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.
Much of the media-pundit and popular analysis that has followed the death of al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has focused on how his death will affect the outcome of the war in Iraq. However, the emphasis on outcome is not the right approach.
By Donald Reed
On Killing al-Zarqawi—Does United States Policy Know its Tools in the War on Terror? →
This article asks if the threat of violence by right-wing extremists, including their possible deployment of weapons of mass destruction, has been neutralized.
By Timothy G. Baysinger
Right-wing Group Characteristics and Ideology →
Anecdotal evidence suggests mistakes are repeated incident after incident. It appears that while identifying lessons is relatively straightforward, true learning is much harder.
By Amy Donahue and Robert Tuohy
While expert risk analyses are based on calculations of probability and damage, public estimates of risk are more often based on qualitative factors. It is important to understand how the public, not just homeland security experts, perceive and react to the threat of terrorism.
By Clinton M. Jenkin
Risk Perception and Terrorism: Applying the Psychometric Paradigm →
This article analyses the National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism issued on February 1, 2006 by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
By Nadav Morag
The National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism: An Assessment →
As the United States enters the twenty-first century, the biggest threat to the national security of the U.S. is terrorist organizations.
By Steve Ressler
Social Network Analysis as an Approach to Combat Terrorism: Past, Present, and Future Research →
Homeland security is in a pre-paradigm phase as a professional discipline. There are at least four dozen ways colleges, universities, agencies, and textbook publishers have conceptualized homeland security education. A review of the principal themes presented by those entities identified over fifty topics that come under the rubric of “Homeland Security.”
By Christopher Bellavita and Ellen Gordon
Changing Homeland Security: Teaching the Core →
This article describes the approach approved in the DOD-HLS Joint Operating Concept (HLS JOC) that describes how DOD intends to perform its responsibilities associated with securing the homeland, to include homeland defense and civil support missions, and supporting emergency preparedness planning activities.
By Thomas Goss
“Who’s in Charge?” New Challenges in Homeland Defense and Homeland Security →
In reorganizing homeland defense after 9/11, the government had three options: White House control, power sharing between agencies, or congressional control.
By Charles Perrow
The Disaster after 9/11: The Department of Homeland Security and the Intelligence Reorganization →
The technological ability to distinguish drug plants from other plant types has important implications for law enforcement (LE), wildfire recovery, reservoir protection, environmental impact, agricultural issues, and military concerns. This ability, termed “deconvolution,” can be a valuable technological tool to fight drug trafficking and thus the war on terror.
By James Tindall
