Homeland Security Research Paper

What is Homeland Security?
Homeland Security was discussed at great length after the 2001 attacks on U.S. soil. A 2002 report by Jim East defined Homeland Security as defense of the U.S. territories and the preparation and support needed to accomplish that. In the report East (2002) went on to define Homeland Defense very similarly as protection against external threats on three fronts: land, air and sea. Essentially these were overlapping missions that Goss (2006), who also took on the challenge of further defining their missions centered on emergency preparedness, aimed to identify the line between military and civilian operations. He provided a sort of a Venn diagram shown in figure 1 below, introducing among other dimension of Department …show more content…
DHS looks at Civil Support in the sense of “support to U.S. civil authorities for domestic emergencies and for designated law enforcement and other activities (DOD, 2003)”. Furthermore the DOD seeks to support Homeland Security “to prevent terrorist attacks within the U.S., reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, minimize damage, and assist in the recovery from attacks (DOD, 2003)”. The DOD does so with combatant commands such as NORTHCOM and PACOM which lend Civil Support in the form …show more content…
One of the ways they have chosen to execute that directive is to form positive relationship with critical infrastructure entities. By collaborating with the Government Critical Infrastructure Sectors will in turn gain these benefits in their efforts to stay resilient: plugged into the right information channels, better understanding of the current and future threats, and satisfaction of doing the right thing for the country (DHS, NIPP 2013: Partnering for Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience, 2013). For instance the energy sector, one of the four critical lifeline sectors, may be able to restore service faster as a result of partnering with the Government. The other three critical lifeline sectors that can benefit from partnering with the government are: Communications, Transportation, and Water (DHS, Energy Sector-Specific Plan, 2015). The exhaustive efforts of Sector Specific Agencies were necessary to strengthen the Critical Infrastructure community because of the interdependencies among the sectors. If one sector were to go down it has the potential to bring other sectors with it. Of note, the Energy Sector had some 170+ projects underway as a result of these partnerships addressing natural and manmade threats (DHS,

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