The lack of trust, in turn, towards such an important institution means that US citizens cannot feel safe in their own country. Subsequently, it will mean that the main goal of DHS – to enhance security within the country – is not achieved.
The other recommendations for the Department of Homeland Security in order to make its activity more effective are the following:
1. To make its structure less bureaucratic and more strategy-oriented. It will help to avoid double functioning and save much money.
2. To improve the performance of Intelligence, as the latter was accused of inability to predict serious threats. Bush has already proposed the creation of new center to fuse and analyze terrorism-related intelligence within the Department of Homeland Security.
3. Conduct first responder exercises, meaning that information about anything that happened in the most remote place should be immediately transmitted everywhere within the country and the President and Government in the first place.
4. Establishing Health Surveillance in order to detect any signs of biological weapons.
5. Improve immigration procedures.
In conclusion, it is necessary to say that since 9/11 of 2001 it has been done a lot in order to enhance the national security. A special department apart from the Department of Defense has been created in order to perform those functions. The effects of Homeland Security Policy are actually felt by each and everyone within the country. Yet, despite serious accomplishments there’s still much to be done. Yet, mostly important for DHS is to remain open for the society so that every citizen in the USA knows what’s going on and feels protected within the borders of own country.
