National Security Law Commons^™

Ballistic Missile Defense: New Plans, Old Challenges, Elizabeth Zolotukhina

Journal of Strategic Security

On September 17, 2009—the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 that marked the beginning of World War II—the Obama Administration announced its intention to shelve plans for the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) that had been developed under former President George W. Bush. Pointing to a new intelligence assessment, President Obama argued that his predecessor's plan to deploy an X-band radar station outside of Prague, Czech Republic, and 10 two-stage interceptor missiles in Poland would not adequately protect America and its European allies from the Iranian threat and reiterated his opposition to utilizing unproven technology in …

Development Of An Outcomes-Based Undergraduate Curriculum In Homeland Security, James D. Ramsay, Daniel A. Cutrer, Robert Raffel

Security Studies & International Affairs - Daytona Beach

As a professional discipline, homeland security is complex, dynamic, and interdisciplinary and not given to facile definition. As an academic discipline, homeland security is relatively new and growing, and its workforce aging. As such, there is an acknowledged need to develop academic homeland security programs to try and meet anticipated workforce needs. However, the lack of an accreditation system or a set of available published outcomes (or standards) have complicated efforts towards homeland security program development. At present, determining which courses to teach and which outcomes in each course to pursue must be left to anecdotal conversations, reviews of the …

Development Of An Outcomes-Based Undergraduate Curriculum In Homeland Security, James D. Ramsay, Daniel Cutrer, Robert Raffel

Applied Aviation Sciences - Daytona Beach

As a professional discipline, homeland security is complex, dynamic, and interdisciplinary and not given to facile definition. As an academic discipline, homeland security is relatively new and growing, and its workforce aging. As such, there is an acknowledged need to develop academic homeland security programs to try and meet anticipated workforce needs. However, the lack of an accreditation system or a set of available published outcomes (or standards) have complicated efforts towards homeland security program development. At present, determining which courses to teach and which outcomes in each course to pursue must be left to anecdotal conversations, reviews of the …

U.S. Response To Terrorism: A Strategic Analysis Of The Afghanistan Campaign, Valentina Taddeo

Journal of Strategic Security

This article examines the U.S. response to global terrorism and its campaign in Afghanistan from 2001 to today. The aim of this article is first to understand the fallacies, missteps, and misunderstandings of the U.S. approach in Afghanistan. Second, the analysis evaluates the lessons learnt and some possible strategies for achieving long-term stability and security in Afghanistan. In particular, the analysis focuses on the different strategies adopted by the United States and their achievements. Despite a first victory over the Taliban regime, the initial approach was focused on the enemy only and it lacked long-term planning, paving the way to …

North Korea And Support To Terrorism: An Evolving History, Bruce E. Bechtol, Jr.

Journal of Strategic Security

The DPRK's (Democratic People's Republic of Korea or North Korea) support for terrorism began as an ideologically-based policy financed by the Soviet Union that eventually led to a policy designed to put money into the coffers of the elite in Pyongyang—in short, a "proliferation for hire" policy. This article articulates a brief history of the North Korean regime, the rise to power of Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il, and North Korea's persistent support to terrorist groups around the globe.

Small To Mid-Size Sporting Events: Are We Prepared To Recover From An Attack?, Brian M. Harrell, Konrad Crockford, Pierre Boisrond, Sarah Tharp-Hernandez, Suzanne Parker

Journal of Strategic Security

This article describes a fictional deadly attack by a lone-wolf terrorist during a high school football event in a small town, here in the United States. The authors begin by describing an attack and then focus on the response from the medical community, city, county, state, and federal government officials. Next, the authors make several recommendations on what actions are needed to develop an effective plan to combat terrorist activities during a small- to mid-size sports event. Among the actions needed, the authors focus on the following: response planning, emergency action plan, incident command, policies and procedures, and security staff …

The Weakest Link: The Risks Associated With Social Networking Websites, Yosef Lehrman

Journal of Strategic Security

The relatively rapid rise in popularity of social networking services is now well known. MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook have become well known sites and terms. According to the Web traffic tracking site Alexa.com, as of December 2009, Facebook had 350 million registered users, MySpace just under 475 million, and Twitter 44.5 million. Many people think very little of posting prodigious amounts of personal information on social networking sites, not realizing that this information puts them at risk. Specifically, those in the law enforcement and military communities may not realize that information posted on these sites can compromise operational security and …

Book Reviews, Edward J. Hagerty, Daniel Masters, Mark J. Roberts, Leland Ericson

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

The Multiple Faces Of Effective Grand Strategy, Bryan N. Groves

Journal of Strategic Security

Effective national leaders throughout history have deliberately developed grand strategies and successfully implemented them to attain their political goals, while also integrating and accomplishing economic, social, defense, and sometimes religious objectives. Not all leaders have been successful, however, as this process is immensely complex and can be adversely affected by the actions of other leaders around their region and the world. It bears examination, then, to determine what factors contribute to successful grand strategies and why many leaders fail to reach their stated ends. This article utilizes a historic case study approach and explores three key areas of grand strategy: …

Indian Involvement In Afghanistan In The Context Of The South Asian Security System, Melanie Hanif

Journal of Strategic Security

This article focuses on the regional requirements for a pacification of Afghanistan. For this purpose, Afghanistan is analytically "reframed" as part of South Asia. The hypothesis is that India is the only regional actor that might possess both the incentives and the capabilities to deal with the negative security externalities emanating from Afghanistan.In South Asia, material characteristics such as the delineation of the region and its power polarity are unclear. India's role within the region is even more controversial. By examining India's role within its security environment, this paper will suggest how this lack of clarity could be remedied. In …

Terrorism And The Law: Show Trials And Why The Show Must Go On, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses the nature and meaning of terrorism trials during the United States’ war on terror.

