Getting homeland security right

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48 Strategic Policy Issues

Getting Homeland Security Right

Ever since the 11 September attacks debunked the myth of America’sinvulnerability, the Bush administration has conducted a two-front war against global terrorism. While the offensive elements of theadministration’s strategy – intelligence and law-enforcement cooperation,the proactive military pursuit of terrorists, and the military elimination ofactual and potential state sponsors of terrorism – have been executed withrelentless energy, resolve and determination, the same cannot be said aboutthe defence of the American homeland. Most experts acknowledge someprogress being made by Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. Yet unlike its efforts overseas, the administration’s implementation of an ambitious homeland security agenda – generally characterised asvulnerability- or capabilities-based, and contemplating the minimisation ofall vulnerabilities to ill-defined threats as well as responses to emergentones – has been slow, inconsistent and under-resourced. Vulnerabilities intransportation networks and border security remain, and intelligenceshortfalls have continued.

The US strategyThe breadth of the challenge facing the United States – an open society with myriad potential vulnerabilities – calls for a clear and wide-rangingstrategy. This strategy should be the product of a deliberative process bywhich ends are related to means, policy aims to distinct objectives andprogrammes to resources. Yet President Bush’s National Security Strategyprovides little guidance on how the subordinate National Strategy forCombating Terrorism or National Strategy for Homeland Security fit intothe overall US security plan, which embraces foreign policy, intelligence,international trade, threat reduction and non-proliferation. In effect,homeland security has been relegated to a supporting role in an broadercounter-terrorism strategy that seeks first to defeat terrorists, then to denythem sponsorship or sanctuary, then to diminish the causes or conditionsthat they exploit, and only last, to defend US citizens. This ‘4 D’ strategy is based on the notion that ‘the best defence is a good offence’. Bush has

al-Qaeda abate, the pressures to transform the service may wane as well.Absent these pressures, the service may revert to its preferred roles andmissions – fighting and winning the nation’s wars.

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stated that the US ‘must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge’. Such an approach fitsAmerica’s strategic culture and the proclivities of the personalities at theapex of its government. However, the underlying strategy and the mannerin which it is being conducted may only worsen the problem.

The newly salient strategic threat of non-state actors using asymmetricmeans has highlighted a world in which traditional organisationalboundaries and institutional borders have less relevance. Yet the Bushadministration has segregated homeland security from the strategydevelopment and crisis management processes of the National SecurityCouncil (NSC). The Homeland Security Council has been largely cut out ofthe NSC loop. Furthermore, the Homeland Security Advisor (HSA) hasprovided little overall guidance to the Department of Homeland Security(DHS). Instead, the HSA has conducted an end-to-end assessment of bio-defence – certainly a useful guide for long-term research and resourceallocation, but not consistent with a strategic coordinating role. Thus, theUnited States’ counter-terrorism and homeland security strategy appears to lack clarity and definition as to precisely what threats and whatvulnerabilities need to be addressed, and in what order. Numerousterrorism experts, notably Bruce Hoffman of The RAND Corporation, havestressed the need to develop a comprehensive net assessment that has notyet materialised. In this light, the Bush administration may ultimatelyadmit that it erred in allocating policy responsibility for homeland securityoutside the NSC.

Bush’s homeland security spending plans have not met the expectationsof Congress or America’s 50 state governors. Given the offensive thrust ofBush’s grand strategy, military spending has snared the lion’s share ofincreased US security spending. Of an estimated $240 billion in federalspending for security since 2001, more than 80% has gone to the Pentagon.An even larger share of homeland security funding is earmarked formilitary bases and cyber-security initiatives for the Defense Department.Funding for law enforcement, intelligence, countering bio-terrorism,border management, emergency management, airport security, computerdefences and transportation security compete for the rest. Numeroushomeland security analysts, including Stephen Flynn of the Council onForeign Relations, find the logic behind the administration’s spendingpriorities counterintuitive. Flynn has noted that ‘modern terrorists attacksoft targets and key elements of our infrastructure, which places our entireeconomic system and way of life at risk. The policy and resources shouldreflect this reality’.

