Attack on the Military Services Residential Areas in Floola - Coursework Example

This report is formulated as response to the attack on the military services residential areas in Floola. It comprises of the strategies that the US government should opt in order to avoid such attacks in future. Both the offensive and defensive strategies are elaborated in this report to provide complete insight to the reader. Background Floola has Geostrategic importance for America as it is located in the South East Asia and being ruled by a secular government has always maintained good relationships with US. This region is particularly very important for USA as it has to monitor illegal nuclear program running in North Korea for the maintaining the global peace. The recent suicidal bomb attack on the residential neighborhood housing and service members and their families on US military base in the country of Floola have raised USA’s concerns. USA has always given utmost priority to the safety of its citizens both domestically and internationally. This attack and the recent attack on the USA’s embassy in Libya (resulted in the killing of The Ambassador) have provoked government to craft both the defensive and offensive measures to counter these terrorist’s activities in future. Reportedly, from 1980 to 2001, only 3% of all the terrorist attacks were suicidal in nature but accounted for about 48% of people death that have become the victim of terrorism (Pape, 2003). Foundation of Counter Attack Strategies The strategies will be revolved around both defensive and offensive measures (as mentioned earlier in background) against terrorists to provide supreme security to the citizens of America domestically as well as internationally. Offensive Measures The offensive measures that the USA government will take include the three important steps; 1. The government will make sure that they will eradicate all the possible terrorist organizations through their tactical (preemptive) strikes as their counterterrorism efforts. 2. Speed up the process of intelligence collection and also make necessary efforts to increase its scale. 3. Long term steps will be taken by the government to prohibit the militants to recruit and brainwash the potential suicide bombers. Fig 1: Depicts the offensive and defensive measures of the USA government against terrorism. Defensive Measures In addition to the above mentioned offensive steps, government will also take few defensive ones to provide maximum security to the citizens of USA. These measures will be; 1. Taking massive steps for USA assets physical protection both domestically and internationally. 2. Programs will be launched for preparing masses psychologically against the terrorist activities and how to react if encountered with such lethal situation. 3. Complete assortment of the anti-terrorism efforts will be introduced for the solid homeland protection. Describing Offensive and Defensive Strategies in Detail Preemptive Strikes against Militants After the recent attack on the USA military residential area in Floola, it is considered very important for the government to do some homework. Government will now take necessary steps to find out answers of the questions raised both domestically and internationally; whether they have identified all the potential enemies of its state or some are left unidentified. For this purpose government will be using its intelligence services like CIA, RAW, Black Water to collect information about the militants. In addition to exploration of the new emerging terrorist groups in the world the intelligence will also have to keep very close eye on the activities of the previously identified terrorist groups, especially those who are most likely to use suicidal attacks against America, like; Islamic Jihad (Palestinian Group) Hamas (Palestinian Group) Tamil Tigers The PKK Haqqani Group (The one that is against the US lead NATO Forces) Hizbollah (Lebanon Group) These groups can have ties with the recent attack in Floola because the major religion practiced in the country is Islam. These activist groups are the so-called bearers of Islam and creating violence in its name all over the world. The increasing globalization of suicidal tactics could also mean that it is because of increasing globalization of the terrorism (Cronin, 2003). Investigation report of the Floola attack will also make this thing evident that which group is involved in this terrorist attack and US government will take necessary steps against that group. Al- Qaida is the terrorist organization that has the most efficient and widespread network of the terrorist in the world. Al- Qaida is also the only group who was able to materialize the suicide bomb attacks on the soil of USA i.e. 9//11. Al- Qaida’s Jihad manual and 13 volumes of Encyclopedia of Jihad are both available over internet easily for the people to read (Hoffman, 2003). This organization can also be involved solely in this Floola attack because of its history of attacking on the US assets. 1. Attacked on the US embassies in Kenya (Nairobi) and Tanzania (Dar es Salaam), resulted in the brutal killing of 12 American and 291 Americans and thousands of the people were wounded. 2. Seventeen American soldiers died as a result of attack on U.S.S Cole in Yemen back in 2000. 3. The 9/11 attack in America on the Twin Trade towers resulted in causalities of 3000 people. 