Homeland Security: New Challenges for an Old Responsibility

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense, the Joint Staff, or the U.S. Navy.

Commander Michael Dobbs, U.S. Navy
March 2001

Commander Michael Dobbs, USNCommander Michael Dobbs is a policy planner on the Joint Staff. He is a submarine officer and has served on both attack and ballistic missile submarines. He completed a master’s degree in political science/international relations as an Olmsted Scholar at the Grenoble Institute of Political Studies (France) and holds an MPA from Troy State University. He has earned two diplomas from the U.S. Naval War College, including one in international law.

A dramatic evolution in the security environment has occurred during the past dozen years. America has emerged as the sole superpower and has assumed a preeminent leadership role in the world’s economic and security systems. Despite this supremacy,[1] the United States remains confronted by global turmoil, new threats to the homeland, regional instabilities, and crises requiring humanitarian response. Potential adversaries, including state and non-state actors (insurgents, terrorists, and international criminal organizations) and hostile coalitions of these actors, will attempt to challenge or frustrate U.S. worldwide security interests. These actors have learned, during the unfolding of recent conflicts, that meeting the United States plane for plane, ship for ship, and soldier for soldier in a battlespace is a losing proposition. Finally, the global proliferation of materials, information, and expertise has facilitated (while not rendering trivial) the acquisition of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-explosive (CBRNE) weapons and advanced methods to deliver them.

This confluence of trends points to the conclusion that our nation is increasingly threatened by adversaries capable of employing a variety of asymmetric approaches to circumvent or undermine U.S. strengths and exploit perceived vulnerabilities. Using a mix of old and new concepts and technologies, America’s opponents may attempt to weaken our political resolve, to protest U.S. interventions, to disrupt the projection of American military power, or to cripple our political system and infrastructure. If the growing consensus[2] is correct, the United States is also becoming increasingly vulnerable to many of these threats. Despite U.S. superiority on the battlefield, America’s military strength may not be adequate to protect the United States and its citizens against attack by a determined adversary. Although predictions that Americans will die on American soil in large numbers[3] may eventually, and hopefully, prove to be hyperbole, they should be addressed. The purpose of this paper is to propose a definition of homeland security, challenge some assertions regarding defense of the homeland, discuss the role of the Department of Defense (DoD) in this mission area, outline a strategic framework for homeland security, and propose a near-term “way ahead” to improve homeland security.

What Is Homeland Security?

The concepts, terms, and definitions associated with defending our homeland are still open for debate. The terms “homeland security” and “homeland defense” do not appear in the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Joint Publication 1-02), although they are frequently employed inside and outside the Pentagon. Several definitions have been proposed, and some study groups, such as the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, employ the term extensively without offering an explicit definition. This is due, in part, to the fact that we are still attempting to gain a clearer understanding of the threats that will challenge America during this century. However, a working definition of homeland security might be:

The prevention, deterrence, and preemption of, and defense against, aggression targeted at U.S. territory, sovereignty, population, and infrastructure as well as the management of the consequences of such aggression and other domestic emergencies.

As defined above, homeland security is not, as it is often described, a single integrated mission. Homeland security encompasses a grouping of diverse missions and functions that are performed by a wide variety of organizations.

Although the proposed definition captures a large portion of America’s security interests, homeland security is not synonymous with national security. America’s national security interests extend far beyond the territory and population of the United States and include protecting our access to markets and resources, helping to achieve regional stability, promoting and defending human rights, and supporting our many allies and partners around the globe. Even though the threats to the homeland are becoming more apparent and potentially devastating, we must avoid adopting a “fortress America” mindset that ignores the fact that our nation’s economic and physical security is inextricably linked to that of many other countries and regions.

We should also guard against adopting a too narrow view of homeland security. This is a difficult trap to avoid, since the missions associated with defending the homeland are performed by many organizations, each of which deals with only one or a couple of the missions and tends to see homeland security through that lens. Homeland security is much more than consequence management, national missile defense, or combating terrorism. Such limited views may hinder our ability to develop (where it is possible and advantageous) comprehensive concepts and strategies to improve America’s security. At a minimum, the emerging concept of homeland security is a useful framework for looking at a grouping of missions that acknowledges a wide spectrum of threats against the United States and the way in which these threats have changed and grown more proximate in recent years.

The proposed definition is far from perfect and represents, at best, the “85 percent solution.” However, that may be good enough for now. Like our concept of national security, our concept of homeland security will, and should, evolve based on changes in the international and domestic political environments.

