There is a wide spectrum of potential threats to the U.S. Homeland that do not involve overt attacks by states using long-range missiles or conventional military forces. Such threats include covert attacks by state actors, state use of proxies, independent terrorist and extremist attacks by foreign groups or individuals, and independent terrorist and extremist attacks by residents of the United States. These threats are currently limited in scope and frequency, but are emerging as potentially significant issues for future U.S. security. In this comprehensive work, Cordesman argues that new threats require new thinking, and offers a range of recommendations, from expanding the understanding of what constitutes a threat and bolstering homeland defense measures, to bettering resource allocation and improving intelligence gathering and analysis. Now Pattern of actual attacks on U.S. territory has yet emerged that provides a clear basis for predicting how serious any given form of attack might be in the future, what means of attack might be used, or how lethal new forms of attack might be. As a result, there is a major ongoing debate over the seriousness of the threat and how the U.S. Government should react. This work is an invaluable contribution to that debate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Anthony H. Cordesman
Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is a military analyst for BBC News. His television commentary has been featured prominently during the Iraq War, the Gulf War, Desert Fox, the conflict in Kosovo, and the fighting in Afghanistan. Cordesman is the author of a wide range of studies on U.S. security policy, energy policy, and Middle East policy. He has served as national security assistant to Senator John McCain of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as civilian assistant to the deputy secretary of defense, and as director of policy and planning for resource applications in the Department of Energy. He has also served in a number of other government position, including in the State Department and on NATO International Staff, and he has numerous foreign assignments, including posts in Lebanon, Egypt, and Iran, with extensive work in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Cordesman is the author of more than 20 books. He has been awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal, is a former adjunct professor of national security studies at Georgetwon University, and has twice been a Wilson Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Schools at the Smithsonian Institution.
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