Dynamic Global Operations

While the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is one, centralized agency, securing the homeland involves the cooperation and collaboration of many, different agencies and organizations ranging from local law enforcement to national agencies such as the NSA, CIA, and FBI. Each of these agencies contributes to the development of homeland security intelligence. By carefully analyzing and commenting on the objectives, tasks, strengths, weaknesses, and roles of each agency, a larger picture emerges regarding the capabilities and limitation of intelligence in supporting homeland security efforts.

Good evening to all. I hope all is well this week. As many of you have stated, I thought I had a descent grasp of the United States Intelligence oversight. However, to my surprise I found that I actually did not have as good of an understanding as I thought. My shortcoming was in understanding just how convoluted the system is. The system has evolved over the years just as many things do. However, the system still has a long way to go before it’s as effective as it could be. Former Under Secretary Charles Allen noted that “virtually any terrorist attack on the homeland that one can imagine must exploit a border crossing, a port of entry, a critical infrastructure, or one of the other domains that the department has an obligation to

The United States from the Cold War and into the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) continues to face challenges in translating military might into political desires due to its obsession with raising an army, electing politicians and assembling a diplomatic corp that continue to gravitate towards State-to-State engagements that if not rectified could lead to substantial delays in fighting terrorism and non-terrorist adversaries or worse total failure of the United States Military’s ability to properly carry out it’s politicians objectives due to being blindsided.

The 9/11 attacks opened the avenue for a scrutiny of the performance and ability of the intelligence community to detect any threats to the safety of the United States. The media, politicians, reformists and other interested parties would not comprehend how such an attack would happen without the knowledge of the intelligence community. However, it is important to consider the fact that the attack was one of its kind and could not be approached with the resources and expertise used in other initiative such as the cold war. Therefore, the need to restructure the intelligence community arose from the view that it was still operating in the mindset and spirit of the cold war even in the modern era that had seen a revolutionary change of warfare

The United States have been sending numerous military units to different parts of the world to sustain survivability of other nations that are American allies. Countries that are part of United Nations have been combined force that if there is a situation around the world, all the nations including the United States will meet up and decide what the corrective action to resolve the issue is. The United States military has been in so many conflicts with other countries that to the point that many of them becomes our allies. Many agencies ae trying to continue to gather information on potential terrorist or attacks before they can happen and without the proper relationships between the federal agencies, this will continue to be a complete failure.

The threat environment has expanded from a strategic, nuclear, symmetrical threat from bombers, ICBMs, and air-or-sea-launched cruise missiles, to a continuing symmetrical threat in addition to an emergent asymmetric threat, focused across all domains, borders and agencies. Accordingly, our political leaders recognized a need to transform the military for a new ‘home game’. United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) was established to assume responsibility for the defence of the US homeland, and this new Command was tasked to provide military assistance to civil authorities (MACA).

The defense, security, and safety American citizens enjoy each and every day is a result of dedicated professionals committed to Homeland Security and Homeland Defense. These broad initiatives require well-defined missions, organized and focused tasking, and finally, clearly understood duties, responsibilities, and operations. Organizations charged with these responsibilities must be better resourced than those of the enemy. Success in each of these objectives requires a well-organized infrastructure with clear mission sets. The afore mentioned areas of responsibility, related planning, and resource/personnel management are fluid (rightfully so) and are constantly reevaluated, restructured, and/or reinforced to best counterattack our Nation’s vulnerabilities before they become casualties.

On September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda operatives executed a violent and lethal terrorist attack against the United States. The attacks against the north and south towers of the World Trade Center, United Airlines flight 93, and the Pentagon, have collectively been deemed the deadliest terrorist attack to take place on American soil in the history of the United States. The appalling attacks against New York City and the nation’s capital triggered an immediate assessment of the intelligence community, existing anti-terrorism policies and methodologies, and the overall structure of the United States intelligence community. More specifically, the federal government began to assess its existing capabilities to ensure domestic homeland security and enhance the security posture of the United States. An array of after-action reports indicated that communication and collaboration between varying government agencies was limited and very difficult to navigate. More specifically, intelligence agencies were extremely restricted and compartmentalized and as a result of such lapses, Al Qaeda was successful in their attack planning and execution. Although there has been a recognizable improvement in communication throughout the intelligence community, the United States must evolve and

The attack on the World Trade Center was not the first attack and was not the first time the US Intelligence Community had heard of Al-Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden. The role of counterintelligence from both sides the US and Al-Qaeda, lent to the information flow not only form the attackers but also to the ones who would ultimately respond. The FBI, the CIA, the DIA, have integral parts in these series of events from the information collection to the information flow. In a time where it was realized that Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism have a similar need, as well as information sharing across agencies, have led to the CI and IC we see today.

