The December 2024 Issue of Homeland Security Affairs examines significant developments in the technological and human dimensions of security challenges facing our nation. The five articles in this issue highlight the interplay between emerging analytical capabilities and evolving security threats and offer insights into defensive and offensive adaptations in contemporary security operations. Read more.
The multi-layer PageRank algorithm provides a portable and flexible tool that can be modified by practitioners to specific infrastructure networks of interest.
By Jacob Miller, Dr. Bill Kay, Patrick Mackey, Dr. Samrat Chatterjee
Multi-Layer Network PageRank for Critical Infrastructure Analysis →
“Terrorist groups are not only learning organizations. They are also calculating, rational actors who may perceive a change when the level of violence previously used is no longer effectively communicating their political message.”
By David W. Brannan
A Perfect Storm: Hamas Terrorist Escalation →
In this research note, the authors examine the utility of the new anti-government/anti-authority violent extremism category by comparing event-level characteristics of domestic terrorism incidents committed by AVEs, SCVEs, and MVEs.
By Michael K. Logan, Clara Braun, Seamus Hughes
Comparing Significant Acts of Anti-Government Violent Extremism: A Research Note →
The United States border remains a concern as the number of border crossings has drastically increased over the last few years, highlighting concerns about U.S. immigration policy and the simultaneous issues of international criminal activities.
By Michael K. Logan, Clara Braun, Seamus Hughes
Security on the Southern Border: What is the National Guard’s Role? →
“The intersection of AI and national security offers fertile ground for experts, pundits, and fear mongers alike. Scharre makes clear that it is the nature of the relationship between human and machine that will determine the ways in which AI will contribute to or erode the security of nations.”
By Daniel E. Levinson
A Review of Four Battlegrounds, Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Paul Scharre →
In his recently published book America’s New Map, Barnett refines and updates his prior theories and presents bolder and, some say, fantastical ideas that may strike some as grandiose. In contrast, others might find them visionary and thought-provoking.
By Daniel O’Connor
This article quantitatively analyzes risk of death by school shootings in the USA using data from 1900 to 2023 for the purpose of determining if school shootings are black swans.
By Ted G. Lewis
Are U.S.A. School Shootings Black Swans? →
The true threat at the heart of generative AI may lie not in the erosion of our ability to determine whether any one discrete image or video is real or not, but in finding ourselves in a place in which all norms around communication and our capability to navigate digital spaces have been completely undermined. It is not a pretty future, but it is one for which we must prepare, and Meikle’s book is a good place to start.
By Daniel E. Levinson
Daniel E. Levenson Reviews Deepfakes by Graham Meikle, Polity Press, 2023 →
I proffer that island residents’ very vulnerability, caused by geographic realities and their real or perceived exposure to hazards that are concomitant with state failure, triggers action to increase resiliency via shelter-in-place mitigation actions.
By Chris Ellis
The article analyzes problems stemming from a lack of effective planning and coordination between the Emergency Management community and the military in the event of a major war with a peer or near-peer competitor.
By Robert J. Roller
National Security Competition or Cooperation Preparing for 21st Century Threats →
