Comparative U.S.-Israeli Homeland Security
Abstract : This report examines the premise that there are lessons from Israeli experience that might enhance the United States' homeland security efforts. The research for this study included a literature review and field interviews with American and Israeli leaders in Washington, D.C., and Israel during the summer of 2005. The report addresses the common and unique threats facing each state and related homeland security issues and policies. It begins with the threats experienced by each nation, examining the respective homeland security organizational structures and ways of preventing attacks and responding to attacks that do occur. The report then compares each country's homeland security program. Where appropriate, personal observations derived from the authors' interviews in each country are included. The final section addresses a series of lessons the United States might consider in its efforts to improve its homeland security, as well as a discussion of where it might not be advantageous or feasible to follow the Israeli model. The United States and Israel each face a number of threats to their homeland -- some shared, some unique to each state. Some threats common to both the United States and Israel include the following: Terrorism and the Global War on Terror, State Aggression by Sovereign Powers, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Trans-Border Issues. The report discusses the organizational structures that the United States and Israel employ to respond to threats, the countries' efforts at preventing terrorist attacks, and comparative efforts to respond to an attack. The research and field interviews conducted by the authors to identify lessons from Israeli experience resulted in the following recommendations: know your adversary, interagency cooperation, tight internal security, profiling, protected spaces, barriers, information sharing, public education, offensive military action, security decision making, compromise and appeasement, and advanced technology.
Democracy and National Security
The involvement of the broad popular masses in the political process, and the molding of social movements and initiatives into formal organizations gives substance to the process of democratization. Political relations grow more complicated, and the solution of problems of managing society at times acquire a conflictual character. Public initiatives encounter barriers and obstacles of different kinds as they unfold. Contradictions arise with increasing frequency not only in regard to socioeconomic matters, but also in culture and ideology. Modern life has, we think, sharply posed the question of political culture and the limits of democratization of social relations, i.e., democratic standards and their realization. Of course, a low level of political culture not only makes it impossible to enjoy the undisputed merits of democracy, but also often reveals its costs. Under these conditions, a correct understanding of the relationship between democracy and national security is of basic importance. In our vie...
Recent Trends and Future Prospects of Terrorism in the United States
Abstract : This report examines recent trends and future prospects of terrorism in the United States and assesses their implications for the possibility of a terrorist group attempting an act of nuclear terrorism involving either the theft of a weapons system or strategic nuclear material or an attack on a weapons facility. An emerging trend of ideologically motivated terrorism by groups espousing white supremacist and anti-federalist beliefs or opposing specific issues such as abortion has largely supplanted the ethnic centered violence that dominated earlier domestic terrorist activity. The threat to U.S. nuclear weapons facilities from unknown terrorist groups in this country cannot be considered high at this time. There is no evidence to suggest that any of the organizations reviewed in this study have seriously contemplated a nuclear- related act, nor is there any indication that any group is poised to undertake such an attack in the future. Nevertheless, trends in the terrorist activities of certain groups must be considered in the context of possible operations directed against nuclear weapons sites. Members of these groups are considerably more skilled with weapons than are other terrorist in this country, they possess large stockpiles of sophisticated weapons, they are well trained guerrilla warfare and survival techniques, and they possess an apocalyptic vision of the future-factors that make them the most likely domestic terrorists to attempt an act of nuclear terrorism. In sum, while the volume of annual terrorist incidents in the United States is relatively small, the emerging trends merit intensive and continuing attention.