What is to be Done: The Complexity of Homeland Security

Never in the Nation's history has it faced a challenge as serious and complex as establishing effective Homeland Security in the face of a well funded modern terrorist threat. Many threats have been serious - British invasions, the Civil War, and the threat of global thermonuclear war come to mind. But these conflicts were waged in relatively straightforward, unambiguous ways, and for the most part it was national rather than local authorities making the key decisions, and national rather than local forces on the front lines. The Great Depression was a different kind of complex challenge - issues of taxing, spending, national confidence and economic vitality cut across government agencies and across the line between government and private institutions. But neither the day to day safety of individual Americans, nor the viability of our form of government were at stake.

Homeland Security, on the other hand, involves virtually every federal, state, and local government agency, along with many private institutions, and it concerns both the survival of the nation and the survival of its people. Just identifying all the players, much less giving them central direction and funding, is an astonishingly complex task.

The Significance of the Threat
The single most important fact to be remembered about Homeland Security is that its most difficult challenges must be met in the face of a living, thinking and determined enemy, who is actively seeking to counteract what ever plans and defenses we put in place.

For many years, government agencies charged with protecting citizens within the country have focused their efforts on mitigating and responding to natural disasters or man-made accidents. These activities do comprise one element of Homeland Security -- the Department of Defense calls its response to such events "Support to Civil Authorities." And until recently, many experts in the area of emergency action preparedness and response have argued that terrorism is a low probability and guarding against it should take a backseat to protecting against the more certain effects of storms, earthquakes, industrial accidents and the like. While such arguments were made in good faith, the single terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, took more lives and damaged the American economy more severely than several decades of natural disasters.

In fact, terrorists empowered by the information age pose a uniquely dangerous set of threats:

The unfortunate fact is that the information age has provided modern terrorists with weapons that can inflict death and damage on such a scale that our people, our national power, and our national identity are at risk. This is a new and sobering development.

Types of Threats to Homeland Security
As previously explained in the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security's Primer on Homeland Security, while the threats posed by terrorist attack are numerous and varied, those that could threaten the vital interests or even the survival of the nation may be grouped under six headings:

Modern Terrorist Threats to Homeland Security
1	Biological	Contagious and non-contagious pathogens, directed against, animals, plants or materiel (includes bio-regulators) Could produce high mortality rate across much of the population.
2	Nuclear	Production of blast / heat / electro-magnetic effects directly against civilians, military, or critical infrastructure. Direct effects (destruction, contamination) would be regional, but economic and psychological effects would roil the entire nation - as would the threat of additional attacks.
3	Radiological	Contamination by radioactive substances Could impact human activity for many years
4	Chemical	Injury/ death to personnel or contamination of facilities by toxic liquids or vapors While psychological impact would be considerable, casualties would be far fewer than with biological or nuclear attacks, effects more localized, and not as long lasting.
5	Enhanced Effects	Violence produced by conventional means, but designed by scale or target to produce extraordinary effects (mass casualties, assassination, etc.) While loss of life may be considerable, the greater importance of the target may lie in its practical or symbolic value (like the attack on the World Trade Center where the economic loss and television images may have more long lasting impact than the 6,000+ deaths.
6	Cyber	Destruction of data/ data transmission; theft of data; or attack on the message/ legitimacy of another Includes attacks conducted with electronic means, as well as physical attack on electronic means.

The Significance of Threats
Interestingly, the attacks most likely to inflict widespread damage on the nation as a whole (large scale biological, nuclear, radiological) are the most difficult to mount and the least likely to occur, while those with the most localized effects (small scale bio, chemical and enhanced conventional attack) are most likely to take place. However, the high risk associated with even the low-probability events demands that we take them very seriously.

Also note the unique nature of the cyber threat. Low level cyber threats are not just highly likely - they take place constantly. Yet the our national electronic infrastructure is indispensable -- a large scale attack could seriously wound the entire nation.

