Term Paper on "American National Security"

Term Paper 5 pages (1889 words) Sources: 0 Style: Chicago

[EXCERPT] . . . .

President & National Security

Introduction and Historical Precedent

The notion of national security, as we know it changed on September 11, 2001. For the first time in the history of the United States (at least the contiguous states) a concerted, planned and multi-pronged attack was carried out on the United States. Other than Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, no other attack had taken place on U.S. soil. The United States was involved in many international conflicts, but they were carried out on European soil or the Pacific (World Wars I and II), or, exclusively in Asia (Korean and Vietnam Wars) or the first Gulf War. This essay is about how the presidential prerogative on National Security has changed with improvements in technology. In large part, these prerogatives have been governed by that fateful day in late summer of 2001. Terrorist activities such as bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia where servicemen were housed, or the earlier explosion in the Twin Towers 1993 -- orchestrated by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (the blind sheikh), that killed a few, or the explosion near the naval destroyer U.S.S. Cole orchestrated by Yemeni terrorists, or the explosions out side the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were definite attacks on the United States interests, but they did not occur on U.S. soil

Terrorism -- the New Concern for National Security

The slamming of two fully loaded passenger jet airplanes into the Twin Towers in New York City, one into the Pentagon and one which was headed for one of the Federal office buildings, perhaps even the U.S. Capitol Building, was brought down by the pluck and daring shown by the courageous passengers of Flight 93. This has changed the security philosophy for the last few years, and the repercussions will impact U.S. security policy for decades from now. But these events also exposed several problems with U.S. national security.

Need to Recognize the Reasons for Failures in National Security

It is important to assess these issues because the president prerogative and the reactionary measures that were taken for national security depended on the security failings of that day. One of the key issues that were discovered that day was that the lines of communication between the security agencies: National Security Association, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and the local law enforcement -- were non-existence. This is because of one- up man ship to take credit for the solution of any crime. In fact, there was strong evidence that Middle Eastern and Egyptian men were enrolling in flight schools in numbers that had not been seen before. There is also evidence that complaints were filed, but went unheeded.

Another issue that also was important was that airport security was very lax. The terrorists on that day, did not have to carry fire arms or have bombs strapped to their body, all they needed was box cutters or pen knives that they could use to terrorize the passengers, by slitting the throats of an unfortunate stewardess and take over the plane. There was also no policy in place by which the pilots could protect themselves (and by extension the plane) by carrying handguns.

Effectively, on that day, planes loaded with fuels were converted to missiles. There was no additional infrastructure needed to carry out this war. In determining strategy for national security, the United States was also confronted, for the first time, with the notion that warfare did not have to be conducted conventionally, with soldiers wearing uniforms and with an open declaration of war. In fact, the terrorists did not have a specific country of origin, but came from either the Middle East or Egypt, who shared just one common identify -- hatred for the United States and its allies -- and being radical Islamists. This meant that the United States National Security had to take into account the infiltration that might take place from any front, and not through an open declaration of war.

Evolution of National Security

The U.S. National Security Agency has evolved over time and the different wars. One of the big changes occurred during the late sixties till the end of the eighties with the fear of Cold War. Advances in technology were associated with a huge proliferation of nuclear weapons. The notion of Mutually Assured Destruction was not far from the minds of people. NATO was organized to combat this, as was the Soviet Bloc countries. Each of these countries had nuclear-tipped missiles with coordinates for the other country. The Strategic Defense Initiative (more popularly known as Star Wars) was proposed by President Ronald Reagan. It was the creation of technology so advanced that it would be able to intercept incoming Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Though this move was soundly criticized, it has come to fruition now -- and was recently demonstrated. In fact, it was used in Gulf War I.

The "football" or the container that contains the nuclear codes, for launching of nuclear weapons, is always in the possession of an officer from the navy, when he accompanies the president. Thought congressional approval is required for the launching of war, it is the President's prerogative to make the final decision to launch nuclear weapons. Despite the Cold War not being an immediate threat, at least for some years from now, the nuclear codes still travel with the President today, and will for the foreseeable future. The ability to launch nuclear weapons from a single spot is the result of several developments in aeronautics, engineering, nuclear engineering and physics.

Advances in Technology and their Role in the Evolving Warfare

In fact, the global navigation systems that we see in use today have come from this technology. With the ending of the Cold War, there was a big move towards non-proliferation of nuclear sites. This was the prerogative of President Clinton when he took office in the early 1990s. The main points of this administration was, which was not burdened by the fear of the Cold War, that it still supported advances in information technologies, sensors, and simulation. This would enable the effective plan and conduct military operations, quickly design and produce military systems, and train our forces in more realistic settings. These technologies were central to greater battlefield awareness, in order to enable U.S. forces to acquire large amounts of information, analyze it quickly, and communicate it to multiple users simultaneously for coordinated and precise action. One might aver that the above pays mostly lip-service to National Security without making any realistic changes. This is possibly justifiable, that naively enough, the administration believed that the big threats of war of the past few decades were at an end. In prosecuting the war in the Balkans, vis-a-vis the breakup of former Yugoslavia, no new technologies were developed. This was because ground presence was required and the U.S. mostly played the role of peace keepers. One additional strategy was to use armed sanctions against the Iraqis, which had been started under the presidency of George H.W. Bush.

The Current Needs for National Security

This strategy is not going to be useful anymore, other than for conventional warfare. The President, under the current circumstances is charged with dealing with a different set of problems. Certainly the war in Afghanistan and the deposition of the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein were governed by this new strategy. The National security has to evolve to take into account a completely different kind of enemy. and, more importantly, the realization has set in that this war has to be fought on multiple fronts, both abroad and at home. The reasons are mentioned previously and will be briefly discussed here: illegal combatants who are not protected under the Geneva Convention, no specific weaponry required, motivated by nothing other than religious zealotry, combatants might wage all out war within the United States or through small instances of terrorism, the protection of the borders, and the improvements of communication between the law enforcement entities. The passing of the Patriot Act through Congress was the first exercising of the Presidential prerogative with respect to national security.

What enables the Patriot Act to become law and be effectively executed are the vast advances in new kinds of technology. The first is the use of effective data-basing and access to database technology so that vast bits of information on terrorist activities, names, last known locations, expertise in terrorism, contacts, countries of origins, countries traveled etc., can be stored. Accessing this information becomes easier because the information is stored in a proper manner. Creating a common database enables law enforcement entities to input the information from various places into a single resource. This information can also be used to access this information from different locations. This way, all law enforcement can access this information and take the necessary action. This technology makes possible because of increased computer speeds and storage capabilities. Data and text mining capabilities combined with telecommunication technologies enable eavesdropping on telephone or electronic interactions between terrorists.

Advances in… READ MORE

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