Terrorism Decision Making Analysis

The 1776 united States of America Declaration of Independence contain the words that succinctly describe our national objective, strategy, and message, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In today’s United States of America, the world acknowledges American’s as the preeminent owner of individual freedoms, holding and promoting these three basic principles for some 240 years. During these years, the U.S. has employed the use of intelligence to shape its objectives and strategies, and then in times of war used the same intelligence to shape strategic messages against foreign powers. However, as hostilities decline and give way to the restoration of relative peace, the use of intelligence for strategic messages against foreign powers ceases. Under these circumstances, the void created by secession of U.S. messages, provides a communication opportunity to foreign powers for transmission of anti-U.S. messages. Attempts have been made to reinstate the offices that during war countered these anti-U.S. messages to a comprehensive reorganization of the U.S Government intelligence community. This paper does not support creation of a new agency or department to utilize existing strategic intelligence.

The Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. is mandated to deal with terrorism problem that has a long history in the U.S. Terrorism has been a threat to U.S. security since the 1800. Terrorists continue to use powerful secret communication strategies and unexpected tools to achieve their intention in the U.S. soil. For example, the 9/11 terrorism attack that killed the highest number of American citizens in history succeeded because terrorist used hijacked passenger planes to perform the attack (Lutz and Lutz, 2013). Although the most notorious terrorism activity in the U.S. soil was performed by Islamic extremist, several other groups among them black militancy, anti-liberal, anti-government, Jewish extremist, fascist extremists, and Palestinian militancy among others have been reportedly caused a terrorist activity in the U.S. in the past and their continued existence still remain a major threat to the U.S. security (Lutz and Lutz, 2013). The counter-terrorism policy administered through the Bureau of Counterterrorism aims at partnering with local security agents, multilateral organizations, non-state actors and foreign governments to defeat local and global terrorism. The policy employs high level of coordinated strategies in securing international partnership to document and monitor and act appropriately to Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) as emerging organizations that coordinate international terrorist

The Central Intelligence Agency, hereafter referred to as the CIA, is one of the most well-known and fascinating intelligence agencies throughout the world. For the most part, when the CIA comes up in the news, it is to report that the agency failed in doing something. This paper will analyze different successes and failures of well-known operations of the CIA. The successes that will be analyzed are Operation Argo and the killing of Osama Bin Ladin. Operation Argo has recently become well known due to a movie being released about the operation. The killing of Osama Bin Ladin is probably the most popular case that the CIA had completed due to its significance in a time when the United States was quite vulnerable. This paper will review these two successes of the agency and analyze how these missions were successful and why. The two failures that will be discussed are the attacks on September 11, 2001 and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 are crucial to the American people and to the Intelligence Community. It is important to analyze these attacks in order to figure out what, if anything, could have been done differently that may have prevented these attacks from occurring. The Bay of Pigs Invasion is an infamous failure of the United States as well as the CIA in which many mistakes were made. The CIA plays an essential role in the safety of the United States and its people. Due to its high importance, it is crucial to

The government’s response to the September 11, 2001 events was quick and decisive. Government officials attributed responsibility for the attack to Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization. One result was an announced policy shift from deterrence to preemption, generally referred to as the “Bush Doctrine.” (National Security Strategy, [http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html].) Given the potential consequences of terrorist attacks employing weapons of mass destruction, government decision makers felt that the nation could not afford to sit back, wait for attacks to occur, and then respond. The nation was mobilized; combating terrorism and crippling Al Qaeda became top national priorities. The use of military force against different terrorist groups and infrastructure gained increasing acceptance in Government policy circles. In addition, a February 14, 2003, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030214-7.html] gave more emphasis to the role of international cooperation, law enforcement and economic development in countering terrorism.

The Testimony of Cofer Black, the Director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center from 1999-2002, greatly affected my thinking about the domestic intelligence ‘failures’ which led to the inability to foresee or prevent the 9/11 attacks. His testimony, paired with both concurring and clashing views from the 9/11 Commission Report, gave a persuasive ‘defense’ of the intelligence community’s actions and capabilities before September 11, 2001. Three of Black 's ‘agreements’ were particularly influential towards my understanding. First, Black presented a strong argument that the inefficiency of counterterrorism had much to do with pre-9/11 domestic priorities, which left those involved with fighting terrorism, including those acts

The Intelligence Community is a cooperative federation of sixteen separate United States government agencies that worked separately and together on matters of foreign relations and national security. One of these agencies is the Central Intelligence Agency which is to collect, analyze, evaluate, disseminate foreign intelligence to assist the President and senior US government policymakers in making decisions relating to national security. Therefore this paper will discuss Central Intelligence Agency history and the role it plays in combating acts of terrorism.

