31. Defending America: Redefining the Conceptual Borders of Homeland Defense
- Author:
- Anthony H. Cordesman
- Publication Date:
- 02-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- From a public policy viewpoint, these uncertainties mean the US must prepare for a wide variety of low probability attacks on the US, rather than to emphasize any given form of attack or group of attackers. The US must plan its Homeland defense policies and programs for a future in which there is no way to predict the weapon that will be used or the method chosen to deliver a weapon which can range from a small suicide attack by an American citizen to the covert delivery of a nuclear weapon by a foreign state. There is no reason the US should assume that some convenient Gaussian curve or standard deviation, will make small or medium level attacks a higher priority over time than more lethal forms.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- United States and America