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CONCLUDING COMMENTS AND FUTURE OUTLOOK

Jennifer Pomeroy

Department of History and Political Science, York College of Pennsylvania, York, PA, US

INTRODUCTION

National security policy making is a challenging arena, involving competing priorities and complex circumstances. It becomes especially difficult in an increasingly interconnected world that changes at an accelerating pace. This book provides a comprehensive qualitative assessment about the national security threats to the United States at present and the years to come by using President Obama’s final National Security Strategy (NSS) as a roadmap.

In brief, the book is organized as follows. Chapter 2 offered an overview of homeland security in the areas of immigration, transnational organized crime, increasing travel vulnerability, and terrorism inside of the United States, Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 9 focused on specific nation-state actors of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, respectively. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 investigated, respectively, the national threats at regional level by including Asia-Pacific, Africa, and CENTCOM that are essential in global peace of the 21st century.

Corresponding author: Jennifer Pomeroy. Department of History and Political Science, York College of Pennsylvania. Email: jpomeroy@ycp.edu.

Chapter 10 and 11 examined non-state actors of terrorism: al Qaeda and ISIS that are characteristically network-based and information-mobile driven.

Using the instruments of diplomacy, information, military, and economics (D.I.M.E.) as an overarching theoretical framework, this book is a result of extensive implementation of the York Intelligence Red Team Model (YIRTM) which has four instruments presented (Weaver, 2015). The YIRTM model based off the D.I.M.E. framework with consistent applications of the Federal Qualitative Secondary Data Case Study Triangulation Model (Federal Triangulation Model), the trend, pattern, and processes of various national threats that the U.S. faces today are carefully examined. Several larger themes and general conclusions emerged and they are noted below.

Chapter 2 presented three leading elements that impact homeland security. These are (1) that illegal immigration has affected the official diplomatic policy of the United States; and (2) a lack of information on serialization of weapon’s owners, illegal weapon sales, and sale of unauthorized materials have hampered the United States’ efforts fighting against organized crimes that are transnational in nature. A third element, related to travel safety, is the U.S. is encountering shortage of TSA staff and lack of more effective equipment. Concurrently presented are terrorist attacks inside of the homeland that are increasing in frequency and intensity. Implementation of the YIRTM which is a derived model looking at how diplomacy, information, military, and economic instruments, has successfully helped reavelation of how the adversaries of the United States utlize these instrument weakening hegemony of this nation on the global stage. Only improved synergy among the four D.I.M.E. instruments can result more successful efforts to “protect, prevent, and prepare” for attacks the homeland may encounter for the years to come.

While it is clear that such a wide range of national threats is facing at the U. S. at present, state actors, regional actors, and non-state actors are serious challengers of the hegemony of the United States. State actors that were examined in great details in the earlier chapters can be grouped into two categories: nuclear-oriented threats (which include Russia, North Korea, and Iran) and economic/military-oriented threats presented by China. As noted in chapter 3, Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and other aggressive, muscle flexing military activities demonstrated through its land grabbing. Russia’s spills its yearning for a re-emerging role as a regional and global player. It also suggests that the United States needs to continue to explore other leadership pathways in stopping Russia’s ambitions. In the case of North Korea (chapter 5), given the country’s constant and erratic military activities, it is thought that diplomacy by the US would not be fruitful. Current economic sanctions are

Concluding Comments and Future Outlook

not sufficient. As much more close and better monitoring that should be carried out, the US also needs to be more militarily ready. In the case of Iran (chapter 6), a particular problem is the state-sponsorship of terrorist groups and activities, which certainly establish the country as a regional player in military actions and physically show this establishment beyond its national border. Iran’s outreach to other countries using its diplomacy could be more harmful to the U.S. national security as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the International Atomic Energy Agency has done little to contain Iran’s nuclear power and military influence within and beyond the Middle East Region. Additionally, greater collaboration with the international community should be exercised by the U.S. as well. Possessing nuclear programs and excessively employing military actions is a common strategy for each of these three state actors to downgrade the position of the U.S.. Endicott (2013, p. 10) argues that nuclear force has best ability of defending a country and the international nuclear balance that is kept by the US’s current nuclear power is worthy of more thoughts.

Chapter 4 anchored China’s recent economic boom as a powerful instrument to examine the threat posed to the US’ hegemony at the global stage. China’s increasingly powerful and sophisticated military capacity and fast improved cyber capability clearly threats the global role of the U.S. China’s increasing military presence in the South China Sea and more frequently detected cyber-attacks are just two examples. It is suggested by chapter 4 that the US needs to continue to rigorously monitor China’s cyber activities and military maneuvers in the hotspot of the South China Sea. It is also concluded that the US should stay constant alert and pay much more attention to the strength of China domestic economic development and its impact on China’s ambition.

