It has been more than a decade since 9/11, the day when four coordinated suicide plane attacks left nearly 3,000 people dead, including more than 400 fire, police, and emergency medical services heroes. Thanks to the good work of law enforcement, numerous plots have been thwarted in the past 10 years. And, although there have been several successful acts of terrorism—such as Major Nadal Hassan’s murder of 13 service members at Fort Hood, Texas—the United States has not suffered another catastrophic attack on the scale of 9/11.

Most experts predicted that the United States would suffer another major blow. Credit for preventing this goes not only to our intelligence agencies and military operating overseas but also to our domestic counterterrorism approach. Two reasons why this approach has helped protect our homeland over the past 10 years have been the focus on prevention and the recognition of the importance of state, local, and tribal law enforcement.