ABSTRACT
In the past 20 years, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has evolved in dramatic ways - in both a bureaucratic and a mission sense. DHS has placed itself in the tenuous position of being a guarantor in all aspects of human activity and interchange. While DHS touts the value of the decentralized model in much of its literature, it has erected centralized superstructures of operations. DHS is about as centralized a department as it gets. It is overly large and overly bureaucratic on a number of levels. DHS’s reliance on outside authority and analysis is one of its greatest recent accomplishments. DHS has aggressively developed partnerships with universities and colleges, as well as private associations, nonprofits, think tanks, and research centers, including its many designated “Centers for Excellence.” Reality and the virtual world are now natural, interconnected handmaidens rather than separate entities, for it is crucial that we learn how to fight in both theaters of war.