April Roundtable: Genocide And Us National Interests Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“How Genocide Became a National Security Threat” by Michael Abramowitz & Lawrence Woocher. Foreign Policy. February 26, 2010.

Do Drones Have A Silver Lining?, David Akerson

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Michael Abramowitz and Lawrence Woocher’s article, “How Genocide Became a National Security Threat,” flags an important milestone in American foreign policy, namely that mass atrocities might now be appropriately viewed as the national security threats that they are. The problem with translating this policy development into action is the next and not insignificant challenge. Aerial drones may be key to overcoming it.

Genocide Myopia: How Reframing Mass Atrocity Could Backfire, Sonia Cardenas

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The United States has long viewed genocide and mass atrocity as tragic, moral problems divorced from national interests. This may be changing under the Obama administration, with genocide and mass atrocity being reframed as problems to be solved pragmatically. Michael Abramowitz and Lawrence Woocher celebrate this “unprecedented breakthrough” in Foreign Policy, urging President Obama to follow up with specific measures: strategic military planning, interagency coordination, firm leadership, and concrete action on Darfur. Despite the promise of overcoming inaction and focusing on prevention, the new vision of genocide and mass atrocity Abramowitz and Woocher depict remains myopic. It is narrowly focused …

A Break From The Old Routine...., Todd Landman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Abramowitz and Woocher highlight a potentially significant shift in policy discourse in international relations with respect to humanitarianism and the prevention of genocide. For many years, the United States has suffered from the twin problems of the human rights “double standard” and “Catch-22.” On the one hand, particular countries have been seen as vital by the United States for intervention on humanitarian grounds even though many believed other geostrategic interests are at stake (e.g. Kosovo in 1999) and others have not (e.g. Rwanda in 1994). On the other hand, US intervention on humanitarian grounds can be criticized as heavy-handed or …

On Genocide And The National Interest, James Pattison

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In the second presidential debate, Barack Obama said, in response to a question about the crisis in Darfur, that “when genocide is happening, when ethnic cleansing is happening somewhere around the world and we stand idly by, that diminishes us. And so I do believe that we have to consider it as part of our interests, our national interests, in intervening where possible.” In a similar vein, Michael Abramowitz and Lawrence Woocher highlight how genocide is increasingly being seen as a security threat by the White House.

Variance, Violence, And Democracy: A Basic Microeconomic Model Of Terrorism, John A. Sautter

Journal of Strategic Security

Much of the debate surrounding contemporary studies of terrorism focuses upon transnational terrorism. However, historical and contemporary evidence suggests that domestic terrorism is a more prevalent and pressing concern. A formal microeconomic model of terrorism is utilized here to understand acts of political violence in a domestic context within the domain of democratic governance.This article builds a very basic microeconomic model of terrorist decision making to hypothesize how a democratic government might influence the sorts of strategies that terrorists use. Mathematical models have been used to explain terrorist behavior in the past. However, the bulk of inquires in this area …

Global Risk Of Nuclear Terrorism, Emily Diez, Terrance Clark, Caroline Zaw-Mon

Journal of Strategic Security

The emergence of nuclear terrorism, a threat that President Obama called "the gravest danger we face," has signaled a paradigm shift in international security. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, sensitive nuclear technologies and materials have become increasingly available. Globalization and the inadequate enforcement of treaties and export controls have allowed the proliferation of nuclear weapons materials. Today, international terrorist organizations seek to employ weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as a means to influence national policies around the world. AlQaida spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith declared that in order to balance the injustices that have been inflicted on the Muslim …

Toward A New Trilateral Strategic Security Relationship: United States, Canada, And Mexico, Richard J. Kilroy, Jr., Abelardo Rodríguez Sumano, Todd S. Hataley

Journal of Strategic Security

The term "perimeter defense" has come back into vogue recently, with regard to security strategies for North America. The United States' concern primarily with the terrorist threat to its homeland subsequent to September 11, 2001 (9/11) is generating this discussion with its immediate neighbors of Mexico and Canada (and to some extent some Caribbean nations—the "third border"). The concept is simply that by pushing defenses out to the "perimeter" nations, then security will be enhanced, since the United States visions itself as more vulnerable to international terrorism than its neighbors. However, Canada and Mexico have not been very happy about …

Intelligence And Its Role In Protecting Against Terrorism, Richard J. Hughbank, Don Githens

