Liberty University
HLSC-610 Understanding Terrorism and Homeland Security
Discussion Board One
Professor Richards
Understanding Homeland Security
The purpose of homeland security means different things to different groups of people.
Our text defines homeland security as “a concerted national effort to prevent terrorist attacks
within the United States, reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, and recover from and
minimize the damage of attacks that do occur” (McEntire 2019, p.12). Homeland security has
different meanings to citizens, scholars, elected officials and the military. Despite their different
views, homeland security’s goal is to prevent terrorist attacks and respond to attacks should they
occur. Homeland security includes six different mission areas, they are: intelligence, border and
transportation security, domestic counterterrorism, protecting critical infrastructure, defending
against catastrophic threat, and emergency preparedness and response (McEntire, 2019). In
order to accomplish the missions of homeland security, certain disciplines are focused on to
establish a knowledge base, those disciplines are international relations, criminal justice, public
administration, and public health (McEntire, 2019). Other disciplines play a role in homeland
security, but these four are the foundation. Emergency Management plays a large role in
homeland security. Emergency preparedness is one of the six mission areas of homeland
security, also the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is one of 22 organizations
that make up the Department of Homeland Security (McEntire, 2019). The field of emergency
management focuses on how to prevent or react to various types of disasters, which includes
preventing and responding to terrorism. Emergency management has four phases mitigation,
preparedness, response, and recovery. There are 22 different federal agencies that make up the
Department of Homeland Security some of those agencies are Customs and Border Protection,
FEMA, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the Coast Guard. Due to the broad
scope of missions that each of these organizations has, I think homeland security should
encompass an all-hazards approach, which includes terrorism. Psalm 122:7 says “Peace be
within your walls and security within your towers.” Homeland security is the nations walls and
towers and its job is to defend it at all costs.
References
Mara, W. (2017). Homeland security. Ann Arbor: Cherry Lake Publishing.
McEntire, D. A. (2019). Introduction to homeland security: understanding terrorism prevention and
emergency management. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Phillips, B. D., Neal, D. M., & Webb, G. R. (2017). Introduction to emergency management. Boca
Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group.
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