The bottom line here is that given our dependence upon connectivity, the wide availability of sensitive information, and the structure of our densely populated, unvaccinated, highly mobile, open society, it is now possible to threaten enormous loss of life and the very sinews of our civilization from within. This is a new situation in world history - it demands a new approach to Homeland Security.

The Challenge of Asymmetric Threats
Although this language is new to most Americans, the concept is old. Asymmetric attack simply means avoiding the enemy's strength, and exploiting some weakness instead. As a military example, instead of building and training a major air force to challenge the enemy's command of the air, you might build a thick belt of advanced air defenses - or train assassins to kill the pilots in their beds. Either approach would represent avoiding the enemy's traditional strength and attacking from another direction.

Terrorism is itself a form or asymmetric warfare when it avoids the enemy's military, economic, and diplomatic strengths, attacking at home where defending without closing down the society is hard. And counterterrorism is especially hard when the enemy disregards the norms of civilization, seeking not just political advantage but destruction of the social fabric. In such a situation, hardening traditional targets like military bases and political leaders may just divert the terrorists to attack "soft" targets like schools and sporting events.

Clearly Homeland Security is far more complex than merely defending potential targets against a variety of threats. It requires a strategy to deter attack.

Strategic Considerations for Homeland Security
One of the advantages of working with allies to defend against attacks overseas is that we do not have to be strong everywhere all the time. Because they have the primary responsibility for defending their own countries, we can commit minimum forces to promote deterrence, and rush reinforcements overseas as required if the battle is joined.

But we cannot pass off the responsibility for security of any part of our own nation, nor can we rely upon rapid reinforcement as a solution. We do have to defend everywhere all the time - even a small success in a distant part of the nation will be perceived as a win for the terrorists and a loss for us. Only complete deterrence evidenced by the lack of attacks constitutes fully successful Homeland Security.

As explained in the ANSER publication A Primer for Homeland Security, deterrence against attacks at home is the product of a strategic cycle that also includes Prevention, Preemption, Crisis Management, Consequence Management, Attribution, and Retaliation. Not only must we be ready to meet every type of threat in each one of these functional areas, but that readiness must be evident to others. Only when an enemy believes that we can and will perform in every one of these areas - that he will fail in his goal of inflicting major damage and suffer terribly for the attempt - will he be deterred from attack.

And if we do fail to convince him and an attack does take place, only by an excellent response in each of these areas can we demonstrate that he has failed and also inflict a memorable punishment, thereby restoring deterrence against his future actions, as well as potential attacks from others. There is no short cut through this strategic cycle.

Unfortunately, this strategic cycle requires different actions and involves different players when dealing with different threats. For example:

One way to grasp the complexity of tasks involved in planning and executing operations for Homeland Security is to range the seven strategic functions of the Homeland Security cycle against the six types of potential threats in a chart as we have done below. The result is the identification of 42 separate "mission areas"(45 if you count Support to Civil Authorities), each of which involves a different set of players, and each of which requires planning, budgeting, practicing, and executing actions which may be quite different from those in the other mission areas of the matrix. Clearly, Homeland Security is a very complex business.

Federal Involvement
And this is just the beginning. The number of federal agencies involved is large - probably more than forty. These agencies have not yet been publicly identified, but the following federal agencies were identified by the White House as players in National Security in its very first policy document, National Security Policy Directive - 1. The list is an excellent indicator of the variety of federal assets involved in Homeland Security. Clearly, the challenge of directing and coordinating such an effort across so many agencies is immense, even if everyone cooperates.

This is not just a matter of selfishness, or narrow mindedness, or egos or bureaucratic inertia (although, people being human, there will be some of each). In these long established federal bureaucracies, cultures, interests, and priorities will collide. Even good people trying to do good things will be at odds. They will have different perspectives, different experiences, different opinions as to what will work and what will not. In addition to Homeland Security, each will have to worry about accomplishing the primary reason for which it was created, and how the drain of time and resources for Homeland Security will impact that mission. And if the strategy for Homeland Security succeeds and the threat seems to recede, emphasis and authority may erode - making us vulnerable to terrorist attack again. Coordinating these agencies will be very tough.