The war on terrorism is vast and intense. Most of the media and public are focused on the international threats and groups plaguing the globe, however there is a true and real concern for the terrorism in our backyard and the government has taken notice. How exactly can a government so fragmented and already stretched so thin take on another hardship with such high stakes? By restructuring the system with a more narrowly tasked counsel, the Domestic Terrorism Counsel (Carlin, 2015), to focus all involved, bridging the gaps between vertical intergovernmental relations, from federal to local levels, and the horizontal cross-sector collaboration of multiple organizations, like the FBI, the Attorney General’s Office, and the SPLC. (Carlin, 2015)

The report additionally concludes that the “Minister,” or President in the United States’ case, should be, “legally responsible,” for security and intelligence policies in these cases (Born and Leigh 2005). The United States’ system represents this framework in today’s practice as the National Security Act of 1947 and its amendments legislate the authority of the President to approve covert action. Referring once again to the earlier consensus that covet actions belong to the President, the legal responsibility of the executive is

The United States national interests and national security policy have been subjected to numerous threats throughout history. The nature of these threats has changed the ways which the intelligence community (IC) supports national security policy. Tensions between intelligence analysts and policymakers have historically resulted in intelligence “failures.” As new threats emerge, national security policy identifies opportunities which the United States can act to combat these threats. The ability of the United States to effectively integrate intelligence into the policy process has often brought into question the role of intelligence analysts and their relationship with policymakers. Within this paper, I will explain both the “Kent” and “Gates” approach and discuss why intelligence analysts should align themselves more with the “Gates” approach through lessons learned throughout history.

The end of the Cold War and attacks of 9/11 dramatically altered the landscape of United States national security endeavors. Gone was the singular, nearly tactile threat as presented by a major superpower, and in its place was the “amorphous nature of a terrorist opponent,” (Snow, 2014, p. 112). This novel threat defied easy definition or identification, and attacked in ways to which the U.S. had grown unaccustomed. Phrases like “asymmetrical warfare” and “war on terror” were used liberally by an executive branch wholly unprepared for mitigating such a threat, and exploited to justify any number of means to achieve an end that as yet remains elusive. With the threat now subsiding, and certain means of statecraft and defense

State wise, American citizens have rarely been concerned with foreign affairs of its own government. The number one dissatisfaction is the seemingly never-ending wars within the regions of the Middle East that have begun since the Bush administration. Yet, because of the heightened sense of paranoia still lingering from 9/11, citizens show a definite concern for how efficiently the intelligence community of the United States government works. The fusing of

The United States response to the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 is characterized by two seemingly identical terms, antiterrorism and counterterrorism. Antiterrorism refers to the employment by the Government of administrative, police, judicial, penal, political and security resources, tactics and equipment for the purpose of preventing terrorist attacks. This approach can be compared to highway safety; governments

The experimenters in this article performed Searching-Concealed Information Tests on their participants who roleplayed as terrorists to test if accurate terrorism plans could be extracted using a dynamic questioning approach. The participants were placed into 20 groups of five and would choose a specific secret location from given countries, then a blind experimenter would question them, record the feedback, and see whether their inferences were correct afterward. The introduction gives background information on the SCIT use by investigative authorities to find more specific crime information based off of previous knowledge. The SCIT measured immediate skin conductance thresholds with dry electrodes during simultaneous questioning of terrorist groups and its reports were used to pinpoint which question led to the terrorist target location. When an option was asked rose skin conductance above

—Brian Michael Jenkins, former leading terrorism analyst, written in 1975. More than forty years later, it is more relevant than ever before.

After the events of September 11, 2001, the United States had a unique dilemma. America was engaged in what would be called a “War on Terror”. This new conflict was unlike any in American history. Previously, in the context of war the United States had always fought a nation or group that had defined boundaries as to where they resided. This new conflict went away from these rules of the past. Terrorist groups were not bound to a region, but were instead united by an ideal. September 11 marked the first time in which terrorism would rise to the forefront of the nation’s agenda. This emergent wave of conflict required a different strategy than the those of the past because of the unorthodox nature of the opponent. One of the major innovations fostered by the “War on Terror” was the expansion of torture. The dramatic rise in terrorism sparked the unethical advancement of interrogation techniques in order to more effectively acquire information. The emergence of the “War on Terror” required government officials acquire intelligence in a new way thus spawning the emergence of “enhanced interrogation” methods, however, the morality of these techniques would come into question as they were revealed to the public.