HSEC 370 Exam 2 Continued

Historical Coordinating Models

A variety of coordinating models have developed within the White House staff. They tend to differ in the characteristics of their processes, the nature of their budgetary authorities, and their statutory foundation. President Bush clearly drew on the following three models in designing his new homeland security organization. The NSC and NEC The Director of Central Intelligence The Office of National Drug Control Policy

Commission Recommendations

A variety of nongovernmental groups have addressed the issue of reorganizing the executive branch to provide for homeland security. They all see the need for better coordination among the multiple departments and agencies and for integrating foreign and domestic activities. But they have presented very different recommendations for organizational reform.

Even as we centralize strategy formulation, we must decentralize the modalities of policy implementation by creating Interagency Teams and Interagency Crisis Task Forces.

We recommend that the President selectively shift management of issues away from the President's Security Council staff (and supporting interagency committees) to new empowered Interagency Teams. These teams would be composed of full-time personnel, would be properly resourced and of flexible duration, and be able to implement a whole-of-government approach to those issues beyond the coping capacities of the existing system. The characteristics, authorities, and chains of command for interagency teams, and how Interagency Teams would coordinate their activities with existing departmental and agency functions, are defined and detailed in the report. To enhance crisis management, we recommend that the President create Interagency Crisis Task Forces to handle crises that exceed the capacities of both existing departmental capabilities and new Interagency Teams.

We must align personnel incentives, personnel preparation, and organizational culture with strategic objectives.

We recommend the creation of a National Security Professional Corps (NSPC) in order to create a cadre of national security professionals specifically trained for interagency assignments. As detailed in the report, NSPC personnel slots must be explicitly defined, and NSPC cadre must be accorded proper incentives and career-long training opportunities to be effective. To create a personnel 'float' that will enable critical interagency training and ongoing professional education, we recommend increasing civilian personnel authorizations and appropriations in annual increments to be phased in over five years and based upon a manpower analysis; we further recommend using the National Security Education Consortium, established by Executive Order 13434, for that purpose. We recommend the development of a National Security Strategic Human Capital Plan, as detailed in the report, to identify and secure the human capital capabilities necessary to achieve national security objectives. To advise the PSC executive secretary on national security human capital, we recommend further the creation of a Human Capital Advisory Board consisting of public and private experts. We also recommend establishing the expectation that, within an administration, each presidential appointee - unless disabled, experiencing a hardship, requested to resign by the President, or appointed to another government position - would serve until the President has appointed his or her successor.

We must greatly improve the flow of knowledge and information

We recommend the creation of a chief knowledge officer in the PSC Executive Secretariat to enhance decision support to the President and his advisers, and to ensure that the national security system as a whole can develop, store, retrieve, and share knowledge. To enhance information management, we recommend the creation of a chief knowledge officer in each national security department and agency, as well as the creation of a Federal Chief Knowledge Officer Council. To enable cross-departmental information sharing, we recommend the creation and development of a collaborative information architecture. Parallel with the construction of this information architecture, the PSC Executive Secretariat must develop overarching business rules for interdepartmental communications and data access in order to eliminate bureaucratic barriers presently hindering the flow of knowledge and information. To streamline particular security functions, we strongly recommend the establishment of a single security classification and access regime for the entire national security system, and, pursuant to statute, security clearance procedures and approval should be consolidated across the entire national security system.

The Impact of Reform

With a coordinated, integrated and synchronized plan involving all key interagency players, we would have been better prepared to address humanitarian assistance, rule of law, governance, the economy, regional diplomacy and other factors to provide real stability and the opportunity for reconstruction. Under the current, ad-hoc interagency system, this plan was never developed. The lead agency "pick-up game" is no way to approach such complex situations. It is also possible that, even with a perfectly developed plan, we might still have fallen short for lack of resources and capacity to execute the plan.

A Definition of Homeland Security

For purposes of this paper, the term "homeland security" refers to the capabilities of state and local law enforcement agencies, capabilities of state and major urban area fusion centers, as well as the integrated initiatives from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as their prevention and preparedness missions are related to public health threats.

The NSC Could Help

A National Security Council review and realignment of the geographical regions of the major foreign policy players could streamline the efforts of these agencies by easing coordination and eliminating redundant efforts. One way to get the most out of the system is to improve the cooperation among the major participants in the execution of foreign policy, particularly the Department of State officials and the uniformed military interacting in the area of conflict.

General Omar Bradley

"Battles are won by the infantry, the armor, the artillery, and air teams, by soldiers living in the rains and huddling in the snow. But wars are won by the great strength of a nation—the soldier and the civilian working together."

THIS IS A KEY TAKEAWAY

A department's ability to respond effectively to any emergency - public health or otherwise - greatly depends on its preparedness which relies on the law enforcement agency's strategic planning and its partnerships. Strategic planning is achieved through successful information sharing and analysis.

Fusion Centers

A fusion center is a collaborative effort between law enforcement agencies to share resources, expertise, and information in order to detect criminal and terrorist activity. The goal is to integrate the information each agency has together to prevent security gaps due to lack of communication. Fusion Centers are designed to promote information sharing at the federal level between agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Justice, and state, local, and tribal law enforcement. As of February 2018, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recognized 79 fusion centers. Fusion centers may also be affiliated with an Emergency Operations Center that responds in the event of a disaster. The National Network of Fusion Centers was established after the September 11 attacks to allow collaboration across jurisdictions in order to respond to criminal and terrorist activity. A fusion center is typically organized by combining representatives from different federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies into one physical location. Some fusion centers gather information not only from government sources, but also from their partners in the private sector. Each representative is intended to report information from their agency and use that agency-specific information to contribute to the collective analysis of the group. Similarly, the representative reports the analytic products and threat information back to their home agency. Fusion centers rely on the active involvement of state, local, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies—and sometimes on non-law enforcement agencies—to provide intelligence for their analysis. The intent is that, as the diversity of information sources increases, there will be more accurate and robust analysis that can be disseminated as intelligence.

Congressional Oversight

After the September terrorist attacks, the House transformed the Speaker's Working Group on Terrorism into a regular subcommittee of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. A bill (S.R. 165) has been introduced in the Senate to create a Select Committee on Homeland Security and Terrorism. Otherwise, Congress has been noticeably silent with respect to reform of its own homeland security organization, which today involves some two dozen congressional committees, many with overlapping jurisdictions. This is perhaps not surprising, given the inherent nature of power in Congress and the failure of many past efforts at reform.

Can We See Whole-of-Government (DIME) at Play?

As such, DHS must begin working, along with its partners, to develop a coordinated strategy intended to deter cyberattacks against U.S. institutions and critical infrastructure. As part of this strategy, international cooperation will be essential. Continuing to advocate for expanded multi- and bilateral arrangements between the United States and its international partners to provide for the prosecution of cybercriminals will help ensure that attackers will face legal repercussions for attacks. Further, DHS should explore assigning "cyberattaches" to a variety of nations, both to provide expertise and improve coordination. However, such a program would need to be fully supported by the State Department in order to realize its true potential. By raising the costs of launching cyberattacks, the Department has a chance to reduce their number through a strategy of aggressive deterrence.

The Executive Branch- and Why It Cannot Reform Itself

As the United States Government is presently organized, the only place the various federal departments and agencies truly come together in any meaningful way is in the Oval Office. There is no formal mechanism responsible for ensuring that the departments are working to complement one another's efforts or in the least that they are not working at cross purposes. In business and military organizations this role is typically performed by a Chief of Staff or similar actor with authority over the subordinate elements and control over resources. In our executive branch, the National Security Council has performed a coordinating role at various times with mixed results. Each President will choose to use his National Security Advisor and National Security Council differently. In addition, there is a lack of sufficient authority over the Secretaries or control of resources to allow an integrated unity of effort. The most common method has been the "lead agency approach" in which it is recognized that various agencies have important contributions to make and one agency is designated to lead the others. There is no real authority over the other agencies or control over their manpower and resources. More often than not this leaves the lead agency with little ability to obtain the support and cooperation required of the other agencies and a coordinated effort is never fully achieved.

Meeting the Bioterrorism Threat

As the lead agency responsible for the prevention of and response to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) attacks, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acknowledged the need to not only have a system in place for responding to such public health-related tragedies, but also a means by which all public health-related threats could be monitored. As such, the Office of Health Affairs (OHA) was created to serve as the DHS' principal authority for all medical and health issues (Department of Homeland Security, 2011c). The operational arm with respect to monitoring public health threats and trends is the National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC). Created as part of the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, DHS was to ensure the NBIC has the ability to rapidly identify, characterize, localize and track a biological event of national concern with the goal being real time or near real time (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2010) as well as enhance the nation's capability to integrate biosurveillance efforts as most of the organizations maintaining these capabilities are relatively uncoordinated (Castillo-Salgado, 2010). The bioterrorism threat presents a risk to the population, economy or infrastructure of the United States.

