Emergent Topics in Homeland Security (Essay Sample)

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Emergent Topics in Homeland Security
Description
With the ever increasing unpredictability, uncertainty, misconceptions and misinformation within United States’ borders and beyond, American homeland security remains threatened by a number of emerging threats. For instance, information revolution presents a wide range of opportunities for prosperity and innovation as well as a platform for improving general welfare of every part of the world (Arab Social Media Report 1). Yet with the wide reach of a "lightly regulated digital infrastructure, great risks threaten nations, private enterprises, and individual rights" (Cyber Policy Review i). This has put the US government together with its security agencies, National Intelligence Commission (NIC) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tasked with curbing criminal activities within its borders, in a difficult position of having to deal with the emerging challenges. The Intelligence community which is charged with the duty of detecting and analyzing potential security threats to the US is continuously dealing with new challenges in its effort to ensure smooth flow of information. For instance, the National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding (NSISS) is heavily dependent on its members to uninterruptedly gather, process, and share correct information despite the risks of such information getting into the hands of wrong people due to the increased possibilities created by new information technology for such incidences.
Nevertheless, the US government has the responsibility to address the myriad of emerging threats to ensure that its citizens as well as the larger international community remain safe and secure. In this view, the knowledge dominance and situational awareness remains the secret weapons by which the US government will mitigate economic, military and political threats to homeland security and global security at large. Knowledge dominance simply refers to the ability of the government to gather process and share information freely in uninterrupted manner while exploiting the ability of an enemy to do the same. Situational awareness refers to having a superior knowledge about an area or vicinity, in order to understand when, how and why given phenomena occur and being able to respond in a timely and effective manner to such occurrences. Based on Lahneman’s (733) description of information as either public or proprietary, one can argue that the US security agencies, NIC and DHS among others have an opportunity to define and strengthen what it consider open and classified information.
Explanation
As noted in Lahneman’s (201) article, The Need for a New Intelligence Paradigm, traditional state-based security threats continue to be a problem; however, there are new security threats emerging from transnational phenomena. It is against this background that the US government seeks to achieve knowledge dominance and maintain situational awareness for homeland security. One of the key drivers of this quest is the emergence of transnational terrorism which has become not only the most visible of the current emerging threats, but also most complicated in terms of forms and perpetrators. In addition, transnational terrorism remains one of the greatest threats to US home security because of networked nature of this type of crime and its perpetrators who continue to thrive on multifaceted communication, increased global travel, and greater financial capabilities facilitated by the process of globalization (Lahneman 201). Moreover, the transnational terrorists’ invasion of cyberspace threatens any quest for knowledge dominance by the US government, a more telling reason for the US government to drive on with its quest for knowledge dominance and situational awareness. Other transnational threats that are less visible but potentially highly destructive include naturally-occurring and human-induced phenomena such as the spread of HIV/AIDs, nuclear proliferation, climate change, etc (Lehneman 201).
Analysis
As discussed above, transnational terrorism remains the most visible and most challenging security threat today in the United States. Although Lahneman (201) admitted that other forms of transnational threats pose greater destructive threat than terrorism, the complicated nature of transnational terrorism makes it a number one threat to homeland security. The 9/11 attack on the US soil is a clear illustration of how things can go wrong if there is no clear situational understanding and information flow between and among security agencies and bodies. Lahneman (730) illustrated this in his article Examining the NGPI "Dots”, when he recounted the findings in the 9/11 Commission Report. According to Lahneman (731), the 9/11 attack was attributed to breakdown in information flow. Despite this major attack ever witnessed on the US soil, the US government continues to grapple with home-based terrorism which has international or transnational networks such as the recent Boston Bombing. In other words, of all the transnational threats (both naturally occurring and human-induced), it is only transnational terrorism that remain a major threat to the US homeland security because its perpetrators are today more knowledgeable about how the US security operates thanks to information revolution. Thus, they are always keen on taking advantage of any breakdown in information flow among security agencies and any slump in situational awareness to strike the US and its citizens. It is increased threat to US and its c...