The FY2005 homeland security budget was a nominally generous$40.2bn, ostensibly reflecting a 10% increase over FY2004. But this rise wasshown to be an accounting gimmick that included increased port user feesand taxes, and incorporated the multi-year $2.5bn BioShield Program as a


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single year’s appropriation. Ridge admitted that discretionary spending for his fledgling department was less than 4%, which would barely coverinflation and expected pay rises for his 180,000 employees. Spending forport security programmes like Operation Safe Commerce, and for local firstresponders was actually reduced, raising the ire of numerous Congressmenwho have pressed for funding levels reflecting the greater mission load andpoor capitalisation of the DHS. Despite 11 September, the government hascontinued to put more resources into farm subsidies and the federalhighway programme – notorious repositories of special-interest ‘porkbarrel’ funding – than homeland security.

Critical infrastructureWith the release of The National Strategy for The Physical Protection ofCritical Infrastructure and Key Assets in February 2003, the US governmentsignalled its resolve to securing critical infrastructure. But issuing a strategywith the president’s signature was only the first step of an excruciatinglyslow process. Only a year later did the DHS begin to outline initiatives tosupport the new strategy, announcing in February 2004 that it would beginto build a National Database of Critical Infrastructure. The DHS also saidthat by May 2004 it would create a National Infrastructure CoordinationCenter that would include representatives from private industry, which is estimated to own 85% of the telecommunications, banking, energy andtransportation networks that comprise the most critical components ofAmerica’s infrastructure.

These initiatives, though useful, fall short of establishing wholesalefederal regulatory oversight over the protection of critical infrastructure.The dominant government assumption has been that the interests of privateindustry in maintaining commercial viability will lead significant efforts inself-protection that government need only complement with prescriptionsof best practices and relatively thin supervision. Unfortunately, this does notappear to be the case. Despite the two-and-a-half years of intensive interestin domestic security since 11 September, America’s infrastructure remainssubstantially exposed. Numerous exercises continue to highlight multipleopenings for an attack. For example, in October 2003, a think-tank exercisecalled Silent Vector simulated terrorist attacks on critical infrastructureassets, and demonstrated the broad vulnerability of chemical plants to aplane or bomb attack. According to one government study, there are 123chemical facilities in the United States that each could produce one millioncasualties if attacked. Chemical plant controllers are not generally trained torespond to an attack against a facility and do not know what measures toimplement to reduce contamination. Another internal government reportnoted that security training at most nuclear facilities had been reduced or outright eliminated since 11 September due to resource constraints.


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Federal authorities have not mandated additional security measures, norsought grant money to improve security in the chemical industry. Oversightof nuclear site security also remains weak. A power outage in Canada andthe northeastern states in September 2003 demonstrated the cascadingeffects of seemingly inconsequential faults in the electronic grid. More than50m people were without power for more than a day.

CybersecurityComputer-network security is perhaps the most important element ofcritical infrastructure protection. The Bush administration issued a glossystrategy document to promulgate its approach to closing shortfalls in thisarea. But instead of providing clear guidance, goals and oversight, tophomeland security officials merely reinforced their immediate post-11September exhortation to the private sector to join with government in apartnership, rather than drive towards more robust federal regulation.Cyberattacks and criminal intrusions increased more than 40% in theUnited States in 2003, with several billion dollars of damage to UScompanies caused by a number of malicious ‘worms’. In August 2003,hackers released two of the most virulent computer viruses in history. The Blaster virus, which infected at least 500,000 computers, forced CSXCorporation to stop train services after the virus brought down thecompany’s rail signalling system. The virus also disrupted computer check-in services at some major airlines. The following week, the SoBig virus, oneof the quickest spreading viruses ever, infected over 570,000 computers. It is not difficult to envision the potential threat either virus could haveposed if the infiltrators were intent on imperilling national security.Computer experts agree that the SoBig virus could have been programmedto launch an Internet-wide attack, which would have had far-reachingramifications for the government and private sector ranging from economictrauma to hindering consequence-management operations.

