John R. Brinkerhoff
November 2001

The Congress shall have power … To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;  To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress … The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 8

The United States should restore the militia to its original, constitutional role of homeland security to provide the large numbers of trained, armed, and disciplined military units that are needed to deal with terrorist attacks on America.

Defending America from terrorist attacks requires a lot of people. Managing the consequences of the 11 September attack involved hundreds of firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, health care workers, engineers, military personnel, and just plain citizens. Military forces in particular will be needed—most of them for population control, physical security, and logistical support. One of the most striking features of the 11 September response and recovery operations was the large number of military personnel used to manage crowds, secure the incident areas, and guard key facilities against follow-on attacks. Most of the military personnel who helped out in the aftermath of the attack were from the National Guard, many of them under state command and a few called to active duty for various reasons.

But the National Guard is no longer the militia. In accordance with the Total Force Policy, the National Guard is funded, organized, trained, and equipped by the Federal Government to wage war overseas. The National Guard and the Federal Reserve Components (Army Reserve, Naval Reserve, Air Force Reserve, and Marine Corps Reserve) are maintained “to be the initial and primary source of augmentation of the active forces in a future emergency requiring a rapid and substantial expansion of the active forces.”[1]

The National Guard sufficed during the Cold War in a dual status—as state forces to respond to natural disasters and civil disorders in peacetime and as federal forces for the hypothesized big war with the Soviet Union. That dual status is no longer feasible during the war on terrorism when governors will need to have assured access to substantial numbers of military personnel for homeland security. Even if a portion of the National Guard is dedicated to homeland security, the bulk of the National Guard is needed to augment the active Air Force and Army. Governors cannot count on using National Guard units for homeland security if those units are going to be mobilized to fulfill their federal missions.

Instead of expanding the National Guard to carry out its federal and state missions at the same time, it would be better to rely on militia for the state missions. Compared to the militia, the National Guard is expensive. It has costly equipment (tanks, jet fighters, missiles) not needed for homeland security operations, and it requires highly trained personnel, 10 percent of whom are full-timers provided to ensure the combat readiness of the part-timers. Even in wartime, the size of the defense budget will limit the strength of the armed forces, including the National Guard, to those needed for winning the war against terrorism, continuing ongoing smaller-scale contingencies, transforming to a future force, and remaining ready to deal with other major theater wars.

Some of the large numbers of military personnel needed to defend America can be provided at low cost by using militia to provide troops for the governors to use to maintain law and order and protect the citizens of their states in the face of the full range of emergencies—particular terrorist attacks. While terrible, the 11 September attack and the subsequent anthrax attacks are small in comparison to possible future campaigns, which could include a major coordinated set of attacks that disrupt essential services over a large section of the country for weeks or months. In that kind of complex, coordinated terrorist campaign, governors would need state military forces in addition to the federally funded National Guard to maintain law and order. Unfortunately, these state military forces—the real militia—do not exist in effective form today.

To understand why the United States no longer has the militia provided for in the Constitution, it is useful to start at the beginning of American military policy. Like so many other things, our current condition is the result of years of adjustments to the original vision of the Founding Fathers.

The Legacy of the Seven Years War

Sometimes a book comes along at just the right time to change one’s entire way of thinking on a particular topic. That is the case with Fred Anderson’s fascinating book about the Seven Years War.[2] The book is not only a good read, but it also makes it clear that the foundations of American military policy stemmed from a war that most people consider to be merely a rather mysterious prequel to the American Revolution. Specifically, this book provides the basis for new understanding of the role of the militia in national defense.

An uneasy and contentious relationship between the militia and the regulars is a major theme in American military policy. Many students of American military policy assume that this relationship between the militia and the regulars originated in the Revolutionary War.[3] The Battle of Lexington in 1775 epitomizes the minuteman tradition of the militia. The Battle of Chippewa, 1812, epitomizes the regular army tradition of contempt for the militia. (The British Commander, General Riall, noting the steadfastness of Winfield Scott’s brigade under fire, is said to have uttered, “Those are Regulars, by God!” Actually, the joke was on Riall, for as David Eisenhower reveals in his excellent biography of Scott, those “regulars” were really raw recruits rigorously trained by Scott and his officers for 90 days—the same training period considered necessary today to train a National Guard combat brigade to be ready to fight.[4] Anderson’s work suggests that the fundamentals of American military policy with respect to the militia were established during the Seven Years War.[5]

This is an important point. If the Lexington-Chippewa paradigm is followed, there is a two-way division between militia and regulars. Until the Cold War, American military policy had been to retain a small force of regulars that would be augmented by militia in the event of war. However, practice did not match this putative policy. For the first 130 years of our military history, to wage war the minuscule regular army was augmented by volunteer units—not by the militia per se. Oh, yes, in some instances militia units volunteered en masse (or almost en masse) to become volunteer units, but they served as volunteers.

In the 20th century, the militia became increasingly professionalized until under the Total Force Policy it became a de facto federal force. In the 21st century, the distinction between the militia and the regulars has narrowed even more as efforts to “integrate” the National Guard and the Reserves put them to work doing the same things that the active components do. The two-way division between the militia and the regulars does not explain the historical experience and makes it hard to envision the proper role of the National Guard and the Reserves in homeland security.

Anderson’s book makes it clear that there was actually a three-way split—regulars, provincial troops, and militia. This formulation provides a historical precedent and a logical foundation that explain how the relationship that was the legacy of the Seven Years War has evolved into the situation of today.

In the Seven Years War, there were three separate military forces, or components, as we now call them: British regulars, provincial troops, and the militia. The British regulars and the provincial troops were both excellent military organizations, and they did the expeditionary fighting into the wilderness. The militia stayed home and guarded their own villages and towns. The British Army forces were long-term professionals schooled in the linear tactics of continental warfare, well armed, well trained, and disciplined for withstanding the rigors of musketry. Provincial troops were volunteers who enlisted for a fixed term of service of 6 months or a year and were paid by the colonies. In their own way, the provincials were also competent, well armed, well trained, and disciplined. They were not a ragtag militia in any sense. The First Virginia Regiment commanded by Colonel George Washington and the Second Virginia Regiment commanded by William Byrd were disciplined organizations made up entirely of volunteers who defended the frontier of Virginia while the militia was used for local internal security.[6] Provincial troops from New England, particularly from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, served alongside the British regulars in the defeat at Fort William Henry (1758), battles in upper New York (1759), the conquest of Canada (1760), and the invasion of Cuba (1762).[7]

The British Army had a superior attitude and condescended to the provincial troops. In fact, early on in the Seven Years War, the British policy was that a British Army subaltern (second lieutenant) outranked colonels and even generals in the provincial troops. The colonists objected to this rule and simply refused to go on campaigns with the British troops. That is why the two forces campaigned separately for much of the early part of the war. After a few years, the rule was relaxed, but the British Army maintained a haughty attitude toward the provincials to the end, which contributed no doubt to their subsequent defeat in the Revolutionary War.

The National Guard of today is the modern counterpart of the provincial forces of the Seven Years War. They are professionals, albeit part-timers, and their role is to fight alongside the regular forces on foreign campaigns. Gradually during the twentieth century, the militia, whose role is to defend the homeland, disappeared.

After the Spanish-American War, in which volunteer forces played an important part, the Army became more professional in order to meet the challenges inherent in supporting the nation’s new international role. The militia, having been notably inept in previous wars, was also professionalized. It was provided with federal funding, equipment, and training, and in return it was expected to meet federal standards for recruiting, officer training, professional military education, promotion, and performance. In effect, the National Guard was being transformed from the militia into the modern equivalent of provisional forces.

During the two world wars, the National Guard was called into federal service and contributed trained officers, soldiers, and units to help the regular army expand. During the Cold War, the National Guard was transformed from an ill-equipped, undermanned, half-trained organization into a first-class fighting force capable of providing a strong second echelon of reinforcements to wage global conventional war against the Soviet Union. The transformation culminated in 1989, at the end of the Cold War, by which time the National Guard had reached unprecedented heights of military professionalism and competence in its primary role as the reserve of the Army and Air Force.

Following the end of the Cold War, the National Guard did not return to a militia posture. Facing unanticipated demands to conduct sustained smaller-scale contingencies while maintaining readiness for theater wars, the regulars found it necessary to call on the National Guard (and the federal Reserve components as well) to provide additional units and personnel to sustain current operations. The National Guard in effect was being transformed yet again, this time into a peacetime quasi-active force. The Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve had already become quasi-active forces in the 1980s, when by a process of self-selection their membership became composed largely of personnel who were willing to spend more than the minimum training time of 39 days per year and contributed significant effort to sustain Air Force operations worldwide.