Timely Information Sharing

As the threats facing the homeland evolve beyond terrorism, so too must the Department's employment of information sharing. Utilizing existing models, technologies, and lessons learned from counterterrorism, DHS has an opportunity to begin building information sharing capabilities dedicated to countering a variety of other pressing threats, most notably illicit activity along the border and cyber-threats. this data loses any long-term value if it is not quickly integrated, shared, and analyzed. By putting structures and systems in place to encourage this sharing and analysis, DHS has a chance to allocate its resources along the border in a more strategic fashion, so that border security is no longer purely reactive but increasingly predictive. A similar model can be applied to cyber-security. However, in order for these efforts to meet with success, DHS, working with the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE), must lead the establishment of institutionalized means of sharing not just within the Department, but across government agencies as well as with foreign partners and private industry. By applying information sharing lessons taken from years of counterterrorism efforts, the Department can begin to build the capabilities necessary to address the next generation of threats to the homeland.

The Core Capability: Screening and Credentialing

At present, the Department is responsible not only for screening millions of airline passengers each day for security threats but for credentialing thousands of individuals seeking access to everything from the transportation system to critical infrastructure. As such, responsibility for screening and credentialing is spread across multiple agencies within DHS who employ dozens of unique systems. However, this diffuse model is inefficient and, as demand rises and budgets fall, will increasingly become untenable.

Working With State and Local Levels

At the tactical level, the network of fusion centers established since 9/11 represent a valuable means of bringing federal counterterrorism agencies together with the state and local entities who are most likely to observe suspicious terrorism-related activity. Furthermore, by allowing for outside oversight, fusion centers provide the high degree of transparency required when information regarding U.S. citizens is being shared. Such a transparent environment will be critical in the coming years, given that the amount of information available regarding U.S. citizens is only likely to increase in the future. As such, DHS must take steps to ensure that increased controversy over how these centers are employed does not threaten their continued utility. The Department and other federal agencies must accept that state and local entities will only be willing to continue to participate in fusion centers if they add value beyond counterterrorism. As such, federal and state and local agencies must work together to strike a working balance between counterterrorism and all-hazards missions. Federal agencies such as DHS must also collaborate with state and local agencies in order to gain a better understanding of what information is most useful to them, so that no agency feels that they are sacrificing more than they are gaining by participating in a fusion center.

Shared Responsibility and Coordination

But even as the office's functions are delineated, it is mandated to share responsibility with others. To ensure the adequacy of a comprehensive national strategy, the office is to work with the executive departments and agencies, state and local governments, and private entities; it must then periodically "review and coordinate" revisions. The office is to work with the National Security Advisor to identify priorities for intelligence collection outside the United States, improve security of U.S. borders, territorial waters, and airspace, and provide ready federal response teams. Working with the NEC, it is to coordinate efforts to stabilize financial markets after a terrorist attack.

Mars and Venus...

But since State geographic areas, as well as those of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), are not aligned with combatant commander areas of responsibility, a JFC with a JOA encompassing both Pakistan and Tajikistan might also have to deal with the Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs. Subsequently, such coordination often must be effected at the combatant command or even Joint Staff level—distant in time, space, and perspective from the area of conflict. Even inside a given country, with one country team, cultural differences between foreign service and military officers complicate policy coordination and implementation. While military officers are focused on the military element of foreign policy, foreign service officers deal with all aspects of that policy. Detailed planning is a core activity of the military, while general planning is acceptable in the State Department; teamwork is rewarded in the military, while individual achievement is highly regarded in the State Department. Misperceptions and cultural differences add more friction and challenges to the coordination and execution of foreign policy under stressful and often austere conditions.

Identifying the Problems

By thoroughly examining the structures and processes of the current legacy national security system - including its human and physical capital and management dimensions, as well as its executive-legislative branch dynamics - we have isolated the system's essential problems. Unless these essential, underlying problems are rectified, system failures will occur with increasing frequency. Five interwoven problems, which the report details at length, are key: The system is grossly imbalanced. It supports strong departmental capabilities at the expense of integrating mechanisms. Resources allocated to departments and agencies are shaped by their narrowly defined core mandates rather than broader national missions. The need for presidential integration to compensate for the systemic inability to adequately integrate or resource missions overly centralizes issue management and overburdens the White House. A burdened White House cannot manage the national security system as a whole to be agile and collaborative at any time, but it is particularly vulnerable to breakdown during the protracted transition periods between administrations. Congress provides resources and conducts oversight in ways that reinforce the first four problems and make improving performance extremely difficult.

Lessons to Learn

Collocate the Senior Military and Diplomatic Leaders Build Consensus Provide Military Planning Support Practice Shuttle Diplomacy (Visits) Understand the Importance of Personalities

Congress Has a Say as Well

Congressional views on the appropriate structure of a homeland security organization are also emerging, and these too are described. Not surprisingly, the focus of Congress has largely been on assuring its own statutory and budget prerogatives. The paper concludes by offering suggestions about how the new homeland security organization should proceed on some of the most critical issues that it will confront.

Issues Facing the New Homeland Security Organization

Coordinating Responsibilities Homeland Security Operations Foreign and Domestic Counterterrorism Activities State and Local Government Cooperation National Strategy Domestic Counterterrorism Budget Intelligence and Law-Enforcement Activities The Military's Role in Homeland Security

An Enormous Challenge

Coordinating the executive branch's many largely autonomous departments and agencies has historically been an enormous challenge, and the integration of domestic and national security policies has been particularly problematic. Thus, designing an organizational structure to coordinate homeland security activities is not only a difficult intellectual task, it also calls for many hard choices, since more than 40 national security and domestic departments and agencies are involved. The experiences of the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) and the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) attest to these difficulties, as do the divergent recommendations of the various commissions that have called for reforms in the governmental processes for countering terrorism and providing homeland security.

Defined Roles and Boundaries

Cultural differences can also exacerbate the issue of who is in charge and when. In some contingencies, it is clear who has primacy in a given country or operation. Since Washington did not have an Ambassador in Kabul in October 2001 or in Baghdad in March 2003, General Tommy Franks, Commander, U.S. Central Command, was obviously running the show along with his subordinate commanders. In other operations, such as disaster relief, humanitarian support, and noncombatant evacuations, the Ambassador or chief of mission assumes the lead. This nebulous condition could cause further conflict or uncoordinated efforts between the military and civilian components of foreign policy, depending on the Ambassador or JFC. Some structures exist for developing interagency policy. What configuration or organization translates the policy into coherent, coordinated orders that are executed on the ground?

Whole of Society?

Cyberattacks pose a challenge not just for a specific sector but span all elements of government and industry. Furthermore, an attack against a government system may well originate from the same source as an intrusion attempt directed at a private corporation, and may employ similar methods and signatures. As such, the sharing of information across and between government and industry will be vital. If various sectors can work together to ensure that information is passed to the right people at the right time and is actionable, attacks can be blunted and damage mitigated. Furthermore, the sharing of information related to adversaries' tools and tradecraft can provide early warning of emerging threats (e.g. zero hour threats), allowing those potentially affected to prevent an attack before it can inflict damage.

Not Just a Matter of Resources

Despite the need and the declared mission, the status quo today is a pick-up approach, marked by unclear decision-making processes and an inability to quickly and consistently respond. Why do State and USAID persistently struggle to generate capacity to lead these efforts? This conflates resources—dollars and personnel—with capacity— an organization's ability to execute a course of action. If capacity were present and merely overwhelmed by scale, the problem would simply be one of resources. Rather, the scale of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan has served as a magnifier to reveal existing gaps across the U.S. government. Systemic resourcing issues do constrain State and USAID's ability to build and institutionalize a post-conflict stabilization capability; however, these deficiencies are not sufficient to explain the deficit that exists in the transitions from conflict to peace. Put simply, if State and USAID received a tenfold budget increase, performance might improve by virtue of sheer numbers, but the same struggle to lead would persist.

There are Always Tradeoffs

Effectiveness of active surveillance systems are determined based upon their sensitivity and specificity. A high sensitivity surveillance system is one that rapidly identifies all cases and all potential cases of a disease whereas a high specificity system is one that correctly and uniquely identify cases of disease under surveillance. Accuracy of case reports in highly specific surveillance systems sacrifice speed of reporting while sensitive systems report faster, but lack accuracy. A specific and passive surveillance system may provide a useful estimate of the burden of a disease in a population over time, yet such a system is likely to be inadequate in its ability to predictor current disease trends, especially when trend changes occur rapidly (Barr et al., 2011)

Is it Enough to Recognize the Need?

Efforts on behalf of both public health and homeland security have mirrored one another - both a positive and negative as these efforts progress. It is positive as both sides recognize and formally agree that information sharing for preparedness and prevention should exist between public health and homeland security. The negative impact of both sectors repeatedly agreeing that they should share information is that no progress is made towards actually achieving the desired outcomes. Actionable steps must be identified as a means to reach desired ends. Identification of such steps remains difficult as initiatives to bridge public health and homeland security are plagued by a lack of systematic evaluation.

Four fundamental principles follow from a more refined definition of national security and its key policy objectives.

