New challenges for the unified command plan - Military Transformation

Joint Force Quarterly, Summer, 2002 by W. Spencer Johnson

The Pentagon released a new unified command plan (UCP) on April 17. It is contained in a classified document that defines military command structure and apportions responsibilities for global operations to unified commands. The Secretary of Defense characterized this iteration of the plan as the most significant command structure reform since the immediate post-World War II era. Reviewed and amended biannually, the plan realigns the Armed Forces to effectively address recognized or emerging threats and respond to surprise. The Chairman noted that the new plan unifies homeland security missions of various combatant commands under one officer, enhances transformation, and assigns every part of the world to a combatant commander.

Northern Command

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the new plan is the establishment of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which has responsibility for land, sea, and aerospace defense of the continental United States (CONUS) and Alaska, the seaward approaches to the United States out to 500 miles, Canada, Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico, and large portions of the Caribbean. It will also have responsibility for all forces operating within the United States in support of civil authorities, particularly to counter terrorist threats and deal with terrorist attacks that are beyond the capacity of civil authorities, aid first responders in natural disasters, assist in counterdrug operations, protect national infrastructure through the critical asset protection program, and, with the services, enhance force protection for CONUS bases and installations. Additionally, NORTHCOM will be the focus of civil-military planning and support to ensure close and continuous coordination with the Coast Guard, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Centers for Disease Control, and other Federal, state, and local agencies with homeland security roles. Accordingly, the command, which will be activated at Peterson Air Force Base on October 1, 2002, is likely to have personnel from civilian agencies, and its representatives may be situated with other agencies for liaison and planning. It is also expected to have command and staff representation from the active and Reserve components, including the Army and Air National Guard, which are integral to homeland defense and support civil authorities when requested and authorized.

While the Secretary of Defense cites NORTHCOM as the first time homeland defense has been assigned to a single commander, the idea has been around for some time. During hearings on defense reorganization in 1958, Senator Henry ("Scoop") Jackson questioned the likely need for a homeland defense command similar to those proposed for overseas:

   Supposing a finding is made that the
   threat is not only in the Pacific where we
   have a unified command, or in the European
   theater, or in the Middle East where
   we have a unified command, but there is
   reason to believe that the first target might
   be the United States, the homeland. On
   what basis can you accept the unified
   command concept outside of the United
   States and reject it in? (1)

In response, Jackson and fellow senators as well as others raised the specter of the man on horseback, a military leader who might threaten civil liberties and the viability of the Republic. Such critics held that a commander responsible for the homeland and authority over CONUS-based forces or a strong Chairman with a general staff and operational authority could represent the threat to the Government that the founding fathers sought to avoid through militias and a constitutional proscription against large standing armies.

The notion of a unified command structure for homeland defense resurfaced in the summer of 1998 when the issue of preparing the National Guard and other units for response to a biological or chemical attack arose in high administration circles. The former Deputy Secretary of Defense, John Hamre, told NATO officers that the Pentagon was entertaining the idea of creating a regional commander for the United States and reinforced the longstanding DOD view of military assistance to civil authority: "We don't believe we have the primary responsibility, but within minutes of an event, people are going to turn to us." (2) Again civil libertarians and journalists portrayed the idea of a CONUS regional commander as a threat to individual rights, especially if the Armed Forces were involved in law enforcement. In response to the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics, the unified command plan issued in 1999 recommended organizing a standing Joint Task Force for Civil Support (JTF/CS) under U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) as an interim step. The task force served as a focal point for military planning and assistance to civil authority. It was initially commanded by a National Guard brigadier general, a citizen-soldier with ties to the civil sector, in an attempt to assuage concern over the new command as a threat to civil authority on any level.