4. Finally, many recent attacks on the American camps in Afghanistan. Moreover FBI had also warned the law enforcement authorities to be watchful to the increasing role of women in suicide bombing (Yost, 2003). These facts further make these claims valid that Al-Qaida could be the part or the main character of this bloodshed in Floola. This group always tries to strike the US marines and assets in order to gain massive media attention and to create magnitude of terror among the common people. Furthermore, US government will be proactive enough to identify places where the militants, belonging to these terrorist groups, are living and kill them immediately. In simple words, it is about destroying the infrastructure of these terrorist groups. One example is the drone attacks that US government is using in FATA against the militants in Pakistan to kill them before they do any destructive act against mankind. Moreover, these attacks will also be an effective tool to harass, threaten or intimidate these groups. The goal behind this strategy is to keep the militants anxious about police and intelligence so much that they will find it really difficult to attack. Killing and capturing of the leaders will also be very effective tools to threaten and weakened these terrorist groups; as recent killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan has done to Al- Qaida. Efficient Intelligence Process Both the technical and the human intelligence services are vital for implementation of these offensive measures. In order to have better understanding of the terrorist group, it is really important to learn about its group dynamics and this can only be achieved through quality intelligence. There are many different points along the process of terrorism at which intelligence can be resulted into fruitful information about these militants like; a) Militants initial contact with the people b) Brainwashing c) Directing (making individuals completely under their control) d) Equipping the individuals with combating skills and weapons e) Finally, launching of the trained attackers These are the activities that US intelligence services have to monitor in a proper way, as they involve actions like purchasing of weapons and investigation about the target, in order to gather useful information about these militants. US government will also increase its international corporation in order to get information about terrorist in the regions they are unfamiliar to. This strategy will surely help the government to prevent such ruthless events from occurring or retaliating in the repercussion as in the case of Floola. Prohibit the Militant Recruitment Activities It is the fact that the suicide attacks cannot occur until the population provide individual who are willing to die in exchange of some kind of material or immaterial reward. US government’s last offensive strategy would be to destroy the ability of the terrorist groups to recruit such type of people. May be this strategy appear controversial to some people who are mainly concerned with just the prevention of suicidal attacks but this can be done easily by improving the quality of life of people in those countries. This can be achieved by providing the people with better social, economic and political environment. The other important method that will create obstacles in recruitment process of these militants is to challenge the ideological belief of the attacker. The ultimate goal of this strategy will be to eliminate such population from the world. Protection of the US Assets In addition to the above mentioned offensive strategies the certain defensive ones will also be used in order to provide maximum protection to the people of America globally. This defensive strategy’s goal is to make it as tough as possible for the attacker to reach and attack the American camps, areas and bases. This includes; a) Physical barriers installation near the buildings of Americans in foreign countries. b) Security screening process should be made error free in order to prevent the attacker to attack on American property. c) Taking the local government’s help in making the embassies, bases and residential areas more safe and sound. d) Installing more security cameras and check post near these American inhabited areas. These all steps will be taken globally and also in Floola to make it difficult for the attackers to reach the American places. In Iraq both in wartime and postwar, attacking the US soldiers were not considered as terrorist act, even those in which suicide attacks were carried out by Iraqi women, because the civilians were not killed in those attack (Johnston & Risen, 2003). Psychological Training Americans will be provided with the psychological training so that they will be in a state to identify something strange around them. Moreover this will also help the victims of terrorism to recover from trauma and start living healthy life again. This program will help the people to pull themselves out of fear of being shot to death. One reason why the people are not psychologically trained is that the traditional institutions have not supported terrorism studies as a discipline because of the terror associated with it (Bruce, 2002). Conclusion Both the offensive and defensive strategies will help the US government in providing full-proof security to its citizens all over the world. Moreover, it will also allow the US government to fulfill its mission of terrorist free world and also to provide justices to the families of victims globally. Floola military base security will also be raised and it will help the Americans to prevent any such event to happen in future. References: Bruce, “The Need for Praxis: Bringing Policy Relevance Back In,” International Security, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Spring 2002), pp. 169-183; and Cronin, “Behind the Curve,” pp. 54-58. Cronin, A.K. ,“Behind the Curve: Globalization and International Terrorism,” International Security, Vol. 27, No. 3(Winter 2002/2003), pp. 30-58. Hoffman , B., “Al Qaeda, Trends in Terrorism and Future Potentialities: An Assessment,” paper presented at the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy and Geneva Center for Security Policy 3rd Annual Conference, 5 May 2003 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003), pp. 16-17 Johnston, D. and Risen, J., “New Signs of Terror Not Evident,” The New York Times, 6 April 2003 Pape, R.A., “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” unpublished manuscript dated February 18, 2003, p. 13. Pape’s calculations are drawn from data published in U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism, and 1983-2001 Yost, P. “FBI Warns of Female al-Qaida Operatives,” Associated Press, 24 April 2003 Read More