The Bush administration has been slow to address the cyber-securitythreat and information warfare. Richard A. Clarke, the first Director of theNational Security Council’s Office of Cybersecurity appointed after 11September, resigned in January 2003 because he felt not enough attentionwas being paid to the issue. The NSC cybersecurity position was eliminatedand the White House delegated responsibility for cyberterrorism issues toDHS. Without White House backing, DHS is unlikely to forge the moremuscular public/private relationships needed to protect criticalinfrastructure, especially the computer networks that drive much ofmodern commerce and society. Nor is the private sector likely toimplement security measures in the absence of extraordinary marketpressures that may come too late – after rather than before the next attack– or White House intervention. The DHS’ new cybersecurity director,


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Robert Liscouski, is attempting to institute new programmes, including acomputer attack alert system, but these steps do not address the mostcritical issues facing the country. The DHS itself was one of seven federalagencies that received a failing grade on its network security for 2003 in anannual Congressional assessment.

It is understandable that Washington is loath to micromanage asignificant portion of the private sector. But its inability or refusal torecognise the gaps in market-based approaches and their inconsistencywith vulnerability-based security and unwillingness to substituteguidance, standards and accountability will only ensure that a gap betweenstrategic rhetoric and security remains.

Preparedness for biological attackTwo years after the anthrax letter attacks, a large-scale exercise calledTOPOFF II simulated a biological and radiological attack in severalAmerican cities. The exercise exposed continuing deficiencies in firstresponder communications, hospital preparedness and vaccine distribution.Although most of the conclusions of the exercise are classified, its broadresults have been promulgated. On balance, the simulation showed thatprogress has been made at detecting attacks but that the country was not asprepared to respond. TOPOFF II intensified government concerns aboutanthrax, which were already quite high given that the 2001 attacks showedthat the terrorist production of high-grade anthrax was apparentlypossible, and that studies of possible distribution modalities indicate that adeadly mass-casualty attack is quite feasible. The fact that intelligencereports from captured terrorists indicated al-Qaeda’s interest in anthraxwas also discomforting.

Hospitals are the weakest link in the biological response chain. Currently,hospitals cannot handle the thousands of people – both infected and healthy– who will demand treatment during an attack. A Government AccountingOffice report concluded that hospitals do not have enough equipment suchas ventilators, isolation beds and protective suits to handle an influx ofinfected patients. Only half of the hospitals surveyed in the study evenconducted bio-terrorism response drills. Other studies have arrived atsimilarly dismal conclusions. Most hospitals lack basic equipment to handleeven a small biological attack, and most communities do not have staffs ofstate and local public health officials that have been properly vaccinatedand sufficiently trained workers to handle a biological attack.

The US also needs to develop sensors capable of detecting andidentifying a disbursed biological agent. Most state and local hospitals rely on ‘passive’ surveillance to detect an outbreak. State and local officialsare consigned to waiting for nurses, doctors and emergency technicians to report suspicious illnesses. Even when they do, timely reporting from


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public health officials – who often do not have the time or inclination tonote trends in symptoms – may not be forthcoming. Infected victims mightnot show symptoms for up to 14 days after the attack, depending on theagent, and by that time the attack will have hit in full force. The Bushadministration is supporting a number of important research initiatives tocreate chemical and biological detectors. It has put significant resourcesbehind Project BioShield, a $6bn programme to enhance the developmentof sensitive detection devices and to encourage bio-defence research by theAmerican pharmaceutical industry. While some biological agent detectorshave been deployed in urban areas and in some transportation networks,sophisticated systems will probably not be deployable for five to ten years.

All in all, the US may not be any better off than it was on 11 September2001 in terms of its capacity to respond to a major emergency. Theadministration’s own internal assessment after the TOPOFF II exercise wasdamning, identifying many of the same critical deficiencies that plaguedpre-11 September drills, including poor communications capability, a lackof interoperable systems, confusing command chains and inadequatetraining. Throw in the limited availability of medical supplies and theinadequate surge capacities at US hospitals, and a recipe for disaster in anyUS metropolis comes into view. The results of this exercise echo otherexternal studies. One, commissioned by the Pentagon’s Defense ThreatReduction Agency, was conducted immediately after the anthrax attacks inlate 2001 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), aWashington DC-based think-tank. The CSIS study, based mainly ondiscussions with about 40 government and private experts on publichealth, national security and law enforcement, identified weaknesses invirtually every aspect of US bio-terror preparation and response. Althoughthe study was unclassified, the Pentagon did not see fit to release parts ofit until March 2004. Similarly, a June 2003 Council on Foreign Relations(CFR) report concluded that American emergency responders were‘drastically underfunded and dangerously unprepared’. The CFR TaskForce urged DHS to cut red tape, streamline grant programmes andprocedures, and establish national emergency standards. Reinforcingdemands by the country’s governors and mayors, the CFR report alsourged a substantial increase in first-responder funding, detailing howcurrent funding levels barely scratch the surface and yield a nearly $100bnshortfall in resources over the next five years.