Involvement of Other Levels
And this is just at the federal level. In 50 states (and several territories) many bureaucracies will participate, along with thousands of local, and an untold number of private institutions that are already directly involved in Homeland Security - and in some mission areas, these organizations have the lead.

Gaining visibility of these assets, setting some sort of uniform standards for training and reporting, and funding this coordination is complex beyond anything previously attempted by the US federal government.

Overseas Involvement
Furthermore, preparation for and response to attack will have an overseas aspect requiring coordination with other nations, and with other private institutions, like banks and scholarly communities. As the investigation to the 11 September attacks has revealed, a network capable of supporting attacks in the US is likely to have international origins, funding, and connections. Tracking those responsible, preventing or preempting their attack, establishing post-attack attribution, and launching retaliatory strikes simply cannot be done unilaterally. Some one must make the bilateral and multilateral coordination with governments, intelligence agencies, local and international law enforcement, media, financial institutions, transportation workers, unions, religious and community leaders, and the host of other people and organizations involved in such an undertaking. In contacts from the UN to foreign militaries to local tribal elders, someone must coordinate the voice, vision and positions expressed by the US if we are to gain the unity required to deter attack, minimize the effects of such attack, deny the terrorist goals and punish their aggression in a way that deters further attack. Far more agencies will be involved at far more levels than at the very height of the Cold War.

Legal Considerations
And finally, no one has yet begun to sketch the scope of legal considerations, domestic and international, civil and criminal. Properly designed and expressed, legal machinery can be extremely helpful in denying terrorists access to their targets, in managing the aftermath of an attack, and in the retribution that is so essential to further deterrence. But without central vision and direction, the welter of international, national, state and local laws, regulations, ordinances and jurisdictions can make life much harder for the defenders of the homeland than for the attackers. Already our experience with trying to distribute the names and descriptions of dangerous suspects and known offenders down to the people most likely to encounter them - from ticket agents to airport security guards to the owners of crop dusters and truck driving schools - has indicated how hard it is to transfer critical information in a timely manner.

The good news is that technology can be an enormous help, from establishing communications between levels, to building data bases, to sophisticated security checks like facial recognition, to advanced training with inter-active computer simulations. The bad news is that purchase of the technology is moving slowly, and there is no central authority to set standards for functionality and interoperability.

Summary
The danger presented by modern terrorist threats range from the tragedy of a few deaths (as in the bombing at the World Trade Center in 1993) to the catastrophe that would ensue if our fundamental institutions were attacked with nuclear weapons or our population ravaged by a fatal epidemic. And the resulting challenge of coordinating preparation for and response to such attacks exceeds the complexity of anything we have attempted before.

Perhaps the best metaphor for Homeland Security is that of a layer cake - every slice different, and every layer of every slice made of different ingredients . . . and baked by different cooks responding to different directions. The challenge is to get those cooks working together, to produce a product of uniformly high quality, held together by a coherent frosting at the federal level, but with enough flexibility for individual experts to use their expertise in baking their particular parts - as long as their work contributes productively to the common effort.

Forcing all of the individuals and agencies involved with Homeland Security to work together will require more central authority than we have ever granted any federal agency. Consequently, the people of the United States, through their elected representatives, must decide what balance they wish to strike: how much security they wish to buy and how much control they wish to cede. Answering that question quickly and logically requires consensus on what strategy we wish to pursue, what authority we are willing to grant at the federal level. Only then can we cut through the complexity of this challenge and begin to provide improved Homeland Security to our citizens.

-Dave McIntyre, a retired military officer and former Dean of the National War College, is the Deputy Director for Research of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security.