Download the full issue. The July 2006 issue of Homeland Security Affairs offers articles about risk perception, domestic right wing extremist groups, social network analysis, and the impact of foreign policy on homeland security. It also features two articles that question conventional perspectives about the meaning of “lessons learned” and about the appropriate role of…
Issue 2 (Vol II)
Changing Homeland Security: What Should Homeland Security Leaders Be Talking About?
Christopher Bellavita ABSTRACT: There is little political will to substantially alter the organizational and programmatic system that characterizes U.S. homeland security. The system we have is the one we have to work with, at least until something significant happens: another attack, a catastrophic natural disaster, a national public health emergency, or a new political administration.…
On Killing al-Zarqawi – Does United States Policy Know its Tools in the War on Terror?
Donald Reed ABSTRACT: 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. Al-Zarqawi’s death serves a greater strategic purpose both…
Right-wing Group Characteristics and Ideology
Timothy G. Baysinger ABSTRACT: In the post 9-11 world, terrorism has been primarily associated with the external threat from radical Islamic extremists. Prior to September 11, 2001 the single most destructive weapon of mass destruction in the United States was the Ryder truck bomb built by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Both McVeigh and Nichols…
Lessons We Don’t Learn: A Study of the Lessons of Disasters, Why We Repeat Them, and How We Can Learn Them
Amy Donahue and Robert Tuohy ABSTRACT: Emergency responders intervene before and during disasters to save lives and property. The uncertainty and infrequency of disasters make it hard for responders to validate that their response strategies will be effective, however. As a result, emergency response organizations use processes for identifying and disseminating lessons in hopes that…
Social Capital: Dealing with Community Emergencies
Russell Dynes ABSTRACT: Terrorism produces what is conventionally called disaster. The locus of the response to disaster is the community, which as a unit has the social capital necessary to respond to disasters. The six forms of social capital referenced in this article are obligations and expectations, informational potential, norms and effective sanctions, authority relations,…
Risk Perception and Terrorism: Applying the Psychometric Paradigm
Clinton M. Jenkin ABSTRACT: 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. Risk perception research in general, and the…
The National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism: An Assessment
Nadav Morag ABSTRACT: 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. The article claims that the strategic plan is flawed for three reasons: 1) its goals are unclear and unrealistic, 2) policy implementation is primarily dependent…
Social Network Analysis as an Approach to Combat Terrorism: Past, Present, and Future Research
Steve Ressler ABSTRACT: As the United States enters the twenty-first century, the biggest threat to the national security of the U.S. is terrorist organizations. These are primarily decentralized structures that consist of a series of loosely connected individuals forming around an ideology. The U.S is unable to combat this opponent with traditional, hierarchical approaches to…