Homeland Security - The National Strategy; U.S. Northern Command's and the U.S. Navy's Roles in Homeland Defense and Civil Support

Even though Americans have seen the consequences of terror on their homeland as a result of the attacks in Oklahoma City in 1995 and on the World Trade Center in 1993 the majority of U.S. citizens still could not fathom the contemplation of a true catastrophic attack on our soil until September 11 2001. In the past thoughts of disasters and emergencies were limited to small rare and relatively short-lived incidents primarily related to natural disasters. September 11th presented our nation with a new challenge that is much more complex and difficult to deal with. This paper will present an overview analysis of two pieces of the overall Homeland Security policy: the National Strategy for Homeland Security and the Department of Defense's (DoD) support roles. The paper will review the Nation's civil defense history since World War II and analyze the recently released National Strategy for Homeland Security. The military's efforts to perform its mission of homeland defense while homeland security and civil support become increasingly important will be discussed. The role of the military's support to civil authorizes both before and after a domestic incident is increasing in complexity and frequency. DoD's current approach to Homeland Security will be discussed and possible new military tasks will be provided. Finally I will offer recommendations to improve the national strategy and the U.S. Navy's support role to be better prepared to defend the Homeland and provide support to Civil Authorities.