In the 1990s, the trend toward peacetime use of part-time solders to augment inadequate regular forces accelerated. Increased use of National Guard and Reserve forces for peacetime operations was supported (and perhaps stimulated) by the presence in each Reserve component of a significant number of full-time active Guard-Reserve personnel—mostly officers and senior noncommissioned officers. These active Guard-Reserve personnel, whose active Guard-Reserve status was their primary job, soon moved into key command and staff positions. Many of these full-time military personnel welcomed the opportunity to participate in operational missions in support of the active components.

The result of all this is that the Guard and the Reserve are today highly professional forces that are structured, trained, and totally committed to their role as the reserve of the armed forces for major and minor wars and overqualified and too expensive to serve as militia in defense of the homeland, and maybe committed elsewhere.

Home Defense Forces in the World Wars

A note on nomenclature is needed at this point. Many names have been applied to the various forms of militia. Here, the general term home defense forces is used to describe existing state military forces other than the National Guard. These home defense forces have been called many things, including National Guard Reserves, State Guards, Home Guards, State Defense Forces, and State Military Forces. These terms will be used in connection with a particular era. The generic term home defense forces from here forward will be used in descriptions of policy and programs.

During World War I and World War II, the National Guard was mobilized into federal service and unavailable to serve as state troops. However, the governors’ responsibilities for disaster response and civil security did not stop during the war, and some threats, such as sabotage and enemy raids, become more important than in peacetime. Home defense forces were authorized by Congress and formed in most states to meet the homeland defense needs of those eras.[8]

The Constitution does not provide for home defense forces. In fact, the Constitution says: “No State shall, without the consent of the Congress … keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace …” (Article I, Section 10).

During the preparedness period just prior to U.S. involvement in World War I, Congress for the first time consented to having home defense forces for the states in the event that the National Guard was federalized. The wording is somewhat convoluted. Section 61 of the National Defense Act of 1916 says: “No state shall maintain troops in time of peace other than as authorized in accordance with the organization prescribed in this Act.” Section 79 of the Act, however, says that when the National Guard is federalized, “there shall be immediately organized” reserve battalions of infantry or cavalry to constitute the fourth battalion of each regiment ordered to active duty. Since the states were forbidden to form units other than police or constabulary in peace, they had little time to organize the reserve units required by the act.[9] When the National Guard was federalized in 1916 and 1917 for World War I, several governors were reluctant to allow them to go overseas because of the need for state troops to maintain civil security.[10] In response to that need, localities formed police and paramilitary units, and as the nation approached war with Germany, the states also organized their own police and military forces. Although this was, strictly speaking, illegal, it was allowed. The result was a hodgepodge of unit types with varying degrees of training and varying quality of equipment. As the war got under way, Congress authorized the states to form home guards.

The Home Defense Act was enacted on 14 June 1917 in response to the evident need for military forces to serve as state troops. The act established the rules for federal support of the home guards and legitimized what had already been done de facto by the states. The act authorized the Secretary of War, during the emergency, to “issue from time to time to the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia for the equipment of such home guards having the character of State police or constabulary as may be organized under the direction of the governors of the several states …” The law gave specific permission to provide “rifles and ammunition, cartridge belts, haversacks, canteens, in limited amounts as available supplies will permit.”[11]By December 1917, there were home guard units in 42 states, and these had an aggregate strength of about 100,000 men.

U.S. involvement in World War I lasted 19 months, and the problems posed by home defense were met adequately by improvised local and state solutions. After the war, some of the home guards were transferred to the National Guard, but most of the units were dissolved. The home guards were gone, but the need for organized annuity units to provide home defense was still remembered when the nation started preparing for World War II.

Substantial efforts were made to provide for internal security in World War II. State guards were organized in 46 states and Puerto Rico, with an aggregate strength of about 150,000 members. These state guards were used for four principal missions during the war: peacetime duties of the National Guard, full-time guard duty in coastal areas during the year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, as auxiliary combat troops in the event of hostile invasion (1942–1944), and, after March 1944, primarily for internal security. The idea behind the state guards of World War II is well stated in the following excerpt from the HERO Study[12]:

The primary focus of the state guards, despite the excursion into a combat role, was on espionage, sabotage, and maintenance of law and order. The National Defense Act of 1916 was modified in 1940 to provide a legal basis for the state guards and authorized support for them by the Secretary of War. State guards were intended to be “solely state forces, whose employment and composition were determined by the governors. Federal involvement was still intended to be indirect and limited.… Training objectives would be prescribed by state authorities …”[13]

Because of the uneven distribution and readiness of the state guard units, the government did not rely exclusively on them for internal security. The U.S. Army also played a prominent role in homeland security. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army used 30,000 combat troops for a few weeks to provide physical security for vital installations, such as war production plants and key military facilities. In January 1942, the Army formed 51 Zone of the Interior military police battalions staffed by officers and noncommissioned officers too old for combat duty and limited-service enlisted personnel. The number of Zone of the Interior military police battalions was later increased to 89. These battalions were not used as guards at key facilities, but were stationed near important installations to act as reinforcements for the state guards in case of civil disturbances or other emergencies.[14]

The biggest problem facing the state guards during World War II was the demanding requirement for static physical security. The state guards were neither organized nor intended for continuous full-time service. State guardsmen were civilians with jobs, and they expected brief periods of active duty in case of disasters, riots, or attacks. Guarding facilities was labor intensive, boring, and costly. Moreover, the employment of large numbers of personnel on static guard duties reduced the number of personnel available for dealing with specific emergencies. To meet all the requirements, many states encouraged the formation of local home defense forces in addition to the state guards. Other measures were taken to provide for physical security of key facilities. The Coast Guard used special police to guard the ports. Private companies were held responsible for the security of their factories and warehouses.

The state guards were separate from the Civil Defense Program structure, which was supported by the federal government and staffed by civilians, many of them volunteers. In most states, the state guards and civil defense programs were linked only at the very top, in the person of the state adjutant general. As the war went on, these two organizations learned to cooperate.

After World War II, the state guard program was terminated. The enabling provisions of Section 61 that had been enacted in 1940 to permit formation of state guard units were rescinded. The National Security Act of 1947 made no provision for state guards.[15] After worthwhile service in World War II, the state guards disappeared as the National Guard returned to reassume its traditional role as state troops.

There was a brief flurry of interest in home defense forces in 1949–1950, when the Cold War was just getting started. Studies of the Civil Defense Program by the National Security Council and the Department of Defense (DoD) concluded that state internal security duties were “only semi-military functions” and that the forces performing them should not be combat units because they would be taking the place of National Guard units, whose “military character derived form their federal mission.”[16]

This effort was overtaken by the Korean War, for which National Guard units were mobilized from several states. The National Guard Association in August 1950 sponsored legislation to allow cadres of state military forces to be maintained at all times in addition to the National Guard. The Army objected to the provision of the bill that made the National Guard Bureau responsible for the coordination and planning with the states. The bill was passed on 27 September 1950.

Several states organized state military forces to replace mobilized National Guard units. Because the war required only a partial mobilization of the National Guard, there was uncertainty and uneven action to form National Guard Reserve units. The Army was preoccupied with avoiding defeat in Korea while creating an effective combat force in Germany. DoD did little to support the home defense internal security battalions that some of the states were forming. There was great confusion and little progress. The result was that some states had these forces, and others did not. The program was not a great success, despite the initial enthusiasm and the need. When the federal authority for state home defense forces expired in September 1952, the existing forces were disbanded.

For the next 30 years, there was almost complete inactivity in the state guard program. Federal authority had lapsed, and a few states, such as New York and Texas, retained state guard units, but for all practical purposes the home defense forces disappeared, along with knowledge about them.

The Attempted Revival of Home Defense Forces for the Final Cold War Campaign

In the 1980s, the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs initiated a revival of the home defense forces.[17]At this time, the Office of the Secretary of Defense became really serious about “a major conventional option” in Europe in the late 1970s and early 1980s. President Carter, and then President Reagan, wanted to avoid nuclear warfare and preferred to have a credible capability to fight the Warsaw Pact without having to resort to first use of nuclear weapons. The national security strategy called for total mobilization of the entire force structure of all the military services—active, Guard, and Reserve. The war plan also called for the deployment of almost all of those forces to the theaters of war—primarily Europe. That meant that the homeland would be left without adequate forces to preserve civil security or deal with the threats of enemy actions. A massive nuclear attack and Spetznaz (Soviet special operations forces) raids were the threats in those days. Although there would be many active-duty military personnel in the United States, these would be service troops engaged full-time in supporting the military forces operating overseas. There would be few if any federal military personnel available for home defense, and the National Guard would not be available to the governors.