Is Homeland Security Being Taken Seriously?

The debate about homeland security has included the assertion that DoD is failing to acknowledge the imperative of defending the homeland. On the contrary, maintaining the security of America’s homeland is a vital national interest and acknowledged as one of our government’s basic responsibilities. This fact is stated in the U.S. Constitution and reiterated in top-level security documents. As outlined in America’s National Security Strategy, U.S. vital interests include “the physical security of our territory … the safety of our citizens … the economic well-being of our society, and the protection of our critical infrastructures.”[4] Although America’s National Security Strategy is much more extensive than any homeland security strategy might be, this grouping of missions is, and must be, near the core of that strategy. The U.S. Government has a responsibility to foster the security of its own citizens, national territory, and infrastructures if it is to maintain the popular trust and its leadership role in the global community.

The U.S. military has a long tradition of protecting America from a wide variety of threats. Securing the homeland is not a new mission area for the U.S. military. At the founding of our nation, and with meager means to influence events outside North America, the military’s raison d’être was essentially to defend the homeland against invasion from without and rebellion from within. However, the missions associated with protecting the homeland have changed as the threats to the United States evolved from land and maritime invasion to attacks on America’s frontier and ultimately to nuclear and large-scale conventional attack during the Cold War. It is not so much that defense of the homeland was forgotten, but that its relative importance declined as U.S. security interests expanded to virtually every corner of the globe over the course of the 20th century. The key question facing America is not whether the military should play a role in defending the homeland, but whether the military’s focus and emphasis on this area should increase as threats to the homeland become more ominous and acute relative to other national security concerns and objectives.

The Military’s Role in Homeland Security

The military has several important roles to play to keep the homeland secure. The extent and nature of these roles are a function of the various threats and are shaped by America’s history, political culture, legal system, and system of federal government. Because the spectrum of missions encompassed by homeland security is so broad, it is useful to group the missions into more manageable subsets. The missions and functions that the military performs in support of homeland security can be divided into two major groupings: homeland defense and civil support.

Homeland defense missions include fairly traditional warfighting tasks in which DoD often plays a leading role. A rough definition of homeland defense might be “the prevention, preemption, and deterrence of and defense against direct attacks aimed at U.S. territory, population, and infrastructure.” The performance of these missions requires only limited cooperation with agencies and actors outside DoD. Deterring, preventing, and defeating aggression against the United States and its citizens as well as national missile defense and the defense of the maritime, land, and aerospace approaches to the United States all fit fairly well into this subset of homeland security. The military’s involvement varies according to the particular homeland defense mission; DoD will have the lead and act with great autonomy for any deployed national missile defense but will work with a variety of other federal organizations (for example, intelligence agencies, the FBI, and the Department of State) to deter and prevent terrorist attacks against the U.S. homeland.

Civil support missions are tasks in which the military is not in the lead, but instead provides assistance to designated civilian authorities and agencies either case by case or continually. A working definition of civil support is “DoD support to civilian authorities for natural and manmade domestic emergencies, civil disturbances, and designated law enforcement efforts.” Examples of the assistance provided in this area are surge manpower for domestic emergencies, technical advice, transportation, specialized equipment, intelligence and threat assessments, and custody, transport, and disposal of CBRNE devices. The civil support tasks are not “traditional” warfighting missions and include consequence management, disaster relief, responding to civil disturbances, counterdrug operations, small-scale counterterrorism efforts, and supporting the defense of America’s critical infrastructures. These missions involve more complex chains of command, are governed by legal regimes other than the law of war, and require close coordination with interagency and state and local officials. The operational environment, as well as doctrine and training, for civil support missions differs from military missions that primarily focus on the application of force or on deterring and preventing attack. The synergy and commonality associated with many of these missions may allow many of them to be grouped and executed effectively and efficiently by the same organization.

This is not to imply that homeland security is simply equal to the sum of homeland defense and civil support. The homeland security missions fall along a spectrum (see Figure 1) that includes tasks and responsibilities outside homeland defense and civil support. The remainder of the spectrum could be termed “sovereignty preservation”[5] and includes missions such as protecting America’s environment from international polluters, protecting marine resources (for example, fisheries, oil, and minerals) inside the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, and the routine control of America’s ports of entry to keep out contraband.[6] As shown in Figure 1, there are overlaps or gray zones between the three proposed areas that compose homeland security. Although the right end of the spectrum (homeland defense) seems anchored, the key definitional question is where to establish the frontier between civil support (with the military in support) and sovereignty preservation, where DoD plays no role except in the most extreme conditions.

