Homeland Security Requirements and the Future Shape of the Army National Guard

CIAO DATE: 08/04

Homeland Security Requirements and the Future Shape of the Army National Guard

Colin Robinson

September 2003

The future structure of the U.S. National Guard depends to a great degree upon the balance between its two missions, support to regular forces abroad and assistance to the civil authorities at home. Since the World War II, the Guard has been primarily organized and structured for its federal mission, and funded by the Department of Defense with federal monies. After the end of the Cold War, that federal mission changed its character from defense of the United States’ very existence in a general war to that of responding to a variety of smaller contingencies world–wide either in a war–fighting or peacekeeping role. Now, following the Sept.11 terrorist attacks, direct defense of the U.S. homeland has become a much greater concern, and pressure has grown for the Guard to play a greater role in homeland security.

Debate on the issue has been turbulent since the September 2001 terror attacks, the resulting huge mobilizations, and the mobilizations for operations against Iraq. However, little thorough analysis of the actual military requirements for the Defence Department military aspect of the homeland security mission — homeland defense — has become available.

Even in the radically changed circumstances after the terrorist attacks, the Army, responsible for the brunt of the homeland defence effort, seems to be adhering generally to the 1990s view that massive emergency homeland military missions can be performed by units whose design, size, and shape have been dictated by the requirement to fight two major theater wars far from U.S. shores. While intense effort since Sept. 11 has resulted in a major increase in the ability to decontaminate and clean up after any attack with weapons of mass destruction, the Army has not yet re–optimized its auxiliary forces to deal with the possibility that it might have to suddenly send tens of thousands of troops to maintain public order and provide assistance in a large city grappling with a catastrophic terrorist attack.

In the absence of a clearly justified rationale, and resulting redesign, for total troop requirements at home, the Army and the nation risk being caught severely off balance. The current Army force structure is already being bent out of shape to meet the indefinite requirements of the campaign against terrorism abroad, and a major terrorist attack at home could break the system entirely. Much potential damage is at stake if the Army does not re–align its reserve force to face the new challenge before any catastrophic attack finds the forces needed to respond to it either abroad, exhausted from previous missions, or unable to carry out their designed roles properly because specific skills have eroded in long overseas deployments where sufficient training has been impossible.

A number of commentators have investigated what number of troops might be militarily necessary for the homeland defense mission. Some 9,000 troops were assigned to airport security duties over the Christmas 2001 period from both Army and Air National Guard. By early May, those numbers had dwindled to just over 5,000.^[1] A forthcoming RAND study estimated potential surge requirements at 23,000 for a single incident, based to a degree on the effect Hurricane Andrew had on Florida in 1992. However, the calculations were made before Sept.11 and a preliminary article announcing the paper noted that the requirements ‘must now be revised upward’.^[2] A number of scenarios considered in a paper examining the future role of the National Guard, authored by retired Col. John Brinkerhoff, estimated rough requirements ranging from 100,000 to half a million troops.^[3] Brinkerhoff estimated that between 50,000 and 400,000 military and police personnel would be required to man a smallpox quarantine line, depending on the size of the area to be quarantined. Evacuation and recovery efforts after a nuclear attack on Washington, D.C., could demand between 100,000 and 250,000 troops. Another actual example was the Los Angeles riots of May 1992: 13,500 military personnel were required. Given these scenarios, Brinkerhoff estimates roughly that 500,000 extra troops are required for homeland security tasks.

Calls for half a million extra troops contrast strongly with what is known of the official view of the subject. Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, there was none of the sense of urgency on homeland security that pervaded the U.S. government in the aftermath. This situation was part of the reason why the General Accounting Office found in mid May 2001 that the Army had not had established criteria for its homeland security requirements, resulting in no clear statement of the size of the necessary force.1 The last available figures, produced as part of the Army’s “Total Army Analysis 2007,” published in July 2000, sized what the Army called the ‘Strategic Reserve/Domestic Support/Homeland Defense’ force at 88,000 positions, equating to six National Guard divisions. However, as a result of the terrorist attacks, in the next biennial study, “Total Army Analysis 2009,” “a great deal of time” was spent developing requirements for the homeland security mission, said Col. Morris Young, with the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff G–3’s office.^[4] He, however, declined to release the actual anticipated numbers for the homeland security mission. Col. James Barrineau, chief of the Force Management Division with the Army National Guard, was more forthcoming in October 2002 when he said that the numbers allocated across the entire Army, active and reserve, for the homeland security mission had not changed substantially from the earlier 88,000, though made up of different units. However, he anticipated that these estimates would drop considerably in future planning efforts.^[5]

