Download the full issue. December 2011 The articles published in December 2011 look at the future of homeland security and suggest a new method for assessing past effectiveness. Rapid advances in technology have created a highly disruptive environment for homeland security, empowering small groups or individuals in new and unpredictable ways. Responding to the power…
Volume VII
Application of Social Network Analysis Methods to Quantitatively Assess Exercise Coordination
Yee San Su ABSTRACT: Previous failures in effective, large-scale disaster response (e.g., Hurricane Katrina) are often traced to failures in effective coordination. As evidenced in after-action reports, however, assessments of coordination performance are still largely anecdotal in nature. Network analysis is a possible means to develop quantitative metrics for coordination assessment. In this paper, two…
The Power of “the Few”: A Key Strategic Challenge for the Permanently Disrupted High-Tech Homeland Security Environment
Rodrigo Nieto-Gómez ABSTRACT: This article argues for a new organizational approach to homeland security, designed to confront the challenges of a highly disrupted environment in a more efficient way. Initially, it explains how the accelerating pace of innovation creates a set of homeland security challenges that empower small groups or individuals – “the few” –…
Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security
John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart ABSTRACT: The cumulative increase in expenditures on U.S. domestic homeland security over the decade since 9/11 exceeds one trillion dollars. It is clearly time to examine these massive expenditures applying risk assessment and cost-benefit approaches that have been standard for decades. Thus far, officials do not seem to have…
Homeland Security in Real-Time: The Power of the Public and Mobile Technology
Andrew Heighington ABSTRACT: In the world of homeland security, mobile phones are too often viewed as detonation devices rather than vital communication mechanisms to prevent terrorist attacks from occurring. It takes collective intelligence from federal, state, and local entities, as well as the public, to prevent terrorist attacks. Mobile technology empowers collective intelligence in ways…
Special Report: Key Issues from the UAPI Continental Security Conference
Stanley Supinski, Philip Treglia, Donna Cayson, and Jeffrey Burkett ABSTRACT: The University and Agency Partnership Initiative (UAPI) of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security conducted its first ever Continental Security Conference (CSC) on December 7/8, 2010 in Colorado Springs. The event brought together participants from Canada, Mexico, and the United States, and focused on…
National Preparedness Requirements: Harnessing Management System Standards
Sharon Caudle ABSTRACT: This article argues for a fundamental change in national preparedness guidelines and their requirements from centralized to decentralized governance using management system standards. The federal government’s national preparedness requirements encompassed in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Preparedness Guidelines should be replaced by the application of national or international preparedness management…
Letter to the Editor: Social Determinants of Community Preparedness and Resiliency
Paul A. Biedrzycki ABSTRACT: Paul A. Biedrzycki discusses the social determinants of community health. SUGGESTED CITATION: Biedrzycki, Paul A.. “Letter to the Editor: Social Determinants of Community Preparedness and Resiliency.” Homeland Security Affairs 7, Article 12 (April 2011). https://www.hsaj.org/articles/581 Understanding the social determinants of community health is frequently discussed these days in public health circles…
Protecting Sensitive Information: The Virtue of Self-Restraint
Dallas Boyd ABSTRACT: An abundance of information that could be useful to terrorists is available in the open literature. This information, unclassified but nonetheless sensitive, includes risk assessments that identify infrastructure vulnerabilities, analyses that hypothesize creative attacks, and otherwise dangerous knowledge that is released under the rubric of scientific openness or the public’s “right to…
Preparedness Exercises 2.0: Alternative Approaches to Exercise Design That Could Make Them More Useful for Evaluating — and Strengthening — Preparedness
Brian A. Jackson and Shawn McKay ABSTRACT: Preparedness exercises play central roles in both the building and assessment of organizational readiness for future incidents. Though processes for designing and evaluating exercises are well established, there are opportunities to improve the value of exercises for strengthening preparedness and as tools for gathering assessment data. This article…