First, efforts to address current and future challenges must be as multidimensional as the challenges themselves. Addressing successfully the contingency of a terrorist detonation of a 'dirty' bomb in a major city, for example, entails a range of critical functions including deterrence, norm-building, prevention, defense, preparedness, and consequence management. Focusing on any single dimension or lesser subset of this spectrum of functions will sharply increase the likelihood of major failure. Second, the national security system must integrate diverse skills and perspectives. The actors in U.S. national security policy today already include government departments that have not traditionally had front-row seats, like Justice and Treasury. But departments such as Agriculture, Interior, and Transportation, agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention within the Department of Health and Human Services, and elements of state and local government and the private sector are playing increasingly greater roles as well. Creating ways to mobilize and integrate this diverse set of actors is essential to make effective and informed decisions in today's national security environment. Third, a new concept of national security demands recalibration of how we think about and manage national security resources and budgeting. Today's more complex challenges impose qualitatively more demanding resource allocation choices, even in good economic times. If we should face a period of protracted austerity in government, as now seems more likely than not, meeting those challenges will become orders of magnitude more difficult. In developing and implementing national security policy, the rubber meets the road where money is spent, and we are unanimously agreed that the current system's gross inefficiencies risk collapse under the weight of the protracted budget pressures that likely lie ahead. We need to do more with less, but we cannot hope to achieve even that without fundamental reform of the resource management function. Fourth, the current environment virtually by definition puts a premium on foresight - the ability to anticipate unwelcome contingencies. While the ability to specifically predict the future will always elude us, foresight that enables anticipation and planning is the only means we have to increase response times in a world of rapid unpredictable change. It constitutes the critical precondition for actively shaping the global security environment in ways conducive to achieving national security goals.

One and Two

First, while no single challenge rises to the level of the Cold War's potential 'doomsday' scenario of superpower nuclear war, a multitude of other challenges from a variety of sources - rising state powers, rogue regime proliferators, and non-state actors that include terrorists, transnational criminal organizations, and other assorted entrepreneurs of violence - threaten the integrity of the state system itself, with unknown and largely unknowable consequences for U.S. security. Second, since we do not know which of today's challenges is more likely to emerge and which may pose the greatest peril, we must spread our attention and limited resources to cover many contingencies. There are now more nuclear-armed states than during the Cold War, with several rogue states not presently deterred from pursuing acquisition or development of nuclear weapons of their own. Terrorists openly seek access to weapons of mass destruction and aver their intent to use them against the United States, its allies and friends. In the face of these threats, we must devise risk-management hedging strategies based on necessarily incomplete information. This constitutes a far more daunting planning template than that which we grew used to during the Cold War.

Enterprise Systems

For the Department's screening and credentialing services, the way ahead may lie with an enterprise approach. At present, the multitude of systems being utilized contributes to significant redundancies. Collecting information that is only entered into a single system wastes time and money if that information has already been entered into another system. Furthermore, due to a lack of integration, there is the danger that vital existing information on one system will be overlooked when making a decision based on information in a second system. However, by implementing common, enterprise-wide systems, there is an opportunity not only to reduce redundancies and thereby increase efficiency but improve security as well. While the Department has made great strides towards integration of its various databases, this process is not yet complete. Full integration of all DHS databases should be accelerated so that all elements of the Department have as much information as possible regarding those they are screening and credentialing, whether that information was originally collected by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or any of DHS's other component agencies.

Recommendations

Forging a New Shield's major and subordinate recommendations, expressed here within seven key themes, are constructed as a single integrated proposal. These themes and recommendations are dependent on each other for their effectiveness no less than a building's foundation, superstructure, and functional systems must be conceived as an aggregate for any part of it to work as intended. The members of the Guiding Coalition agreed with the general thrust of the integrated set of recommendations and not necessarily every recommendation as expressed.

Interagency Lessons Learned in Afghanistan

Future conflicts will likely continue to blur the line between war and peace, necessitating close cooperation between groups previously considered the exclusive practitioners of each—soldiers and diplomats. Just as terrorism crosses military, economic, and criminal spheres, U.S. efforts to counter it must closely integrate the elements of national power—diplomatic, informational, military, and economic—and reveal no seams the enemy can exploit. Occasionally, the interagency process meant to bring all these elements to bear has worked well. More commonly, the coordination of these elements has been haphazard and ad hoc, particularly at lower levels. Action is required; the system will not improve by itself. Such basic concepts as collocation of senior military and diplomatic leaders, consensus building, and military planning support to the U.S. Ambassador all contributed to greater integration in implementing interagency policy and increased success in carrying out U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan.

Taking the Lead

Given the variety of entities from across the federal government, state and local governments, and the private sector involved in the collection and analysis of homeland security intelligence, a common definition is of immense value. DHS should provide a common definition for all those involved in the homeland security intelligence enterprise. While a variety of agencies and organizations are capable of collecting and analyzing this intelligence, the multitude of entities involved demands that there be a single, coordinated point of control for the movement and distribution of this intelligence. In order to increase its effectiveness, DHS should firmly establish itself as this focal point, serving as the primary lead organization for the movement of information and intelligence between the federal government, state and local governments, and private industry.

The Mission Accelerant: Intelligence and Information Sharing

Given the wide variety of rapidly-evolving threats facing the Department, intelligence, and particularly the sharing of information, is only becoming more vital to fulfilling homeland security missions. DHS and the greater homeland security enterprise have made enormous strides over the past decade in promoting the sharing of intelligence and information in order to meet these needs. New organizations and systems have been created and existing organizations have radically altered their structures and cultures to reduce stovepipes and cross boundaries that existed before 9/11. In order to prevent this from occurring, DHS needs to be a forceful advocate for the continued, and potentially even expanded, sharing of intelligence and information.

Roles and Boundaries: Constant Tension

History demonstrates how difficult it is to coordinate the activities of the many executive branch departments and agencies. There is constant tension between the coordinator's enumerated responsibilities and limited means. Neither presidents nor department heads have been willing to cede any real authority. It is also clear that the organizational characteristics are only one factor determining whether the coordinator is successful. Policy and bureaucratic imperatives play a critical role, as do personalities and leadership skills. Perhaps most important is the degree of personal presidential engagement.

Sharing Information is Crucial

However, in order for this to take place a number of steps must be taken to improve the speed and breadth of sharing. Given that private industry owns 85 percent of the critical infrastructure the Department is tasked with protecting, including many of the systems most likely to be targeted for cyberattacks, methods of sharing information with and between private sector entities must be improved. Congress has made clear that it will not compel the private sector to share information. As such, DHS will need to find ways in which it can promote cooperation by lowering the costs and barriers for private industry to share cyberthreat information, both with DHS but also with one another. Informal networks for such sharing already exist between a variety of private sector entities; DHS can build upon these existing relationships by establishing a robust consortium for cyber-threat information sharing.

Active Partnerships

However, in order to be effective this consortium would have to extend beyond the information technology sector to include members across the critical infrastructure spectrum. Furthermore, unlike the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) Cyber Pilot and the Enduring Security Framework, these efforts must focus on working to obtain and share threat information from the private sector. Simply distributing threat and intelligence briefings created by the government is insufficient; the private sector, who possesses significant and valuable insights into threat tools and tradecraft, must be an active partner.

Internal Threats are Growing

However, the terrorist threats that face the nation are not just external but internal as well. Homegrown terrorists, already residing in the United States and familiar with U.S. culture and customs, continue to pose a unique and troubling challenge. While the overall frequency of homegrown terrorism has declined from 2009 levels, plots continue to be uncovered, evidenced by the arrest in December, 2012 of two Florida men accused of conspiring to employ weapons of mass destruction within the United States. In such cases, a mixture of externally and internally-focused intelligence is often required to detect and disrupt the plot, necessitating robust and continued information sharing efforts.

Domestic Antiterrorist Activities are Divided Into These Functions:

Identification of priorities for collection and analysis of information on terrorist threats. Preparation for and mitigation of the consequences of terrorist threats or attacks. Protection of the critical U.S. infrastructure from the consequences of terrorist attacks. Prevention of terrorist attacks. Response to and promotion of recovery from terrorist threats or attacks. Review of legal authorities and development of legislative proposals to carry out antiterrorism goals.

First Responders are Part of the Community Affected

In a large-scale incident, such as a pandemic, law enforcement resources are likely to become exhausted and law enforcement officials will have to balance their resources and efforts between these new responsibilities and everyday service demands. Moreover, within this multi-faceted responsibility of being first-responders to public health emergencies, it is plausible for law enforcement to be in a situation with a greatly diminished workforce, as officers and their families may become infected and ill, and some personnel may determine that the risk of continuing to report to work is just too great to themselves or their families (Richards et al., 2006) - such as in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when officers of New Orleans Police Department did not report to work for a variety of reasons

Interagency Database Connectivity

In addition to greater connectivity across DHS, the Department should also explore greater integration with other government databases. Furthermore, screening and credentialing processes could benefit substantially from greater automation. The introduction of automated processes could significantly reduce the time needed for many tasks associated with screening and credentialing, greatly improving efficiency. However, a functional and useful system will require not only advances in automation technology, but that the Department as well as the public come to accept and trust automation to a greater degree. By focusing on greater integration of databases, increased automation, and the creation of a Department-wide targeting center, DHS has an opportunity to create a more efficient and effective screening and credentialing enterprise.

