Intelligence: Terrorism and Homeland Defense
Abstract
It's said that a good defense is a good offense. To succeed in defending our homeland against terrorist attacks we must take those measures to ascertain, know, and understand the terrorist organizations and the threat they pose. The best instrument in our national power arsenal to do this is the US Intelligence Community (IC) - our first line of defense." If we are to meet our national strategic objectives to defeat terrorism, to prevent attacks upon our nation and our allies, and to preclude our enemies from threatening us with weapons of mass destruction, then we must effectively collect and analyze intelligence data on the terrorists and then thoroughly disseminate the intelligence products to those organizations best equipped to take the required decisive action against the terrorist groups. This paper will briefly define terrorism, intelligence then review the disciplines of intelligence and the US IC. The types of terrorist organizations will be described followed by some difficulties of the IC leading up to the September 11th attacks on our homeland. General weaknesses of our IC will be discussed followed by some recommendations to strengthen our "first line of defense".
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 07, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA415753
Entities
People
- James A. Lowder
Organizations
- United States Army War College