Figure 1: DoD Relative Involvement

Figure 1. The Spectrum of Homeland Security Missions

What the Military Is Doing for Homeland Security

The military is reorganizing and expanding its capabilities to conduct both homeland defense and civil support missions. This process started several years ago, but was accelerated in 1999 with several key revisions to the Unified Command Plan.[7] Significant progress has been made to increase the military’s ability to perform traditional as well as emerging missions in homeland security.

The military contributes extensively to deterring and preempting the development and use of asymmetric approaches and CBRNE weapons against the homeland. U.S. Strategic Command is responsible for supporting the national objective of strategic deterrence. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency works closely with the Commanders-in-Chief (CINCs) and the Services to provide enhanced weapons capabilities and sensors to defeat CBRNE-related facilities. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is also working to help develop the capabilities to attack mobile and hidden targets.

Regional CINCs make an important contribution to shaping an environment that discourages and slows the development of asymmetric capabilities. They are joined in this effort by a variety of other actors, such as the Department of State. Regional CINCs are the single military point of contact for counterproliferation efforts focused on weapons of mass destruction, in support of broader U.S. nonproliferation policies within their areas of responsibility. Additionally, these combatant commanders plan and execute theater engagement and influence security assistance programs that help dissuade potential adversaries from developing CBRNE weapons and other means that could be used to harm or threaten the United States.

America’s military remains well prepared to defend against conventional forms of attack against the homeland. This is in part attributable to systems and organizations, such as the North American Aerospace Defense Command, that were erected to counter the threat of the Soviet Union and partly due to the fact that the threat from large-scale land and maritime attack or invasion is now minimal. DoD is improving its defenses against new and emerging threats such as missile attacks from terrorists or nations of concern. Led by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and U.S. Space Command, DoD has made significant progress in developing the sensor architecture, command and control systems, decision tools, and interceptors that would compose a national missile defense. Preparations have been made to field a system when and if America’s political leadership decides to deploy national missile defense.

The military has made great strides in improving its ability to support civilian authorities. DoD possesses many assets that, while tailored primarily for larger warfighting missions overseas, could be employed to mitigate the effects of a CBRNE incident at home. Joint Task Force–Civil Support was established as part of U.S. Joint Forces Command to deploy to a CBRNE incident site and to coordinate the military support provided to the lead federal agency. A major general in the National Guard commands this 80-member unit, which also plays an important role in the training, exercises, and doctrine associated with CBRNE consequence management. In addition, Joint Forces Command can call upon two Response Task Forces (East and West)[8] to help coordinate the military’s response to a CBRNE disaster. Finally, more than thirty National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction–Civil Support Teams have been authorized or established across the Federal Emergency Management Agency regions to respond rapidly in support of their state governors. The “Forces for Unified Commands”[9] assigns combatant command authority for these teams to Joint Forces Command.[10]

As part of the Domestic Preparedness Program, DoD has worked closely with civilian first responders to mitigate the effects of a CBRNE incident. Since 1996, DoD has prepared more than 28,000 first-responder trainers in over 105 cities through the city training program, including training equipment loans to 68 cities. Additionally, DoD runs an exercise program designed to improve interaction among federal agencies and departments. These efforts have been accomplished as part of the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 1996 (the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Act), which required DoD to enhance the capability of federal, state, and local emergency responders regarding CBRNE terrorist incidents. The military will continue to work with these civilians, who might find themselves on the front lines of a CBRNE incident.

In the area of counterdrug operations, the regional combatant commanders continue to provide important support to law enforcement agencies.[11] Three regional task forces under U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Southern Command, and U.S. Joint Forces Command work closely with national and international actors to reduce the flow of drugs into the United States. These efforts go well beyond interdiction; they focus on reducing the production of drugs in the source nations. Many of the capabilities and interagency procedures designed to help reduce the flow of drugs into the United States could perhaps be applied to improve our ability to intercept the importation of CBRNE materials and weapons into the homeland.