The Asia-Pacific (chapter 6), Africa (chapter 7), and CENTCOM (chapter 8) regions are important larger geographic theaters that the United States must pay equal attention to in the forthcoming years. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement may become a useful tool for the U.S. to maintain existing economic partners and recruit new nation-state actors as alliance in the Asia-Pacific region to counterbalance China’s economic growth. The extension and expansion of terrorist events in the parts of the African region is partially due to its geographic proximity to and some specific cultural connections to the Middle East. Combined with weak state institutions, this region has not been exercised with steady attention. The authors suggested that the U.S. should broaden its collaboration and become more inclusive by carrying out more diplomatic actions and economic development assistance. As what is pointed

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out by Hill (2015, p. 83), he suggests to use the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership organization as an extention of the US anti-terrorism front. In the CENTCOM region, the U.S. is practicing a low-key military strategy (Goodson, 2014, p. 33) by providing military assistance programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. These actions may not directly help defeat terrorist attacks, but in a long run it might buy the US extra time to use economic and diplomatic mechanisms while the military instrument remains strong. It is suggested that the U.S. should continue its current supportive efforts in the military instrument as they reduce the capacity of non-state actors and cut down terrorist group’s activities further destabilizing inside the nations within this region.

At the core of U.S. national security challenge are the non-state actors, including al Qaeda and ISIS. Non-state actors like these two organizations are the key destabilizers of international peace. After in-depth examination of al Qaeda and ISIS appeared in chapter 10 and 11 respectively, it is clear that avenues of obtaining funds and transferring them to finance these two major terrorist organizations are important factors contributing to the distribution of terrorist attacks threatening safety of more population and in wider geographic locations. In addition, improvements of use of social media and internet occurring on a almost daily basis provides safety net for such geographic distribution. The U.S. needs to increase the intensity of monitoring operations, fast developing more sophiscated cyber infrastructure to detect signs of terrorist attacks and trace their operation pathways, and conducting near real-time analyses. In addition, continuing emphasis on improving our military capacities must be materialized.

To assess the current national threats of the U.S., information, more precisely, cyber power must be placed as a top priority as cyber infrastructure is a repository of data and information that provides advanced capability linking all stakeholders in different places. As McCarthy and his fellow scholars conclude that “the cyber infrastructure of the United States is vital in national defense, the US government, and the global economy” (McCarthy, Burrow, Dion, & Pacheco et al., 2016, p. 543). Endicott (2013, p. 41) also stresses that cyberspace technologies should be in “effective use, control, and restraint” when it comes to national security issues. Some of recent development in building effective cyber infrastructure includes advances in automation of military supply and logistics, rapid geo-spatial information systems among government emergency services, and networking of critical business services and migrated into Internet protocol and they could help improve precision military acts, more effective emergency responses, and

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Concluding Comments and Future Outlook

better management of critical business infrastructure. Unfortunately, the federal government has displayed “irresolute and inconsistent leadership regarding cyber critical infrastructure protection” (MaLay, 2015, p. 17).

Traditional economic sanctions have proved to be somewhat effective in curbing adversaries’ activities that pose threats to the U.S.. However, the effect of such tactic might only be functional when these economic sanctions are put in place to state actors. When dealing with the challenge from non-state actors, it becomes more ineffective and inefficent such as al Qaeda and ISIS.

The authors of each of the chapters use past five years as the window of analyses investigating the national security issues and challenges facing the U.S., which in some ways limits a longer longitudinal perspective that could reveal richer and more in-depth insights on the behaviors of state and non-state actors. The adoptions of the D.I.M.E. theoretical framework may have not allowed it to cover other factors contributing to complexity of national security concerns.

RECOMMENDATIONS

State actors including Russia, North Korea and Iran have their national diplomatic strategies largely shaped by how each state sees the outside world. These national strategies are practically controlled by one man – the country’s leader. For example, Vladimir Putin in Russia, Kim Jong-Un in North Korea, and Hassan Rouhani in Iran. The U.S. must understand, fully understand, those internal political, economic, and cultural conditions inside of these countries before using the D.I.M.E. instruments. While each instrument of the D.I.M.E. that are aligned with the U.S. national security priorities must be weighted in each specific country or situation, more systematic assessment of holistic impact of the D.I.M.E. must be equally examined. As what is happening in anti-terrorism campaign, the central tenet of using military tactics have not been effective. Conversely, to adversaries of the U.S., military weapons are possessed to pose the threats in aggressively manner from distance. Regarding the information instrument, as summarized earlier, some of US-targeted retaliation by state actors might exhibit a somewhat contradicting approach from time to time. The U.S. needs to continue to invest and advance its cyberinfrastucture capability for data collection, mining, and analysis. Often, the interconnectedness between and among each D.I.M.E. instrument is overlooked and thus should be explored more. For instance, Phsyical land grabbing activities are not going to be militarily sustainable in the long run.

