Liberty University
HLSC 610: Understanding Terrorism and Homeland Security
The Nexus of Homeland Security and Terrorism
Dr. Melvin Richards
10 March 2023
Introduction
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Looking throughout the history of terrorism you have many factors that stick out to the
common person. First, is that with all of the attacks why are there so many that are innocents by
standards of injury and killed? Terrorism is a means of creating fear in the public eye by also in
the same sense creating hatred. Even with all of the resources of the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), they are not able to complete the task of preventing terrorist attacks. This still
hasn’t stopped the DHS from trying to prevent the attacks they have been able to figure out
before they happen. This is because of the ability to be able to use all of the phases of emergency
management. These phases of emergency management have consistent of mitigating, preparing,
responding, and recovering. Which are able to help with past, present, and future attacks that
could happen to anyone.
Overview of Terrorism
When looking at the overview of terrorism one might ask themselves what terrorism is.
All over the books and the world wide web, there are hundreds of different definitions of what
terrorism is, but the DHS has made one most people would agree is the outright version it should
be. The DHS states that any activity that “involves an act that is dangerous to human life or
potentially destructive of critical infrastructure or key resources; and is a violation of the criminal
laws of the United States or any State or other subdivision of the United States and appears to be
intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population” (McEntire, 2018, pg.32). Which is nothing
but a way to hurt people and put fear into them for whatever message that the terrorist group is
pushing. This is shown in many different ways that these groups believe that have in hurting the
people they want to attack by any means necessary such as cyber or physical attacks (Dai, Rau,
P. et. al., 2020). The more recent kinds of attacks are not all on the battlefield, but some have
been happening all around the internet with cyber-attacks on the financial side and the data
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breaching side (Fox, S., 2016). With the growth of terrorists over the years both domestic and
foreign we have seen a small increase in these attacks growing (Dooley, D., 2015). The different
organizations have been doing their best to stop the attacks before they happen such as the DHS
does on a daily basis.
Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security is one of the federal government agencies that
was created to keep the public safe from many different kinds of safety concerns. The primary
goal is to prevent attacks from happening to the United States and help keep any to all terrorists
from the boards (McEntire, 2018). Many have also looked at the DHS in ways thinking that they
have different job sets, such as the public only thinking that they only fight terrorists. Others
such as elected officials see that DHS is for board control for the most part. But in the end, the
DHS has many different jobs set under its umbrella.
The Department of Homeland Security was only created back in 2001 shortly after the
September 11 attacks. This was because the DHS took over many different agencies that were in
the federal government but had so many different directors. One was the U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, which does what many think the DHS's primary job is to protect the borders
from illegal immigrate and terrorists. Another one is the one agency that people don’t put with
DHS is Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Over the years we have seen that
FEMA has done more and more in the job field such as all disaster management. Most noticeable
was the job during hurricane Katrina, some may say that it was not enough what they did. The
DHS has worked over many years on fixing the problems of all of its small branches that would
make the United States safer through a few different strategies. The main strategy is to use the
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complete disaster life cycle in emergency management. This would include mitigation,
preparation, response, and recovery in all different areas.
Mitigation
The life cycle of emergency management mitigation is on piece of the puzzle that is very
important. The way mitigation is supposed to be done is after the recovery of a disaster agencies
look at what was affected by the disaster and try to prevent it from happening again (FEMA,
2013). This is done by reducing the risk of what areas are deemed to have a potential weak spot.
In the case of flood zone where could they create damns or levees. With terrorist the way that
mitigations usually happens is after a attack happens. This is done to prevent other ones from
potentially being worse sometimes. Best case scenario is that information could be found on a
potential attack and fix the holes before it happens. Mitigation when it comes to terrorist is one
of the hardest things to do because there are so many outcomes that could happen.
Structural and Non-Structural Mitigation Strategies
When it comes to mitigation there are two kinds of mitigation to decide which one is best
for your situation. First is structural mitigation, which deals with many different elements that
can be fixed with structural improvements. An upgraded window or a newer security system with
better perimeter security to name a few. This structural mitigation will not fully stop any terrorist
attacks but can help limit the damage done by any of them. The non-structural mitigation can be
seen in other kinds of ways such as more planning or more security guards to name a few. These
kinds of mitigation can not end terrorist attacks but can help by limiting the affects of them also
like structural mitigation (McEntire, 2018).
Preparedness
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When thinking of preparedness people often wonder what the full way is to be
completely ready. To be prepared you need to know what it fully means and which actions are
necessary to the degree that catastrophe prevention efforts have failed or are ineffective. The
objective is to build or improve a community's capacity to launch a successful emergency
response. In other words, anticipate foreseeable issues and outline viable fixes to lessen the
effects of terrorist attacks or avert them altogether. Lessening the effects of terrorist attacks might
lessen interruptions to individuals' daily lives, but more crucially, it can save loss of life, injuries,
and property damage.
With all of the preparedness you can try to come up with, there is always a newer way to
do things. In many services of the public, they have to complete pre-incident planning for all
available buildings. This is because it is always good to have a plan for things before it happens
because in some cases you could overlook the things that are needed the most. In the fire service,
it could be a closer fire hydrant or in law enforcement, it could be a larger potential target area.
With also preparedness you see that different systems could be put into place with training for
the employees or a better warning device. This is for all that might be affected by any potential
attack that could harm anyone. The education for the employees could make some of them first
responders in the facility. It is seen in areas where a bucket brigade is still needed, like a clothing
factory. Or in many cases these days a battery factory still pays extra to employees that are a part
of the bucket brigade. All of these different implements have been seen to help out the
preparedness in many different fields. Such as public services are able to fix problems before
they happen or fix them as they are happening.