Joint Task Force–Computer Network Defense was transferred from the Defense Information Systems Agency to U.S. Space Command in 1999. This transfer was part of a reorganization of the Unified Command Plan for Homeland Security. Joint Task Force–Computer Network Defense is primarily responsible for protecting the Defense Information Infrastructure and ensuring that America’s military maintains information superiority over our adversaries. However, Joint Task Force–Computer Network Defense also shares information and expertise with civilian agencies tasked to defend the broader national information infrastructure. As legislation and our understanding of the nuances between cyber-crime and cyber-warfare evolve, Joint Task Force–Computer Network Defense may eventually assume a larger role in protecting non-DOD information systems.

Because homeland security involves a variety of players, it places a premium on cooperation and coordination. DoD is helping to iron out the seams between different actors, avoid duplication of effort, and, where possible, remove any ambiguities regarding authority and responsibilities. Interagency cooperation has been recognized as a key enabler for future military operations, especially defense of the homeland, and was included as an essential element of Joint Vision 2020.[12] As part of the new Joint Vision Implementation Process, the Joint Staff has instituted a system to modify doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership, and personnel to improve interagency cooperation and effectiveness based upon recommendations from joint and Service experimentation efforts and interagency exercises. Events such as Topoff (“top officials”), involving key local, state, federal, and military officials, are helping to ensure that resources can be brought to bear quickly and efficiently when managing the consequences of a CBRNE incident. Standing organizations such as the DoD Weapons of Mass Destruction Preparedness Group also provide an important coordination function across organizational lines. Finally, DoD continues to make progress toward developing official definitions, improving doctrine and further training for civil support missions, better understanding the requirements and resource implications associated with homeland security, and assessing the need for potential changes to the Unified Command Plan.

As with the broader objective of national security, it is important to remember that keeping our homeland secure cannot be accomplished solely by America’s military. As stated in the recently published concept of operations for domestic terrorism, no “single Federal, state or local governmental agency has the capability or requisite authority to respond independently and mitigate the consequences” of a terrorist threat or incident.[13] However, the temptation will be great to look to DoD first, and sometimes to the exclusion of other actors, inside and outside of government, who may be better suited to perform certain missions in defense of the homeland. Homeland security is, and will remain, a shared responsibility among a variety of federal actors and state and local officials as well as leaders in the private sector. In the area of critical infrastructure protection, especially cyber-security, this partnership extends to the business community and perhaps even to individual workers and citizens who are often the first lines of defense. Interestingly, the widely quoted estimate that more than 90 percent of military communications travel over civilian-controlled telecommunication and information networks implies that civilians will have an important role to play in ensuring that military information networks are not crippled by cyber-crime and cyber-aggression. Some of the threats may prove so daunting that a large-scale involvement of many elements of American society may be required, specifically regarding the mitigation of the physical and psychological effects of CBRNE attacks.[14]

A Strategic Construct for Homeland Security

In most cases, a long and complicated series of events must occur before an adversary can inflict damage on the U.S. homeland. The elements in this sequence include generating the will to develop a weapon and delivery device, collecting resources (financial and human) for weapons development, covertly developing a weapon and its delivery system, creating the will to employ a weapon, delivering the weapon to the U.S. homeland, and employing the weapon at the desired place and time. Effective strategies will have to identify the weak links in this threat sequence as a function of the weapon and potential adversary. It may prove adequate to focus resources and efforts on one or two links in each threat sequence in order to neutralize a danger to the homeland. However, it will likely prove prudent to adopt a more comprehensive strategy of preventing and defending against attacks and ensuring that the consequences of an attack can be quickly mitigated.

Because of the broad nature of homeland security it will be difficult, as former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre has suggested, to develop a useful “unified field theory” for this concept.[15] A comprehensive strategy for homeland security, tying together such disparate dangers and concerns as drugs, cyber-aggression, CBRNE terrorism, and ballistic missiles, may prove either impractical or add little value to this security challenge. It may be more advantageous to develop a set of threat-specific strategies (a separate strategy for each threat posed by each potential troublemaker) that could facilitate the organization, tasking, and allocation of resources required to defend the homeland. In any case, whether generic or specific, homeland security strategies will likely involve a defense in depth that erects multiple layers of protection, each maintained by a variety of actors.

The first layer of defense will be prevent development of the means and will to attack the United States. This is an extremely important element of a homeland security strategy since it is in “America’s interest to engage these threats to the U.S. homeland as far away from the United States as possible.”[16] To a certain extent, preventing involves shaping the security environment to avoid or retard the emergence of threats to the United States. Prevention features counterproliferation and nonproliferation, deterrence, and maintenance of the capability to destroy weapons of mass destruction and cripple their development programs. Key actors in this area will be regional combatant commanders, U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Space Command, diplomatic missions, U.S. and international law enforcement agencies, and Defense Agencies such as the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. An essential enabler in preventing CBRNE attack is accurate and timely intelligence, especially the ability to identify those responsible for an attack. As with America’s broader national security strategy of forward engagement, it is preferable to prevent the emergence of a threat or to neutralize the threat as far away as possible from American soil.

