In my experience, the outcome of every major crisis depends on solid decisions. Solid decisions depend on relevant knowledge. And knowledge depends on quality education informed by experience.

—Mark A Kroeker, Chief of Police, Portland, Oregon

Unfortunately, no such system for preparation of individuals, staffs, and units exists where the most critical fight against terrorism will be waged—in the domain of homeland security.

The Military Education Model

Few outsiders understand the depth and sophistication of the U.S. military education program. It is rigorous, sequential, and progressive.

The program for individual Army officers, for example, begins with two to four years of training in military organization and leadership for students still in college (the vast majority of U.S. military officers are graduates of four-year universities). After that, a typical Army career will include

• A 6-month “basic course” focused on day-to-day operations in a specific type of unit
• Additional technical training in individual skills (airborne, ranger, indirect fire, etc.)
• After four years’ duty, a 6-month “advanced course” in preparation for company command and low-level staff
• A more intense staff preparation course at roughly the eight-year point of service
• A year-long “Command and Staff College” at 12 years’ service
• Another year of study at the war college level near the 20th year
• An intensive “capstone” course of world travel, private senior-level conferences, and intensive computer-based war games upon promotion to general

This regime is not optional—it is required for promotion and even continued service. Those who are not able to attend the longest and most complex schooling in residence must complete an elaborate program delivered through distance learning (generally by computer connection). In contrast to the practice in some countries, the rigor of the courses actually increases with seniority: the war colleges are accredited like civilian universities to grant master’s degrees, and graduate-level work is required. The most promising officers frequently receive two or even three years of full-time resident attendance in civilian master’s or Ph.D. programs. So the average mid-level Army officer working on plans and budgets in the Pentagon has the equivalent of three to five years of postgraduate study—a Ph.D. program’s worth of postgraduate schooling in his field. A general may have spent a quarter of his career in formal preparation for his position.

This does not count field time spent with some of the most elaborate training and simulation systems in the world. Virtually every individual who engages the enemy—from tank driver to attack pilot—spends hundreds of hours in electronic simulators practicing combat tasks. Units train constantly for progressively larger and more complex operations, from maintenance, medical, supply, and logistics to closing with and destroying the enemy. The ultimate schooling in every branch of the military services is an elaborate mock combat on sensor-rich maneuver and firing ranges where every individual is tracked, every action recorded, every decision scrutinized. The result is a military force that generally outstrips the performance of competitors, just by its sheer scale of preparation.

By contrast, the “troops” involved in homeland security receive virtually no educational preparation at all.

The Homeland Security Challenge

Homeland security is the most complex challenge ever undertaken by the U.S. government. Officials must consider every way an insider could hurt the country, from individual attacks to weapons of mass destruction to destruction of the economy. Homeland security involves virtually all of the federal government—the Forestry Service as well as Congress and the National Security Council—and every layer of society, from cab driver to business CEO and from county commissioner to state governor.

This new mission is vital, because the survival of the nation is at stake. A new information age is allowing small nations, groups, and even criminal enterprises to produce weapons previously reserved for great powers. New enemies, driven by militant fanaticism and disinterested in political compromise, have emerged. These new enemies with their new weapons threaten to use a new technique—apocalyptic terrorism—not just to frighten or intimidate civilian populations, but to destroy the sinews of the nation. By proclamation and by action, the enemies of homeland security threaten our existence.

To counter this apocalyptic threat at home, the United States fields a dedicated workforce, but it provides them with no systematic preparation above training for first responders—police, firefighters, and medical technicians. There is no nationally recognized program of higher education at all. In fact, there is no generally accepted curriculum for homeland security, because there is no generally accepted body of knowledge upon which to base an academic discipline. Precious little cross-disciplinary study has been published concerning why and how nations, local governments, and private industries work under normal conditions—and virtually no research is available concerning how they should function when under attack. We know that in crisis, social and commercial systems are likely to fail not just at single points of stress, but in a broadening cascade, as system after system—transportation, communication, public safety, public health—is overwhelmed by a sudden load for which it was never designed. But we have no idea what to do about this cascade: how to prepare for it, how to recognize it, how to stop or reverse it.

Worse, there is no tradition of education for the senior practitioners of homeland security. Mayors, business leaders, staffs, and senior officials generally learn by doing: they don’t even know what concepts and organizing principles are missing.

A Homeland Security Education Model

To secure our homeland (actually homelands, for every nation opposed to militant fanaticism will eventually be a target), a rigorous, sequential, and progressive program of professional education in homeland security is essential. This program must be created, virtually from scratch, and it must consist of at least three parts: a new curriculum, a new, structured program, and new means of delivery.

A New Curriculum

At the moment, universities and government agencies alike are struggling to decide what to teach about homeland security. At a minimum, we need to build a common curriculum addressing

• A “basic course” focused on day-to-day operations in a specific type of unit
• The variety of modern terrorist threats, from conventional attacks to those using chemical, radiological, nuclear, cyber-, or biological weapons
• The best ways to prevent such attacks or to respond and recover when they take place
• The resources available at federal, state, local, and private levels and the way they may be organized and used
• Legal and cultural constraints on action (these are critical concerns, as the military has learned)
• Techniques for integrated planning, operations, and specialized acquisition at every level (second nature for military institutions, but entirely new concepts for many domestic government agencies)
• The realities of politics, economics, and the new media age

Because homeland security involves such a wide range of responsibilities—protecting the public, preempting attack, and managing crises and their consequences—it also involves a wide range of agencies and a huge range of skills. Hard skills in many specific disciplines (medicine, transportation, computer security, law enforcement, etc.) must be improved and standardized. New disciplines—such as anticipating system behavior in a crisis and planning for alternatives—will have to be developed. Just as sergeants receive different preparation than generals, homeland security demands a progressive curriculum carefully nuanced among responders, mid-level bureaucrats, and senior decision makers. Sharing perceptions and capabilities and promoting smooth operation across boundaries and at every level are absolutely essential. We need a homeland security equivalent of what the U.S. military calls “joint education.”

New Means of Delivery

To provide both credibility and quality assurance, the core of the new educational program must be delivered in residence, but as adult learning—less “academic” and more practical, less passive and more experiential. Fundamental principles must be taught at every level, but through case studies, role playing, exercises, and performance reviews wherever possible. The mature professionals in homeland security must be engaged and challenged, not lectured.

But pushing everyone through resident training is too slow and wastes the opportunity provided by information technology. Distance learning can prepare students before resident training, so that all arrive with a common base of knowledge and performance. It can maintain proficiency through structured follow-on programs that stay in touch with graduates. To some degree, it can substitute for resident education, reaching tens of thousands where they live and work, and on their own schedule. Simulations tailored to institutions and local realities can serve as the basis for reexamining missions and creating entirely new procedures and doctrine.

In short, a new program of homeland security education and training should look to the military example for inspiration but not guidance. It should blaze a new trail of its own in adult education by using modern tech