Fusion Centers are Collaborative

In brief, fusion centers operate as the information sharing lynchpin among all levels of law enforcement as well as the private and public sectors. Such a collaborative effort facilitates the sharing of threat-related information to law enforcement and client organizations (Cooney et al., 2011). Masse and Rollins (2007) note that fusion centers represent a vital part of the nation's homeland security and are essential to fuse a broad range of data, including nontraditional sources of data, to create a more comprehensive threat picture for the prevention of terrorism. This threat picture has broadened, largely a result of measures initiated by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (2004) which expanded fusion center missions from terrorism to include "all threats, all hazards" (Carter & Carter, 2009a) Using a medical metaphor, fusion centers are the heart of the prevention and preparedness body for public safety. The public health sector represents a critical vein for moving epidemiological information to the fusion center where it can then be pumped back out to the prevention and preparedness limbs that are state and local law enforcement, critical infrastructure and public health organizations.

From the Chairman

In fact, when I contemplate our current and future conflicts, I have concluded that military power should not—maybe cannot— be the last resort of the state. There will certainly be times when the military, because of its flexibility and speed, may be the first, best tool to use. But it should never be the only tool. More broadly, defense and diplomacy cannot be discrete choices, applied sequentially after the other fails, but rather must complement one another throughout the often complex and messy process of international relations.

Introduction

In response to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush put in place a new organizational structure for ensuring the security of the American homeland. By executive order, he created within the White House an Office of Homeland Security, to be headed by the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security. The President also established a new interagency coordinating body, the Homeland Security Council. The importance the President accords this new organization is evident in his placing it in the Executive Office of the President and in his giving cabinet rank to its director. He also chose a personal friend, Pennsylvania's Governor Tom Ridge, to head the office. Governor Ridge will have a deputy and some 120 staff members, drawn primarily from the agencies currently involved in homeland security.

Budget Concerns

In some ways, the current budget climate presents a unique opportunity to transform the direction of the Department. Limited dollars will force hard decisions regarding what programs and capabilities to fund or cut, yet ultimately these decisions may be necessary to ensure DHS's future utility and health. Furthermore, these budget cuts provide an opportunity not only to increase the Department's efficiency but also to overcome and move past difficult policy issues. Fiscal realities may force resolutions to questions and problems that would have otherwise remained unaddressed, ultimately leading to a more efficient and effective Department.

Discussion and Conclusions

In sum, there remains an information sharing disconnect between public health and the entities tasked with homeland security preparedness. The data presented sheds light on the commonly held assumption that public health and homeland security are working together. While it appears willingness for such an effort exists, the data show a consistent lack of tangible information sharing among the two sectors. It is hypothesized that this disconnect can be traced back to the authority outlined in HSPD 21 in that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was identified as the primary entity for creating an interoperable environment among all stakeholders. The underlying difficulty in this approach is that HHS' experience with information sharing up until this point has been one of vertical silo storage by disease category for aggregate assessment - not the sharing of disparate sources of information across different organizations on a real-time basis. Furthermore, public health sectors have suffered from decreasing resources as well and may find it difficult to realign personnel and infrastructure to support a homeland security function. While the authority for leading the collaboration among all stakeholders legislatively remain with HHS, the initiatives currently underway have - from an operational perspective -transferred primary responsibility to the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and state and regional fusion centers who have an established culture of preparedness-based information sharing.

Introduction

In the wake of a series of tragic events impacting public health in the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security have attempted to facilitate information sharing across public health and homeland security organizations. Data collected as part of a national assessment of law enforcement and homeland security information sharing, funded by the National Institute of Justice, indicate such efforts to date have been helpful in establishing a foundation for information sharing, yet fall short of creating mechanisms by which tangible information sharing can occur.

A Changing World

It is widely understood that the security environment of the early twenty-first century differs significantly from the one the U.S. national security system was created to manage. The character of the actors has changed; the diversity of state capabilities is greater; and the international norms delimiting legitimate behaviors have shifted as well. Exchanges of goods, information, ideas, and people are also far denser and more variable than they were even a dozen years ago, let alone in 1947. Taken together, these developments and others have given rise to novel security conditions and dynamics. Four aspects of this environment are especially striking.

The Project on National Security Reform (PNSR)

Led by a 22-member Guiding Coalition that includes former senior federal officials with extensive national security experience, such as Ambassador (ret.) Thomas Pickering, the Project on National Security Reform has issued its report, Forging a New Shield, which recommends solutions to the problems that plague the current national security system. More than 300 national security experts from think tanks, universities, federal agencies, law firms, and corporations contributed to the PNSR report and to various background papers. Of special interest to readers of American Diplomacy may be a report on the Country Team by a working group chaired by Ambassador (ret.) Robert Oakley, another on the U.S. government's organization for multilateral diplomacy by a working group chaired by Ambassador (ret.) Edward Marks, and a third proposing a consolidation of "soft power" agencies and programs in a new Department of International Relations by another working group chaired by Ambassador Marks.

Someone Has to Adjust to Fit

Location, Location, Location...

Homeland Security Organizations: Design Contingencies in Complex Environments

Many U.S. homeland security organizations are designed around a 19th century model created for the Industrial Age. Information Age challenges demand new ideas for organizational design. Traditional mechanistic and hierarchical bureaucracies must be re- examined. This thesis explores case studies that include an intelligence organization fighting bioterrorism and a military unit battling insurgents in asymmetrical warfare. Case Study research was selected to examine "how" and "why" questions related to organic organizational design in dynamic and complex environments

Implications and Recommendations

Many recommendations for reforming stabilization and reconstruction operations focus on interagency processes and State's resource gap. Solve problems of unity of command and effort across the interagency and correct resourcing disparities, the argument goes, and capacity issues will be resolved. Contrary to the common wisdom that more dollars equals more capacity, resourcing is only part of the equation. An infusion of resources into the existing patchwork of State and USAID culture, bureaucratic struggles, and confusion over the stabilization and reconstruction mission would only partially minimize gaps. Internal factors must be the first targets of reform. Resolve Bureaucratic Conflict Any durable solution to State and USAID infighting must include several basic elements, the first of which is to delineate roles and responsibilities. Regardless of how organizational charts are shuffled, an effective solution will minimize the ambiguities that fuel conflict and will assign clear ownership for the mission. A second solution will change the status quowhere multiple offices vie for internal and interagency lead. Changing Organizational Culture We will recognize culture change when there is a clear alignment between behavioral levels of organizational culture and the overt policy level. This alignment requires changes to training, incentive structures, and planning. Recalibrate the approach to Congress Dealing with Congress effectively will require management changes and prioritizing relationships—no bridge is too far if it reaches Congress. State and USAID are experimenting with positive steps, including process enhancements such as multiyear budgets. Less positive are recent decisions to shift towards reliance on supplemental funding and calls for pooled funding with DoD. These are workarounds that meet immediate needs but will go away as the current contingencies wind down—cutting the legs from under a standing capacity

Mechanisms

Mechanisms for gathering and sharing information have been operationalized within both homeland security and public health. Despite such mechanisms being in place, there remains an information sharing disconnect between homeland security and public health. Data from a recent National Institute of Justice study on fusion center information sharing across the U.S. is presented here and illustrates an existence of such collaborations among stakeholders yet also a lack of tangible information sharing. This paper will provide an analysis of the types of information gathered for both homeland security and public health and how this information can be integrated together using the information fusion center approach.

"Whole of Nation"

Of course, Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only places where cooperation between civilians and Servicemembers is increasing. Both U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Southern Command have demonstrated how integrating non-Department of Defense capacity can improve U.S. Government efforts including disaster response, counternarcotics interdiction, and theater security engagement. The enduring challenges we face don't merely require a whole-of-government approach— they demand a "whole-of-nation" effort. And transparency, collaboration, and inclusiveness must be our watchwords if we want our long-term success to mirror that of previous generations.

Liaisons

Perhaps the most significant barrier facing these efforts is the inability of public health information to achieve a necessary balance of specificity and sensitivity in the information that is collected. It is believed that with the integration of public health information into state and regional fusion centers it is likely to yield a collective increase in the sensitivity and specificity of identifying threats to public health and homeland security. An improvement in this effort is likely to occur as fusion centers provide a mechanism to increase both specificity and sensitivity since the amount of information available to both public health and homeland security is multiplied in combination with a homeland security infrastructure designed to share information in real-time. Furthermore, these interoperable efforts on behalf of both public health and homeland security can be enhanced through emerging health liaison officer programs.

5 Factors

Politics and the resource gap The political overhang The resource gap Internal factors (1) Bureaucratic Conflict (2) Organizational Culture External Factors (3) Interagency process (4) Defense expansion into stabilization and reconstruction space The Congressional Factor (5) Congress's approach to State and USAID State and USAID's approach to Congress

Centered Around Coordination

President Bush chose to model the new organization after the National Security Council (NSC), although he opted to constitute the staff as a new office and to give it enhanced budget responsibilities. The mandate of the new organization is carefully circumscribed to involve only coordination, leaving unaltered the existing authorities of the operating departments and agencies.

