National Southwest Border Counternarcotics (NSWBCN) Strategy: Elements and Policies for State-Level

Overview of the NSWBCN strategy's 10 chapters

Task:

National Protection and Preparedness This week, you will provide a comprehensive summary of the specific elements of the National Southwest Border Counternarcotics (NSWBCN) Strategy, offering an executive overview of the 10 chapters. In your assignment, identify the relevant supporting ligaments of the policy that directly or indirectly support state-level protection and preparedness. Building on your case study scenario, craft a 2-page memorandum to the governors of the border states that you have determined to have homeland security equities on the Southwest border (SWB). Be sure to include the following: Page 1: You should outline the specific chapters of the NSWBCN Strategy. Page 2: You should explain how their contents and supporting language might support their state-level objectives and serve as potential justification for requesting federal grants or congressional appropriations. Include useful bibliographic references. Section 6: National Response and Resilience This week, you will draw from your case study to explain the nexus of the SWB and the associated risks and vulnerabilities to a critical infrastructure (CI) protection plan. Identify what policies and procedures should be in place within the interagency to ensure the appropriate response and resilience given the multithreat environment that exists at the SWB. Drawing from the case study and relevant themes in the NSWBCN Strategy, draft a 2-page policy proposal that includes the following: Page 1: Explain how SWB-related critical infrastructure protection (CIP), response, and resilience imperatives should be fully integrated into future versions of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) strategies and policies. Page 2: Make general recommendations that would be appropriate for DHS planners to consider when updating these documents. Include useful bibliographic references. Review the Key Assignment description in the Week 1 Individual Project.

It is apparent that the Southwest Border experience very many threats associated with the existence and operation of drug cartels, mafias and syndicates as well as possible the use of drug trafficking channels by terrorists to smuggle WMD. So far, NSWBCN has done a crucial job to come up with comprehensive strategy that can help trace the routes and networks of such criminals. So far, the primary threats addressed in the strategy include the interdiction of drug flow and drug proceeds, the interdiction of flow of weapons and also the sensitization of communities to avoid use of drugs (Border, 2012). The secondary threat which must be addressed is the issue of WMD.

The difficulty lies in the need to address different areas of knowledge, analysis, and political and technical factors. Islamic radicals have been trying to create their own nuclear weapons since at least the early 1990s. The terrorist underground has even developed an ideological concept that motivates the use of these weapons against the "infidels". However, from plans to their implementation is a rather large and complex path. At the moment, there is no evidence of real threats to terrorist access to nuclear weapons. Practically in all states at nuclear facilities there are measures of physical protection, secrecy, multistage verification of personnel, the rules of “two” or “three people” when working in strategically important zones (Isacson & Meyer 2012). Despite the number and good armament, the attackers also failed to capture the object. There is no reason to believe that the personnel of units with nuclear warheads are less prepared. According to reports, the personnel of nuclear weapons storage sites in Russia and Pakistan have at least. But the main difficulty in capturing strategic targets is not even the counteraction of security, but the need to concentrate a sufficient number of people for an attack, which is not easy, given the level of development of state institutions in all modern nuclear countries. It is known that the number of Afghan Taliban (not less than 25 thousand people) and their armament make it possible to seize the American White House, coping with its protection, but it is unlikely they will be given the opportunity to gather in Washington for this purpose. Any large-scale attack on a military facility will face the same, if not great, difficulties (UNODC 2015). Of course, one cannot exclude the possibility of the sudden penetration of small groups of people into the territory of military bases. This is evidenced by the experience of criminal incursions into the territory of Russian military units in Faustovo (military unit 68128), Kronshtadt (45743) and the Samara region, terrorist attacks on Pakistan's Mehran airbase, and finally, the penetration of environmental activists at the Kleine Brogel base in Belgium, in the territory of which the American nuclear munitions were stored.

Despite good efforts and strategies, NSWBCN still lacks adequate strategies for curbing smuggling and use of WMD. Corruption, poor cooperation and technology represents areas that still need to be considered (Ivanov 2018). Dealers recruit ordinary American citizens, threaten them, offer huge amounts of money, etc. It remains to act against the main motivation of the drug business - money, to carry out actions aimed at financial restrictions, not to allow the profit to be spent, to freeze accounts, etc (FATF 2008). But here again, corruption plays a big role, which can facilitate the transition of certain banks, which helps hide the transactions proceeds.