Yes. This is a policy decision and one that is pretty murky with lots of differing opinions. The 'war on terror' and the 'war on drugs' are two areas where these policy decisions seem to come up quite a bit.
Or maybe a better way of characterizing the problem area is that it is deeply related to how we want to respond to patterns of violence caused by foreign, non-state actors: terrorist groups, drug cartels, organized crime, private militias, etc. (including US citizens that are involved with those foreign non-state actors).
