Course Overview

Description

SS464: Homeland Security complements several Department of Social Sciences courses on terrorism, part of the newly-dedicated General Wayne A. Downing Terrorism Studies Program, as well as terrorism-related courses in other departments.  SS464 and its companion course SS474: Terrorism and Counterterrorism, are the two mandatory courses for West Point’s new minor in terrorism studies. 

SS464 provides future leaders with a broad understanding of the homeland security challenge. Students learn about the major policy and institutional reforms underway in the homeland security policy area, examine whether these changes are improving or will improve U.S. security, and develop their own views on the direction of national homeland security policy. By the end of the course, students gain a solid intellectual foundation to think critically and creatively about America’s efforts to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce our vulnerability to terrorist attack, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that may occur. 

In spring semester, 2006, SS464 will feature several guest lecturers and a planned two-day trip to Boston, Massachusetts to visit federal, state, local, and private sector homeland security officials and organizations.

As an advanced liberal arts course, SS464 places a premium on informed participation and clear, analytic writing.  Graded requirements include class participation, two policy memoranda, a group exercise structured as a mock congressional hearing, lesson and guest lecture synopses, a trip section synopsis, a final paper, and a take-home Term End Exam (TEE).

Objectives

• Provide aspiring officers with a thorough understanding of the homeland security challenge, and the manner with which homeland security is similar to, and different from, other national security challenges.

• Develop an understanding of how homeland security policy intersects with domestic policy, and the unique challenges that homeland security poses to competing national priorities such as international trade.

• Develop an understanding of the doctrinal foundations of current homeland security policy and how it fits with related but distinct policy areas: combating terrorism, counterproliferation, and homeland defense.

• Develop an understanding of the international dimensions of homeland security policy, and how those dimensions interact with the whole of U.S. foreign policy.

• Foster an appreciation of state, local, and private sector roles and responsibilities in homeland security. 

• Develop an understanding of the appropriate role of the military in homeland security.

• Acquire a theoretical and practical understanding of moral, ethical, organizational, legal, fiscal, and cultural challenges to improving homeland security.

• Acquire sufficient perspective and knowledge to critically evaluate whether homeland security policies, individually or cumulatively, pose a risk to American values, civil liberties, or way of life.

• Develop a basic understanding of interagency and intergovernmental processes, and foster an awareness of the skills necessary for military officers to work effectively with civilian counterparts across a broad range of professional disciplines.

• Foster the ability to develop creative approaches to border security, transportation security, intelligence and warning, domestic counterterrorism, critical infrastructure protection, and emergency preparedness and response.

• Develop the ability of aspiring officers to conduct critical analysis, both written and oral, of the issues that are examined in the course.

• Develop an intellectual curiosity that leads towards a lifetime of learning.

• In addition to the course’s stated objectives, students will gain some insight into the institution of the presidency, and the organization, operation, and reform of executive branch agencies.  Thus, students will find that, in addition to SS474 (Terrorism), SS493 dovetails with SS373 (American Presidency) and SS376 (Organizational and Bureaucratic Politics).

Required Texts

Stephen Flynn, America the Vulnerable: How our Government is Failing to Protect us from Terrorism, (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2004).

Philip B. Heyman, Terrorism Freedom and Security: Winning Without War (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).

Russ Howard, Joanne Moore, and James Forest, eds., Homeland Security and Terrorism: Readings and Interpretations (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005).

Mark A. Sauter and James Jay Carafano, Homeland Security: A Complete Guide to Understanding, Preventing, and Surviving Terrorism, (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 2005).

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.  (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004).

Michael E. O'Hanlon, Peter R. Orszag, Ivo H. Daalder, I. M. Destler, David L. Gunter, James M. Lindsay, Robert E. Litan, James B. Steinberg, Protecting the American Homeland: One Year On (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2002).