Subsequent to 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center (WTC), which compelled the U.S. to imagine the inconceivable, because that day things went really wrong. That was the day that terrorist decided to make their presences know by attacking us. They evolved from using bombs to using airplanes to deliver as their attack weapon because it would cause lethal fatalities on U.S. soil. This was never done before and we were not prepared to handle such a massive attack. This paper will investigate what went wrong before and after 9/11, surveillance surge, and what was the problem, with the CIA and the FBI regarding communication with each other, the dissemination of information to first responders, and recommendation for changes to policies that are obsolete. We understand that local law enforcement and state agencies will bring specific advantages (their strength) from their organizations, and they will also bring their inherited weaknesses. But, they will also bring one important thing to the table which is, how they collect local intelligence; and being able to address some of their organization’s weaknesses, and how they can fully use any data they collect before and after 9/11. This paper builds and contributes to how things were before and after 9/11, and the types of changes that were made in law enforcement, CIA.,

Prior to 9/11, the structural framework of the U.S. national security apparatus was based on “organizational stovepiping.” In other words, various government agencies pursued their own goals and objectives in the absence of any real measure of synchronicity and outside of a larger strategic context. The lack of synchronization among government agencies was the main cause of the inability of the U.S. national security apparatus to prevent the 9/11 terror attacks from taking place. This is evidenced by the fact that the 9/11 Commission cited deficiencies in information-sharing and coordination among government agencies, both of which are essential to strategic agency synchronization, as the primary reasons

A safe homeland is the country’s first main concern and is important to the successful implementation of its military policy. The United States military will persist to play a critical part in safeguarding the homeland because of military missions overseas and by implementing homeland defense and civil support duties and maintaining emergency preparedness planning actions. Though, it is important to realize the difference involving the part the Department of Defense (DOD) plays with regard to national security and the part Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as lead federal agency (LFA) for Homeland Security (HLS), as outlined in the National Strategy for Homeland Security. With this example in mind, this defines the tactic appropriate

All the infrastructures of this country have been subjected to utilize the modern communication system exploited by terrorist networks. The National Security Agency, the FBI, and the Counterterrorist Center for the CIA are behind in a game that playing catch up in is very critical and expensive when citizens amongst military targets are fair game (JMIC, 2002). Authority and command consist of the supervision of personnel in addition to the tools to be used to achieve the inclusive objective. Worldwide to every authority post are three universal actions that consist of inputs, procedures, and outputs. The input part is communications that are normally intelligence or other data created through reports from the field elements or operatives. Furthermore, the procedure portion consist of making decisions about what should be done about the data received from the circumstances and progress reports (McClung & Rainey, PH.Ds, 2001).

The Diplomatic, Informational, Military, and Economic (DIME) are the four instruments of National Power. The United States Government (USG) uses the DIME to address advance USG interests to prevent war. These elements incorporate an all-inclusive range of national power. Governmental agencies use these tools when developing or refining strategies. The diplomatic instrument is led by the Department of State (DOS) and the ability to negotiate, influence, relate, and gain agreement with international organizations, foreign countries, and non-governmental entities. The informational instrument is the USG’s ability to communicate using interconnected global networks and many other methods relaying our national intent. The employment of the Informational

In the coming future the use and application of Information Operations are going to be necessary in order to ensure that the legitimacy of the United States operations in both the military and national security applications are reinforced. (Richter 2009, 1) The need for Information Operations has been seen throughout the history of the operations themselves, and has led to many successes as well as some failures in their use. (Richter 2009, 1) What has a greater reaching importance to the future regarding Information Operations, are the enemies that are being faced today as well as the potential future. Counterinsurgency operations have become a large encompassing operational threat seen in the past decade as well as the Vietnam War. What has