World Religion in Homeland Security Essay

World Religion in Homeland Security

The relation between national security and religion has existed for quite some time now with a clear manifestation on how religious persecution and national security threats correlate. According to Inboden (2012), predicting what security threats the United States would face from the beginning of the 21st century would require consideration of a congressional testimony from a State Department official who could barely be understood. When we look back at the history of the wars that have been fought by the United States this correlation is seen to have started earlier than the 21st century since these wars have been against enemies that had total disregard of religious freedom. These included countries with varied religious and ideological practices including cultism, atheistic communism, orthodox nationalism, Baathism, Islamist theocracy, and Jihadism, yet all had the common characteristic of being hostile to religious freedom.

This relation therefore points to the fact that anyone who is in the career of homeland security should at least have an understanding of world religion to the extent that is possible. This is important because formulation of national security currently will take religion into account, though not many would want to openly talk about it. While this may be true, some people still believe that national security and religion are two different entities each addressing different elements. However, borrowing from Sun Tzu's (1971; 84) saying: "know the enemy and know yourself, in a hundred battles you will never be in danger," we may say it is important to have a thorough knowledge for you to be successful in a career homeland security. The best way of knowing the enemy is by having a proper mastery of his religion since it is religion that dictates their identity, source of power, interest, and values (Koberle, 1999). It therefore means that when you understand the religion of the enemy then you will get to know what they do, why they do it, how they do it, and their perception of other people who share with them the same faith and those who do not.

The implication of this is that religion drives human behavior and this is a factor that should be considered when discussing religion in relation to matters of security. A professional in homeland security should take caution when trying to discuss religion so that he does not appear to be advocating for one religion of another, or passing judgment on how orthodox or heterodox a religion is, but rather stick to the form of behavior informed by a certain religion. It is behavior that matters regardless of how it is motivated, it is through behavior that a society can support the interests of the United States or attack it, or protect the lives of the innocent or take the lives, the security of the state therefore requires that policy makers understand world religion with regard to associated behaviors.

Inboden (2002) uses Robert Seiple as an example of an individual who had…