The drive for a major conventional option in Europe was accompanied by the Strategic Defense Initiative and a renewed interest in the Civil Defense Program. When considering how to maintain civil government and save lives in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack, one of the missing ingredients was state troops.

The Reserve Affairs Office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense set about to take care of this problem. A historical review of previous efforts was commissioned. The law was researched. A program was initiated to encourage the states to form and sustain State Defense Forces to provide military forces for the governors in the event of war. Authority was obtained to provide from excess DoD stocks the rifles, vehicles, uniforms, and radios the State Defense Forces would need for training and to do their jobs if called on.

The State Defense Forces program was a vital element of plans to protect the population against a massive Soviet nuclear attack and to reconstitute society under civil rule in the aftermath of that attack. A major assumption in the Civil Defense Program was that the armed forces and their reserve components, including the National Guard, would be busy prosecuting the war that led to the nuclear attack and would not be available to participate in civil defense. The Civil Defense Program was designed to rely entirely on civil agencies and private-sector companies. However, the need for properly trained, equipped, and disciplined military units was evident, and the State Defense Forces were intended to meet that need.[18]

Responsibility for the revived State Defense Forces program was assigned within DoD to the National Guard Bureau and the adjutants general of the states. This was logical, for once the National Guard was on federal active duty, the National Guard would have no real mission in the war and could be gainfully employed in support of the governors in the homeland defense mission by seeing to the support of the State Defense Forces. The adjutants general and the state military headquarters also would not be placed on federal active duty and would continue to command the state military forces for the governors, except that these would be the militia (State Defense Forces) instead of the provincial troops (National Guard).

It seemed as if an effective program had been established to fill the needs of the governors for military forces when the National Guard was mobilized and deployed overseas. This was too optimistic.

Opposition to Homeland Defense Forces

There are no effective home defense forces in the United States today because of the opposition to them by the National Guard, the adjutants general of the states, and the National Guard Association of the United States. The proximate cause of this unsatisfactory situation is the failure of the National Guard Bureau to carry out its assigned mission to encourage and support strong home defense forces for Cold War duties.

The National Guard Bureau was not enthusiastic from the start about the State Defense Forces program of the 1980s. Responsibility for the program was assigned to the care of a mid-level civil servant and allowed to languish in the backwaters of the bureaucracy. After an initial period of growth, the State Defense Forces withered away.

National Guard leaders, including many of the adjutants general, admit in moments of candor that they do not like the State Defense Forces program. They complain that the State Defense Forces were too political, had too many generals and colonels, and were just a bunch of old fogies interested more in wearing uniforms than in doing anything useful. It seems that some State Defense Force generals had obtained three stars, and this offended the adjutants general, who had only two. There was also talk about the Home Defense Forces putting on airs and competing with the “real” National Guard. There were turf battles in some states between the National Guard and the state guard, which appears odd because in all of the statutes but one the adjutants general command both the National Guard and the State Defense Force. But these complaints are petty and do not justify abandoning the State Defense Force program. After all, the National Guard Bureau and the adjutants general were in charge and were responsible for the decline of the State Defense Forces. The National Guard won a decisive victory in the turf battles, for the State Defense Forces today are moribund.

The official militia still exists in 19 states.[19]They are called state guards or State Defense Forces and are authorized and commanded by the governors acting through the state adjutant general. They consist of volunteers who train and also provide emergency and community support services. Members are obliged to serve on state active duty if so ordered by the governor.[20] The strength and level of activity of the state guards are determined by the attitudes of their adjutants general and vary widely from state to state. Strength has declined in recent years and they now have an aggregate strength of about 8,000, mostly older people, as they themselves admit somewhat bitterly.[21]

It is useful to consider why the National Guard, which has been transformed into professional provincial troops to fight alongside the regulars, has such contempt for the militia from which they sprang; it is curious because the National Guard in its new role as integrated provincial troops faces the same kind of contempt from the regulars in the active components. Despite the Total Force Policy and a long menu of integration efforts, the Army in particular does not like the National Guard very much and would really like to be able to fight without it. Apparently, the National Guard, which knows it is scorned by the regulars, feels compelled to look down upon the state guard in the same way. People are strange.

The sad story of the state guard would be merely another interesting bit of historical trivia were it not for the fact that there is today neither an effective force nor a workable plan to have state military forces either to substitute for the National Guard when it is mobilized or, more likely in the current war, to augment the National Guard when it is fully committed.[22]

Revitalization of the Constitutional Militia

The President and Congress should consider authorizing and encouraging the governors to establish effective state guards to serve as state troops for homeland defense. President Bush, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, and Attorney General John Ashcroft have been governors, and they know the importance of state military forces.

The revitalized state guards should be under the command of the respective governors and be dedicated to homeland defense duties within their respective states. They should be supported by the states but subsidized by the federal government at least to the extent of making military uniforms, arms, field gear, vehicles, radios, and other supplies and equipment available from DoD stocks deemed as excess to the needs of the armed forces and the National Guard.

Based on analysis of threats and capabilities, each state’s governor should propose the personnel strength needed for the state guard. While each state would vary in strength, if the average strength for the 50 states is 5,000 personnel (a small number given the need), the total number of state guards nationwide would be 250,000. This is quite likely a low figure, and the total that might be needed to deal with a massive attack could be more like 500,000.

The rules and regulations for members of the state guard would be prescribed in federal statute and state law. Here are some possible guidelines.[23]The members of state guard units should be volunteers from the ages of 18 to 65. They would agree to serve for 2 to 3 years and complete successfully a short (2- to 3-week) initial training period plus one week of annual training. They would agree to serve from time to time on full-time state duty during emergencies. The recruiting base from which the state guardsmen would join includes older people (many with prior military service), young people disinclined to enlist in an active or Reserve component, and many of those who do not qualify for service in the armed forces. There would have to be minimum standards of physical condition and prior behavior. The governors would appoint officers on the basis of local recommendations.

The state guards should be organized and equipped for internal security duties—primarily population control, physical security, and logistical support. There could be three basic kinds of units. Mobile security battalions would resemble military police battalions and have small arms and light automatic weapons, light vehicles, and lots of radios. Physical security battalions would be organized to provide full-time security at key installations for extended periods. Support battalions would provide a capability to marshal and manage the use of civil resources for emergency response. Brigade headquarters would command several battalions for training and operations, and the brigades would report to the state military headquarters. Minimum training requirements, including qualification in small arms and light automatic weapons, would be established. A standard uniform should be adopted for all state guards, with state and local identity displayed by distinctive shoulder patches.

Responsibility for the formation, organization, and support of the new state guard units should be assigned to an agency in the executive branch of the federal government. The National Guard Bureau would still be the best headquarters to perform this task, but given its previous opposition to state guards, this might not work out well. It might be prudent instead to task the Federal Emergency Management Agency to manage the state guard program as part of its overall responsibility to coordinate civil preparedness. The assignment of this job is up to the president.

The United States needs a secure base from which to wage unrelenting war on terrorism. Many things need to be done to provide that secure base and defend America. One important step would be to provide at low cost a significant number of trained military personnel who would be dedicated to support state and local authorities in preparing for and responding to terrorist attacks. This can be done by restoring and revitalizing the militia—state guards—to perform their original, constitutional role.

Odd isn’t it how often we stumble over small details on the way to larger issues – how often we can’t see the forest for the trees. Unfortunately, something like that seems to have happened to many people as they look at the new alert system for homeland security. Many observers are hung up on colors and unfamiliar terms like “severe risk.” They are missing the point. The key question is, does the alert system tell us what to do as conditions change?

And the answer is . . . yes. If you can get over the clunky terms and color coded life styles – if you can get past the individual trees – this is a pretty good product, which not only gives us a better feel for the forest, but helps us chart a way through it.

First, a couple of points we must all understand.

No national alert system is going to tell an individual or a family precisely what to do. But local systems, tailored to the local situation, might. For example, the protective measures required for various levels of threat are quite different for people living near the petrochemical center of Beaumont, Texas, or the huge ships docked in San Diego, California, or the landmarks and population centers of Chicago, Illinois. It is local plans and local actions that will tell citizens exactly what to do – and make any alert system succeed or fail.