The CFR’s findings do not incorporate existing state and local assets andassume that the whole problem is Washington’s responsibility. But thismethodological skew also shows that a division of labour between federaland local capabilities has not been systematically worked out and that thisfailure has produced confusion in the resource debate. It remains unclearwhat the federal role should be for funding first responders. Washington isreluctant to allocate scarce resources to regular community policing and


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emergency medical services. Yet state officials, faced with depletedrevenues and overburdened law enforcement and emergency personnel,would like the federal government to assume most of the burden. In anyevent, as of early 2004, the administration’s efforts had not adequatelyaddressed either the large funding deficiency or the problem of balancingfederal, state and local responsibility. Indeed, in February 2004, Ridgeadmitted that as much as $8bn previously appropriated by Congress had not yet been distributed to state and local officials. While this delay is of course frustrating to local communities shouldering a high andunwarranted burden, the silver lining to the administration’s slowapproach may be an inadvertent opportunity to target authorised fundsintelligently. Given the absence of a comprehensive risk or vulnerabilityassessment, Ridge might be applauded for his discipline but criticised forhis sense of urgency.

Border and transportation securityUS border and transportation security officials face a two-way challenge:preventing terrorists or weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from enteringwhile also facilitating America’s interaction with a fast-paced globaleconomy. This means maintaining an open society with a porousmembrane that seeks to filter out dangerous actors from the 80m visitors,11m trucks and 2.5m rail cars, 30m automobiles and 7m cargo containersthat enter the United States annually. Despite the inherent tensionsinvolved in meeting this challenge, DHS’s border activities can claim somemeasurable successes by virtue of several innovative programmes andstrong leadership by Undersecretary of Border and Transportation SecurityAsa Hutchinson. But implementation and resources remain limited. For example, Congress has not provided enough money to help portauthorities meet the mandate from the Maritime and TransportationSecurity Act to assess vulnerabilities in ports and vessels, and address thegaps. The US Coast Guard estimated the first year of the plan alone willcost $1.25bn ($7bn over ten years), yet the administration proposed nofunding for port security and Congress added only $125m to the 2004budget. At the current rate, the United States will finish assessingweaknesses in port and maritime security by the end of the decade withoutmaterially investing in additional security. The Coast Guard’s DeepwaterProject is another case in point. Designed to upgrade its fleet of SecondWorld War-era cutters and increase maritime awareness along thecountry’s borders and key ports, Deepwater remains substantially under-funded even on a 20-year timescale.

Customs security is critical to a nation that relies on international trade.DHS is advocating ‘smart border’ technologies to single out high-riskcontainers, trucks, automobiles or persons for inspection. Its Container


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Security Initiative seeks to ‘push back the border’ and identify high-riskcargo overseas before it hits America’s shores. These initiatives, whileimportant, have not been complemented by sizeable increases in fundingfor manpower and technology. With as many as 7m containers passingthrough US ports annually, and concerns that al-Qaeda is targetingmaritime systems for attack, the Customs and Border Protection Bureau hasstarted a number of programmes to enhance the ability to detect and inspectsuspicious cargo containers. But they are not getting substantial help from a cash-strapped international shipping industry. ‘Smart’ containertechnology to better secure and track cargo shipments in transit is available,but resisted by industry as an additional cost. Customs officials havereceived nuclear detection technologies, but are still hampered by limited oroutdated information systems. Data from various shipping and commercialsources is now being collected, but analysis and full maritime domainawareness are far from thorough.

The Customs–Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) is hailed asa breakthrough initiative. Developed in cooperation with major supplychain companies, this programme commits businesses to adherevoluntarily to certain standards and to provide the government access todata about personnel, practices and cargoes. In return, the governmentoffers expedited inspections and easy access through border stations. Such‘fast lane’ procedures offer a carrot to the private sector, but with more than5,000 companies signed up, only 141 have been screened and approved forparticipation. But between major ports of entry, security is also receivingrenewed attention. The US Border Patrol has ramped up its hiring and nowhas 9,800 agents covering 12,000km of land border, up from 3,600 agents adecade ago. Still, illegal border crossings occur hourly, and the backlog ofillegal aliens in the country has not got any shorter.

