National Security Challenges
1770 Words
8 Pages
In President Obama’s opening letter to the 2015 National Security Strategy, he provides an overview of the most serious challenges to U.S. National Security. “Violent extremism and an evolving terrorist threat,” he pens, “raise a persistent risk of attacks on America and our allies.” The violent extremist and terrorist threat is the most pressing national security challenge facing the U.S. in the next five to ten years. This threat is the most pressing concern because weak and failing states across the globe offer terrorist safe havens, weapons of mass destruction could have devastating impacts on our population, and globalization allows radical groups to quickly disseminate their message anywhere, anytime. In order to combat violent extremism,
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Globalization can be defined as as “worldwide networks of interdependence.” As technology continues to provide the means for people to connect, trade, and move more freely across international borders, it also enables “deviant globalization” where bad actors “use technical infrastructure of globalization to exploit gaps and differences in regulation and law enforcement.” Terrorist organizations can abuse globalization in several ways. First, they can use the internet to quickly spread radical ideas globally. Terrorist groups can base and operate in any of the previously mentioned weak and failing states, while recruiting and indoctrinating “lone wolf” radicals anywhere in the world. Second, black markets and elicit trade circles forming on the outskirts of the global economy are used to by terrorist to fund their organizations through illegal activities. And finally, according to Derek Reveron and Kathleen Mahoney-Norris, globalization helps the spread of radical ideology by “fostering a fear of the unknown.” Reveron and Mahoney provide an example from Nigeria where radical Islamists attacked police stations supported by the West. The radicals cited their disapproval for any influence of Western culture In the regions as the their basis for violent
Globalization can be defined as as “worldwide networks of interdependence.” As technology continues to provide the means for people to connect, trade, and move more freely across international borders, it also enables “deviant globalization” where bad actors “use technical infrastructure of globalization to exploit gaps and differences in regulation and law enforcement.” Terrorist organizations can abuse globalization in several ways. First, they can use the internet to quickly spread radical ideas globally. Terrorist groups can base and operate in any of the previously mentioned weak and failing states, while recruiting and indoctrinating “lone wolf” radicals anywhere in the world. Second, black markets and elicit trade circles forming on the outskirts of the global economy are used to by terrorist to fund their organizations through illegal activities. And finally, according to Derek Reveron and Kathleen Mahoney-Norris, globalization helps the spread of radical ideology by “fostering a fear of the unknown.” Reveron and Mahoney provide an example from Nigeria where radical Islamists attacked police stations supported by the West. The radicals cited their disapproval for any influence of Western culture In the regions as the their basis for violent