Graduate Certificate in Homeland Security

This course addresses the potential results from nuclear, biological, and chemical incidents or uses. Topics include public health consequences of such incidents, emergency planning and response measures in place among U.S. agencies, and emerging detection and management technologies. Existing vulnerabilities to these types of incidents and attacks will also be discussed.

This course explores the boundaries of this 21st century national security mission by examining the threats, the actors, and the organizational structures and resources required to defend the American homeland. It examines how we have shifted the emphasis to protect the US homeland from the defensive measures taken during the Cold War to both reactive and proactive actions against the wide variety of asymmetric threats posed by Global Terrorism.

This course explores the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as a new phenomenon. WMD, possibly wielded by terrorists, is the ultimate nightmare of a world society which likes to think of itself as having moved to a new plane of conduct. The U.S. government takes the matter seriously and it is presently devoting tens of millions of dollars to prepare for an incident. This course explores this new potential threat and the various responses to prevent, prepare, and respond to its use.

Examines intelligence community responses to threats to the U.S. homeland from transnational and domestic terrorists, including the employment of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Threats to the U.S. borders, including illegal immigration, narcotics smuggling, money laundering, commercial smuggling, and other organized crime activities are also covered.

This course will expose the students to a variety of counter-terrorism intelligence methodologies and analytic tools, and extensive academic, government, policy literature on the challenges, opportunities, and assumptions related to forecasting terrorism. The course will provide students with the analytic capability to understand the types of terrorist threats that are most likely to confront the U.S. and its allies, in addition to challenging students to evaluate the efficacy and impact of prediction-based efforts in counter-terrorism intelligence.

This course is a study of the theoretical, historical, and contemporary issues associated with quarantine as a public health and safety measure. Students will learn of quarantine strategy, implementation, effectiveness, and debate. The course topics will include consideration of quarantine as a health and safety measure in the modern homeland security strategy.