Much of America’s focus since 11 September naturally has been centredon airport security. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) –benefited by better screeners, updated information systems and a raft ofnew technological investments – remains one of the few unequivocalstructural achievements in homeland security. Still, numerous securityfailures emerged, and flights from Europe to the United States have beencancelled due to intelligence tips that they would be subject to attack. One of the open dirty secrets in the airport industry is that, despitespending tens of billions to screen passengers and personal baggage atmajor airports, air cargo on the same planes is rarely inspected and onmany cargo flights is not inspected at all. To improve security andscreening of travellers, DHS in January 2004 implemented the US Visitorand Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (VISIT) programme by whichvisitors have their photographs and fingerprints taken to confirm theiridentify and validate their entry into and exit from the United States. As ofMarch 2004, more than 2m visitors had been documented. VISIT is in place


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in 130 airports and seaports, and is set to expand. Yet, few resources areavailable to go after those who do not leave and join the estimated 8millegal aliens circulating inside the United States. The programme also hasa gaping statutory hole, since visitors from 27 allied countries are exemptfrom participation. A number of potential terrorists have travelled to theUnited States from or via these countries.

Another new tool is the second-generation Computer AssistedPassenger Screening System, or CAPSS II. This system, scheduled to beimplemented in late 2004, matches routine passenger information againstgovernment databases to pre-screen flight lists and identify ‘high-risk’travellers. The TSA plans to collect this data from airlines to scorepassengers, and assign a colour code to passenger boarding passes. High-risk passengers with high-threat indicators could be barred fromflying or subjected to intensive searches. DHS, however, has not yetsatisfied its critics that this programme is cost-effective or that privacy anddue process concerns are being addressed.

American intelligence agencies continue to believe that foreign terroristsare targeting transportation networks as the most likely venue for anattack. In November 2002, an attempted – and nearly successful – surface-to-air missile attack against an Israeli airliner exposed a new vulnerabilityof commercial airliners. Perimeter security at airports was bolsteredfollowing the attempt and lawmakers called for more funding forcountermeasure research. Protecting the US commercial fleet with currenttechnology is expensive – roughly $10bn – and neither the airline industrynor the government is willing to fund it. DHS is putting $60m towardscountermeasure research, but the country may be years away fromdeploying an affordable comprehensive system. Other transportationnetworks, including the regional rail system and most urban light-rail lines,remain open to attack. More than 10m Americans use trains each day, andthe US rail system includes nearly 225,000km of track and hundreds ofcommuter rail stations. Security measures, including more surveillancecameras and biological/chemical sensors have been deployed inanticipation of some form of WMD attack, but the Madrid bombings inMarch 2004 show how vulnerable most urban ground transportationnetworks are.

IntelligenceIt has been noted that domestic al-Qaeda cells have little troublecoordinating with the global transnational terrorist network.Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for US domestic law enforcementand the wider US intelligence community. The ease with which the 11September terrorists entered and travelled through the United Statesilluminated major fault lines within and between American intelligence


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and law-enforcement organs. For instance, two of the 11 Septemberhijackers, previously identified by the CIA as terrorists, entered the UnitedStates, applied for visas, purchased airline tickets and used a credit card –all in their own name. A congressional inquiry looking into the attacksfound that ‘prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community was neitherwell organised nor equipped, and did not adequately adapt, to meet thechallenge posed by global terrorists focused on targets within the domesticUnited States. Serious gaps existed between the collection coverageprovided by US foreign and US domestic intelligence capabilities. The USforeign intelligence agencies paid inadequate attention to the potential fora domestic attack’. The report added that ‘at home, the counterterrorismeffort suffered from the lack of an effective domestic intelligence capability’.The report withheld judgement as to whether or not the FBI shouldperform domestic intelligence collection and analysis or whether a newagency was needed.