Structure

Block I - Understanding the Nature of the Terrorist Threat (lessons 1-5).  Block 1 examines the nature of the threat posed by terrorists and global terrorist networks, particularly those which have or seek the capability to carry out catastrophic attacks.  The intent of Block 1 is not to build an in-depth understanding of particular terrorist groups, motivations, tactics, or history (SS474: Terrorism and Counterterrorism is the Department of Social Sciences course that explores these issues), but rather to consider the threat from a "net assessment" perspective.  Just as experts and officials, beginning in the late 1940s, considered how the nature of the nuclear weapons threat changed the international security environment and American foreign policy and national security policy, we pursue a similarly broad perspective with respect to the new (and permanent) strategic reality of catastrophic terrorism.  What are the important characteristics of the terrorist threat that America and other nations face in the foreseeable future?  How do these characteristics shape homeland security policy?

Block 2 - Emergency Preparedness and Response (lessons 6-9).  In Block 2, we dive in to the substance of homeland security.  The National Strategy for Homeland Security establishes three objectives; in priority order they are: (1) prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, (2) reduce America's vulnerability to terrorism, and (3) minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur.  The strategy also establishes six critical mission areas: (1) intelligence and warning, (2) border and transportation security, (3) domestic counterterrorism, (4) critical infrastructure protection, (5) defending against catastrophic threats, and (6) emergency preparedness and response. 

The critical mission areas parallel the lifecycle of the terrorist threat, from its genesis beyond our shores, to the execution and aftermath of attacks within the United States.  The first three mission areas generally correlate to the first objective; the next two to the second objective; and the last to the third objective. 

Block 2 examines the National Strategy's third objective and its corresponding critical mission area.  The course follows the structure above, starting from the "inside out" -- doing so exposes students to policies which are more accessible and with which they are most likely to have an existing baseline of understanding.  Doing so also best allows us to examine the nature of the homeland security policy area early in the course.  Throughout the course, within each critical mission area, we explore such questions as:

• What is the mission area’s scope? (breadth of policy, organizations, manpower, resources, statutory authorities, etc.)  What does it include?  What does it not include?

• How important is the mission area?  What should we seek to accomplish?

• What is the status of the Nation’s efforts in the mission area?  Are we succeeding?  Failing?  On-course?  Off-track?

• What are the current laws and policies relevant to the mission area?  Are new laws or policies needed?

• What challenges or impediments make progress difficult in the mission area?

• What policy tools are available to achieve progress in the mission area?  What are their costs, benefits, and appropriateness?

• With what other priorities or policies does the mission area intersect or compete?  Which are more or less important, and why?

• What should we seek to accomplish within the next year, five years, ten years?

Block III – Understanding the Nature of the Homeland Security Policy Area (lessons 10-14).   Having examined the issues and policies associated with emergency preparedness and response, Block 3 explores the specific characteristics of the homeland security policy area, which differs from the traditional national security policy area in important ways. In Block 2, we established a foundation for us to consider how best to organize for and coordinate homeland security policy, questions which we will continuously revisit throughout the course.  In addition, an important objective of SS464 is for future national security leaders to develop an understanding of national policymaking, interagency coordination, and the intersection of domestic policy and foreign policy.  Block 3 focuses on this objective.

Block IV - Reducing America's Vulnerability to Terrorism (lessons 15-21).  Block 4 examines the National Strategy's second objective and its corresponding mission areas of critical infrastructure protection and defending against catastrophic threats.

Block V - Preventing Terrorist Attacks within the United States (lessons 22-36).  Block V explores the National Strategy's most important objective -- prevent terrorist attacks -- and its corresponding critical mission areas of border and transportation security, domestic counterterrorism, and intelligence and warning.

Block VI - Course Conclusion (lessons 37-40).  Block 6 ties the course together by considering how best to integrate the issues and policies we have explored throughout the course into a coherent and effective strategy that best protects the nation from terrorism.  In block 6, we assess the status of the national effort to date, and consider the way ahead.