One of the events prior to 9/11 that I believe also significantly contributed to shaping homeland security in the present was the Cold War. The differences between the Cold War and the War on Terror were of course the time, the place, and the people who were involved but the main difference were the cause of each war. The U.S. got involved with Korea and Vietnam because the US wanted to stop the spread of communism coming from countries like the U.S.S.R. The US declared war against Afghanistan because of terrorist actions of 9/11 to stop the spread of terrorism in the future. Reasons like these are what shaped the homeland security program, Americans fear that there are people out there who will directly and/or indirectly harm this country.
The ways that these two wars are similar is that due to this rise in fear, Clovis (2006) states that the government becomes more lenient when allowing people like Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy to claim anyone to be a communist without solid evidences and policies like the USA PATRIOT Act to imprison people …show more content…
I would prefer that homeland security would have an “all-hazards” policy approach, protecting and assisting people from man-made incidents to unavoidable natural disasters during times when terrorism is not a prominent threat for the time being. Otherwise it would simply be occupying resources during times of peace, affecting the people who are operating in homeland security to perhaps develop an unhealthy bias towards finding and punishing potential terrorists rather than having an interest in protecting other human beings from