Journal of Strategic Security

The art and science of gathering critical operational intelligence has been defined in many ways and is beyond our needs for this writing. Throughout the course of history, many wars have been fought depending heavily on various forms of intelligence. During our most recent actions in the War on Terror, intelligence analysis has played a critical role in both offensive and defensive operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. With such varying fact-finding techniques available and utilized in the defense of our country, it has become an arduous task to collect, decipher, package, prioritize, disseminate, and act upon everything that comes down …

Cover & Front Matter

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Timothy Hsia, Sheldon Greaves, Donald J. Goldstein

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Geographic Trajectories Of Al-Qaida And Taliban Terrorist Groups In Pakistan, Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi

Journal of Strategic Security

Though Western analysts tend to mention al-Qaida and Taliban in Pakistan in the same context, the dynamics of their relationship are far more complex than a cursory examination would reveal. The context of this relationship is best understood within the overarching paradigm of militant activities of post 9/11 Taliban and al-Qaida remnants in Pakistan's tribal areas, where these groups flourish. The military struggle in Afghanistan has significantly influenced the formation of a loosely structured alQaida/Taliban "nexus" that was forged in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), particularly Waziristan. In order to survive the ongoing North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military …

Strategic Asymmetric Deception And Its Role In The Current Threat Environment, Seth A. Gulsby

Journal of Strategic Security

President Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, once stated that the post-Cold War world of the 1990s was a "paradox [where] American military superiority actually increase[d] the threat of... attack against [the U.S.] by creating incentives for adversaries to challenge us asymmetrically." He was alluding to the fact that the Cold War's closure was supposed to bring about a situation that encouraged peace, nation-building, and unilateral comfort for the United States. The reality that America has come to know is quite different, and some might even argue that, given the option, many people would return to a security situation …

The Object Of Torture Is Torture: Extraordinary Renditions To Jordan And Human Rights In The War On Terror, Kat Mitchell

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Hassan Saleh bin Attash, a Yemeni national, was just seventeen at the time of his September 2002 arrest in Pakistan. The young man spent four days in a Karachi prison before being taken to a United States-run prison in Kabul, where he was held and allegedly tortured through the middle of September. He was then rendered to Jordan.

The Air Force And Twenty-First-Century Conflicts: Dysfunctional Or Dynamic?, Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Revisiting Downs' Issue-Attention Cycle: International Terrorism And U.S. Public Opinion, Karen K. Petersen

Journal of Strategic Security

Lamenting the lack of public awareness of international events and U.S. foreign policy is not a particularly novel exercise; yet, explaining the process by which issues enter and exit the public realm remains a challenging endeavor. Despite contributions from researchers working in international relations and mass communication, explaining public inattentiveness continues to vex scholars. However, in his article, "Up and Down with Ecology: The 'Issue-Attention Cycle,'" Anthony Downs provides a parsimonious and tractable model of public opinion that can be applied to foreign policy issues.1 While Downs concerns himself exclusively with domestic issues, particularly environmental issues, his model has thepotential …

Islamist Distortions: Hizb Ut- Tahrir A Breeding Ground For Al- Qaida Recruitment, Krishna Mungur

Journal of Strategic Security

In 1953, a radical splinter organization from the Muslim Brotherhood,Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT), was founded by the Al-Azhar University (Cairo,Egypt) educated jurist Sheikh Taqiuddin an-Nabhani who criticized theMuslim Brotherhood for collaborating with Egyptian secularists, such as Gamal Abdel Nasser. A sizable portion of the more radical members of the Muslim Brotherhood broke away, to join Nabhani's budding movement. Today, HuT is known to operate in more than forty countries, calling for the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate, with a history of violence and links to violent terrorist organizations. Given increasing tensions in the region over the presence of coalition troops, Predator …

Reviving The United States' Commitment To Pakistan And Afghanistan, Steve A. Young, Imdad Hussain Sahito

Journal of Strategic Security

As President Obama is in the midst of deciding whether additional U.S.combat forces are needed in Afghanistan in addition to the 21,000 troops recently committed, he must realize that additional armed forces are only a stopgap measure in Afghanistan's downward spiral into an 'undergoverned' failed state. Similarly, as Pakistan's fragile and fractured civilian government continues to appease the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella organization of Pakistani Pashtun tribesmen with Taliban cultural values led by Baitullah Mehsud and others, it comes closer to the concept of a "misgoverned" failed state, possessing a small arsenal of nuclear arms. The problem for the …

The Tangled Web Of Taliban And Associated Movements, Greg Smith

Journal of Strategic Security

Following the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,worldwide attention became focused on the Taliban and al-Qaida forcesin Afghanistan. Prior to the attacks, many people had never heard of the Taliban or their shar'ia-law style of government. Since 2001, manysplinter groups have formed in response to the continual United Statespresence in the region. Today, the term Taliban has been used to envelop several groups such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Haqqani Network (HQN) and the Tehrik-eNifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi(TNSM). These groups make up the majority of fighters along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Many of these groups have been historicrivals for control of the …