Terrorism is an extensive literature. There are many definitions and classifications of the phenomenon. However, neither causes terrorism, nor its effects are still explained in any satisfactory manner. Researchers are unanimous in understanding the nature of terrorism as unlawful violence used for the physical elimination of the enemy or to impose his particular line of conduct, the demoralization of society, destruction of state institutions.
According to the accepted definition in the United States, terrorism is a prudent use of violence or threat to use violence to create a climate of fear to intimidate or coerce the government or a community of people to achieve their goals that are political, religious or ideological nature (Coady, 2004).
The establishment of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after the 9/11 attacks was a clear proof of how the US will try and effectively combat the current global terrorism. This was signified by the establishment of specialized centers (72 in number). These are the fundamental units beneficially of the Ministry in that they perform activities including collection of information about, processing the data they have obtained revolving around the terrorist suspects. Storage and transmission of vital information pertaining to threats from terrorists majorly in accordance to the requirements of the state, including local governments as well as services to the US intelligence community (Hoffman, 2006).
In response to this, the FBI has recruited more agents and increased the overall number of joint anti-terrorist groups (Joint Terrorism Task Forces) in the US. A serious problem, according to analysts, is an active process of radicalization of American society. At present, significant changes have been realized on how the terrorist threat sources come about. Native Americans have also been involved in doing away with the common notion of only having these terrorists as foreigners have planned or been linked to terrorist attacks (Coady, 2004). Moreover, Al Qaeda attacks that materialized during the September 9/11 attacks have accounted for about 175 episodes that were registered in 2009 and 2010. According to experts, the threat of radicalization of Native Americans has become a serious concern. Therefore, the ability of Washington to effectively curb this deliberately and effectively is in question in this particular case compared to the previous years (Hoffman, 2006).
Consequently, it is changing the very nature of modern terrorist threats. Terrorists have quickly and efficiently adjusted to the measures to increase the activity of special services. As a case scenario, the terrorists started using powerful and sensitive to the impact of high explosives, which are quite difficult to detect (Coady, 2004). A major concern to the officials of concerned with anti-terrorism measures is that everything becomes a more real prospect for the case of lone terrorists.
Newer approach by American special services on the available intelligence have problems of another nature - intelligence analysts are obliged to dedicate a precious amount of time on extractions and to relate this to a huge number of heterogeneous data. But their real analysis from the experts is very little time resources. The number of private companies involved in the analysis of data containing intelligence of the terrorist actions should be reduced significantly. This shows that the data analysis techniques being employed should be of hi-tech. There should also be improved the level of language training specialist in some Middle East languages, including Arabic, Dari, Farsi, and others.
Evidently, despite the efforts (and effectively) measures to combat international terrorism, armed with the world’s current best military equipment, in various areas of the US intelligence agencies still cannot fully ensure the antiterrorist protection of American society. Blasts in their country and carry out their own already US citizens.
Consequently, the prevention strategy is based on four pillars. First, one is carrying out the intensive investigations targeted within national security, using all the tools available under US law for the prevention of terrorism. The FBI has also taken a broad reorganization to deal with the terrorist threat. The next aspect is that the domestic and foreign partnerships are needed to expose terrorist networks (Coady, 2004). Thus, the cooperation capacity is the second key component of the US strategy to combat terrorism. Rest and prosecution of suspected terrorists require a complex balance between what to give investigators the ability to collect enough evidence, and not to give in this case the suspects to exercise their planned attack. The fourth pillar of the strategy involves efforts to counter radicalization.
References
Hoffman, B. (2006). Inside terrorism. Columbia University Press.
Coady, C. T. (2004). Terrorism, morality, and supreme emergency. In Terrorism (pp. 80-96). Palgrave Macmillan UK
