The catastrophic attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 have made it all too obvious that wars do not have to be declared and threats do not have to be unconcealed. It is brutally apparent that there is a wide spectrum of possible threats to the U.S. homeland that do not entail the threat of overt attacks by states using long-range missiles or conventional military forces.
Such threats can vary from the acts of individual extremists to state-sponsored asymmetric warfare. They can comprise covert attacks by state actors, state use of proxies, as well as independent terrorist groups. They can comprise attacks by foreign individuals and residents of the United States whose motives can vary from religion to efforts at extortion (Innes, 2003). Motives can range from definite political and strategic goals, to religion and political ideology, crime and sabotage, or acts by the expressively disturbed.
The means of attack can range from token uses of explosives, cyber-terrorism, car and truck bombs, passenger airliners to weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
We have previously experienced some overwhelming attacks. However, no pattern of attacks on U.S. territory has emerged that offers a clear foundation for predicting the seriousness of any given form of attack in the future, the means of attack that will be used, or how deadly new forms of attack will be if they are successful.
Consequently, there is a major and continuing debate over the range of threats that require measurement, their significance, and how the U.S. government should react to combat terrorism.
We now recognize all too well how susceptible we really are. However, it is difficult to forecast how such threats will develop in the future and the extent to which states and their proxies will use alternative methods of attack as distinguished from terrorists. Possible foreign attackers have good cause to fear American military power, and most are still improbable to launch such attacks without considering the risks. Simultaneously, it is painfully obvious that America’s very strengths make an incentive to attack it using asymmetric forms of warfare. Waging asymmetric warfare against the United States presents the greatest chance of success and the least risk of reprisal, and some key technologies are developing in ways that help the attacker. For instance, biological and information warfare will unavoidably make the possible threat from foreign and domestic attackers more serious over time (Falk, 2004).
Internal conflicts stemming from religious, ethnic, economic, or political disputes will remain at current levels or even increase in number. The United Nations and regional organizations will be called upon to address such conflicts because major states, stressed by domestic concerns, perceived risk of failure, lack of political will, or limited resources, will reduce their direct involvement.
Export control regimes and sanctions may become less effective due to the diffusion of technology, porous borders, defense industry consolidations, and reliance on foreign markets to maintain productivity. Controlling arms and weapons technology transfers will become more challenging. There is a growing possibility that state and non-state belligerents, some hostile to the United States, will acquire more sophisticated weaponry or weapons of mass destruction either through indigenous production or external acquisition. The likelihood of WMD being used against the United States or its forces, facilities, and interests overseas is expected to increase over time.
Estimates of the number of distinct ethnic-linguistic groups at the beginning of the 21st century vary from two thousand to five thousand. These groups range from small bands residing in isolated regions to larger groups inhabiting ancestral homelands or living in diasporas (Innes, 2003).
The United States is facing potential threats from state actors, their proxies, as well as independent extremists and terrorists. While some analysts may have exaggerated the immediate or current threat posed by certain actors, the events of September 2001 illustrate that this does not mean the threat is not real or that the nation does not need to improve its defense and response capabilities. The United States must plan to defend against such threats not only to protect its own homeland but also to safeguard its ability to deploy forces overseas and support its allies.
The practical problem is how to deal with highly doubtful emerging threats in a world where the United States has limited resources and competing priorities. The United States cannot risk the lives and well-being of its citizens based solely on today’s threats and probabilities. There are potentially antagonistic foreign and domestic sources of such threats, including key threats like biological weapons that involve fast-changing technologies posing an increasingly growing threat to the U.S. homeland. The combination of U.S. involvement in the world, the strength of U.S. conventional and nuclear forces, and vulnerability at home is dangerous, and unless the United States takes action to improve deterrence and defense, there is a high probability of major asymmetric or terrorist attacks involving CBRN weapons.
