NORTHCOM has ‘fully come of age,’ according to outside assessment
Post-9/11 command provides vital resources for homeland defense, but civilian agencies need strengthening, retired general tells West Point faculty.
Six years after it was established to better coordinate military support to civil authorities following catastrophic events on U.S. soil, Northern Command "is effectively providing coordinated and coherent planning and direction to U.S. air-ground-sea forces in support of homeland defense and civil support," according to a recent assessment by retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, an adjunct professor of international affairs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
More must be done, however, to increase the capacity of civilian agencies to respond to threats, McCaffrey wrote in an Oct. 14 memo to academy leaders. He recommended increasing the Border Patrol from 11,000 agents to 45,000, and Coast Guard personnel from 36,000 to 75,000. In addition, he cited a need to revitalize the Public Health Service, make the U.S. Marshals Service a federal law enforcement agency with specialized detention capability, and develop a "true international training and operational capability" at the Drug Enforcement Administration.
McCaffrey, a drug czar during the Clinton administration and a highly decorated combat commander and former commanding general of U.S. Southern Command, said he has made four visits to Northern Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., since it was formed in 2002 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"The American people rightly demand that civil public institutions, not military forces, exercise primacy in protecting the U.S. domestic population. However, the planning and emergency operational scale and power of the U.S. armed forces simply must be placed at the service of civil authorities when major disaster strikes," something Northern Command finally is in a position to do, McCaffrey said.
Three forces have forged a new sense of "confidence and effectiveness" at the command, according to McCaffrey:
- Command leaders were able to exploit the "sad lessons" of Hurricane Katrina, "the most shameful failure of federal, state and local leadership in any national emergency in our history," he said.
- Defense Secretary Robert Gates fostered partnerships between Northern Command and the Homeland Security Department, state governors and other international and interagency actors.
- Northern Command leaders created a cooperative training and exercise environment to work through responses to scenarios such as pandemic influenza, a cruise missile attack, an attack on commercial aircraft, loss of the power grid, a major earthquake and other potential threats.
Among the potential challenges McCaffrey foresees for NORTHCOM is an unstable Cuba. While Cuba represents "little, if any, military threat," he predicts that Raul Castro will lose control of the dictatorship within two to three years after the ailing Fidel Castro's death -- events that could trigger massive migration to the United States.
"We are going to possibly be faced with the most terrible humanitarian disaster in our history in the coming five years when 250,000 to 500,000 Cubans flee at huge personal risk from the chaos of a struggle for power among the security forces of Cuba -- and head for freedom across the 90 miles of treacherous waters to Florida and the U.S. coastal Caribbean states," McCaffrey said.
Terrorism also remains a critical challenge, he said: "There is little question that there will be continuing criminal conspiracies to attack vulnerable U.S. infrastructure and to conduct operations designed to murder masses of the American people."