Communication is critical

Recent initiatives primarily driven by the Department of Homeland Security and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have begun to outline the need to establish two-way communication channels and integrated policy initiatives between law enforcement and public health organizations in order to enhance threat prevention and preparedness efforts. Such initiatives have been absent from discussions...and indeed, policy and regulatory initiatives are being developed with virtually no research (or theoretical) foundation.

Congressional Views and Issues

Since the September terrorist attacks, congressional attention has focused largely on the organization of the executive branch and on ensuring its own prerogatives. Congress has given very little attention to its own structure for providing oversight of homeland security activities.

The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development (QDDR)

Responding to the need, as well as to legislative pressure, the State Department created an office to lead and coordinate stabilization and reconstruction in 2004. The new office's executing arm—a deployable civilian corps—was not directly funded until five years later.2 In 2010, as military operations drew down and preparations began for transition to a State-led mission, the department's Civilian Response Corps sent just one person to Iraq. Stabilization and reconstruction missions require a breadth of skills that reside in the U.S. lead agencies for diplomacy and development skills that are distinct from the requirements of conventional warfare. The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review acknowledges stabilization and reconstruction as a core mission of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In this mission, the State Department, supported by USAID, coordinates and leads the U.S. interagency in a whole-of-government approach to post-conflict environments, providing a flexible response capability that can operate in the field, often (but not necessarily) in partnership with the U.S. military.

Change is Required

Right now, U.S. foreign policy is still too dominated by the military. As President Obama noted in his West Point speech announcing his strategy for Afghanistan, we can't count on military might alone. We have to strengthen homeland security; we have to improve and better coordinate our intelligence; and we will have to use diplomacy, because no one nation can meet the challenges of an interconnected world acting alone. This will require investment. Secretaries Clinton and Gates have called for more funding and more emphasis on our soft power, and I could not agree with them more. Should we choose to exert American influence solely through our troops, we should expect to see that influence diminish in time.

Compare and Contrast "Dahl" and "Nelson" View on Reform

Similarities: Both agree there is a need for horizontal integration of efforts in both Congress and the DHS to not only allow for improved interagency but also incorporate a "whole of government approach" even though the world is constantly evolving and complex. Which would help counter future threats, which both agree are bound to occur with such a changing world. Dahl and Nelson both agree that (as mentioned earlier) aligning the authorities and appropriations would allow for flexibility and enable solutions to combat new threats. This is why Dahl also argues that this change can not be done by the executive branch, as it requires a "whole of government approach". Differences: Dahl focuses on Congress to drive the reform and claims that it is also part of the problem. Whereas Nelson focuses on the DHS and how it must continue to evolve to deal with evolving threats in the world. Dahl also illudes that the interagency process is broken and does not give the current system any credit. However, Nelson still gives the DHS credit but also makes recommendations such as focusing on information sharing to counter future threats. Dahl claims that administrators are too busy with "day-to-day" working and can't help establish change.

Situational Awareness (SA) Framework

SA can be described in terms of a holistic framework of SA systems, states, and processes.[8] SA descriptions usually focus on one of the three aspects, or on combinations. SA states can be described as: Objects: Awareness of various objects in the world, and their current status. Objects and their status may be indicative of particular situations (that they are about to occur, that they are ongoing, etc.). Then they are often referred to as cues. Frames: Awareness of what kind of situation is on-going, e.g. a runway incursion where an aircraft is about to collide with some object on the runway. Implications: Awareness of objects within frames, of what their current status means in a particular situation. E.g. the implications of the current speed of the aircraft, and the distance to an object on the runway, in a runway incursion situation. The implications refer to time and space, to an event horizon. Event horizon: An awareness of plans and events in time and space. It includes an awareness of what has happened (useful for diagnosis, to achieve SA, to frame situations). It also includes prognosis, an awareness of what might happen next. That includes on the one hand an awareness both of what might occur based on diagnosis and the current situation, and on the other hand on an awareness of current plans and intentions. Perception (Level 1 SA): The first step in achieving SA is to perceive the status, attributes, and dynamics of relevant elements in the environment. Comprehension (Level 2 SA): The next step in SA formation involves a synthesis of disjointed Level 1 SA elements through the processes of pattern recognition, interpretation, and evaluation. Projection (Level 3 SA): The third and highest level of SA involves the ability to project the future actions of the elements in the environment.

Situational Awareness (SA)

Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status. Situation awareness has been recognized as a critical, yet often elusive, foundation for successful decision-making across a broad range of situations, many of which involve the protection of human life and property, including law enforcement, aviation, air traffic control, ship navigation, health care, emergency response, military command and control operations, self defense, and offshore oil and nuclear power plant management. Lacking or inadequate situation awareness has been identified as one of the primary factors in accidents attributed to human error. The formal definition of SA is broken down into three segments: perception of the elements in the environment, comprehension of the situation, and projection of future status.

Congress as a Driver of the Interagency

So the first order of business in Congress is for the leadership to sort out how they will organize themselves to create a jurisdiction for interagency process, and to do so without infringing on the jurisdiction of existing committees. One illustrative possibility is a Temporary Select Committee for Interagency Affairs, comprised of senior members from all those committees that currently have jurisdiction over national security matters, such as Armed Services, Intelligence, Foreign Relations, Justice and Treasury. The establishment of this committee, in whatever form it takes, is essential to hold hearings, pass the reform legislation, and provide oversight of implementation.

The Gist

Specifically, I believe that the Bush administration's plan to merge disparate agencies into a new Department of Homeland Security will do nothing to enhance homeland security and may actually reduced it. The threat we face from al Qaeda and other terrorist groups is one of agile, non‐​bureaucratic adversaries who have the great advantage of being on the offense — knowing where, when and how they will attack. Terrorists take advantage of the sluggishness and poor coordination among military, intelligence, law enforcement, and domestic response bureaucracies to attack gaps in the defenses. Basically, More bureaucracy means more coordination problems of the kind that seem to have been prevalent in the intelligence community prior to September 11.

Where Does This Fall in DHS's Mission?

Specifically, the present DHS mission is centered on five core areas. Two of these areas pertain specifically to preventing terrorism and enhancing security as well as ensuring resilience to disasters (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2011a). It is within these two core mission areas which the importance of integrating public health information becomes critical to the success of DHS in accomplishing its mission. Methods of terrorist attack go beyond explosives to include biological agents and the natural spread of E.Coli is just one example of a public health disaster. In order to successfully integrate this information into the homeland security decision making process, fusion centers will play a pivotal role.

State and Local Law Enforcement and Public Health

State and local law enforcement's role in public health has largely pertained to emergency response. While law enforcement has long served the role of "first-responder", their role in the current health threat environment can be traced to the anthrax incidents shortly after 9/11 (Butler et al., 2002; McHugh, Staiti & Feeland, 2004), the 2003 spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sarpy et al., 2005), and more recently the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009 (Macario et al., 2009). Following the National Response Framework published by the Department of Homeland Security (2008), in the event of an emergency incident, local law enforcement serves as the initial response mechanism in a multi-layered response approach. More specifically in event of a public health emergency, law enforcement is responsible for to quickly coordinate its response with public health and medical officials and, depending on the threat, enforce public health orders (e.g., quarantines or travel restrictions), secure the perimeter of contaminated areas, securing health care facilities, and investigating scenes of suspected biological terrorism (Richards et al., 2006)

It Already Exists

Such programs are modeled after widely successful intelligence liaison officers and fusion center liaison officer programs currently utilized by law enforcement throughout the country. In short, a liaison officer is an individual(s) assigned to be the primary point of contact for sharing information between two organizations. A formalized example of this approach is currently being utilized by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services which has created a Health Intelligence Liaison Unit designed to support information sharing among state and local government entities. Aside from establishing a direct communicate link between health entities and fusion centers, health liaison officers are commonly recipients of regular information dissemination from fusion centers. The two methods of communication most commonly utilized in the liaison officer programs are e-mail and personal contact. By establishing health officer liaison programs, public health entities can increase both the amount and quality of information they disseminate and receive. Such an effort is likely to improve a more sensitive, specific, and real-time information sharing capability among public health and law enforcement personnel - thusimproving preparedness efforts.

Homeland Security and Public Health: A Critical Integration

Terminology such as homeland security, intelligence-led policing, preparedness, and risk management have become consistent in the criminal justice lexicon in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. As these policy applications continue to be conceptualized in the academic literature as well as in practice, the integration of the public health sector has just recently begun to emerge as the next supporting pillar in the preparedness structure.

The Gilmore Commission

The Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, also known as the Gilmore Commission, found that the "United States has no coherent, functional national strategy for combating terrorism ... [and] that the organization of the Federal government's programs is fragmented, uncoordinated, and politically unaccountable." The commission called for "establishment of a senior level coordination entity in the Executive Office of the President, [to be] entitled the 'National Office for Combating Terrorism,' with responsibility for developing domestic and international policy and for coordinating the program and budget of the Federal government's activities for combating terrorism." The "foremost" responsibility of the office would be the development of a comprehensive national strategy. The office would also coordinate both foreign and domestic terrorism-related intelligence activities, assuming "many" of the NSC interagency coordinating functions.

