Homeland Security Policy Analysis

Homeland Security Policy Analysis

Introduction

The security threats today are very different from those of Germany and Japan during the Second World War or the Soviet Union in the Cold War years. Al Qaeda and its main affiliates are intended to redraw the map of international politics in the Islamic world and to create systems similar to that of the Taliban. On the other hand, the U.S. goal is to ensure the safety of the American people by defeating the forces of violent extremism. To fight against terrorism their strategy must be comprehensive (Blanchard, 2010). For the same purpose the Obama administration is operational with its allies to structure a policy to fight against al-Qaeda. United States officials liken this strategy to combat terrorism. The U.S. had also planned to employ a regional coalition policy against the spread of al-Qaeda in several other countries.

Discussion

The basic United States strategy for combating terrorism is analogous to the one that was adopted after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. However, the CIA seeks to construct the defense services of local allies which can assist penetrate as well as dislocate the activists in means that would be not possible for the U.S. acting alone (Keenan, 2012). However, the counterterrorism alliance is more complex as compare to the earlier endeavor initiated by the CIA. U.S. government is trying their best to combat Al-Qaeda. In order to understand the matter it is necessary to understand the ideology, structure, targets, and tactics of Al-Qaeda.

Ideology

To understand the mentality of the volunteers of Al-Qaeda, it is necessary to examine their belief system and ideology, which is based on Islam and the pursuit of jihad. Many Islamists, including Al-Qaeda, distorted and sometimes reinterpreted the idea of jihad as “holy war.” Jihad means applying more effort of each to achieve a goal or to repel something detestable (Blanchard, 2010). The volunteers of Al-Qaeda who provided the psychological and spiritual influences of Islamist ideologues give the highest priority to martyrdom. Murder and die for Allah is regarded as the highest form of sacrifice. In order to achieve the target and reiterate the reward of sacrifice, the ideologues reinforce the appeal of death in combat. At a tactical level, the Al-Qaeda uses the death wish of his soldiers to provoke fear in the enemy.

Terrorism is just one of the tactics of Al-Qaeda. While multi dimensional group can keep the enemy busy on several fronts simultaneously. The long-term strategic threat it poses to international security is the politicization and radicalization of Muslims, a phenomenon that neither the West nor the Middle East and Muslim countries in Asia have managed to combat (Keenan, 2012). Obviously, if governments and civil society to respond only to the military threat from Al-Qaeda and not to the ideological challenge in the long term the organization will have no difficulty in recruiting more terrorist's successive generations of young Muslims disenchanted (Blanchard, 2010).

Tactics

The global terrorist network al-Qaeda adopt only the cellular model also known as the cocoon consists ...