The Bush administration believes that the current intelligence and lawenforcement structure is sufficient. The FBI continues to be the nation’sdomestic collection agency, and under the USA PATRIOT Act has greaterauthority to collect and act on information on suspected terrorists. The CIAretains primacy over foreign intelligence, strategic analysis and threatwarnings. The administration established the Terrorism Threat IntegrationCenter (TTIC) as an interagency analysis unit to bridge the gap between FBIand CIA. This move effectively pre-empted proposals to create a new entitythat would have competed with the CIA’s dominant role. DHS providesadditional personnel for this new centre. Though it lacks authority andcapacity for raw intelligence collection, there is still considerablecongressional pressure to situate central responsibility for raw datacollection and analysis with respect to domestic threats in the DHS. There isno consensus that the reforms taken to date are adequate. Many intelligenceprofessionals believe the FBI is incapable of collecting and analysingdomestic intelligence on foreign terrorist threats within the United States.There is a substantial basis for this assessment. The FBI has been aninvestigative agency, its agents trained and charged mainly to gatherevidence to solve crimes after they have occurred. This ‘prosecution first’mentality is not the best conditioning for identifying terrorist rings andpreventing attacks. The FBI’s analytic capabilities also are not designed topenetrate and identify terrorist networks. Its culture does not view analystsas integral to the FBI’s mission. FBI Director Robert Mueller’s attempts tomodify this entrenched culture do not appear to have taken root.

Intelligence and law enforcement information sharing remains achallenge. Sharing information between two agencies as culturally distinctand historically competitive as the FBI and CIA does not come easy. It isunclear whether TTIC will be able to overcome the cultural and historicalobstacles. TTIC remains dominated by the CIA. Its staffing and experience


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levels remain limited. Furthermore, while the CIA had attempted, with the creation of the Counterterrorism Center in the 1990s, to improveinformation flow between the foreign intelligence and domestic law-enforcement elements of government, 11 September revealed its basicfailure. At some levels, the failings persist. The US government still has notproduced a common terrorist database and watch list to assist consular,immigration and border patrol agents with some means of separatingtourists from terrorists.

Intelligence sharing between the federal government and state and localauthorities is limited. Improving federal to state/local information sharinghas been tasked to Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs), sponsored by theJustice Department, which bring together local, state and federal authoritiesto share information on potential threats in major cities, and federalagencies have promised to accredit state officials for clearances. But non-federal investigators remain uncertain as to where they should send locallysourced information since both the JTTFs and DHS have a mandate toimprove information flow to state authorities. Moreover, the multi-layeredsystem of information sharing established by the TTIC will not provide real-time transmissions from federal to local officials or vice-versa. DHS hasreacted to this criticism by announcing yet another information network.

Transatlantic security interdependenceIt became clear very soon after 11 September that there was an organicconnection between US and European homeland security: improvedAmerican homeland security would make the US less vulnerable andEurope a commensurately more attractive target, and vice-versa. Indeed,the targeting primacy of the US as Islam’s ‘far enemy’, combined with therelative freedom of action afforded Islamists in Europe, made it most usefulto al-Qaeda as a recruitment, planning and staging ground, rather than a direct target, before 11 September. Certainly following 11 September,Europe and the US were more secure than any other regions, owing to theirsuperior counter-terrorism institutions and heightened alert towardstransnational Islamist threats. Given the high political value of Europeantargets, the fact that Europe was not hit until 30 months after 11 Septembersuggests that, relatively speaking, it was not a soft target. Nevertheless,European jurisdictions – the UK most emphatically – have held that a majorattack in Europe was a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.

Madrid proved them ruefully correct. European security organisations– which are generally geared to act on emergent threats on the basis ofcurrent intelligence – may now have to move closer to the USvulnerability-based conception of homeland security, under which law-enforcement and intelligence agencies seek through preventive measuresto minimise unspecified threats by denying terrorists access to territory


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and opportunities to act. Success in this enterprise is difficult to achieveunder any circumstances, and has become more elusive as al-Qaeda hascome to recruit from and operationally rely on local talent. In Europe, thehomegrown pool appears to be getting richer. These circumstances paint adaunting picture of inchoate terrorist cells already in place.