Trying to draw conclusions about actual requirements for force size from such varied estimates is difficult. It can be inferred from the Army’s estimate that the service’s leadership does not anticipate operations on anything like the scale Brinkerhoff imagines, and rather expect smaller taskings — probably very much operating in support of civilian activity with certain specialized units. This impression is reinforced by the actual force rearrangements the National Guard is undertaking, which concentrate upon making more chemical, engineer, and military police units available than previously planned.

Studies to determine the required number and type of troops for the homeland defence mission — whether 88,000 or 500,000 — are needed to establish a firm baseline so that the National Guard, which will have a major role to play, can be reshaped with military necessity, and not political factors, firmly in mind. What makes the current lack of action inexplicable is that, far from hurrying such efforts to ready the nation for possible terrorist attacks, the Defence Department has said that the final requirements will not be set before the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review. The General Accounting Office (GAO), conducting a review in July 2003 of the Defence Department’s domestic military missions in the post Sept. 11 environment, was told that the new arrangements established since the terrorist attacks had not matured enough to provide the necessary guidance. With the new U.S. Northern Command, established to conduct homeland defence and civil support actions, only established in October 2002 — with its campaign plan completed at the same time — the Department said in correspondence with the GAO that the services have had little time to work out whether structural adjustments are necessary to implement the plan.^[6] DoD said the requirements of the campaign plan would be addressed by changes to the Joint Strategic Campaign Plan (JSCP), which apportions available forces to all the unified commands, for 2004. It seems Northern Command has not produced the required recommendations to modify the overall Army National Guard structure. The GAO recommended that the DoD assess the domestic military mission requirements and make appropriate adjustments “in the near term,” rather than waiting until the 2005 defense review.

Northern Command is, it must be admitted, struggling to reach full readiness by the date set for that milestone, Oct. 1, 2003, and in the process grow from its initial staff of 200 to more than 600. As of April 2003, only 46 percent of the command’s personnel were in place, and the Northern Command was grappling with the task of running its ongoing missions while trying to fill the remaining positions.^[7] However, Northern Command’s Army component, Forces Command, at Fort MacPherson in Atlanta, Ga., is apparently responsible for the land forces element of the plan. Forces Command is well able to make the required assessments, and should do so as quickly as possible in order to relieve the strain on the force, and to prepare for potential catastrophic terrorist attacks.

What is more interesting than the exact details of the plan is whether the Army has decided to take into account the possibility that large numbers of reserve forces may be needed for post–attack assistance missions, whether allowance for that mission has been made, and how much that specific military requirement will prevail in the intensely political process that is shaping and reshaping the National Guard. Initiatives have been set in motion to reshape the Guard, starting with a consolidation of headquarters. However, neither current nor any planned future changes will address the problem properly unless the actual military requirements for the homeland defense mission are well thought out, and then a plan built and implemented that takes those requirements into effect. Especially important is that the Guard makes due provision for the homeland mission without holding too dearly to too much of the fighting abroad mission that it has long prioritized.

Endnotes

Note 1: Master Sgt. Bob Haskell, “National Guard Ending Airport Security Mission,” Army LINK News, Washington, May 20, 2002. Back.

Note 2: Richard Brennan, “U.S. Army Finds its Role At Home Up For Grabs,” RAND Review, Summer 2002 Back.

Note 3: John R. Brinkerhoff, “The Changing of the Guard: Evolutionary Alternatives for America’s National Guard,” Journal of Homeland Security, May 2002 Back.

Note 4: Erin Winograd, “Army: Newly Realigned Forces Match National Military Strategy”, Inside Defense Publishers, June 17, 2002. Back.

Note 5: Col. James Berrineau, Chief, Force Management Division, Army National Guard, interview, Oct. 17, 2002, and subsequent e&-;mail correspondence. Back.

Note 6: General Accounting Office, Homeland Defense: DOD Needs to Assess the Structure of US Forces for Domestic Military Missions, GAO–03–670, July 11, 2003, p.31 Back.

Note 7: ibid., p.13 Back.