Transatlantic Homeland Security

This major new study presents both conceptual and practical guidance at a crucial time when intellectual and practical efforts to protect against the new terrorism should move beyond a purely domestic focus. Creating an effective and integrated national homeland security effort is a significant challenge. Europe and the United States have reacted differently to the emergence of mass casualty terrorism, but must work together to cope with the diverse issue areas, sectors, professions, and relevant actors involved in such a broad-based concept. The authors suggest that Europe and the US have a lot to gain by coordinating more closely, and that the exchange of experience is crucial as we attempt to stay ahead of a learning enemy.

The third volume of the Transatlantic Public Policy Series contains papers prepared by members of the Transatlantic Policy Consortium (TPC), representing American and European universities and institutions. The 13 contributions focus on the future of NATO, the possibilities of transatlantic cooperation in the Middle East problems, and the challenges to human security. The collection serves as an illustration of the state of the debate on security problems in transatlantic relations at this specific time. It will contribute to greater synergies of thinking and studies of global security pursued in American and European institutions.

Developing common or complementary approaches to what Europeans call societal security and what Americans call homeland security is a major priority for the transatlantic community in 21st century. Five European country case studies are offered here, along with implications for the United States.

This volume addresses the need for the United States and Europe to transform their respective approaches to homeland security in ways that are more attuned to 21st century challenges. Effective homeland security may begin at home, but in an age of catastrophic terrorism no nation is home alone. If Europeans and Americans are to be safer than they are today, individual national efforts must be aligned with more effective transatlantic cooperation.

This book examines how legal, political, and rights discourses, security policies and practices migrate and translate across the North Atlantic. The complex relationship between liberty and security has been fundamentally recast and contested in liberal democracies since the start of the 'global war on terror'. In addition to recognizing new agencies, political pressures, and new sensitivities to difference, it is important that not to over-state the novelty of the post-9/11 era: the war on terror simply made possible the intensification, expansion, or strengthening of policies already in existence, or simply enabled the shutting down of debate. Working from a common theoretical frame, if different disciplines, these chapters present policy-oriented analyses of the actual practices of security, policing, and law in the European Union and Canada. They focus on questions of risk and exception, state sovereignty and governance, liberty and rights, law and transparency, policing and security. In particular, the essays are concerned with charting how policies, practices, and ideas migrate between Canada, the EU and its member states. By taking ‘field’ approach to the study of security practices, the volume is not constrained by national case study or the solipsistic debates within subfields and bridges legal, political, and sociological analysis. It will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, sociology, law, global governance and IR in general. Mark B. Salter is Associate Professor at the School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa.

A March 8, 2006 conference, on "The Future of the Transatlantic Relations," addressed changes in US and European defense and foreign policy in the aftermath of the War in Iraq and in light of a new consensus for coordinating US and European military strategy, planning and operational activities. Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service, Bush Presidential Library Foundation, and European Union Center of Excellence, partnering with the Department of the Army's Eisenhower National Security Series and the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, convened a conference of distinguished international experts from academic, military, governmental, and non-governmental organizations to examine key dimensions of this dynamic relationship, which has major implications for global as well as regional security.