Risk management is a vital part of homeland security. It is used to determine the true credibility of a threat against the United States. It helps assist administration in determining what damage could be done to people or assets and also help create a plan which would be used to mitigate damage should a threat be carried out (Raymond, 2002). Risk management is all about prioritizing threats according to how credible they are also what kind of damage they may do. Risk management is a complicated process requiring a vast amount of understanding before being able to critique threats successfully.
This formula is used to calculate the overall risk of any given threat. This formula is R = f(C, V, T). The R represents the risk level while the f in math represents the function. This means the value of R is dependent upon the values of C, V, and T. C stands for the consequences of an attack, which can be from minimal to devastating. V represents vulnerability of a target and is calculated in percentages and T stands for the threat which measures effects of damage to a particular target (Masse, T., O’Neil, S., & Rollins, J. (2007). The important thing to consider when it comes to risk assessment is what is feasible financially and what threat is important enough to maintain those financial expenditures in order to protect against that risk. Critical Assessments Threat assessments are critical to any risk management plan. These assessments evaluate aspects of a potential terrorist attack from the likelihood, what targets would be affected, how many people would be touched by the event and to know what resources will be necessary to prevent or triage an attack. Prioritizing threats is necessary so our resources aren’t allocated to a nonexistent threat while real threats are dismissed or ignored. Several different governmental agencies are involved in developing these threat assessments including law enforcement on the local level, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, among others. Coordination between these agencies on specific tasks is paramount to the success of these risk assessments. These threat assessments need to maintain a delicate balance in order to not waste resources and properly prepare and plan for any potential threats. The Department of Defense (DOD) also uses these threat assessments to judge threats against the multitude of military bases, which seems to be an increasing issue. These attacks can also come from within. These assessments given to the commanders over each base can help them prepare against specific threats against their particular installation (Raymond, 2002). Vulnerability assessments are equally important as they can show potential weaknesses such as problems or holes in security or even problems with physical locations of buildings and parking lots, which may let a threat much …show more content…
Strategic planning is the process which creates the risk management system. They go hand in hand. This planning must be accomplished in order to create the plans in place to protect the nation. Sound analysis must occur in order for a strategic plan to come together correctly and accurately. Strategic planning articulates missions and goals, what they will do to achieve that goal and also puts steps in place to evaluate progress and performance (Strategic planning, 2015). Overall, the goals of strategic planning include preventing terrorism and enhancing security, securing and managing our borders, enforcing immigration laws, securing and watching over cyberspace and also making our nation prepared for any attacks along with putting plans into place to recover from an attack should it …show more content…
People are willing to give up freedom for supposed “peace” so governmental agencies have to make sure not to take advantage of this fact and overdo it. One issue which has to be balanced is making sure people feel safe yet not overspending the budget to assure that safe feeling. This is a double edged sword though because the media and politicians play on these fears of terrorist attacks, which in turn makes the people demand more to ensure safety. The way to counteract this problem is for current programs and plans to show strength and confidence, not the vulnerabilities (Friedman, 2011). After all, people seem to be the most concerned with the appearance of freedom vs. actually being free and would trade freedom for