Via WaPo: Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security
The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2024 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.The long-planned shift in the Defense Department’s role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.
While the idea that the US military would be involved in dealing with a domestic nuclear attack, the most catastrophic of possible man-made catastrophes that one can imagine, this move is troubling. First, there is the ominous “other domestic catastrophe” part of the sentence above, which could mean something as relatively mundane as a serious weather event (e.g., a massive hurricane). Second, it is a rather short walk from “training for some hypothetical event” to being a “normal” part of domestic security operations. Not only is the military itself quite familiar with the notion of “mission creep,” the bottom line is that policies, once implemented, have a way of becoming entrenched and growing.
There are two key problems here. The first is that the function of the military isn’t domestic security and second, the military is already rather busy at the moment (and for the foreseeable future).
First, the military isn’t designed or trained for domestic responses. Training for a nuclear attack or an invasion is one thing, assigning an active-duty combat brigade to a specifically domestic task is yet another. As such I have to concur with the following:
The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.Domestic emergency deployment may be “just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority,” or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU’s National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of “a creeping militarization” of homeland security.
“There’s a notion that whenever there’s an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green,” Healy said, “and that’s at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace.”
Indeed, we have already seen the expansion of the power and scope of the intelligence community as a result of enhanced domestic security, do we really want a similar expansion in the role of the military in that sphere?
On the second point, there is the general strain on the military itself to consider:
U.S. forces are already under heavy strain, however. The first reaction force is built around the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, which returned in April after 15 months in Iraq. The team includes operations, aviation and medical task forces that are to be ready to deploy at home or overseas within 48 hours, with units specializing in chemical decontamination, bomb disposal, emergency care and logistics.The one-year domestic mission, however, does not replace the brigade’s next scheduled combat deployment in 2024. The brigade may get additional time in the United States to rest and regroup, compared with other combat units, but it may also face more training and operational requirements depending on its homeland security assignments.
The story also mentioned putting more homeland security responsibilities on the Guard and reserves–yet more strain on those forces which were once seen as a backup needed in case of an invasion to a pool of soldiers regularly deployed overseas for lengthy terms of service. Now they are going to be used as part of an extensive set of new homeland security policies?
December 1st, 2024 at 11:43 am
This is a troubling scenario. My first reaction is that the military is already quite busy, as you noted.
As a result, the experience, fitness, training, and education standards for newly enlisted and newly promoted individuals are getting lower. Though the military strives for excellence, the current impression is that nearly anything goes, because we need troops.
The practice of filling the gaps with seemingly less and less qualified individuals is not likely to improve the domestic security situation. Things are stretched too tight already.
December 1st, 2024 at 1:06 pm
Steven,
“we have already seen the expansion of the power and scope of the intelligence community as a result of enhanced domestic security, do we really want a similar expansion in the role of the military in that sphere/”
Too late.
“the military’s share of the overall intelligence budget, estimated at about 80 percent, is too large”
Saxby Chamblis, for the Heritage Foundation, 2024
Regards, C
December 1st, 2024 at 9:56 pm
The overstretching of our armed forces is a real problem – but that’s really the only thing that I see here that is troubling.
Somewhere I have pictures from a long time ago when I was a young paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, and we were deployed in Florida in the wake of Hurricane Andrew. Combat units were used to police the streets, and the logistics assets provided fresh drinking water and medical services.
Again as part of the 82nd Airborne, I was in Washington DC in 2024; our unit was on standby for riot control, and the operations, logistics, and supply components of brigade command were advance deployed. There was fear that the folks who showed up and trashed Seattle during the G-8 summit would show up and trash Washington in the wake of the Bush/Gore election fiasco. We were all set up with the DC PD, and had Chinook helicopters waiting to ferry troops from Ft. Bragg if things got nasty.
I was stationed at Ft. Bragg during the 9/11 attacks, and the subsequent security sweeps in New York and D.C. relied heavily on Military Police assets from Bragg; I didn’t do this duty myself but had friends at the time who did.
Elements of the 82nd Airborne, 1st Cavalry, and Marines from the 11th and 24th MEU’s were among the first to respond in the wake of Katrina, and if they hadn’t responded, the looting and health situation there would have been far worse than it was.
I could sit here if I wanted to and string out a dozen other times when U.S. Army regulars were deployed inside CONUS just during the last 15 years. So this idea that we don’t use federal forces domestically – it’s been a dead for at least the last 15 years (really longer than that, but I can only personally speak of the last 15). During that time we’ve used the US Army extensively in CONUS, for police and other purposes. So the idea that this is something new, or outrageous, in and of itself – we’re past that. We’ve been doing this for the better part of two decades.
