Author: Charles Nemeth
ISBN No: 9781 4665 10906
Review date: 13/12/2025
No of pages: 628
Publisher: CRC Press
Publisher URL:
http://www.crcpress.com
Year of publication: 08/07/2013
Brief:
Homeland Security : An Introduction to Principles and Practice, Second Edition
A dozen years on, homeland security has become a part of American life, and big business, though the term has not caught on in the UK. Mark Rowe reviews a thorough guide to the topic.
Homeland security is now the job of hundreds of thousands in the United States, a federal department, and costing billions a year. Does that matter to the UK? Maybe, if you export there, or you work for a multi-national. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now takes in airports, borders, cyber-security, and emergency management – and that is part of the problem, as set out by Charles Nemeth in a mammoth book. The DHS arose after 9-11, and yet the Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 showed up the ‘glaring ineptitude’ of US government, in Nemeth’s words. Much of the book is given over to a review of training, public health and other aspects of homeland security, as it touches all parts of national life – and as Nemeth points out, there lies a problem. The DHS is too large and bureaucratic; ‘there is the very real danger of mission creep’. You can fear a terrorist strike anywhere; but the more you plan and co-ordinate, do you actually do less good? “To have any chance at a prosperous future, the DHS will have to simplify,” Nemeth suggests. And how can you measure the DHS’ work? The US has not had another 9-11 – is that thanks to the DHS, or luck? Or have the terrorists moved on? As Nemeth says finally, terrorism is not going away; his book came before the Boston marathon bombs. A few calls came in the 2000s for a British homeland security department; this book shows how a good idea can go astray. Even if you are not a counter-terror person, parts of this book will be of use – the chapter on transport security, for example, if your employer trades with the States. Maybe homeland security is an impossible task – how can anyone check billions of tons of cargo and thousands of vessels, and let shippers move their goods quickly and profitably?
