US Government and Terrorism - Essay Example

It is important to think how the three branches of our Federal Government can help us evaluating our capacity to fight against terrorism either. This paper will also analyze the US scope of collaborating with Russia in this regard and what if such mutual understanding is not possible. The 3 branches of the government, Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary play an important role in evaluating the capacity of the country to fight against international terrorism. Representatives from each of the states constitute the two houses of the legislative, and hence they can collectively make laws for protecting public interests.

The President is elected by the entire country and being the head of the Executive branch makes laws official. The Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995 and the shocking attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001 were extremely disastrous and the most remarkable among all terrorist attacks happened in the US till date. Soon after the September 11 attack the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 was signed by the President with a title of Uniting and strengthening America by providing appropriate tools required intercepting and obstructing Terrorism.

The PATRIOT Act had made certain changes to the US laws. Arguably, the powers granted by the law were effectively utilized by the agents that there has not been any severe terrorist attack since the PATRIOT Act came into force. However, in the ever changing scenario, laws enacted once may not be sufficient to address the issue. For instance, many a time the threat is in new forms and the vagueness blurs the strategy as well. It is the responsibility of the legislature to review the effectiveness of the measures taken so far to curb the issue.

The war against terrorism has already been proved ineffective. There should be more comprehensive measures to address the issue. It is possible only if the threat is defined on the grounds of most recent developments and events. Legislature has to analyze the effectiveness of the nation’s collaborative efforts on intelligence, law enforcement, military, financial, and diplomatic channels with other nations in addressing terrorism. Russia supported the US during their war in Afghanistan against terrorism but was disappointed of the US foreign policy after 9/11.

Russia’s coalition against US in Iraq war created problems between the two countries. The disputes were due to the gap in understanding what the International terrorism is and also the partnership between Russia and US was not based upon the coordination of interests or approaches (Sursolve, n. p.). Measures must be taken to improve the understanding between the two nations in terms of growing terror threat. Strong alliance between these two powerful nations can suppress terrorism to a great extent.

The fight against terrorism should be a positive agenda of Russia-US relations in upcoming years regardless of all disputes. Since the fight against terrorism is high on NATO’s policies, US allies and the German government together invoked Article 5 of the Charter which says an attack on any member shall be considered to be an attack on all, and NATO greatly supported US during the September 11 attack. Germany considers the Islamic terrorism as their primary threat and therefore they had responded to the 9/11 event by offering military and other assistances and also has supported and contributed to US in many ways in fighting against international