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CSIS_______________________________
Center for Strategic and International Studies
1800 K Street N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 775-3270
Web: Acordesman@aol.com

DEFENDING AMERICA
REDEFINING THE CONCEPTUAL BORDERS
OF HOMELAND DEFENSE

Counterproliferation, Counterterrorism,
And Homeland Defense:

A Threat Analysis

Executive Summary

Rough Draft for Comment

Anthony H. Cordesman
Senior Fellow for Strategic Assessment
NOVEMBER, 2000

CSIS Homeland Defense: Asymmetric Warfare & Terrorism 11/30/00 Page ii

Introduction

The following report is a rough initial draft section of a full report on Homeland
Defense being prepared as part of the CSIS Homeland Defense project. It is a
rough working draft, and reflects solely the views of the author and not of the
CSIS team working on the project. It is being circulated for comment and
reaction and will be substantially modified and updated before being included in
the final report.

Homeland Defense: The Threat of Indirect, Covert,
Terrorist, and Extremist Attacks with Weapons of
Mass Destruction
There is a wide spectrum of potential threats to the American homeland that do not
involve the threat of overt attacks by states using long-range missiles or conventional military
forces. Such threats range from the acts of individual extremists to state-sponsored asymmetric
warfare. They can include covert attacks by state actors, state use of proxies, and independent
terrorist groups. They can include attacks by foreign individuals and residents of the US whose
motives can range from religion to efforts at extortion. Motives can include well-defined political
and strategic goals, religion and political ideology, crime and sabotage, or acts by the
psychologically disturbed.

These threats are currently limited in scope and frequency. No pattern of actual attacks on
US territory has yet emerged that provides a clear basis for predicting how serious any given
form of attack will be in the future, what means of attack will be used, or how lethal new forms
of attack will be if they are successful.

As a result, there is a major ongoing debate over the range of threats that need to be
considered, the seriousness of such threats, and how the US government should react. A GAO
report on terrorism summarizes the various views within the US government regarding these
uncertainties as follows:1

...there are three schools of thought on the terrorist threat: (1) some believe the threat and likelihood of
terrorist attack is very low and does not pose a serious risk; (2) others believe the threat and likelihood of
terrorist attack is high and could seriously disrupt the U.S. national and economic security; and (3) still
others believe assessments of the threat and vulnerability to terrorist attack need to be accompanied by risk
assessments to rationally guide the allocation of resources and attention. The expert further stated that such
risk assessments would include analyses of vulnerability and susceptibility to terrorist attack and the
severity of potential damage. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, conventional explosives continue to
be the weapon of choice for terrorists. Although the probability of their use may increase over time,
chemical and biological materials are less likely terrorist weapons because they are more difficult to
weaponize and the results are unpredictable. Agency officials also noted that terrorist's use of nuclear
weapons is the least likely scenario, although the consequences could be disastrous.

It is difficult to predict how these threats will evolve in the future. Potential attackers
have good reason to fear American military power, and most are unlikely to launch such attacks
without considering the risks. At the same time, America's very strengths create an incentive to

CSIS Homeland Defense: Asymmetric Warfare & Terrorism 11/30/00 Page 2

attack it using asymmetric forms of warfare. The US homeland is vulnerable. Waging
asymmetric warfare against the US offers both the greatest chance of success and the least risk of
retaliation, and some key technologies are evolving in ways that aid the attacker. For example,
biological warfare and information warfare will inevitably make the potential threat from both
foreign and domestic attackers more serious over time.

It is equally difficult to predict whether attackers will emerge with both the capability and
willingness to use weapons of mass destruction. It is not difficult to predict that such attacks are
possible. Attacks involving very large amounts of high explosives or chemical, biological,
radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) attacks have long been technically feasible, and the
"globalization" of chemical and biological technologies and production facilities is making some
weapons easier to develop or acquire. Nuclear proliferation continues and the levels of control
over weapons, fissile material, and radioactive material are uncertain. Attacks using such
weapons can involve a wide range of different levels of casualties, but they can involve attacks
that could kill well over 10,000 to 100,000 Americans, with economic, physical, psychological,
and political effects that are radically different from any covert, terrorist, or extremist attacks that
have occurred to date.

