Journal Of Homeland Security

Prior to the attack on the USS Cole and the events of 11 September 2001, the U.S. Navy was developing antiterrorism programs to address potential terrorist attacks in a resource-constrained environment. Amid unprecedented tragedy associated with these and other terrorist strikes against U.S. interests, both domestic and abroad, government agencies, the Armed Forces, and private companies have rapidly executed a vast array of security improvements to ensure mission capability and protect personnel, critical facilities, transportation systems, and other infrastructure. The Navy has allocated resources to local commanders to mitigate these identified force protection challenges; however, development of Navy-wide investment strategies based on assessment of threat or vulnerabilities proved programmatically elusive, thus creating the need for a different investment protocol.