Second, we cannot protect everything everywhere all the time. Perfect security is impossible. As the Secret Service has long known, anyone willing to give his life to attack a target will eventually find a weakness. So the purpose of an alert system is to discourage attack by making success less certain, and to and save
lives by making response quicker and more efficient. Don’t expect more of the alert system than it can deliver.

Third, an alert system can’t really tell us how worried we should be or exactly what we are looking for. Intelligence is almost never that specific. We live in a new world of new threats – we will have to be on the lookout all the time, for as long as we live. If someone wants to learn how to fly an airliner but not how to land it, or wants to buy a lot of explosives for a little job, or seeks to buy radioactive medical waste, or wants details of the building where we work, we should ask questions – regardless of the “alert status.” So what the alert system really tells us is whether a threat is serious enough to divert our resources – time, money, people, etc. – from our day-to-day activities. Should we draw down our personal lives, and our government services and our economic productivity in order to increase our protection?

Fourth, we will never know if the alert system works. We will never know if a scheduled attack is cancelled because of our improved security. But we do know that it is expensive and exhausting (and boring) to remain on high alert. So we must have a way of powering down when things get quiet.

Put all that together and you need a system that groups security responses into categories, tells local decision makers when to activate those categories, but lets those closest to the problem design the specific measures. This is exactly what Governor Ridge’s system does — and pretty well, as it turns out. So let’s skip the colors and focus on the actions.

• In normal times, all of us (individuals, schools, private businesses, state and local governments, police, etc.) ought to have plans on the shelf to deal with local vulnerabilities. Just as we need snow plans and tornado plans, we need security plans. And we ought to hire people, buy equipment, and train and exercise in accordance with those plans. And we ought to periodically review them. Green alert status reminds us to do this.

Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?

• If concern increases for some reason, we ought to take those plans down before the normal review date, dust them off, and update them – and maybe review our training as well. This would be Blue status.

• Should tensions rise, we need to begin to coordinate and exercise our plans across different agencies and levels of governments. People move, phone numbers and email addresses change, equipment and procedures are swapped out constantly. What worked last year with a school or a hospital or the police in the next county over, might not work this year. When conditions indicate that we should divert time and money and people to continuous coordination, then we call that Yellow status.

• If an attack appears likely, then it is time to change our day-to-day habits of life. Be really watchful for anything out of the ordinary. Divert people and resources to increasing security. If we have detailed threat information, get the word out. And make sure everybody knows what to do if we begin shutting down public and private activities. Local officials will have to decide on the specifics. Remember the scurrying around to reorganize private and public schedules when a hurricane or major snowstorm is about to arrive? Well, status Orange looks like that – with better organization. We can continue most activities, but at a hefty price in people and dollars.

• And finally, when attack is imminent, and we have some indication of where or when, circle the wagons and protect. Normal business stops; normal life is interrupted; major events are canceled. Everyone is alert to threats; everyone prepares to respond. Status Red means stop and make security your first priority. We can’t keep this up for long, but it is very important to get it right when announced.

If you forget the titles, skip past the colors, and cut to the chase, this is a very logical system. It gives those designing local guidelines an excellent framework to organize their responses. And it gives all of us a way to balance the security we want to have, against the sacrifices we are willing to make.

Representatives from the Institute greeting the delegation included Col. Randy Larsen the ANSER Institute’s Director, Dr. Peter Roman, a senior fellow at the Institute, and Mr. Alan Capps, the Editor-in-Chief for the Homeland Security Journal. Colonel Larsen used the majority of his time to both describe some of the government’s homeland security decisions to date. Institute representatives stressed that future attacks on the American homeland may very well have lasting economic consequences in addition to physical casualties. The Institute also reviewed the growing implications of the cyber threat to homeland security, noting how borders in cyberspace are meaningless and attribution has become exceptionally challenging.

Colonel Larsen and other members of the Institute also took questions from the delegation. Swiss delegates were interested in the discussion revolving around national identity cards, and noted that Switzerland had used national ID cards as long as anyone in the group could remember. Switzerland has a fairly sophisticated system of homeland security that may provide insights for the U.S. and other nations.

(The Institute welcomes the opportunity to speak with representatives of foreign governments and international delegations. Parties interested in participating in the Institute’s outreach efforts are encouraged to send queries here

When I taught writing at West Point, many of my smart, disciplined student authors shared the same problem: they failed to consider the audience. They saw putting the words on paper as their job, and interpreting the message as the reader’s problem. Not so, I repeatedly explained – making sure the audience understands is the author’s duty.

I am reminded of this lesson as I watch “anti-terrorism alerts” sweep back and forth across our country. Smart, well intended people are distributing these messages. But the citizens are confused and the media are confounded. Unless we change the way we announce threats, we will numb America to real dangers, lower our guard, and increase our vulnerability to attack.

But first, a sympathetic word about why communicating fair warning of attack is so hard.

The warnings really speak to two different audiences. Law officers and likely targets (like the owners of power plants or private aircraft) need as much detail as possible. The media and the public only need to know what they should do.

The warnings also convey different types of information. What is threatened – Bridges? Banks? Trains? How dangerous is it – Localized like a bomb? Extended like a city? How likely is it — Highly probable? A distant possibility? And what should we do about it – Be watchful? Add guards? Stay home?

Lastly – and this is key — communicating warning is tough because notices are released by different agencies depending upon the nature of the threat. The FBI conveys threats to law enforcement. The Department of Transportation makes announcements to truckers and airlines. The Department of Energy talks with nuclear power plants. Health and Human Services alerts medical personnel. So trying to get the right information from the right experts to the right audience is a tough challenge. No doubt, our leaders are trying to get it right. But the fact remains that the intended audiences – responsible officials and the general public alike – feel overwhelmed and under informed by the recent spate of alerts. As with a freshman essay, it is not enough to write the words – you must ensure that the audience understands the message.

What to do? Three immediate changes could help immensely.

1) Develop “parallel messages” for each alert: one with details for the experts, and another with guidelines for the general public. Right now, each alert goes only to the experts in that area. This leaves the media to collect bits and pieces from “sources”, and relay an incomplete story to the public. Instead, for every potential event, we need a specific alert for the potential targets, and a general explanation for the public at large. Our leaders need to communicate directly with both audiences about every potential crisis.

2) Release the warnings in a standard format from a single source on a regular basis, and repeat that same message throughout the government. Certainly, it makes good sense for the Department of Energy to deliver alerts directly to nuclear power plant operators. But the public also needs a clear, believable explanation for each alert from a central “clearing house,” like Governor Ridge’s office, or even the FBI. Then all related government agencies should post that same information prominently on their web sites.

3) With every alert, tell the audience what you want them to do. It is not enough to simply dump a warning that “terrorists might use small aircraft” on airports, pilots, and a concerned public. How should they respond? Close runways? Report suspicious rentals? This must be a required element of every alert.

In short, don’t just focus on writing the warning — think about the audience. What will help them understand the message and use it?

Here then is a message for those in charge of threat advisories, whether federal, state or local: Get the alert announcements under control. Make it easy to find warnings and guidance at one central location. Explain to the American people what you want them to do. Your job is not simply to release warnings – it is to ensure those warnings are received and understood. And the patience of the American people on this point is wearing thin.

Fair warning.

Discussion covered a broad range of subjects and areas of interest shared by the U.S. and Bulgaria. The Bulgarian representatives indicated that their trip to the United States was part of a best practices, fact-finding mission for improving Bulgarian internal security. They noted that while the two countries have significantly different security concerns, both have a great deal to learn from one another in terms of managing potential threats.

The Bulgarian delegation noted that debate over internal security and terrorism had begun in Bulgaria well before the September 11th terrorist attacks. In particular representatives from Bulgaria’s parliament noted that civilian control over the military and subordination of intelligence agencies to the popular government are prominent issues in Bulgarian politics at the present time. The Bulgarian delegation also observed how its country is struggling with improving coordination and communication between different agencies and departments, a challenge the United States is also working through.

Finally, the Bulgarian delegation recommended patience in regards to America’s struggle with terrorism. As one delegate noted, “Terrorism is as old as the world.” In other words, the problem is not likely to be resolved quickly.

