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Modern Security Threat to the United States
Security refers to a state of being free from the threat of harm. Security threats to the United States have changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet (modern day Russia) over Berlin’s actions. The major threats during the post-World War era only related to military action against the United States. However, this has entirely changed and the threats have increased with the aggressors coming up with new and innovative ways of executing these threats effectively. The threats include terror attacks, economic espionage, cyber espionage, diseases outbreaks. The threats have been classified by the United States according to the level that the government finds them manageable, even though all of them are serious.
The conventional weapons have increased dramatically, as the most emerging economies such as South Korea and eastern Europe countries are opting to venture into making their own weapons and distributing them to other buyers. The number of conventional weapons being purchased has steadily increased since the cold war era. This was because of fierce competition between the United States and the Soviet battled for the control of Third world countries (Caldwell and Williams 2). They supply them to other countries without proper control, which makes it hard to control the number, types of arms, and who receives such arms and the purpose of such arms. This elicits fears that there are chances of these arms falling into the hands of terrorist (Brown 14).
The threats have become a global security problem. They are not only limited to one country. The threats posed to the security of the United States have taken new forms to include threats to aspects such as economic security, food security; health security, cyber security. The quest for security has become an elusive one, due to a paradigm shift from traditional threats that were in the form of military aggression. The threats have strained the minimal resources due to the ever-growing population. These contemporary threats such as dirty bombs, biochemical weapons and cyber viral emulsion bombs are carried out by new countries that are growing fast economically and are trying to assert authority in the global scene via all means necessary. In the era of advanced technology, there have been new breakthroughs in the type arms that are being created by countries such as China, Venezuela, and Iran. Iran for instance, had been under much scrutiny and criticism from the United Nations Security Council and the world in general for its plans to create weapons of mass destruction. This led to a halt in its nuclear intentions but still there are suspicions that Iran is still pursuing the project. Libya, on the other hand, had already succeeded in the making of dangerous weapons. It is only after several years of diplomacy by the international community, it was forced to destroy the dangerous cache of weapons(Cortright and Lopez 12).
There are new diseases that have developed that have never been in existence. Anthrax was developed over two decades ago and poses a threat to the health of the United States population. Therefore, proper mechanisms must be put in place to prevent the massive spread of this disease that still has no cure. Some are biologically engineered to form an incurable disease. They are made with the aim of harming the target populations. Anthrax was engineered in the laboratory with an aim of infecting the enemy target population. Epidemics such as the much dreaded HIV/AIDS is a disaster around the globe and needs adequate attention in order to come up with concrete solutions such dedication of more resources to research for a cure of this disease that has claimed over 25 million people in the world (Caldwell and Williams 16).
Cyber security has been the most significant source of discontent within the United States security organs. This has been attributed to the fact that the United States is a main target of cyber related crime seeking to access economic or military information. The United States is solely the major target of extremism and other terrorist activities. They would be able to hack into the government databases and steal vital information. Moreover; they would even disable disaster response networks to give them a chance to launch an attack and thus maximize the fatalities. It has been an endless battle in trying to guard treasured information prompting the United States to set up a body in charge of protecting information. The organization, known as United States Cyber Command, has the role of protecting all information belonging to the United States government. This has enabled the United States to mitigate the risk of attacks from outside sources in the form viruses that are able disable their networks and steal vital information.
There is an eminent threat to food security in the world due to global warming. Changes in weather patterns have brought about strain food supply whereas the demand for food is increasing due to the increase in population levels. This makes the amount of food that is available to be very expensive, brought about by the dwindling supplies. This can only be solved by scaling down on greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the effects already caused so far. Climate change has been fueled by the use of non-renewable resources. These resources have become depleted leading to an imminent shortage in the available resources. This has created fierce competition between the developed countries for resources in the third world countries.
United States has had several terrorists’ attacks on its own home soil. This prompted the government to track down the terrorists into their hideouts in the Arab countries in a military offensive. Terrorists operate by spreading fear and panic to the public. The proliferation of arms across the world has led to very sophisticated arms landing into the hands of terrorists. They purchase such arms with funds from their extortionist rings, piracy operations or donations from sympathizers and their main financiers. In order to eliminate such groupings from operation, a nation would have to limit their operating capability by cutting off their supply of finances thus they wont be able to purchase their much needed arms and reduce their operating numbers via military action(Cortright and Lopez 211).
Most of the threats to the United States are orchestrated by specific countries.In order to avoid a conflict, the United States can use diplomatic resolutions and tighten their response systems to be able to monitor effectively the enemy operations towards the United States. There is need for adjustments in the policies to enable the co-ordination and sharing of information between the different arms of government involved in matters of security. The state of secrecy in operations of certain arms such as the famed Central Intelligence Agency or the Federal Bureau of Investigation is in some cases unwarranted and both need to conclude that they both have a common enemy. There is also a need to make treaties that enable sharing of information in the case of possible threats with regions and countries such as Canada, European Union and other friendly states without overriding their own jurisdiction. There is also need to tighten laws on offenders found guilty of association and intentional helping of terrorists to counter such activities.
Works Cited
Cortright, David, and Lopez, George A. Uniting against terror: cooperative nonmilitary responses to the global terrorist threatMassachusettes, Cambridge, Massachusettes Institute of Technology Press. 2007. Print.
Brown, Michael E. Grave new world: security challenges in the 21st century. Nothwest Washington, Washington D.C., Georgetown University Press. 2003.Print.
Caldwell, Dan, and Williams, Robert E. Seeking Security in an Insecure World. Lanham, Maryland, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. 2012. Print.
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