Roles and Responsibilities of the Homeland Security Organization: The Assistant to the President for Homeland Security

The Assistant to the President for Homeland Security has individual responsibilities that are generally shared with others. He is "primarily" responsible for coordinating the domestic response to terrorist attacks within the United States and is to be the "principal point of contact for and to the President" with respect to coordination of such efforts, while coordinating with the National Security Advisor "as appropriate. The actual budget responsibilities are carefully delimited to include only: Identifying programs that contribute to the administration's homeland security strategy. Advising the heads of departments and agencies on such programs. Providing advice to the OMB Director on the level and use of funding in the executive branch for homeland-security-related activities. Certifying to the OMB Director the funding levels "necessary and appropriate for homeland-security-related activities," prior to the transmission of the proposed annual budget to the President.

CSIS Working Groups

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) convened a series of working groups to assess the nature of the terrorist threats to the American homeland. These working groups described the need for a national plan "to cover all details of the nation's defense against terrorists, as well as plans for critical infrastructure protection." In a brief discussion of the government's organization, they recommended that "the President make the Vice President responsible for most aspects of homeland defense." The Vice President would chair a new National Emergency Planning Council that would include representatives from all federal departments and agencies as well as the states and private corporations. He would be assisted by an "Emergency Planning Staff" headed by the NSC National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure, and Counterterrorism, who would also remain a member of the NSC staff. The FEMA Director would report through the NSC Coordinator to the Vice President. Both the FEMA Director and the NSC Coordinator would be confirmable by the U.S. Senate. No changes would be made in the principal department responsibilities, in counterterrorism or counterintelligence operations, or in the FBI and Department of Commerce infrastructure offices. FEMA would, however, be augmented with additional personnel as well as administrative support and would be given responsibility for some Department of Justice training and preparedness activities.

Issues

The United States Now Faces a Non‐​Traditional Strategic Threat Bush's Proposal May Make the Government Less Agile When Fighting Terrorists Bush's Plan Does Not Solve the Problem with Intelligence and May Make It Worse The Government Already Has the Machinery to Coordinate Homeland Security

The Hart-Rudman Commission

The Commission on National Security/21st Century, known as the Hart-Rudman Commission, shared the view that the government's structures and strategies for preventing and protecting against attacks on the American homeland are "fragmented and inadequate," and it called upon the President to develop a "comprehensive strategy." Such a strategy would include counterterrorism and nonproliferation activities, intelligence and law-enforcement activities, and critical-infrastructure protection, as well as domestic preparedness and consequence management. The commission concluded that the NSC "would still play a strategic role in planning and coordinating all homeland security activities." The Clinton administration's initiative to include the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services in NSC discussions, along with the designation of an NSC National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure, and Counterterrorism, provided a point of departure. The commission, concerned that homeland security activities are spread across many agencies, called for the establishment of an independent National Homeland Security Agency "with responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should be a key building block in this effort." According to the commission, "someone needs to be responsible and accountable to the President not only to coordinate the making of policy, but also to oversee its detailed implementation.... To give this agency sufficient stature within the government, its director would be a member of the Cabinet and a statutory advisor to the National Security Council. The position would require Senate confirmation."

Introduction

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) finds itself at a crossroads as it enters its second decade of existence. Since its creation in 2002, DHS has worked diligently to keep the United States safe from the specter of another catastrophic terrorist attack. In doing so, the Department has wrestled with a variety of significant challenges, including coordinating across 22 preexisting agencies, reporting to a multitude of congressional committees, and interacting with the U.S. public in a manner that constantly tests the balance between security and privacy. Some have pointed to these challenges as evidence of a dysfunctional department that is unable to effectively protect the nation. However, the Department's record is clear; there have been no major terrorist attacks on American soil in the years since DHS' creation. Furthermore, during this time DHS has achieved new levels of interagency coordination, improved cooperation with state and local agencies, and has begun integrating the private sector into a true homeland security enterprise. However, after DHS spent the past 10 years focused on al Qaeda and its ideologically-inspired brand of terrorism, DHS is now confronted with a variety of new threats and challenges that will require an evolution of the Department's priorities, structures, and missions.

Not Just Federalism, but Private Sector as Well

The Department should also encourage state and local partners to participate in standardized intelligence training, in order to better equip those on the ground with a better understanding of the intelligence process and equalize some of the disparities between various fusion centers. Additionally, the fusion centers need to find a means to better engage with the private sector. This includes not only finding new avenues for integrating information provided by the private sector, but keeping private companies and businesses informed of potential threats in a useful and timely manner while remaining cognizant of privacy and civil liberties concerns.

Summary of Commission Recommendations

The Hart-Rudman Commission and the National Commission on Terrorism left overall White House coordinating responsibility with the NSC and the NSC staff. The Gilmore Commission supported the need for a new office in the White House. It did not include in its recommendations a formal counterterrorism interagency coordinating process involving all the federal agencies with counterterrorism responsibilities. The CSIS working groups recommended a hybrid approach in which the Vice President, assisted by a new council and new staff, would be given coordinating responsibility. State governors and private corporations would be members of the council. All the commissions recommended that the White House coordinating entity be given responsibility for integrating both international and domestic activities. Both the Hart-Rudman Commission and the CSIS working groups recommended steps to consolidate some homeland security operations within an expanded FEMA

Roles and Responsibilities of the Homeland Security Organization: The Homeland Security Council

The Homeland Security Council is responsible for "advising and assisting the President with respect to all aspects of homeland security" and is to serve as the "mechanism" for ensuring coordination of these activities among the executive departments and agencies, as well as for effectively developing and implementing homeland security policies. The executive order also specifies different categories of council participants.

The National Commission on Terrorism

The National Commission on Terrorism focused primarily on defining the elements of a successful national counterterrorism strategy and the need to coordinate the activities of the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. It also made some suggestions for governmental reform. It was particularly concerned that no specific counterterrorism budget existed and that the person on the NSC staff responsible for coordinating counterterrorism programs had no role in the "critical step when the Office of Management and Budget ... decides what agencies' programs will be funded at what levels." The commission recommended that the President require the OMB Director and the NSC Coordinator to "agree on all budget guidance to the agencies, including the response to initial budget submissions, and both officials should be involved in presenting agencies' counterterrorism budget appeals to the President."

Collaboration for Situational Awareness (SA)

The Pandemic and Public Health Information Fusion for Situation Awareness All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) of 2006, established a demand to increase collaboration with state, local, and tribal public officials through a near real-time electronic nationwide public health situational awareness capability. Increases in the sensitivity and specificity of surveillance systems are designed to create a situational awareness system. Conceptually, situational awareness systems are designed to better understand when a public health threat is growing or decreasing, whether it is expanding into different geographic areas, and whether the threat is becoming more or less serious to the community or population (Hsu et al., 2010) Situational awareness is utilized to inform decision makers in the event of a looming threat to public health. Such decisions could include from deployment of additional resources to respond to the threat, implementing plans to provide mass vaccinations or treatments, and determinations of the movement of people within a community (e.g. school closings or quarantine areas). The key to successful situational awareness is the integration of disparate information sources.

Looking Ahead

The President could have given this role to the National Security Advisor, but the most compelling challenge is obviously domestic, not foreign. The NSC has also only recently begun to coordinate policies involving the national security and domestic agencies. (Hmmm....) What is surprising is the limited focus and authorities of the new Office of Homeland Security. Countering terrorism within the United States is unquestionably an enormous task, but it is only a small part of the overall war on terrorism. Dividing coordinating responsibility between two presidential assistants—one for domestic and one for foreign counterterrorism activities—is of particular concern because intelligence, law-enforcement, and military operations at home and abroad need more integration, not less.

Kenneth R. Dahl

The United States Government interagency process is badly broken. This is especially true in the realm of national security. The federal government has archaic, vertical, "stove-pipe" organizational structure and processes that severely undermine success in operations and policy implementation. We are unable to achieve unity of effort and a whole-of-government approach to devising solutions to critical problems. Today's world is extremely complex and requires the horizontal integration of efforts from a variety of departments and agencies in our executive branch. Executive Summary, Con'd: It is unrealistic to expect the executive branch to reform itself. Administrations are too busy with day to day operations to see the need for change and presidential directives are insufficient and ineffective for this level of reform. Authorities and appropriations must be properly aligned to create flexibility and enable agile integrated solutions to the complex threats of the new century. Reform must be driven by Congress, in a manner similar to that achieved by the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986 that created horizontal structures and processes in the Department of Defense. While Congress is part of the solution it is also part of the problem and requires similar reform of its own. Piecemeal independent reform efforts are inadequate. It is absolutely vital to our national and homeland security that we produce a new National Security Act, complimentary executive directives, and an interagency mechanism in Congress.

The Current Structure is Obsolete

The United States Government interagency process is badly broken. This is especially true with regard to national security. The bottom line is that we are unable to achieve unity of effort and a whole-of-government approach in devising solutions to critical problems. Today's world is extremely complex and requires the horizontal integration of efforts from a variety of departments and agencies in our executive branch. This is true for counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, counter-proliferation, counter-insurgency, homeland defense and a host of other top priority issues facing the nation.