To date, most public discussion of the National Strategy for Homeland Security has focused almost entirely on individual programs contained somewhere within the 88-page document. This is understandable. People care about their jobs, their taxes, and their security. Media, lobbyists, and policy makers care about funding. Supervisors care about organization and resources. And everybody cares about the distribution of power. So the natural tendency in examining this sweeping White House proposal to organize national power and apply it in a new way is to analyze how individual agencies, programs, interest groups, and constituencies would fare.

But to reinvent an old cliché, this focus on individual trees obscures not just the forest, but the path through that forest of overlapping responsibilities and jurisdictions that has constituted our homeland security non-system up until now. The President’s new strategy provides just such a path. Critics may disagree with the design of that path-they may not like the way the vision, priorities, and initiatives fit together-but they should at least recognize the unity of direction that runs through the document. This unity is expressed in a handful of themes repeated again and again-themes that provide a valuable insight into how the administration sees the way ahead through the heavy underbrush and thorny challenges of homeland security.

For the nation as a whole, recognizing the path this strategy describes is more important than any of the specific details now receiving such public scrutiny.

A Plan, Not a Strategy

For the sake of clarity, we should establish from the outset that this is not really a strategy in the classic sense. That is, although it acknowledges the existence of a thinking enemy on its opening page, this is not really an explanation of how the nation will defeat that enemy or protect or advance its interests. The “Strategy” is concerned with vulnerabilities, not threats. It explains how the nation will reduce its vulnerabilities and marshal its resources, but not how they will be applied against any specific enemy. This is really a national plan, not a strategy.

This distinction is pointed up by way of explanation, not criticism. Specific strategies against specific enemies should hardly be expected in broad unclassified documents released to the world, and those critics who demand to see such detail before considering governmental reorganization are at odds with history. For example, the Department of Defense was initially organized-like the Department of Homeland Security, largely from existing government agencies-in 1947 and revamped in 1949. But these changes were proposed and approved by Congress despite that fact that the nation had not released a formal public strategy for national security at the time. In fact, the Cold War strategy emerged gradually over several years through a series of statements not necessarily connected to specific organizational changes at all.

The simple fact is that effective plans may be crafted for marshalling, organizing, and supervising resources even before other plans for applying those resources are fully developed. This is exactly what happened as we prepared for and conducted World War II, and it is not unreasonable that the White House advocates this course of action in waging a long war against shadowy terrorists. The Strategy says that its purpose is “to mobilize and organize our Nation to secure the U.S. homeland from terrorist attacks” (p. vii). Governor Tom Ridge has further explained that the Strategy is actually a “comprehensive list of what must be done.”

In fairness, then, the success of the Strategy should be judged against its declared intent, and not against an academic concept of how a strategy should be designed. Does this Strategy for Homeland Security provide a useful framework to understand what must be done, who must do it, and what actions are required to get started? Our judgment is “Yes.”

Definitions: A Major Accomplishment

One of the first critical steps to laying out a national plan for homeland security is to define key terms. This is much more difficult than it sounds. Critics frequently argue over definitions because they have hidden agendas. Recently, legitimate military action has been described as “terrorism,” local safety issues have been called “securing the homeland,” and favored industries have been defined as “critical infrastructure” -all in an attempt to shore up a narrow argument or to advance a specific political agenda. This Strategy cuts through these murky arguments and makes precise communication possible by offering precise definitions of three key terms:

 
• Terrorism: “Any premeditated, unlawful act dangerous to human life or public welfare that is intended to intimidate or coerce civilian populations or governments” (p. 2).
• Homeland Security: “A concerted national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur” (p. 2).
• Critical Infrastructure: “The assets, systems, and functions vital to our national security, governance, public health and safety, economy, and national morale” (p.ix).

 

All of the plans and programs for homeland security advanced by the administration are offered in the context of these three definitions.

Key Themes

The path the administration intends to blaze toward homeland security is defined by several themes. These themes are more important than the specifics of any individual objectives, initiatives, or programs. Congress will certainly support some individual ideas, kill others, and advance some ideas of its own. And the details of each individual “tree in the forest” will be of vital interest to some constituency. But it is the underlying themes that demonstrate the administration’s key assumptions and fundamental beliefs and help identify those issues where the President will accept compromise and those where he will fight for principles and specifics.

We have identified the following themes as constituting the administration’s path forward on homeland security.

Federalism

There is no more important concept contained in this plan for homeland security than that of federalism: the idea that the federal government shares authority, responsibility, the mandate for action, and the struggle for resources with state and local governments and private actors. Here numbers tell an important story: more than 87,000 governmental jurisdictions exist in this country (p. vii); 85 percent of critical infrastructure is owned by the private sector (p. viii); the private sector already spends $55 billion per year on security (p. 65); the nation spends about $100 billion per year on homeland security (p. 63); yet at the end of a three-year ramp-up, the administration expects that federal expenditures will be about $38 billion (exclusive of the Department of Defense) (p. 64). Clearly, this is an area where the federal government will be a partner, not the sole source of resources-and hence not the only center of power.

Which is not to say the federal government will abrogate its leadership role. The Strategy assumes approval of the new Department of Homeland Security, allowing for central discipline and guidance for almost every federal agency directly involved in preventing attack, reducing vulnerabilities, minimizing damage, and speeding recovery (p. 2). It sets a national vision and outlines specific initiatives in six “critical mission areas”:

 
• Intelligence and warning
• Border and transportation security
• Domestic counterterrorism
• Protecting critical infrastructures and key assets
• Defending against catastrophic threats
• Emergency preparedness and response

 

In each of these areas it accepts the responsibility to consolidate federal plans, promote cooperation among state, local, and private plans, and identify and resolve the seams between them. The National Strategy establishes national level intent to direct and control those national level programs best managed at the national level-from national border control to centralized national management of research and development programs.

But discussion of these national level programs is interspersed with constant reminders that the programs specified below the national level are “suggestions, not mandates” (p. 49), since “The Tenth Amendment makes clear that each state retains substantial independent power with respect to the general welfare of its populace” (p. 47). As a result, the determination to promote and coordinate an efficient and effective homeland security program without creating massive federal intervention and control at every level comes across as the key intent and most important long-term legacy of this strategy.

Accountability

A second theme running throughout the document is the idea that for almost every specific major initiative in every mission area, some sort of accountability should be established to track leadership and performance back to a specific individual or office. Although the evaluation system is not mentioned, readers might be reminded of press reports of recent cabinet meetings where the President publicly evaluated the performance of leaders, agencies, and programs with color-coded cards. That spirit of periodic review and reallocation of resources from struggling programs to those that can demonstrate success is reflected in the specificity with which major initiatives are spelled out in every mission area. Surely the administration expects that the press and others will use this list of initiatives and expectations as a checklist to evaluate progress toward homeland security. And just as surely, senior administration leaders must plan to beat critics to the punch, publicly announcing their successes and publicly reorganizing those offices and efforts that cannot show progress in a reasonable period of time.

Again, those current analyses that focus on programmatic specifics (such as the proposed size of the Coast Guard and whether all of the Immigration and Naturalization Service is transferred to the new Department of Homeland Security) miss the larger point.

 
• For example, under this Strategy, a single entity “will manage who and what enters our homeland” (p. 22) and be responsible for the results.
• Similarly, “the President calls on each governor to establish a single Homeland Security Task Force for the state, to serve as his or her primary coordinating body with the federal government” (p.14).
• Again, in the much-maligned color-coded threat Advisory System, a single entity “would serve as the primary provider of threat information to state and local public safety agencies and to private sector owners of key targets” (p. 18).
• And in the area of preparing first responders, federal grant money would be “(based on performance) for planning and equipping, training, and exercising first responders” (p. 44).

 

In each case, someone is held responsible for action to be taken.

The theme reverberates throughout the document-the path to homeland security requires clear organization, consolidation of authority, and then holding someone responsible for performance. Accountability is not a new principle of government, but in practice it does seem to be more the exception than the rule. If the administration can establish this theme as a cultural characteristic in the new field of homeland security, it will have done the nation a great service.

Fiscal Responsibility

Closely aligned with accountability for initiatives and programs is the theme of fiscal responsibility in planning for and expending public funds. The problem is the tendency (fed by the immediacy of media reports) to expect perfect security and to see anything less as a failure of government. Seeking to avoid a voter backlash, the government could spend itself into bankruptcy and still not achieve perfect security. As the Strategy notes gloomily (but accurately), “We have to accept some level of terrorist risk as a permanent condition” (p. 2). Perhaps concerned about an emotional response to this rational argument and attempting to forestall a clamor for federal funds, the Strategy sets the bounds of fiscal expectations early:

Government should fund only those homeland security activities that are not supplied, or are inadequately supplied, in the market. Cost sharing between different levels of government should reflect the principles of federalism. Many homeland security activities … are properly accomplished at the federal level. In other circumstances … it is more appropriate for state and local governments to handle these responsibilities [p. xii].