The second layer of defense consists of measures to detect and neutralize attacks against the United States. Defending is perhaps the most difficult and expensive layer to erect and maintain and encompasses missions such as air, sea, and land interdiction; counterterrorism; and missile defense. Unfortunately, the means of weapons delivery are becoming more and more diverse, sophisticated, and widespread. The open nature of American society and the desire for free exchange of commerce and information further complicate this challenge by precluding the possibility of an airtight defense against many means of attack.[17] Even when we can erect an effective defense against one attack vector, there probably will still be several other avenues and means of weapon delivery at an adversary’s disposal. Some organizations that play a key role in defending the U.S. homeland are the North American Aerospace Defense Command, regional combatant commands, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Justice, Border Control, and U.S. Customs.

The third layer of a homeland security strategy is the capability to quickly deal with the consequences of an attack or with other civil emergencies. Responding includes measures to save lives, to limit the spread of an attack’s effects, to restore order and public services, and to provide emergency relief (such as food and shelter). The military will play a supporting role to lead organizations, such as the Department of Justice, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Department of Health and Human Services that provide assistance to the first responders—state and local authorities. The military’s support to civilian authorities will rely heavily upon Reserve and National Guard elements that possess the experience, community ties, and specialized capabilities required to respond across a broad spectrum of manmade and natural disasters. Regarding the CBRNE threat, an effective consequence management program can also serve as an important passive deterrent to states and actors who are considering making the investments and taking the risks required to develop and employ CBRNE weapons.[18]

What Needs to Be Done

As previously discussed, DoD is fortunately not starting from scratch to prepare itself to meet threats to the homeland. Although the glass is at least half full, much progress remains to be made. Developing the organizational structures, defensive systems, and response capabilities required to meet the asymmetric threats of the 21st century will not happen overnight despite the growing imperative. The following actions would serve as good focus points for the near term:

Conclusion

At the dawn of a new century, it is increasingly clear that America cannot afford to take the security of its homeland for granted. New threats to the homeland, especially cyber-aggression and biological attacks, have generated a vigorous debate regarding the nature of these dangers and the degree to which America is organized and equipped to protect the homeland. This debate has included assertions that the military does not take these threats seriously and is reluctant to defend the homeland. On the contrary, defense of the homeland is one the United States’ most important national interests and remains a priority mission area for the military. As currently organized, equipped, and trained, the military is prepared to conduct most homeland defense missions with the obvious exception of missile defenses. It is in the area of civil support that much work remains to meet the evolving threats. If the military is to continue its traditional role as a homeland defender, it must move now to develop definitions and strategies and field the capabilities required to deal with emerging threats from CBRNE and cyber-weapons. As the Cold War fades into memory and the rise of a peer competitor looks distant, DoD must reprioritize and reorganize to face emerging threats to America’s citizens, its territory, its infrastructure, and its freedom of movement on the world stage.

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[1] Some have argued that America’s policy of active intervention, facilitated by its supremacy, is generating animosity and making the United States and its citizens tempting targets for states, terrorist groups, and individuals that do not have the means or desire to meet the United States on traditional diplomatic and military playing fields. See Ivan Eland, Protecting the Homeland: The Best Defense Is to Give No Offense, Policy Analysis No. 306 (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, May 1998).

[2] Sam J. Tangredi, All Possible Wars? Toward a Consensus View of the Future Security Environment, 2001–2025 (Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, 2000), p. 41.

[3] U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, Phase I Report: New World Coming (15 September 1999).

[4] The White House, A National Security Strategy for a Global Age (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 2000), p. 4.

[5] The term sovereignty preservation, as a major component of homeland security, has been presented in briefings provided by the U.S. Coast Guard.

[6] It is possible to make the argument that homeland security extends even beyond “sovereignty protection” and might include maintaining good public health (especially infectious disease prevention and control), promoting U.S. technical expertise and knowledge through our educational systems, and defending intellectual property rights.