The fact that Europe is now a target for Islamist terrorist attacks should not obscure its ongoing usefulness as a platform for attacks against the US, and certainly will not blind Washington to this reality. Although transatlantic law-enforcement and intelligence cooperation hasbecome durably more robust since 11 September, European governmentsshould expect more pressure from the US with respect to the pursuit andapprehension of suspected terrorists within Europe. Europe’s proactivenational law-enforcement and intelligence efforts as well as homeland-security measures are likely to become more vigorous and risk-averse.This could mean, for example, broader, possibly European Union-wide,implementation of security standards akin to those reflected in the USAPATRIOT Act, according police greater detention powers and intelligenceagencies access to pooled immigration data, and better coordination ofborder security. Only two or three national European governments, mostprominently Britain, have enacted laws comparable to the USA PATRIOTAct. But they are constrained in applying them – for instance, by detaininglarge numbers of terrorist suspects – by legitimate legal and politicalconsiderations that are more salient in Europe than the United States.Despite the domestic civil-libertarian condemnation of the Britishgovernment’s power to detain foreign terrorist suspects indefinitely, it hasbeen applied to fewer than 20 people.

Nevertheless, European perceptions of the terrorist threat have broadlyconverged with American ones. The UK in particular, perhaps owing to itssingularly close strategic alignment with the US, is hypersensitive to threatsof WMD or so-called ‘weapons of mass disruption’ such as radiologicaldispersal devices, or ‘dirty bombs’. It has mobilised the military to guardagainst risks from surface-to-air missiles. The UK government emphasisescivil defence and national resilience, having simulated a chemical attack incentral London to sharpen its preparedness. In light of transnationalIslamist terrorists’ preference for mass casualties, British law-enforcementagencies are more inclined than they were when the Irish Republican Army(IRA) was the main terrorist adversary to arrest suspects preventively, asare authorities elsewhere in Europe – France in particular. Since the Madridbombings, British authorities have reiterated that a terrorist attack in theUK is ‘inevitable’. They are probably as ready to deal with such an attackas any jurisdiction in Europe, having emphasised and bolstered civildefence and national resiliency since 11 September.

Yet local and regional British officials – through the Emergency PlanningSociety – have criticised the UK’s level of civil-defence preparedness,


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noting that its first responders could handle a limited IRA-style operationbut not a no-warning mass-casualty attack on the order of the Madridbombings. Although the UK’s civil-defence budget has increased by 35%over pre-2001 levels, it is still only £35m per annum. Comprehensivepreventive means do not appear to be in place to compensate for any first-response deficiencies. For instance, the UK’s 17,700km, 2,500-station railnetwork, which is used by five million people a day, is vulnerable. Metaldetectors and baggage scanners are used only on the Eurostar servicerunning between London and Brussels and London and Paris. Universalairport-style security checks would be impractical and forbiddinglyexpensive. Notwithstanding a generally more pronounced emphasis on homeland security in the United States, security for land-basedtransportation there before the Madrid attacks did not appear to bemarkedly better than Europe’s. This reveals a more general truth: while theEuropean threat-based and intelligence-driven approach to counter-terrorism is somewhat at odds with the American vulnerability-basedapproach, American invulnerability remains only an aspiration.

Still a non-strategic enterpriseHomeland security is not a government function that can be easily stuffedinto a single bureaucratic box. In many respects, both Ridge’s title andorganisation are misnamed. Many other skill sets contribute to anaggregate national capacity to thwart catastrophic terrorism. Homelandsecurity is a composite of many capabilities, including diplomacy, financialcontrols, intelligence, law enforcement, public health and military muscle.By and large, the federal agencies that provide these capabilities are beyondRidge’s control. In other words, homeland security has yet to be fullyintegrated into the United States’ national security strategy. While the DHShas made progress in harnessing the collective efforts of many heretoforedisparate pieces of a stove-piped structure, much more needs to be done.Most of the attention has been deflected to the DHS. But the DHS is afledgling institution, and its mere creation did not guarantee that thesynergies sought among under-resourced constituent institutions – like theImmigration and Naturalization Service and the Coast Guard – wouldautomatically be realised. There remains a need for focused reform andimprovement within these constituent institutions and, beyond that, afocused, cohesive and proactive strategy, intelligence reform, greatercooperation from the Defense Department and sustained attention toinstitutionalising international cooperation and coordination.


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Getting homeland security right