The CATO Institute Testimony

The attacks of September 11, 2001 illustrated dramatically that the U.S. governmental security apparatus has paid too much attention to the defense of other nations and too little to the security of the U.S. homeland. But in the wake of this horrible event, Washington policymakers in the Executive Branch and Congress may feel so much pressure to act that they will make hasty decisions on policies that actually might reduce U.S. homeland security further.

Conclusion

The coming years will hold a variety of new challenges for the Department which will require an ability to quickly evolve and adapt. While DHS has succeeded in fulfilling its primary mission over the past decade—protecting the nation from terrorism—the coming years will bring with them a variety of new dangers and dynamics. DHS must begin moving to address these now, so that the nation is not left unprotected in a rapidly-changing security landscape, even in the midst of significant budget constraints. By focusing its efforts and resources on building cyber-security, screening and credentialing, and information sharing capabilities, the Department has an opportunity to counter a new generation of threats before they can inflict significant damage to the United States.

Interoperability Issues

The commander in a joint operational area (JOA) has no regional peer from the State Department or any other U.S. Government agency. While joint doctrine notes that Ambassadors operate at both the operational and tactical levels, their authority is effectively limited to their country of accreditation, as explained in Joint Publication 3-08, Interagency Coordination During Joint Operations. The same is generally true of representatives of other executive and intelligence agencies. The JFC's area, on the other hand, encompasses both the primary country of operation and all or part of neighboring countries; thus, the commander will have to coordinate policy or operations with multiple country teams. The first level at which the JFC may encounter a State Department individual with regional authorities comparable to his own is at the regional assistant secretary level.

Proactive

The emphasis on strategic planning and partnerships is the dimension of law enforcement's role in public health that has recently begun to evolve. Rather than operationalizing planning and partnerships as a means to solely improve first-responding, law enforcement has begun efforts to identify proactive measures via these components. For example, rather than having partnerships in place with local health organizations for purposes of knowing who to contact and where to go in the event of an emergency, law enforcement attempts to establish a two-way open dialogue among both public health organizations and the community in an attempt to share threat-related information. Such communication is achieved through partnerships and liaison officer programs. Local law enforcement serves as a force-multiplier with respect to information collection. Primarily through community policing, police officers are able to gather raw information and recognize indicators and warnings of threats. This micro-level information is critical to identifying accurate threat pictures and is relied upon by fusion centers and thus public health organizations as well.

Broad Mandate

The executive order gives the responsibility for coordinating "efforts to protect the United States and its critical infrastructure from the consequences of terrorist attacks." Its mandate is broad, including energy production, telecommunications, information systems, food and water supply, and transportation systems. Since President Bush separately issued an executive order creating a new President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, it is unclear how this will be achieved in practice. In cooperation with the private sector and state and local governments, the board will "coordinate programs for protecting information systems for critical infrastructure" (emphasis added). It will consist of representatives of all the departments and White House offices involved in counterterrorism activities and will be chaired by a Special Advisor to the President for Cyberspace Security. This new adviser will report to both the Assistant to the President for National Security and the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and will have a separate staff within the White House office.

Roles and Responsibilities of the Homeland Security Organization: The Homeland Security Office

The mandate of the new Office of Homeland Security created by executive order in October 2001 covers "efforts to detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States" (emphasis added). The responsibilities involve coordination of "Executive branch efforts" across a wide range of federal activities. The executive order, however, is somewhat ambiguous concerning whether the office's coordinating responsibilities extend to the activities of state and local government agencies. The order first states that in carrying out its functions, the office is to "encourage and invite the participation of State and local governments and private entities." Later it requires the office to coordinate "national" efforts to mitigate the consequences of terrorist threats or attacks within the United States by "working with Federal, State, and local agencies and private entities."

A New Concept of National Security

The objectives of national security policy, in the world as it now is, therefore are: To maintain security from aggression against the nation by means of a national capacity to shape the strategic environment; to anticipate and prevent threats; to respond to attacks by defeating enemies; to recover from the effects of attack; and to sustain the costs of defense To maintain security against massive societal disruption as a result of natural forces, including pandemics, natural disasters, and climate change To maintain security against the failure of major national infrastructure systems by means of building up and defending robust and resilient capacities and investing in the ability to recover from damage done to them

The Thesis

The present paper provides a legislative, regulatory and policy discussion followed by a national empirical assessment to illustrate the present information sharing environment among public health and homeland security. Recommendations for further operational success are provided. Areas for academic evaluation are identified. Background: In short, these efforts have established an operating environment in which both public health and homeland security have begun to develop working relationships, yet a lack of tangible information sharing remains. It is argued that efforts to improve information sharing under the guidance of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which has a different operational view of information sharing, have not be successful in integrating homeland security efforts. Recently, efforts guided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have provided actionable steps to integrate public health information.

Epidemiologic Surveillance

The process of biosurveillance integrates active data gathering with analysis and interpretation of biosphere data that might relate to disease activity and threats to human or animal health - whether infectious, toxic, metabolic, or otherwise, and regardless of intentional or natural origin - in order to achieve early warning of health threats (Wagner et al., 2007). Epidemiologic surveillance is the process of actively gathering and analyzing data related to human health and disease in a population in order to obtain early warning of human health events, rapid characterization of human disease events, and overall situational awareness of disease activity in the human population (Watkins et al., 2011)

The Department of Homeland Security and Public Health

The role of public health in homeland security has recently evolved. Immediately following the events of 9/11, public health's primary role in homeland security was to assist in the detection of and preparedness for bio-terrorism attacks as set forth by President G. W. Bush's Biodefense for the 21st Century (2004). Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 21 National Strategy for Public Health and Medical Preparedness (HSPD 21) outlines a national policy for proactive preparedness for incidents impacting public health. This directive asserts such an approach is achievable by utilizing mechanisms of active information sharing across public health, public safety, and private business sectors.

Summary of Historical Coordinating Models

The three models differ in their organizational characteristics. See Table 1 for a summary of the coordinating models. The NSC and NEC involve a formal interagency process under the leadership of a personal adviser to the President. The DCI is also a presidential adviser, but his coordinating role is less formal. The ONDCP Director directs a White House office but not a formal interagency process. Both the DCI and the ONDCP Director have statutorily based budget authorities, although their actual influence is seriously constrained by the budget powers that reside in OMB and various other departments and agencies.

The Challenge in Congress

The time is now and we must engage Congress to understand their role. In reforming the Department of Defense there was broad consensus that reform was necessary, there were defining moments in history at Desert One and Grenada and there were two champions in Congress who provided essential and sustained leadership to the endeavor, Goldwater and Nichols. Today there is growing consensus that interagency reform is urgently required. Recent difficulties in Iraq, Afghanistan and with Hurricane Katrina have presented a complex problem in more simple and understandable terms to every home in America. What we desperately need are champions in Congress. Unfortunately, although Congress is essential to the solution, it is also part of the problem.

What Should Be Done

The whole process to find a "fix" for 9/11 "failures" should be slowed down. The NSC and National Security Advisor could adequately coordinate homeland security without a new department if the intelligence and law enforcement communities were pruned (of agencies and layers of bureaucracy). Although reducing the number of people and amount of bureaucracy seems to go against the tide in the present crisis atmosphere, preliminary indications are that coordination among governmental entities is the main problem, not a lack of raw information or insufficient resources. Fighting a new stealthy, agile enemy is not like fighting cold or hot wars against nation‐​states. In the rush to "do something" Congress‐​by enlarging an already huge and sluggish national security bureaucracy-might make the risk of another successful catastrophic terrorist more likely. Of course, in the short‐​term, we must decisively take down the rest of the al Qaeda terrorist network militarily and with law enforcement but, in the long‐​term, we might want to take steps to lower our target profile to terrorists. The United States could do this by reducing unneeded interventions, both politically and militarily, in the world-particularly in the Middle East. Because intelligence and homeland security cannot be perfect, a change in U.S. foreign policy might lessen the chance that terrorist groups would be motivated to launch catastrophic attacks against the U.S. homeland.

A Comprehensive Approach

There are a number of initiatives underway to address specific interagency shortcomings. For example, the National Security Council has approved an Interagency Management System to improve cooperation and planning between DoD, DoS and other departments. The National Security Education Consortium is designed to better integrate non-DoD security professionals into a system of professional education and development. While these measures are important components of progress, they are addressing symptoms rather than root causes. To maximize the potential for real change, it is important that these corrections to current practice be nested in an overall structure and philosophy of interagency cooperation. Unless unity of effort springs from the space between the President and the Secretaries, initiatives to create unity of effort at subordinate agencies and among interagency professionals will fall short. A comprehensive and historical review of our interagency process is necessary to identify the common interagency failures over time and more importantly the root causes of those failures.