With that in mind, the idea that we officially declare this duty makes good, sound sense. This is only a problem from an acedmic stanpoint. We’re already doing it. What that means from the commander’s standpoint is that with domestic duty an official part of his mission, he can actually train his soldiers to do what they’re already being called upon to do, and it will be acceptable for him to allocate resources and training time for this purpose. That ready brigade will likely get resources just for this purpose. We will know which unit will be tasked with what.
In the past, when we had to perform this kind of duty, we were either untrained for it altogether, or hastily trained at the last minute (in the case of the 2024 inauguration); and a soldier who is untrained for the job he is doing – especially if it’s domestic – is a problem.
I mean, think about it. If the military is going to be deployed domestically, what would you rather have? A military with at least some training for it or one that has been hastily packed into CH-47′s and dropped into the affected area unprepared?
Whether or not the military *should* be involved in domestic security is irrelevant; when push comes to shove, it has often been the case that the active military has been the *only* organization capable of handling large scale disasters and domestic disturbances. In a large disaster, natural or man-made, the National Guard is often too slow to respond; soldiers have to be alerted, and if it’s a disaster in their state, they may have trouble responding due to damaged infrastructure. That was the case in Hurricane Andrew; there was simply no way to mobilize the Florida guard in time to prevent looting, restore the infrastructure, and prevent a human health catastrophe. We can blame the wars overstretching the guard if we want to – but the FL national guard was not engaged in any and was still unable to respond in any real numbers until after day 30.
If you want response earlier than 30 days – I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the active components of the military are the only way to reliably get that.
I won’t say that there were never problems with using federal troops CONUS (jurisdictional and ROE problems are endemic to that type of deployment), but I can say with reasonable confidence that with the exception of the 2024 inauguration (where we turned out to not be needed at all), there would have been much bigger problems if we hadn’t been there – and most of the problems we did have could have been averted if we had been trained to perform the duties we were asked to do.
In any case, paratroopers and cavalrymen deployed to New Orleans or Florida or Washington DC did not end up staying there. Their presence did not precipitate a military coup. They showed up, did their jobs, and, when the area could stand without them, went back to Ft. Bragg, Ft. Benning, or Ft. Hood. Their presence did, however, save lives.
I can’t see any reason to oppose this, unless you like your emergency services coming a month after a disaster, or would prefer for the soldiers doing the duty to be totally untrained for it.
It may have made sense a hundred, a hundred and fifty years ago to keep the active army off the streets. But America was more thinly populated in those times. A hurricane hitting NOLA didn’t threaten millions. Life was simpler and infrastructure less complicated; people did not have to rely on it the way they do now. Cities were less densely populated. It was simply a different world.
If we’re going to go back to the old practice of not using active military domestically, we’ve got to replace it with something that can get the job done in its place.
What do you propose that entity be? Someone has to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Who would it be if not the military?
December 1st, 2024 at 10:23 pm
[...] civilian agencies, not the military – and so should dealing with any aftermath. Political scientist Dr. Steven Taylor writes: There are two key problems here. The first is that the function of the military isn’t [...]
December 1st, 2024 at 11:15 pm
Captain D:
There is a profound difference between emergency usage and re-directing the mission of the military to a domestic role.
And there will be mission creep and we will see the military involved in non-emergency issues. This not a good development.
December 2nd, 2024 at 4:42 pm
I don’t see it.
At the end of the day, what you have, with or without this directive, is active duty soldiers participating in domestic security frequently. It’s just a fact of the modern world we live in that the active military is the only agency that can respond rapidly enough to be effective in the wake of a disaster.
That being the case, it makes sense to make it an official mission, freeing units to allocate training time and resources to accomplish that mission.
As far as fear of mission creep goes – there is no mission creep if there is no mission. As I understand it, the brigade tasked with domestic security will be simply be on standby to go if there is a disaster. They will be trained and prepared for such an eventuality; but if there is no disaster, there is no deployment; and if there is no deployment, there is no mission. If there is no mission, there is no mission creep.
Again, I’d much rather have the soldiers who are going to respond in an emergency one way or the other to have trained for it than have them dropped into the situation blind. It’s better for everyone if they’re properly trained.
They can’t do that if the duty is not part of the unit’s mission critical task list; commanders and not allowed to deviate from the tasks on these lists unless specifically directed to by the DOD.
Training makes all the difference in the world. I’d much rather have it this way than the way we’ve been doing it for the last few decades.
December 2nd, 2024 at 9:46 pm
[...] civilian agencies, not the military – and so should dealing with any aftermath. Political scientist Dr. Steven Taylor writes: There are two key problems here. The first is that the function of the military isn’t [...]