[7] This document, approved by the President, which sets forth basic guidance to all unified combatant commanders, establishes their missions, responsibilities, and force structure; delineates the general geographical area of responsibility for geographic combatant commanders; and specifies functional responsibilities for functional combatant commanders.

[8] To support civilian officials responsible for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the First U.S. Army formed a Response Task Force headquarters element for incidents involving weapons of mass destruction. A second Response Task Force was later formed under the Fifth Army.

[9] “The Forces for Unified Commands” is a Secretary of Defense memorandum that assigns forces to the nine unified combatant commands and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

[10] Combatant command is exercised by commanders of unified combatant commands and includes organizing, employing, and giving direction over all aspects of military operations to subordinate commands. In the case of Reserve Components, such as the National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction–Civil Support Teams, combatant command is normally very limited and must be coordinated through the Service component commands. CINCs may also exercise training and readiness oversight for assigned National Guard forces not on active duty or on active duty for training. The extent of command exercised by CINCs over their assigned National Guard units expands significantly if they are ordered into federal service under 10 USC.

[11] As shown in Figure 1, DoD’s efforts to help implement America’s counterdrug strategy probably fall into the gray area between civil support and sovereignty protection.

[12] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Vision 2020 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, June 2000), pp. 18–19.

[13] United States Government Interagency Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operations (Federal Emergency Management Agency, Feb. 2001), p. 11. This plan was developed and published collaboratively by DoD, the Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the FBI, and the Department of Justice.

[14] At a minimum, it would seem prudent to provide American citizens with protective equipment for chemical and biological attack and basic training and education regarding the appropriate actions to take in the case of various CBRNE incidents.

[15] Dr. John Hamre, “A Strategic Perspective on U.S. Homeland Defense: Problem and Response,” in Max G. Manwaring, ed., … To Insure Domestic Tranquility, Provide for the Common Defense (Washington, DC: Strategic Studies Institute, October 2000), p. 14.

[16] Jayson Spiegel, ed., A Coast Guard for the 21st Century: The Integrated Deepwater System (Washington, DC: Reserve Officers Association, Summer 2000), p. 11. This publication is a compilation of articles that appeared in the July, August, and September 2000 issues of The Officer magazine, a publication of the Reserve Officers Association of the United States.

[17] For example, based on the tremendous flows of people and goods that enter the United States every year, it is next to impossible to fortify our frontiers enough to stop, with any certitude, the infiltration of terrorists and their weapons into the United States. Conducting the checks and searches at U.S. points of entry necessary to achieve an impermeable barrier would result in an unacceptable slowdown in trade and would retard the regionalization and globalization. See Stephen E. Flynn, “Beyond Border Control,” Foreign Affairs (Nov/Dec 2000, Vol. 79, No. 6). Some Coast Guard officials have proposed, on the contrary, that it is possible to obtain “maritime domain awareness” and to identify and intercept vessels at sea that “threaten the safety, security or environment of the United States or its citizens.” See the comments of Rear Admiral Terry Cross, U.S. Coast Guard, to the Reserve Officers Association Homeland Security Panel (3 February 2001). Rear Admiral Cross is the Assistant Commandant for U.S. Coast Guard Operations.

[18] A similar strategy was proposed in the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century Phase III report, Road Map for National Security (February 2001), pp. 11–14.

[19] Michele A. Flournoy, ed., Report of the National Defense University Quadrennial Defense Review 2001 Working Group (Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, November 2000), p. 13.

[20] If separate requirements are not established and funded, then the temptation will be great to move funds from CBRN troop protection programs to domestic consequence-management teams.

[21] Part of the intent of the Goldwater-Nichols reforms was to shift operational and planning functions from the Service Secretaries to the unified combatant commanders and the Joint Staff. The assignment of Secretary of the Army’s Executive Agent responsibilities was a response to national turmoil during the Vietnam War. The Secretary’s role, as executed through his Action Agent (the Director of Military Support) is one of the final operational roles assigned to a Service secretary. Although the Secretary of the Army should retain many of the responsibilities enumerated in the DoD Directive 3025 series, he should perform these as a Service Secretary and not as the Secretary of Defense’s Executive Agent.

[22] Subunified commands are established by commanders of unified commands, with the concurrence of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense. A subunified command may be established on the basis of a geographic area or function.

[23] Joint Task Force-6 is the planning, coordinating, and operational headquarters for DoD in Operation Alliance, which coordinates federal, state, and local law enforcement agency and military force support to counterdrug operations along the U.S. southwest border.