Once the mission requirements for homeland security are identified, the Strategy devotes an entire chapter to “the broad principles that should guide the allocation of financial resources for homeland security, help determine who should bear the financial burdens, and help measure the costs” (p. 63). The key point is that in contrast to many other national strategy documents in the past, this one drives home not just the cost of security, but the need to prioritize-“to devote the right amount of scarce resources to homeland security and to spend these resources on the right activities” (p. 63). This leads to a consistent but remarkable (for such a document) economics lesson to the effect that “over the long term, government spending is balanced by either higher taxes or inflation, both of which hinder rapid … economic growth,” because “under any tax system, every dollar collected in taxes results in distortions that reduce the efficiency of the economy and lower national income” (pp. 64, 65). In other words, one fundamental aspect of homeland security is careful control of federal spending-even on homeland security itself.

Those who dismiss this concern as simply another way to influence tax policy should take note of the detailed program, located at the end of the chapter on costs (p. 65), for economic recovery after a terrorist attack. The argument for spending constraints and fiscal responsibility is clearly part of a larger concern about the vulnerability of the economy as a whole-either as a target of direct attack or as a victim of misallocated resources and overspending.

Whether the administration can build a bulwark against state, local, and private claims on federal money through congressional appropriation remains to be seen. But it is not an accident that the administration chose one of the most powerful locations in the Strategy-the closing sentence of the Executive Summary-to deliver this message: “These plans will ensure that the taxpayers’ money is spent only in a manner that achieves specific objectives with clear performance-based measures of effectiveness” (p. xiii). According to this Strategy, the path to homeland security is built on a foundation of fiscal responsibility.

Prioritizing Efforts

One of the long-standing complaints against public national security documents from previous administrations is that they rarely establish priorities. Given the competing pressures from established bureaucracies, they tend to be compromise documents that mention every key agency’s programs to some extent. Prioritization is left to the budget process where “insiders” triumph over outsiders regardless of the merits of their programs. Thus, what passes for strategy in such documents is generally a collection of policies favored by those in power. Perhaps because homeland security is a new field and the established bureaucracy has not yet defined the boundaries of its interests, the administration has actually been able to determine a set of priorities and advance them consistently.

From his earliest days as the Director of the Office of Homeland Security, Governor Ridge identified four top priorities for action: first responders, borders, bioterrorism, and improved intelligence and information flow. With little fanfare, he managed to gain budget support for those priorities in both the fiscal year 2001 Supplemental and in the fiscal year 2002 Annual Budget approved by Congress. And within his office, he advanced identifying and protecting critical infrastructure as an important effort from the past that deserved additional emphasis. Now, with little change, those same five priorities appear again in the Strategy-in fact, they mark the centerpiece of the document. Those interested in something more than this afternoon’s policy and budget debates should recognize these themes and the path they define to the future.

• Intelligence and warning has been placed in the “too hard” box for the current round of congressional testimony and action. Hence the major contribution of the Strategy in this area is that it resists the temptation to sweep problems under the rug and instead continues to emphasize the need to develop “real-time actionable information” (p. 17).
• Border and transportation security will be addressed by establishing a system of “layered management” of people and items crossing our borders, as well as cleaner lines of authority in supervising that system (p. 22). Today we do not actually have an integrated system for border and transportation security. Rather we have a set of subsystems (Customs, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Border Patrol, etc.), each operating independently, overlapping in some areas, and leaving other areas uncovered and unprotected. The new approach will put most of these subsystems under a single chain of command and envision the entire program as a series of supporting and reinforcing layers of security that start overseas where cargo and passenger craft load and ensure continued visibility and supervision until they unload in the United States.
• Domestic counterterrorism was not included on Governor Ridge’s original list of priorities, probably because he had neither visibility of nor authority over the law enforcement assets that address it. Additionally, the major initiatives identified in the Strategy reflect many of the lessons learned from months of analysis of what we should have known from information available prior to 11 September. The initiatives deal primarily with facilitating the exchange of information between law enforcement agents and other appropriate agencies. This aspect of the Strategy will no doubt be fleshed out with additional specifics as the “intelligence and warning” priority is developed.
• Protecting critical infrastructures and key assets benefits from years of work already done in identifying and evaluating potential targets, but suffers from the fact that the systems in question (agriculture, food, water, public health, etc.) are extremely complex, with the result that “the effects of a terrorist attack can spread far beyond the direct target, and reverberate long after the immediate damage” (p. 30). The challenge of prioritization will be even greater here than elsewhere, since every item of infrastructure in the United States is critical to someone, somewhere. The Strategy is absolutely correct in stating: “The assets, functions, and systems within each critical infrastructure sector are not equally important. The transportation sector is vital, but not every bridge is critical to the Nation as a whole” (p. 30).The program of initiatives to identify and address infrastructure priorities is impressive in detail-especially the priority given to the various aspects of cyber-security. However, setting and sticking to priorities in the face of local political pressure will be a challenge.
• Defending against catastrophic threats expands the early priority set on biological threats to include chemical, nuclear, and radiological threats as well. The key point here is that the document is internally consistent in prioritizing against threats best addressed by “a coordinated national effort” and accepting responsibility for research, development, and testing at the national level, as well as provision for special response teams to provide skills not affordable at the state, local, or private level. However, this does not relieve jurisdictions below the federal level of their responsibilities for first response-they will have to find ways to meet the standards and guidelines for state and local preparedness on their own.
• Emergency preparedness and response can expect a high priority for significant resources from the federal government if the Department of Homeland Security is able to “consolidate federal response plans and build a national system for incident management” as intended (p. 42). Again, federal agencies would give high priority to “incidents of national significance” (such as bioterrorism and agroterrorism), and state and local organizations should prioritize in accordance with this federal planning, thereby receiving grants for preparedness training and evaluation.

A longer laundry list of programs and initiatives is omitted from this analysis by intent. Such a list is readily available from other organizations and from the Strategy itself. Our interest is not in the “eaches” but in the way they are grouped, identified, and addressed. The administration identified a set of priorities early after the attack of 11 September, pressed them consistently through the budget cycle, and revised and expanded them as the centerpiece of its strategy. Support for these priorities is further delineated along federal or state and local lines. Federal programs will be integrated whenever possible to promote comprehensive solutions and accountability. State and local programs will be assisted through federal standards, guidelines, training, and evaluation, with the results affecting subsequent grant programs.

It is the substance and priority of these themes-not the fate of individual programs-by which observers should judge whether the Strategy constitutes a “comprehensive plan for what must be done.”

Foundations for the Long Term

If the Strategy were just a list of things to be done, it might have ended with its review of “critical mission areas.” However, the list of four “Foundations” establishes a final theme: that homeland security is not an issue of short duration, but a long-term requirement that will influence American life for years-maybe generations.

 
• The focus on law reveals a sensitivity to the fact that the consolidation of power at the federal level could, over time, erode government restraint and change the basic nature of the contract between governing and governed. Taking a long view, the Strategy urges that we use existing laws to their maximum effect, “craft new laws carefully,” while “refrain[ing] from instituting unnecessary laws” (p. 48).
• Science and technology offer few immediate solutions to the challenge of terrorism, but do offer great benefits over time. Especially in the area of catastrophic threats, coordinating research and development promise double advantages that “not only make us safer, but also make our daily lives better” (p. 53). But turning the nation’s independent system of universities, labs, and private enterprises in this new direction is not something to be done lightly or easily-or quickly. And it diverts attention from other priorities. This solution suggests that we are in for the long haul.
• Issues identified as part of information sharing and systems really have little to do with terrorism per se. The problems of communicating across equipment, legal, and cultural barriers have more to do with the nature of organizations than the nature of the threat. And the concerns identified-citizen privacy, common requirements, elimination of duplication, establishment of trusted databases, adaptability to change-are longstanding challenges for government information technology (p. 56). They will not be solved soon, and their inclusion reinforces the idea that this Strategy expects to be a force shaping the government for many years to come.
• Finally, international cooperation sets the objectives of this Strategy in the broadest possible context in an attempt to “harmonize our homeland security policies with our other national security goals”-goals not likely to be achieved anytime soon as the reality of international politics is that most issues must be managed over the long haul, and few are ever really solved (p. 60).