Finding the correct mix of defense and response is very difficult. It is far easier to call for theatrical action than to find out what actions will actually succeed and be cost-effective, and then execute them. It is obvious that the federal government is making progress in several areas and laying the groundwork for improved cooperation with states, localities, the private sector, and the public. By the standards of many governments that face more clear threats than the United States, it has already made noteworthy progress in starting to address these issues. In several cases, it is already well ahead of its friends and allies (Itzkoff, Seymour W., 2003).
Simultaneously, there is still much to be done, and the Bush Administration faces huge challenges in raising a truly efficient federal program. There are fundamental conceptual and tactical gaps in the way the United States is approaching the problem. The most serious gap is between the DOD’s growing focus on threats posed by asymmetric warfare and states and well-organized non-state actors, and civil departments’ focus on lower levels of foreign and domestic terrorism. Defining homeland defense” solely in terms of defense against attacks inside the United States understates the significance of looking at links between theater threats, conflicts, attacks on the United States, as well as threats to our allies and military forces.
An efficient approach to homeland defense also means understanding that the range of threats is so great that the United States cannot plan to cope with just one attack at a time. Attacks may be coupled with continuing theater conflicts. If missile threats against the United States are serious enough to deploy WMDs, then defense must consider the threat of mixed missile and covert attacks. Response must also consider the risk that a missile attack will penetrate any WMD defense. Multiple and sequential attacks are probable. The United States must also deal with the morning after.” The first major covert or terrorist WMD attack on the United States or its major allies may fundamentally alter the tactical environment. The United States must already start thinking and acting in response to such risks, but with foresight that its defense and response to the first attack will set an example in a world where many similar threats may occur in the future (Gerson, Allan, and Jerry Adler, 2001).
The United States needs to broaden its approach to homeland defense by utilizing all available tools. Any strategy that excludes offensive and deterrent capabilities, as well as the ability to identify and strike hostile foreign governments and terrorists, overlooks a significant aspect of homeland defense. Similarly, definitions that underestimate or disregard the broad spectrum of U.S. counterproliferation efforts, including arms control, are inadequate. However, emphasizing homeland defense does not mean promoting isolationism; cooperation with allies and friendly governments is crucial in defending against asymmetric attacks by foreign states and counterterrorism. While these actions cannot defend against domestic terrorists and extremists, they can greatly reduce the risk of potential attacks involving nuclear or biological weapons.
The U.S. government needs to focus less on chains of command and more on accepting uncertainty and conducting essential research, development, and improved planning to reduce that uncertainty. Too many studies of homeland defense are concerned with who’s in charge” in the federal government rather than the details of which senior official should be responsible for what. In some cases, there seems to be an assumption that creating the right organizational chart and set of federal accountabilities can solve the problem by combining federal authority, capabilities, and liaison efforts with state and local governments (Geldenhuys, 2004).
One does not have to be a believer in chaos theory to understand that such an approach is almost surely wrong. No federal approach to a highly uncertain range of threats, mainly ones with consequences as overwhelming as attacks with nuclear and biological weapons, can expect to build up a system that will be truly ready to manage such threats and attacks when they emerge. The U.S. government cannot and must not pay the money today to try to handle the worst-case threats that may emerge in the future, nor can it require state, local, and private entities to assume more than limited additional burdens.
There are many areas that require essential research and planning to resolve significant uncertainties. In some cases, special interest pleading threatens to waste vast amounts of public money on the wrong priorities or measures that may be unproductive or easy to counter. Unfortunately, there have been more efforts to define broad strategies or issue directives than to come up with thorough planning, adequate programs and program budgets, and meaningful ways to review and coordinate annual budgets and programs.
Many proposed and ongoing programs are unlikely to pass basic tests of intellectual validity and federal responsibility. There is no long-term plan, program budget, or supporting analysis of the balance between offense and defense, countermeasures that could defeat a given program, or the cost to defeat it. Additionally, there is a lack of sufficient continuing national threat analysis for both domestic and foreign threats. There is no net assessment of the overall balance between defense and offense nor any net technical assessment of trends in offensive plus defensive capability.
