Combating and Adjusting to Terrorism

Combating Domestic Terrorism
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Combating Domestic Terrorism
According to the federal laws in place, domestic terrorism can be defined as the various undertakings that are dangerous to human life and violate the existing state and federal laws; seems to serve the purpose of intimidating members of the public, or influencing government policy through coercion, or affect how the government conducts its business through destruction, assassination or other nefarious means; and are mainly observed in the US territorial jurisdiction (Taylor, 2019). The nature of domestic terrorism in the United States has been highly fluid and reflective of motivating ideologies. Based on the complex nature of domestic terrorism as of today, an administrative change that could increase Homeland Security’s ability to combat domestic terrorism is introducing a department tasked with civic education in the agency.
Background Information
The nature of domestic terrorism in 2021 is highly complex and driven by multiple factors. First, racial and ethnic motivations are one of the leading drivers of domestic terrorism, with the religious, race, and ethnic hatred cited as one of the leading causes of violence towards a given segment of the population. Some of the vulnerable segments to such domestic terrorism include persons of color, immigrants, religious minorities, and women among other segments. Second, domestic terrorism has been observed to result from anti-government sentiments and takes the form of militias, anarchists, and sovereign citizens who do not recognize any form of legislative, regulatory, or other forms of government action (DeLeeuw & Pridemore, 2018). In some cases, a group may have idiosyncratic justifications that cannot be easily categorized.
Notably, the complexity of domestic terrorists today is increased by the fact that lone actors and small groups that have no definite direction or structure perpetrate acts of terrorism. The actors commonly get access to materials that are deliberately disseminated to target those looking for a sense of fulfillment and belonging. The increased significance of internet communication and platforms makes it easy for a domestic terrorists to recruit followers and makes it difficult for law enforcement to combat them effectively (White, 2020). Thus, there is a need for Homeland Security to change its approach in line with the complex nature of domestic terrorism.
Proposed Change
The proposed change is the introduction of a civics department tasked with delivering civic education to the public to minimize the potential targets for domestic terror groups. The main reason for the proposed approach is to minimize the number of potential radicalization targets for domestic terror groups. To this end, Homeland Security should create a department whose main goal should be coming up with a strategy to reduce the number of American citizens who are vulnerable to recruitment activi...