Steven Hart and James D. Ramsay ABSTRACT: Over 350 academic programs in the United States currently offer instruction in the field of homeland defense and security. In spite of this growth at the program level over the past ten years, there still exists a shortage of instructors and coursework in critical infrastructure protection (CIP). Traditional…
Volume VII
Letter to the Editor: Security for Artisans
Nick Catrantzos ABSTRACT: Nick Catrantzos reflects on today’s security professional and the protection business. SUGGESTED CITATION: Catrantzos, Nick. “Letter to the Editor: Security for Artisans.” Homeland Security Affairs 7, Article 8 (February 2011). https://www.hsaj.org/articles/580 Security is receptive to scientific advance, but is no field for scientists to dominate. The exigencies of protection are too fluid…
Changing Homeland Security: In 2010, Was Homeland Security Useful?
Christopher Bellavita ABSTRACT: What do the concept of homeland security and the intellectual program surrounding that concept contribute to the nation’s security? The failure of public safety disciplines to prevent the September 11, 2001 attack gave “homeland security” its chance to emerge as a competing paradigm for organizing the nation’s security. But the other disciplines…
With a Disaster, Pain is Inevitable, but Suffering is Optional
Sharon Caudle and Ernest Broussard Jr. ABSTRACT: Hurricane Ike’s winds and storm surge devastated rural coastal communities of Texas and Louisiana, many still recovering from severe damage caused by past Gulf Coast hurricanes, particularly Hurricane Rita in 2005. Rural coastal community leaders, still in the midst of repairing Hurricane Rita’s damage, faced swiftly restoring basic…
Twitter, Facebook, and Ten Red Balloons: Social Network Problem Solving and Homeland Security
Christopher M. Ford ABSTRACT: This essay, the winner of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) Essay Contest in 2010, looks at how homeland security could benefit from crowd-sourced applications accessed through social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook. Christopher M. Ford looks at the apparent efficacy of two such endeavors: the Defense…
Dual Status Command for No-Notice Events: Integrating the Military Response to Domestic Disasters
Ludwig J. Schumacher ABSTRACT: This article describes the history of the challenges in developing structures and processes to integrate military forces during domestic disaster response, and the recent progress made with regard to employing a Dual Status Command construct for no-notice events. Absent this recent initiative enabled by the Council of Governors, our nation would…
Americus, Georgia: The Case Study of Disasters Serving the Role of Facilitators and Expeditors of Progress and Betterment
Marc Hyden and Charley English ABSTRACT: It has long been debated whether a community is better off before or after being struck by a natural disaster. The aim of this study is to utilize the instance of Americus, Georgia, which was devastated by a tornado in 2007, as a case study to provide evidence for…
Terrorist to Tyrant
Thomas Myers ABSTRACT: Successful terrorist groups can evolve to gain national power. This article consists of three case studies: the overthrow of the Russian Czar, the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and Hezbollah’s rise to power in Lebanon. The three are compared in order to identify common stages in terrorist evolution. These stages are…
Baton Rouge Post-Katrina: The Role of Critical Infrastructure Modeling in Promoting Resilience
Laura Steinberg, Nicholas Santella, and Corrine Zoli ABSTRACT: The events of Hurricane Katrina have become a textbook example of system failures at multiple and intersecting levels. One unexplored dimension of this tragedy is the role of infrastructure performance data and modeling studies in aiding stakeholders in understanding this and future crises in order to promote…