Homeland security - Essay Example

Negotiation, Pre-emption, and Retaliation as Modes of Response to Terrorism Based on events that have transpired in the last several years, especially 9/11, the ultimate objective of the terrorist enemies of the United States of America is to destroy the United States of America, kill as many Americans, destroy American infrastructure and cause maximum damage to properties of Americans. In dealing with terrorists, the primary modes of America’s response must be pre-emption and more than proportionate retaliation.

This policy is consistent with our National Security Strategy of 2010 as well as with the document of Homeland Security (2011, August) and the Committee of Homeland Security of the US House of Representatives (2010, June).Pre-emption is the response of the wise based on our deep understanding of our enemy. It must continue to be our main mode of response to an enemy that has no regard for life, rules of war or protecting non-combatants and the innocent. Our objectives in pre-emption are to protect the American people and her allies from harm and reduce to zero whenever possible the probability of harm, destruction to property, or death of our citizens and allies.

The situations in which pre-emption is appropriate are in strengthening public safety and proactive response to terrorist threats. From a position of strength, the possibility of more than proportionate retaliation can be a very strong and powerful deterrent against attacks. Occasionally, we can be off-guard and our enemies can take advantage of this and can succeed attacking and harming us at an inopportune moment. Retaliation provides us a way to impress to our enemies how costly an attack can be for their allies and themselves.

More than proportionate retaliation is best implemented in the home bases of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Domestically, however, more than proportionate retaliation can only be implemented by prosecution up to the maximum penalties allowed by law and by invoking laws that have the highest penalties. A combination of pre-emption and more than proportionate retaliation are most appropriate for dealing with our enemies. Pre-emption enables us to prevent and confront an attack while a policy of more than proportionate retaliation can serve to paralyze our enemy by confining her to do an endless benefit-cost estimation given a highly militarily superior USA: if they do their benefit-cost computations correctly as we do our homework well, a policy of more than proportionate retaliation can prevent an attack.

However, a policy of more than proportionate retaliation should NOT be interpreted that the United States of America would ape the ways of our enemy by attacking civilians and the innocent. We must strike fear in the hearts of our enemies as we implement the United States of America’s cause of peace and progress for their own values and also in the hope that some from our enemies would eventually capitulate as they see the justness and worth of American society. .Negotiation can happen at the tactical level when terrorists make a demand for America to do certain things like releasing a prisoner, abandoning a policy, or paying a certain sum of money for the release of captives.

However, negotiation is an in-crisis management when pre-emption has not worked well or our policy of more than proportionate response has not been thoroughly implemented. In the years to come, however, we will probably not have a great need for this as there has not been a case in recent years when terrorists have used captives to make demands. In general, there must be NO negotiation with terrorists but implementing the general policy will have to be on case-to-case basis even as the overall policy must be pre-emption and more than proportionate retaliation.

Instead of pure negotiation, however, negotiation to serve the objective of neutralizing terrorism is the appropriate policy for an in-crisis situation. Negotiation with the objective of neutralizing terrorism is appropriate because on the other side, the terrorist objective for negotiation is to cause maximum casualties and destruction of property. As defined by its website, the Department of Justice is “a cabinet-level agency responsible for enforcing the laws of the United States federal government” (Department of Justice, 2011a, 1st paragraph).

The policy of pre-emption and more than proportionate retaliation or justice must therefore guide the work of the law enforcement agencies directly under the Department of Justice, especially those in the frontlines in the fight against terrorism: the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive; the Federal Bureau of Prisons; Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court; National Security Division; and the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Forces (Department of Justice 2011b).

ReferencesCommittee of Homeland Security of the House of Representatives. (2010, June). Compilation of homeland security related executive orders. United States Congress: Committee on Homeland Security.Department of Justice. (2011a). Overview. Available at: http://www.allgov.com/Agency/Department_of_Justice (accessed 18 September 2011). Department of Justice. (2011b). Bureaus and agencies directly under the Department of Justice. Available at: http://www.allgov.com/DepartmentAgencies/Department_of_Justice1 (accessed 18 September 2011).

Homeland Security. (2011, August). Actions needed to improve response to potential terrorist attacks and natural disasters affecting agriculture. Washington: United States Government Accountability Office.Office of the President. (2010, May). National security strategy. Washington: The White House.