There is a sharp decoupling in dealing with the chief asymmetric threats, which can involve states, their proxies, and more sophisticated terrorist and extremist groups in nuclear and major biological attacks. This is separate from the lower-level forms of CBRN attacks that are the “worst cases” today’s terrorists appear to pose. These lower-level forms of attack form the focus of most of today’s hard work to improve defense and response.
These problems are compounded by main legal issues that limit key aspects of intelligence and law enforcement activities. Additionally, efforts to improve response are frequently associated with other goals like improving health services or emergency response capabilities (Falk, 2004).
Effective planning and action cannot be based on vague calls for improved strategy, exercise, and training. Today’s threat analyses and techniques, or changes to organization charts at the top are not enough. It will take years of effort to create a coordinated and efficient plan for federal, state, and local action. In most cases, the ability to address thorough issues and generate hands-on efforts to implement a wide range of cost-effective programs will determine the success of U.S. homeland defense efforts – not just a few major recommendations. The devil is in the details; bumper sticker” or one-issue approaches to policy are a recipe for disaster.
Effective research and development efforts are required in almost every key area of defense and response activity to improve the United States’ capability to use political, economic, and military actions outside the United States to deter and defend foreign asymmetric and terrorist attacks (Besteman, 2002). Simultaneously, effective research and development efforts need certain key tools that are sadly lacking in many, if not most, such programs.
There must be a complete and regularly updated technical assessment of defensive and offensive technology trends to establish priorities for given programs’ cost-effectiveness. Basic advances are necessary in estimating plus modeling the CBRN threat to determine which research activities require more attention (Berman, 2003).
Every research program needs a clear analysis of how the end result would be deployed along with procurement costs. There has to be an end to pleading about a program’s merits against today’s threat without justification based on analysis of offense/defense trends or countermeasures against proposed or continuing R&D activities. The cost must also factor into defeating a deployed system.
Conclusions.
The United States must take a comprehensive approach to homeland defense and rethink what is sometimes a near isolationist approach. Much of the literature suggests that the United States will be the main target of attacks and not just the scene of attacks. One classic argument is that the generic nature of U.S. role as the world’s only superpower” makes it the primary target of foreign action. Additionally, there is a tendency to assume that U.S. deterrence, defense, response, and political as well as economic action can take place as part of a two-person, zero-sum game.
In actual practice, the United States is often targeted by foreign movements as an extension of theater-driven conflicts and tensions. It is frequently a secondary target for state and terrorist attacks, especially in Northeast Asia, the Persian Gulf, and the Middle East. In many cases involving state-sponsored attacks or large-scale terrorist attacks, any attack on the U.S. homeland will be an extension of theater-driven conflicts by other means.
The United States will be associated with its allies, coalitions, regional peacemaking efforts or other critical foreign involvements. Even when this isn’t the case, it will often badly need support from its allies and international law enforcement agencies. Homeland defense cannot be done in isolationism; if the United States tries to play a two-person zero-sum game it will most likely lose or pay an extremely high price for its conceptual and practical failure to handle the world it lives in.
References:
Berman, Paul. Terror and Liberalism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.
Besteman, Catherine Lowe, edited Violence: A Reader” in 2002. The book was published by New York University Press in New York.
Falk, Richard A. (2004). The Darkening World Order: America’s Imperial Geopolitics. New York: Routledge.
Geldenhuys, Deon. (2004). Deviant Conduct in World Politics. Palgrave Macmillan: Houndmills, UK.
Gerson, Allan, and Jerry Adler wrote The Price of Terror: One Bomb, One Plane, 270 Lives: The History-Making Struggle for Justice After Pan Am 103″ in 2001. This is the first edition of the book published by HarperCollins in New York.
Innes, Brian (2003) wrote a book titled International Terrorism” which was published in Broomall, PA by Mason Crest.
Itzkoff, Seymour W. (2003) discusses the concept of intellectual capital in politics for the twenty-first century in his book titled Intellectual Capital in Twenty-First-Century Politics.” The book is published by Paideia and is based in Ashfield, MA.