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State-run media via firewalls, media regulations puts Russia at an unfavorable position on the international stage is rather effective isolating Putin. Economic sanctions can increase the US power in resolving these national security issues when they are posed to state actors; however, they are not effective with non-state actors and more Muslim-included base fighting alliance against terrorism needs to be explored. Integrating all four instruments will work out best. Moreover, a broader context such as a regional approach could be helpful. However, how to best integrate these interrelated four aspects remain as a significant challenge as movement of people and fluidity of money.

Non-state actors such as al Qaeda and ISIS share unique characteristics in the 21st century which is network-based and mobile-information driven organizations. These organizations fully recognize the advantages of modern mass communication media technology and its efficiency reaching wider geographic places and faster and have best taken advantage of it. The information instrument, if it can be used globally to the benefits of the U.S. with more understanding and colloborations with others, particilary Islamic institutions, can influence the political, military, economic, and social behavior of people (McLay, 2015, p. 18). Perhaps it is the U.S. that has one of the best computer technological capabilities with a more sophiscated systematic monitoring system can provide its matching leadership in the world. Lastly, the U.S. should exercise what White (2014, p. 11) discusses which is that establishing a whole-of-Government Campaign Strategy Management structure and better coordination mechanism for this structure with multidimensional instruments (Oliveira, 2016, p. 51).

REFERENCES

Clark, Robert M. 2016. Intelligence Analysis: A Target-centric Approach. Los Angeles: CQ Press.

Cimbala, Stephen J. 2013. Arms for Uncertainty: Nuclear Weapons in US and Russian Security Policy. New York: Ashgate Publishing.

Endicott, Troy L. A National Defense Fellow’s Debrief for the 2012-2013 Academic Year: Lessons on The Value of a Military Fellowship, North Korea and Iran’s Nuclear Pursuits, and the Evolving Cyberspace Domain. Research Paper. John F. Kennedy School of Government Belfer Center for

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Science and International Affairs International Security Program, Harvard Kennedy School, April 2013.

Goodson, Larry P. (2014). US Policy and Strategy toward Afghanistan after 2014. United States Army War College Press [Accessed on July 12, 2016]. http://hdl.handle.net/10945/45567.

Hill, Raymond J. Indicators of Terrorism vulnerability in Africa. Thesis Paper, Air Force Institute of Technology, March 2015.

Kilpeläinen, Teemu, Stephen Murphy, Josh Powers, and Michael Welch. A Look to the Future: Russia’s Infrastructure Instruments of National Power. Tiede ja ase 73 (2016).

Oliveira, Antonio. 2016. The Use of Military Force in the Management and Conflict Resolution. OBERVARE, vol. 7(1): 33-54.

McCarthy, John A., Chris Burrow, Maeve Dion, and Olivia Pacheco. (2009). Chapter 23: Cyberpower and Critical Infrastructure Protection: A Critical Assessment of Federal Efforts. In: Cyberpower and National Security. Edited by Franklin D. Kramer, Start H. Starr and Larry Wentz. Potomac Books Incorporated [Accessed on July 20, 2016]. http://ctnsp.dodlive.mil/ files/2014/03/Cyberpower-I-Chap-23.pdf.

McLay, James M. Joint Interagency Task Force; the Right Model to Combat Transnational Organized Crime? A Technical Report by Joint Military Operations Department, US Naval War College Newport United States [Accessed on July 10, 2-16]. http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc? Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=AD1001934.

Weaver1, John M. (2015). The Perils of a Piecemeal Approach to Fighting ISIS in Iraq. Public Administration Review. 75(2) 192-193.

Weaver2, John M. 2015. The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend… Or Still My Enemy: The Challenge for Senior Civilian and Military Leaders. International Journal of Leadership in Public Service. 11(3-4).

Weaver3, John M. 2015. The Department of Defense and Homeland Security relationship: Hurricane Katrina through Hurricane Irene. Journal of Emergency Management. 12(3) 265-274.

White, Nathan. December, 2014. Organizing for War: Overcoming Barriers to Whole-of-Government Strategy in the ISIL Campaign. Small Wars Journal, December Issue [Accessed on July 12, 2016]. http://cco.ndu.edu/ Portals/96/Documents/Articles/White_Organizing-for-War-Overcoming-Barriers-to-Whole-of-Government-Strategy-in-the-ISIL-Campaign-2014-12-28.pdf.

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