Response
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Responding to an emergency is a big subject to many because of the different working
piece involved when it comes to an incident. Every different department is a working cog in the
overall machine that uses comes together from time to time to allow the machine to fix the
problem. Looking at the way some responses need only one area to fix the problem can
sometimes be overwhelming for the main responding department. This is why for large incidents
you will see the full machine in the area instead of just one department. At a large disaster scene,
you may need help to complete the task of search and rescue, mass feeding, and medical care.
With the larger the scene there is always a possibility that the attackers are using it for other
agendas.
Unlike most different disasters that DHS has to deal with a terrorist attack is one of the
harder things to deal with. Like the other disaster you have the feeding and rescuing going on but
also when it comes to a terrorist attack you have to deal with everything that is evidence. Within
the public service agency, many of them do some kind of pre-incident planning on events or
areas. These could include only tabletop events to a full-on scale mass casualty event that
happens every so often. Full-scale events can be good for one reason to see what is needed to
stabilize a scene to understand what else might be needed (FEMA, 2019). The different
origination can show what other resources could be used that some do not think about at the
time. They are many different ways to measure the way that a full-scale event went can be done
by many different ways, but FEMA has used the National Response Framework (NRF) This way
of measurement is done because they can develop the way things need to be done in any event.
When communities are able to do a large-scale event can help all agencies get to practice when a
real disaster happens it could possibly help with not wondering what everyone's job is and is able
to work more smoother.
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Recovery
When it comes to the recovery phase of the life cycle this is what many will think about
trying to get back to normal. Both short-term and long-term recovery efforts are part of the
emergency management recovery phase which many only see the short-term effort. Activities
that would restore essential community lifelines to the bare minimum operational criteria are
included in short-term recovery efforts which could get the bare necessities back to the work
order. Damage assessments, disaster declarations, debris cleanup, mass fatality management, and
crisis counseling for persons impacted by the terrorist incident are some of these tasks (FEMA,
2019). Long-term recovery initiatives involve requesting funds to include any federal or state
grants, or loans for reconstruction to ease the afflicted community's financial burdens and enable
it to rebuild and reestablish some semblance of normalcy. With the national disaster framework,
the recovery phase has to be done in different ways. This is because some areas have to take
priority over others because of the intensive damage done. This time that every group involved
or needs to be involved will have to put in some effort to complete the mission at hand.
With the National Disaster Recovery Framework, the FEMA agency lists eight different
ways that need to be done to support the survivor. First, there needs to be some kind of family
empowerment which could include the fact that everyone in the community needs to be taken
care of just like everyone else. Next, there needs to be some kind of leadership in place for
people can figure out what is going on and what needs to be done next. After that, there needs to
be some kind of pre-disaster recovery planning done to help establish the order of presidents.
The next two elements are to engage in partnership and unity of effort which needs to rely on
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each and every one putting the effort forward. Then looking through all of the elements you need
to keep timeliness and flexibility on everything and resilience because good timeliness can help
get the resilience back to normal. Last but not least psychological and emotional recovery is one
of the hardness because everyone does it differently (FEMA, 2016).
Biblical Perspective
No matter what any country does there will be always a fear of terrorist attacks that could
happen to any of them because of how someone feels differently. It is not always out of hatred
but some will believe it is out of their own religion. This is because people will use words out of
context to help their agenda. They are many books in the bible that will help you defend how you
can help the public. Thinking of the scripture of Romans 12:21,” do not be overcome by evil, but
overcome evil with good” (ESV, 2016). This is one way when a terrorist attack happens not to
hate a culture for a few misguided people. The good book is to guide us in the good times and the
bad to get us back to the good times.
Conclusion
As long as terrorists have the opportunity to do so, terrorism will continue to develop.
The connection between national security and terrorism has highlighted the need for global
cooperation from allies in the fight against terrorism. Only when steps are taken to safeguard our
borders, encourage law enforcement cooperation, and enhance partnerships with allies in the
event of an attack can successful homeland security strategies be maintained. Homeland security
and emergency management will continue to be the country's top priorities until then.
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References
Dai, Rau, P. R., Stouraitis, A., & Tan, W. (2020). An ill wind? Terrorist attacks and CEO
compensation. Journal of Financial Economics, 135(2), 379–398.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2019.06.005
Dooley, D. (2015). Stemming the growth: Exploring the risk factors in group membership in
domestic street gangs and foreign terrorist organizations. Homeland Security Affairs,
FEMA. (2013). Mitigation ideas. FEMA.gov. 1-88.
https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/fema-mitigation-ideas_02-13-2013.pdf
FEMA. (2016). National disaster recovery framework. Second Edition. | FEMA.gov.
https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020
06/national_disaster_recovery_framework_2nd.pdf
Fox, S. J. (2016). Flying challenges for the future: Aviation preparedness – in the face of cyber-
terrorism. Journal of Transportation Security, 9(3-4), 191-218.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12198-016-0174-1
English Standard Version Bible. (2016). EVC Online. https://esv.literalword.com/ (Original work
published 2001)
McEntire, D. A. (2018). Introduction to homeland security, 2nd Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf
version]. Retrieved from vbk://9781119430636
National disaster recovery framework. FEMA.gov. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2023, from
https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/national-preparedness/frameworks/recovery
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U.S. Department of Homeland Security [DHS]. (2021). Mission. Retrieved on August 10, 2022.
https://www.dhs.gov/mission
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA].
(2011). Buildings and infrastructure protection series, Reference manual
to mitigate potential terrorist attacks against buildings (FEMA-426/BIPS-
06). U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate,
Infrastructure Protection and Disaster Management Division.
https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/st/st-bips-06.pdf
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA].
(2019). National response framework. Fourth Edition. (1-51). FEMA.gov.
https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/NRF_FINALApproved_2011028.pdf
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