The critical infrastructure protection (CIP) of USA requires that critical infrastructure is protected from both external and internal threats and also repaired in case of physical damage that disrupts services. The infrastructure in the USA has been deteriorating for many years, leading to damage and lives being lost (Brown, Carlyle, Salmerón and Wood, 2006). The only cause of addressing CIP when a major catastrophe has happened to infrastructure; however, CIP should be addressed as a preventive measure, but not in a reactive way. There are sixteen different infrastructures, each with its plan of protection, specific human-made and natural threats, risks, and deteriorations. The occurrence of disaster on any of these infrastructures will have significant damage to the security of the nation, and it might collapse the whole infrastructure. The US stakeholders in this sector have the capability of addressing these issues and threats. However, research indicates that every Sector-Specific Agency (SSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had not been stepping up to this role as they should. They have not been responding to previous warnings and threats on poor maintenance of critical infrastructure. Instead, these departments have opted to focus more on preventing terrorist attacks. Assessment of the critical infrastructure of US shows that there have not been any unified efforts to secure the interrelated critical infrastructure aspect due to lack of a consensus on the interrelationships between sectors. The government of USA has acknowledged that there are some existing gaps and problems in the protection policies of critical infrastructure. Therefore, the government has conducted some evaluation research to find solutions that will remedy these gaps.
The purpose of the current research is to evaluate the current condition of the US SSA and CIP. The focus of this research is the areas of vital energy, public health segments, and the transportation sector. Roughly, these sectors comprise half of critical infrastructure. Specific sectors that were examined are energy, dams, wastewater systems, transportation sector and the water sectors. The objective of the research was to investigate whether the DHS has implemented security to protection and maintenance of these critical infrastructure sectors. The data that was used in the journal was gathered online by searching each segment in conjunction with indicative terminologies of disasters, attacks, and failures. The data was also got from online status reports of the government sector. The specific online search engine used was google, academic journal databases, and networks of national news.
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The findings of the research are also detailed in the report. The first finding was that specific sectors interrelate with each other such that failure of one sector will affect other critical infrastructure sectors that are associated with the sector’s resources (Hemme, 2015). Dams are one such infrastructure since water from dams is relied on by nearly all other sectors. The SSA of the dams had fulfilled its requirements demanded by NIPP 2013. However, the ASCE report awarded the dams sector a poor (D) grade stating that the US dams are aging and high-hazard dams are increasing in number. The ASCE recommended reauthorization of the National Dam Safety Program by the federal government. Also, they should develop a national dam repair and rehabilitation and a levee safety programs. The national levee inventory was also to be completed. The estimated amount for this rehabilitation process was $121. For the water and wastewater systems, it was proposed by the ASCE that awareness should be created around the nation on the cost of supplying reliable, clean water and therefore strategies of conserving water should be created. Also, reviving the State Revolving Loan Fund would allow federal funding from at least $20 billion hence increase private support for the sector (Cavelty and Kristensen, 2008). Lastly, the sector was to establish a federal trust fund for water and a water investment program that would offer a financial remedy to the burden of repairing. On the transport sector, ASCE recommended some steps that would improve the sector. The first step was to increase public access to transit in rural, urban and suburban areas. Second, a reliable source of funding for highway repairs and improvements, besides fuel tax should be identified. The last sector that was evaluated is the energy sector. For this sector, the ASCE recommended that policy for national energy is adopted to increase efficient use of energy and decrease dependence on fossil fuels.
The journal has many strengths. The first strength is that it sufficiently explains the objective and the procedures that were used in carrying out the research. From the overview of the research, we can understand the procedures and the stakeholders involved in the research. The research highlights James J. Carafano and Mark A. Sauter as the authors of this journal. The two researchers analyzed different reports and then review the different threats that face the national security. Such factors include past and current factors that affect critical infrastructure and the problems that each sector of critical infrastructure faces according to the NIPP. The journal also explains the methods that were used in gathering the information. The first step taken was the evaluation of each SSP in conjunction with the NIPP 2013. The report explains how well the SSPs have adhered to basic risk assessment principles. The journal also commends the criterion that was set by the NIPP for the sectors to implement in creating effective protection plans. In method application, the journal also gives the keywords that were used in searching google for the research these keywords are the following: homeland security, NIPP, presidential directive, critical infrastructure protection, sector-specific agency, energy sector, water and wastewater systems, sector-specific plan, the transportation sector, and dams.
Another strength of the journal is that the information has been organized under different subheadings to enhance the readability of the journal. The first section is the abstract, which gives the importance of critical infrastructure and how it is a matter of national security. The section also gives the structure of critical infrastructure, its sectors, and other related stakeholders. The second section is the introduction. The section introduces the issues that will be discussed in the entire journal. The third section is the assessment of the current state of US critical security, and it describes the economic position of critical infrastructure in the nation. An overview of the research that has been undertaken by the report reviewers is then given in the following section. The subsequent section is the methods used in the research. The sixth section explains the findings of the researchers from each sector differently. Since each sector has its plans and SSP, the journal has differentiated all the findings of different sectors. The last section is the conclusion, and it provides a summary of the findings of the research. From the conclusion, we see that the critical infrastructure has many challenges since for a long time the sector has been neglected by agencies that are supposed to be taking care of them. Also, after every section, the source from which the information was obtained has been described.
A weakness of the journal is that it does not give a reader better understanding of how the recommended remedies by ASCE will be implemented. From the results of the research, the recommendations have only been highlighted. There is no explanation on how the plans will be implemented by the SSA and DHS. Some of the recommendations cannot be understood unless sufficient explanations on how they will work are given. Therefore, more information would have been given there. Also, the CIKR framework has not been explained how it unifies related aspects of the two segments. Anyone without background knowledge on how the framework works will not understand how it will help revive the sectors.
In conclusion, the journal is efficient since it has been able to achieve its stated objective at the beginning. The objective was to determine the challenges of critical infrastructure and see how the government has tried to remedy these problems. At the end of the journal, we see that there are many recommendations by ASCE on how the process of repairing and reviving the sectors will be implemented. Therefore, I would recommend others to use their journal since it has a simple organization and it has also sufficiently achieved its objectives. In my opinion, the article has been able to explain how critical infrastructure is related to the national security. Also, the value of critical infrastructure to homeland security can be derived from the journal. Failure in a sector of critical infrastructure, for instance, a dam, might cause failure to other sectors hence affect homeland security. Failure of a dam will prevent freshwater reaching other sectors of the nation. Hence people might suffer lack of water, yet supplying fresh water is very expensive. Therefore, the homeland security of a nation will be affected. The journal helps us to understand how critical infrastructure is vital to homeland security (Lopez, 2008). Also, stakeholders of maintaining this sector should, therefore, see how a catastrophe will befall the nation if they do not protect critical infrastructure. Also, ways through which they can be done has been highlighted in the journal.
References
Cavelty, M. D., & Kristensen, K. S. (2008). Securing\'the homeland\': critical infrastructure, risk and (in) security.
Brown, G., Carlyle, M., Salmerón, J., & Wood, K. (2006). Defending critical infrastructure Interfaces , 36 (6), 530-544.
Hemme, K. (2015). Critical Infrastructure Protection: Maintenance is National Security. Journal of Strategic Security , 8 (5), 25-39.
Lopez, J. (2008). Critical Infrastructure Protection.
