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.
This article reports on an exploratory study on how senior military leaders perceive leadership during a crisis-disaster response in the U.S. Homeland, and the developmental experiences and activities they believe support effective leadership during highly complex civil support operations.
By William A. Denny
Senior Military Leadership in Domestic Operations: An Exploratory Study →
Government documents and academic articles focus on risk reduction and deterrence, sometimes simultaneously. With limited resources, how should CIKR stakeholders invest?
By Eric Taquechel
Risk Reduction and Deterrence: Two Sides of the Same Coin? →
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) guide emergency responders in a crisis, providing predetermined steps to manage anticipated events. Modern disasters, however, often manifest as complex systems—susceptible to nonlinear interactions and feedback in the environment that produce unanticipated outcomes.
By Shawn Harwood and Wayne Porter, Ph.D.
The Case for Adaptive SOPs in Complex Crises and Unpredictable Operating Environments →
Expanding cyber-domain conflicts challenge modern strategists to create definitive attribution standards for who did what to whom, especially in developing national policy.
By Mark T. Peters II, USAF, Retired
Book Review: Inside the Enemy’s Computer: Identifying Cyber-Attackers by Clement Guitton →
This article advances a series of propositions in support of developing a revised approach to confronting transnational criminal activity.
By Alan Bersin and Lars Karlsson
Palin develops fictional characters amalgamated from interviews and real-world experiences to describe varying supply chain concepts and effects during the post-Maria recovery. The result is an engaging, novel-like narrative that highlights the importance of post-disaster supply-chain resilience.
Reviewed by Kristopher Thornburg
Book Review: Out of the Whirlwind; Supply and Demand After Hurricane Maria by Philip J. Palin →
Since its relatively recent establishment, homeland security as an organizing concept for government services has received its share of criticism and scrutiny. David H. McIntyre attempts to address this problem head-on in his book How to Think About Homeland Security: The Imperfect Intersection of National Security and Public Safety
Reviewed by Caleb Cage
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stands as a pivotal federal actor in what must become one of the great turning-points in American history, facing two possible paths going forward: transformation or trivialization.
By Thomas P. M. Barnett
Capability Gaps Threatening CBP’s Present and Future Operations →
This book is a welcome addition to the rather small literature on domestic and homeland intelligence in the United States. It will interest more than just intelligence specialists, because Tromblay addresses broader homeland security issues, focusing especially on the FBI and DHS, and the book would serve as a useful introduction to those agencies.
Reviewed by Erik Dahl
Book Review: Spying: Assessing US Domestic Intelligence Since 9/11 By Darren E. Tromblay →
The United States has not had a comprehensive strategy to protect its civilian population and defense industrial base, or to mobilize and sustain the nation during time of war, in almost 25 years. Without an investment in these activities by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), America risks losing its next war with one or more major nation states.
By H. Quinton Lucie
How FEMA Could Lose America’s Next Great War →