The Role of Congress in Reforming the Interagency Process

There are a number of reasons to be confident that Congressional action would be effective. First of all, the reform vehicle would likely be a piece of legislation that carries the force of law and demands adherence. Resistance and non-compliance could be overcome with monitoring, accountability and penalties. Experience from Goldwater-Nichols tells us that, without this oversight, the change would suffer repeated delays and in the end never reach full implementation. Second, Congress can provide some of the necessary authorizations to formalize the reforms and ensure they endure from one administration to the next. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Congress appropriates the funding that puts the resources behind the reforms. Without the money and manpower to execute the reform, it is just a hollow concept.

Three and Four

Third, the complexity of these challenges is compounded by the fact that the pursuit of science and technology is now a global enterprise in which even small groups can participate. Hostile states and non-state actors alike can employ existing knowledge and technique as well as new science and technology to assail far stronger states. This marks a broad diffusion of policy capacity and initiative worldwide that the United States and its allies must face. Fourth, current challenges reflect an interdependence that makes it impossible for any single nation to address on its own the full range of today's complex security challenges. The now widespread perception of interdependence may also paradoxically increase competition to influence or control the presumed torque points of that interdependence. Traditional alliances, while still vitally important, must therefore be augmented by both situation-specific temporary coalitions and new partners above and below the state level - regional and global institutions, for example, as well as localized elements of the private sector and the scientific community.

Critical Issues Involved

This issue paper discusses the critical issues involved in designing the homeland security organization and in achieving its goals. Compares existing coordinating organizations responsible for national security, economics, intelligence, and drug control. It presents the restructuring recommendations of three commissions and a nongovernmental group. Each of these recognized the need to integrate foreign and domestic counterterrorism activities, but they disagreed on whether to rely on the current NSC organization or create a new coordinating process. They assigned different priorities to changing current budgetary practices, and they also disagreed on the need for consolidating some of the operating homeland security agencies and offices. This issue paper then describes in some detail the responsibilities of the new homeland security organization. Particularly striking is the minimalist character of the responsibilities defined in the executive order, in view of the extraordinary challenge ahead.

Miles' Analysis

This paper examines five factors that broadly frame the current debate. Two of the factors are internal and look at bureaucratic conflict and organizational culture. Two are external and consider interagency processes and military expansion into the stabilization and reconstruction space. Congress's approach towards State and USAID, and their approach towards Congress, comprise the final factor

The Greatest Challenge: Cybersecurity

This threat will only grow more dire as information and communication technology continues to evolve at a rapid rate and state and non-state actors increasingly invest in cyber-capabilities. The danger posed by cyberattacks extends not only to critical infrastructure systems such as the power grid and water systems but to the nation's economy as well. Equally if not more worrying than the potential for a catastrophic "cyber Pearl Harbor", as described by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, is the ongoing theft of intellectual property from U.S. corporations and businesses. As noted by General Keith Alexander, Commander of USCYBERCOM and director of the National Security Agency, intellectual property theft represents "the greatest transfer of wealth in history". This theft not only leeches billions of dollars from the nation's economy each year, but also grants potential adversaries access to sensitive information regarding U.S. technologies, including those related to national security. One of DHS' greatest challenges in the coming years will be to protect against these attacks and intrusions yet in order to be effective the Department must first put in place systems and architectures designed to support its growing role in cybersecurity.

Four Key Goals as the Basis for its Recommendations

To achieve desired goals and to achieve them efficiently, the national security system must: Mobilize and marshal the full panoply of the instruments of national power to achieve national security objectives Create and sustain an environment conducive to the exercise of effective leadership, optimal decision-making, and capable management Devise a more constructive relationship between the executive branch and Congress appropriate for tackling the expanded national security agenda successfully Generate a sustainable capacity for the practice of stewardship - defined as the long-term ability to nurture the underlying assets of American power in human capital, social trust, and institutional coherence - throughout all domains of American statecraft

We must adopt new approaches to national security system design focused on national missions and outcomes, emphasizing integrated effort, collaboration, and agility.

To broaden the conceptual scope of national security to align with twenty-first-century realities, we recommend the establishment of a President's Security Council (PSC) that would replace the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council. International economic and energy policy would be handled by the PSC as well, fully integrated into U.S. political and security strategies that focus not on departmental strengths and goals but on national missions and outcomes. To more effectively integrate the national security policy of the United States, we recommend the statutory creation of a director for national security (DNS) within the Executive Office of the President. The director would be responsible for tasks encompassing the high-level operation of the national security system (specified in detail in the report) that go beyond those of the present assistant to the president for national security affairs.

We must focus the Executive Office of the President on strategy and strategic management.

To improve strategic planning and system management, we recommend instituting a National Security Review to be performed at the beginning of each presidential term, as directed by the new President's Security Council. The review should prioritize objectives, establish risk management criteria, specify roles and responsibilities for priority missions, assess required capabilities, and identify capability gaps. We recommend the preparation of the National Security Planning Guidance, to be issued annually by the President to all national security departments and agencies, in order to provide guidance to departments and agencies based on the results of the National Security Review. The President should further direct that departmental and agency planning conform to this guidance. To enhance the performance and oversight of the national security system, we recommend the creation of an official, reporting to the director for national security, to analyze interagency operations, including real-time assessments of overall system performance and system components' performance.

We must build a better executive-legislative branch partnership

To improve the overall functioning of the national security system, we recommend establishing Select Committees on National Security in the Senate and House of Representatives and assigning each committee jurisdiction over all interagency operations and activities, commands, other organizations, and embassies; funding; personnel policies; education and training; and nominees for any Senate-confirmed interagency positions that may be established (except for those pertaining to internal matters of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and its components). These select committees should also be assigned jurisdiction for a new national security act. To empower the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee to formulate and enact annual authorization bills, we recommend that new House and Senate rules be adopted. This will require, inter alia, amending section 302(a) of the Congressional Budget Act to provide that the Senate and House Budget Committees recommend allocations for all national security budget function components; reenacting the firewalls that prevented floor amendments transferring funds from international or defense programs to domestic programs that exceed caps on discretionary spending; and requiring a supermajority in the House to waive the current rule requiring passage of authorizing legislation prior to consideration of appropriations bills for defense and foreign policy. To facilitate prompt consideration of senior national security officials, we recommend that each nomination for the 10 most senior positions in a national security department or agency should be placed on the executive calendar of the Senate, with or without a committee recommendation, after no more than 30 days of legislative session; and we recommend the abolition of the practice of honoring a hold by one or more Senators on a nominee for a national security position. We recommend the comprehensive revision of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 by the end of the 111th Congress (December 2010) in order to restore and advance the integrity of the U.S. foreign assistance program. To optimize the oversight of homeland security activities, we recommend consolidating oversight of the Department of Homeland Security to one authorizing committee and one appropriations subcommittee per chamber.

We must link resources to goals through national security mission analysis and mission budgeting

To more effectively resource national security missions, we recommend that national security departments and agencies be required to prepare six-year budget projections derived from the National Security Planning Guidance. The PSC staff should then lead a joint PSC-Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review of the six-year resource plan of each national security department and agency to assess consistency with the National Security Planning Guidance. Based on that review, OMB should issue guidance for each department's and agency's six-year program in a National Security Resource Document which presents the President's integrated, rolling six-year national security resource strategy proposal to Congress.

Predicates and Goals for Effective Reform

True national security reform demands a new way of thinking and a different way of doing business. Just as the 1947 National Security Act sought to create a decision-making and policy implementation system for addressing the then novel challenges of the post-World War II world, a national security system for today and tomorrow must be responsive to twenty-first century security challenges by: Understanding that the nature of contemporary security challenges represents a mix of the traditional and nontraditional, generating both dangers and opportunities greater in number and more varied in nature than in the past; Discarding processes, practices, and institutions that may once have been useful but which are now out of kilter with global security issues and dynamics; Mobilizing all tools of national power as the basis for conducting a truly comprehensive and agile national security strategy; Ensuring the democratic accountability of both decision-makers and policy implementers; and Developing an approach that enjoys the support of the American people and provides hope for the rest of the world.

Unity of Effort

Unity of effort is the state of harmonizing efforts among multiple organizations working towards a similar objective. This prevents organizations from working at cross purposes and it reduces duplication of effort. Multiple organizations can achieve unity of effort through shared common objectives. In military operations, unity of effort is similar to unity of command except it usually relates to coordinating organizations not in the same command, such as in interagency operations. In this case, unity of effort is often achieved through campaign plans or coordinating committees instead of through a unified commander. In emergency management, unity of effort describes the integrated approach by different levels of government and multiple civilian organizations in response to the event.

Defining Roles of Agencies

While DHS may be the lead agency responsible for CBRNE incidents, HSPD 21 established the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as the authority over the response to health emergencies and to establish a system that creates a network which allows for two way information flow between and among federal, state and local government, public health authorities, and clinical health care providers.

The Executive Branch- and Why It Cannot Reform Itself

While terrorists are still capable of taking lives and wreaking mayhem, the potential for an attack approaching the scale of 9/11 is low. Yet even as the threat of al Qaeda recedes, new challenges are emerging. DHS must find ways to increase the nation's defenses against cyberattacks, establish enhanced systems for secure screening and credentialing, and improve intelligence and information sharing, all while operating in a constrained fiscal environment.