 

As pundits and policy makers focus on the specifics of individual initiatives in this Strategy, the theme running through this section should give pause. The path it describes to homeland security is a long one, not to be accomplished anytime soon. Protecting the nation without changing it unintentionally will be a difficult challenge as we negotiate this lengthy trip.

Missing From the Strategy … and Worth Noting

• Overt political agenda: The Strategy gives remarkably few nods to interest groups, constituencies, business, set-aside communities, etc. In light of the tendency of past public strategies to play to specific audiences and congratulate themselves on successes, this is a refreshing change. 

• Central budgeting system: The budgeting system the administration desired in its concept for the Department of Homeland Security was simplicity itself: organizations bring their slice of the budget from their former agency and allow the new Secretary to move the money around as necessary to support the priorities declared in this Strategy. Regrettably, such simplicity is not possible. Not only do issues of “overhead” within agencies make splitting budgets difficult, but Congress is not likely to allow the flexibility required to make movement of money between programs (and committee jurisdictions) work. To pursue this Strategy, the administration in general and the new department in particular will have to create a budget system to justify requirements, evaluate them individually, evaluate them against each other, craft them into a coherent argument for an annual budget, and then adapt according to what the Congressional appropriators and authorizers actually provide. The Department may not have to go as far as the Department of Defense, with its operational planning system that feeds a seven-year budget planning cycle and powerful program, analysis, and evaluation directorate-but it will have to create something that accomplishes the same purpose.

 

• Standards for Acquisition: In one respect the emphasis on federalism makes the job of national level homeland security easier. Unlike the Department of Defense, there will be little need for massive centralized procurement. While the Department of Defense must develop a single set of requirements for tanks, fighter planes, boots, meals, etc., the Department of Homeland Security will leave most such purchases to state and local governments, which will buy whatever fire trucks, squad cars, and emergency equipment suits their needs best. Thus the Strategy need not consider the inclusion of a massive acquisition system in its view of the future. However, if national level agencies are to coordinate state, local, and private efforts for efficiency and effectiveness, then those efforts must also be standardized to some extent. Equipment, training, and doctrine must be at least compatible between these jurisdictions, and this will never come about unless some higher organization establishes and promotes common standards. It is not necessary that the new Strategy or the new department endorse specific items or ideas, or even encourage specific purchases, but they must provide some way-perhaps something like an Underwriters Laboratory seal of approval-to help decentralized purchasers across the United States sort through competing claims and buy systems that work, and work together.

 

• Education Program: In keeping with the priorities established soon after 11 September 2001, this Strategy gives heavy and appropriate emphasis to the training of first responders-and especially those who deal with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear attacks. Provisions are made for grants, certifications, and exercises, and evaluations of non-federal programs. And several model programs (the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Alabama, for example) are cited as examples of how training could be centrally coordinated. But virtually all of this training is aimed at first-line operators-firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, etc. As homeland security grows and changes over time, it will require a much broader range of interdisciplinary experts-it will require not just training but educational programs at multiple levels. Someone must prepare the mid-level managers from all over the country who will have to establish and oversee the new programs-they must learn to plan, organize, fund, and manage entirely new assets to accomplish the entirely new homeland security mission. Someone must prepare the senior leaders-fire chiefs, city and county planners, and federal agency chiefs-who formulate doctrine and oversee the managers. And someone must educate the top-level executives-the mayors, governors, and national level elected and appointed officials who establish strategy and policy at the top level. Just as the military now trains and educates at every level from private to general and admiral, so the new field of homeland security will require a career-long program of multilevel professional education. This is no small order-it will require schools, professors, curriculum, and support facilities in multiple locations nationwide. It will require time to develop. And it will require significant investments at every level-starting at the federal level if we are to set the standards right and early. The military has long considered its education program a critical element of its readiness to fight; so too is a new educational program a critical element in our ability to promote security here at home.

 

• Personnel policies: The creation of a federal Department of Homeland Security to support this Strategy will require one of the largest and most complex government reorganizations in history. Some jobs in every one of the 22 federal agencies involved will have to change. And in every one of those organizations, some people will make the transformation better than others. This is an important consideration, as jobs previously focused on government administration suddenly have a direct impact on the security of the nation and its citizens. The administration has asked for new “flexibility” in applying established personnel rules to both reward and correct individual employees during the transformation from the old work environment to the new. The specifics of such changes will be the subject of intense political debate, probably continuing for years, and specific proposals were rightly excluded from this broader document. But the need for a refocused workforce, willing to embrace new duties and new ways of doing business, is so great that it rightly deserves a place in any “comprehensive list of what needs to be done.” An energized workforce focused on its new mission is an absolute prerequisite for the future security of the nation.

 

• Marriage of intelligence and law enforcement: For the first time, this Strategy lays out an entire family of subordinate public strategies to be designed and coordinated under the “framework established by the National Security Strategy of the United States and National Strategy for Homeland Security” (p. 5) These include at least the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, the National Money Laundering Strategy, the National Defense Strategy (formerly the National Military Strategy), and the National Drug Control Strategy. The administration has publicly acknowledged the need for a national solution to the thorny problem of marrying intelligence to domestic law enforcement, and it has deferred a solution until the current discussion of the Homeland Security Strategy and its associated department can be managed through Congress and into law. In the Homeland Security Strategy, the administration has taken a wise tack in establishing specific goals and initiatives to measure progress in other mission areas. It would do well to spell out where and when the marriage of intelligence and law enforcement will be addressed and how it will be measured as well.

One Major Point of Disagreement

Crisis and consequence management: As part of the general themes of establishing priority, accountability, and responsibility while promoting emergency preparedness and response, the Strategy makes a point of consolidating plans and actions before a terrorist incident with those afterward.

The Department of Homeland Security will consolidate existing federal government emergency response plans into one genuinely all-discipline, all-hazard plan-the Federal Incident Management Plan-and thereby eliminate the “crisis management” and “consequence management” distinction. A single federal coordinator would be responsible to the President for coordinating the entire federal response. Lead agencies would maintain operational control over their functions (for example, the FBI will remain the lead agency for federal law enforcement) in coordination with the single on-site federal official (p. 42).

While streamlining reporting chains and unifying command and control is generally a good idea, eliminating the distinction between a “crisis” (before an attack takes place) and a “consequence” (after the attack), and combining all the resulting activities under the heading of an “incident” may be more difficult in practice than in theory. Once an event takes place-especially an event producing significant casualties-priorities change rapidly. Identifying the perpetrators may go from top priority to last-especially if they died in the attack. Skills required may change dramatically, going from law enforcement to rescue in a bombing attack, or rescue to law enforcement in a biological attack. Interaction with the press and the public may change significantly depending upon the degree of secrecy required. Maintaining the same official in charge overall during this rapid, stressful transition sounds like an excellent idea. But operating from an “all-discipline, all-hazard plan” risks a lowest-common-denominator approach where authority is driven by position rather than special expertise applicable to the event.

The military solves this problem by constructing plans in “phases”: different organizations may be used and different subordinates may have “the lead” as the plan moves from phase to phase. For example, the FBI might have the lead in the search for a suspected bomb, the Federal Emergency Management Agency might lead in the immediate aftermath of an explosion, and Health and Human Services might lead later if the bomb dispersed biological agents.

So collapsing the terms “crisis” and “consequence” into a single “incident” is acceptable only if all involved understand that there may be time-phased distinctions in priority, action, and responsibility. In preparing for crisis and dealing with consequence, one size will not fit all.

And a Caveat

Mobilizing national power, reducing vulnerability, minimizing damage, and speeding recovery are admirable goals for this initial Strategy. But we must not mislead ourselves into thinking that these will prevent attack. A good plan can make an enemy attack more difficult and even discourage action against specific targets. But a dedicated terrorist-especially one willing to give his life as part of the attack-will eventually get through. And many of our vulnerabilities-public utilities, public transportation, public gatherings-will be very difficult to address. A free society cannot prevent every crime and remain a free society. Just so with terrorist attacks.

The terrorist always has the advantage. The defender must be successful everywhere all the time. The attacker only needs to be lucky once. Thus, the solution to international terrorism is to be found at the source of the problem-overseas.

