Beyond 9/11: Homeland Security for the Twenty-First Century

Beyond 9/11: Homeland Security for the Twenty-First Century

Drawing on two decades of government efforts to “secure the homeland,” experts offer crucial strategic lessons and detailed recommendations for homeland security.

Editors: Chappell Lawson Alan Bersin Juliette Kayyem | August 2020
September 17, 2020

OVERVIEW

For Americans, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, crystallized the notion of homeland security. But what does it mean to "secure the homeland" in the twenty-first century? What lessons can be drawn from the first two decades of US government efforts to do so? In Beyond 9/11, leading academic experts and former senior government officials address the most salient challenges of homeland security today.

The contributors discuss counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and critical infrastructure protection; border security and immigration; transportation security; emergency management; combating transnational crime; protecting privacy in a world of increasingly intrusive government scrutiny; and managing the sprawling homeland security bureaucracy. They offer crucial strategic lessons and detailed recommendations on how to improve the US homeland security enterprise.

SELECTED REVIEWS

“From the creation of DHS to the treatment of emergent risks like cybersecurity, this book offers thoughtful analyses about the current state of homeland security as well as recommendations for its future.”
—Janet Napolitano, US Secretary of Homeland Security (2009–2013), President, University of California, Author of How Safe Are We? Homeland Security Since 9/11

“There are essential lessons here for both civilian and military authorities to minimize risks and maximize our national defenses against enemies foreign and domestic.”
 —General Lori J Robinson, Former Commander, US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command

“This is a unique and important contribution to the much-neglected field of homeland security, and indispensable to those who want to understand where the US homeland security enterprise has been and where it needs to go in the future.”
 —Joseph Lieberman, US Senator (1989–2013), Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Senior Counsel, Kasowitz, Benson, Torres, and Friedman, LLP

“The landscape of global challenges to homeland security changes daily. The authors' insights and analysis are invaluable as we manage the many risks we will encounter in the future.”
—Tom Ridge, US Secretary of Homeland Security (2003–2005), Founder and CEO of Ridge Global, LLC

 

For more information about the book and purchasing options visit https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/beyond-911

 

EDITORS

Chappell Lawson
Chappell Lawson is Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT. He directs the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) program and the newly created Policy Lab (PL@CIS). Lawson's recent work has focused on Mexican politics, the effect of candidates' physical appearance on their electoral success, political leadership, and homeland security policy.

Alan Bersin
Alan Bersin is Former Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection and DHS Assistant Secretary, Inaugural Fellow in the Homeland Security Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Global Fellow and Inaugural North America Fellow at the Canada Institute and the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars.

Juliette N Kayyem
Juliette Kayyem is the Faculty Director of the Homeland Security Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where she serves as the Robert and Renée Belfer Senior Lecturer. She was previously Assistant Secretary at DHS.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
The Center for International Studies (CIS) supports interna­tional research and education at MIT. It is the home of MIT’s Security Studies Program; the MIT International Science & Technology Initiative, its pioneering global education program; the Program on Emerging Technologies; and seminars and research on migration, South Asia politics, the Middle East, cybersecurity, nuclear weapons, and East Asia. The Center has traditionally been aligned with the social sciences while also working with MIT’s premier science and engineering scholars. CIS produces research that creatively addresses global issues while helping to educate the next generation of global citizens.