This is not to suggest that homeland security is a waste of time or that this Strategy is doomed to failure. A good defense is both physically and psychologically essential while our own offense tightens the noose around the overseas collection of killers who hate our freedom and threaten our way of life. But it does mean that we should not expect the impossible from our plans, our leaders, or those who serve the public interest. We are engaged in a long-term fight for survival. There will be more casualties. This Strategy does not make us safer just by its publication.

But it does offer us hope that better organization and concerted action will improve our chances of survival, both individually and collectively. Ultimately, this Strategy should be judged against that standard.

In Summary

This analysis does not review or endorse every point in every program and initiative of the Strategy under consideration. But on the really important issue-does this document define a usable path forward through the thicket of domestic and overseas challenges and move us closer to security in our homeland?-we believe it succeeds.

Homeland Security is the most complex challenge the U.S. government has ever faced. The path forward will be strewn with rocks and pockmarked with holes and shadowed by special interests bent on placing their needs above those of the nation as a whole. But if we can get beyond the study of individual trees and regard the plan as a whole, then the National Strategy for Homeland Security does a quite respectable job of describing a suitable road though dangerous woods to a more secure future.

Dr. McIntyre presented the strategic context for the discussion. He pointed out that Administration priorities have been consistent over the past 11 months. From its earliest days, the Office of Homeland Security addressed first responder preparedness, preparations for biological warfare, borders, and improved information and intelligence flow. Additionally, they focused on Critical Infrastructure Protection, while others at the National Security Council focused on cyber security. These six priorities were reflected in the budgets proposed to Congress in the winter, and line up very directly with the organization and responsibilities of the proposed Department of Homeland Security.

Dr. McIntyre also pointed out key themes from the new national strategy echoed in the proposed department: federalism, accountability, and fiscal responsibility. Finally he highlighted several areas for future action: a formal budget process, a cell for operational planning and control, personnel issues, and progressive professional education. While acknowledging the problems and issues remaining to be resolved, McIntyre encouraged Congress to take action now, and worry about amending the organization at a future date (as happened in the formation of the Department of Defense in 1947). The key to this entire issue, he suggested, is the following question: “Is the United States facing a threat to its survival or not?” If you think not, then there is plenty of time to make corrections. But if you think the threat is real, then action should be taken as soon as possible. McIntyre’s remarks were drawn from his analyses of the new strategy and the proposed department, located at http://www.homelandsecurity.org

Dr. Michele Flournoy from the Center for Strategic and International Studies was also generally supportive of the concept of a new department, but used her remarks to identify several areas for action even beyond that announced thus far. These include:

• Additional staffing for threat assessment, strategic planning, budget process,
  and advanced concepts.
• A National Intelligence Fusion Center.
• Consideration of economic issues as well as security issues.
• Improved coordination with other departments
• Creation of a 21st century business culture.
• A training academy
• A public education program.
• Establishment of a new (or revised) Federally Funded Research and Development Center.
• Reorganization of congressional oversight.

Dr. Mac Destler from the University of Maryland asked that the audience divide the homeland security issue into two questions: What should the US do? Which functions should be in the new department? He voiced reluctance to see all national access functions consolidated, noting that the question of borders is “not just what we keep out but what we let in.” He also saw a proposed consolidation of some agencies as potentially useful, but was not enthusiastic about a central national point of contact for all homeland security issues. His preference was to keep the Office of Homeland Security, making it subject to congressional oversight, and using it for many coordination functions. Concerning congress, he recommended that each of the 13 authorization subcommittees (in the House and Senate) establish their own homeland security subcommittees in order to ensure congressional oversight. In short, he questions the plan as too much, too big, and moving too fast.

Dr. Ivan Eland was the most severe critic of the proposed department, arguing that focus should be on reducing and streamlining bureaucracy and government, not creating a new department that would likely grow and be even more unwieldy. The origin of the department, he felt, really was more a matter of countering revelations about the FBI and CIA than fixing HLS. The resulting reorganization was too big and done too quickly to fix the real problems we face in homeland security. Consequently, his strong recommendation was that we slow down, do not rush the department into being, and focus on coordination between agencies instead of agency reorganization. In addition, he held that real homeland security comes from reducing the threat from overseas, so a high priority should be toning down our intervention and engagement abroad.

Imagining Victory

Writing on September 11th, a New York columnist noted that some of his friends were still stunned by what happened on 9-11. It was, he said, “such an evil act that it shattered your faith in human beings.” They just could not imagine that someone would do such a thing.

In fact, 9-11 was not a failure of intelligence. It was a failure of imagination, starting with our academicians, and working its way out through our media, our politicians, our strategic elite, and down to main street. It turns out that Beatle lyrics aside, all people are not equally peaceful, all cultures are not equally compassionate, all religions are not equally beneficial. Imagine that.

Now some are about make the same mistake again, embarking on a fight for survival but imagining that the goal of the war is to build a democratic garden of Eden, and anything less falls short as an exit strategy. Let’s imagine reality for a moment.
There at only two reasons for this war:

#1, Saddam is developing weapons that can murder millions and destroy our nation;
#2, His cooperation with existing suicide bombers would provide a delivery system that could not be traced.

That combination cannot be deterred. We must destroy it before it destroys us.
We cannot rid the world of terrorists completely, but we can take Saddam off the table permanently. To do so, we must destroy five targets:

- Saddam himself. Others in the world own terrible weapons, but he delights in defying and threatening us with them. This cannot be ignored; he must be killed or held until a legitimate Iraqi court can be created. (I’ll bet the Kurds and Shiites would volunteer for jury duty.)

- Saddam’s political apparatus. These are the officers, bureaucrats, and political operatives who made his murderous machine run – those who fired the poison shells, committed the torture, and kept the books. Removing Saddam and leaving his henchmen would be exactly like removing Hitler and leaving the SS. We need a denazification program for the Baath party.

- Saddam’s weapons. This goes without saying, except that it will require using a vacuum cleaner on a country of 240,000 square miles. Any part of a weapon that escapes detection – a nuclear trigger, a container of gas, a test tube of plague – could come back to haunt us. Everything must go.

- Saddam’s weapon makers. Here’s the hard part. It is not weapons that threaten us in the long run – it is know how. We must not allow those working on genetically engineered diseases to escape the borders like Al Qaeda fled through Pakistan. Their notes and records must not spread around the world. This will upset many who see free travel of researchers as a basic human right, and the destruction of any knowledge as immoral. But everything must go – every research file, computer disk, test tube and 3×5 card. And those who were in the program must never leave Iraq again.

- But destroying these four targets – the absolute minimum if we are to call this war a success – requires destruction of a fifth target: the Iraqi army.

The chorus that always favors half measures is already tuning up to plead for an end to the bombing before it has begun. “They were forced to fight.” “They will surrender.” ” They want to be liberated.” Imaginations continue to run wild.

The cold hard truth is that there is only one force that keeps Saddam in power: his military. There is only one force that could cause us serious casualties: his military. There is only one force that could interfere with the national body cavity search that will be required to find the pieces of his weapons program: his military. And there is only one target we could utterly destroy that would cow others who might consider cooperating with terrorists: Saddam’s military.

We have the capability to do this. Massive armored sweeps are not required, nor is air attack on cities. After nailing the “special weapons” sites early (I am sorry they are intentionally hidden under civilian sites – nail them), we could use mobile ground forces to pin the army in place, and precise air attacks to destroy its units to a man. This need not resemble a thunderclap; our military could take its time, eating its way through Iraq like a cancer. No one could complain about excessive civilian causalities. No huge logistics train would be required. Rear security would not be a problem. Because we would leave no forces behind to cause trouble.

No, we would not have to kill every soldier, because their army would dissolve long before that. Yes, there would be disorder and chaos in some areas, and old scores would no doubt be settled. Yes, we would have to aid the civilian populace. And yes, we might have to reconstitute some Iraqi soldiers into a police force to keep order. (We used Japanese soldiers for the same purpose after the end of World War II.) But none of this is required until after we secure our world and the future by achieving our first four priorities. Not until after we achieve victory.

Imagining a softer solution is attractive: I wish it could be true. But our cities and our children are at risk from what Saddam may share. Human rights must follow national survival, not precede it, else there will be no nation to protect human rights.

These then are our goals: Kill Saddam or deliver him to his enemies. Do the same with his entire political apparatus. Destroy his weapons. Destroy the research and development system that produced them, and isolate the researchers. And achieve these goals by first destroying his military in its entirety, so that Iraq lies stripped and vulnerable before the world. Then we can set about whatever social engineering we wish. But until these five goals are achieved, any other plan is a flight of imagination.