These risks help explain why the US has steadily refined its policy toward terrorism and
the risk of such attacks since the Vice President's Task Force on Terrorism issued a report in
1985 which highlighted the need for improved, centralized interagency coordination of the
significant federal assets to respond to terrorist incidents. The US response to potential threats
from covert attacks by state actors, their proxies, or independent extremists and terrorists has
changed even more since the mid-1990s.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994, Public Law No.103-160,
Section 1703 (50 USC 1522) mandated the coordination and integration of all Department of
Defense chemical and biological (CB) defense programs. As part of this coordination and
integration, the Secretary of Defense was directed to submit an assessment and a description of
plans to improve readiness to survive, fight, and win in a nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC)

CSIS Homeland Defense: Asymmetric Warfare & Terrorism 11/30/00 Page 3

contaminated environment.

The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City led to the issuance of Presidential
Decision Directive 39 (PDD-39) in June 1995. PDD-39 built on the previous directive and
contained three key elements of a national strategy for combating terrorism: (1) reduce
vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks and prevent and deter terrorist acts before they occur; (2)
respond to terrorist acts that do occur crisis management and apprehend and punish terrorists;
and (3) manage the consequences of terrorist acts, including providing emergency relief and
restoring capabilities to protect public health and safety and essential government services. This
directive also further elaborates on agencies' roles and responsibilities and some specific
measures to be taken regarding each element of the strategy.2

These policies have since been further developed by two key Presidential Decision
Directives, PDD-62 and PDD-63, which were issued in 1998. PDD-62 reaffirmed the basic
principles of PDD-39, but clarified and reinforced the specific missions of the US agencies
charged with defeating and defending against terrorism, and created a new and more systematic
federal approach to fighting the emerging threat posed by weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
This includes programs to deter terrorist incidents involving chemical, biological, radiological,
and nuclear weapons, and to manage the consequences if such incidents should occur. PDD-63
called for a national effort to assure the security of critical infrastructure. It covers both critical
infrastructure protection and cyber crime, and the security of both government and private sector
infrastructure to ensure national security, national economic security, and public health and
safety.

New legislation has also shaped US policy. "The Defense Against Weapons of Mass
Destruction Act," contained in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997
(title XIV of P.L. 104-201, Sept. 23, 1996), established the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Domestic
Preparedness Program. This act made the Department of Defense the lead federal agency for
implementing the program, and is to work in cooperation with the FBI, the Department of
Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services,

CSIS Homeland Defense: Asymmetric Warfare & Terrorism 11/30/00 Page 4

and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.3 Equally important, major new funds have
been spent on federal programs to deal with these threats, and federal spending increased by at
least 43% between FY1998 and FY2001.

At the same time, there is no way for federal, state, and local governments to predict what
attackers will actually take the risk of launching attacks on the US, or to predict the kind of event
or crisis that could suddenly change their willingness to use any given means and level of attack.
There are no clear boundaries that separate one form of attack from another, or that allow the US
government to predict where and how it will have to attack to defend against an attack or to
respond to one.

While it is tempting for governments to plan for the kind of cleanly defined single
incident with which governments can best cope, there is no reason to assume that an attacker
must follow such rules. Multiple attacks can greatly complicate defense and response and use
different means of attack. A single attack can use a variety of weapons ranging from a mix of
biological agents to a mix of chemical and information warfare. One attacker can piggyback on
the attack of another, and attacks on the US homeland can be linked to attacks on Americans
overseas or our allies. The very threat of an attack can be used to try to deter the US from
attacking or exercising its diplomatic or military power, or it can be used to try to force a
domestic political agenda on federal, state, or local governments.

Equally important, homeland defense must respond to a constantly changing threat. Many
of the actions necessary to defend the American homeland will take years sometimes well over
a decade to fully implement. In many cases, research and development is required, and the end
result must then be transformed into deployed and effective capabilities at the federal, state, and
local level. Such action can only be cost-effective, however, if it has a reasonable life cycle or
period of effectiveness.

As a result, the US must make decisions now to shape programs that will affect its
capabilities as much as a quarter of a century in the future. It must do so knowing that it cannot
predict what new threats will or will not emerge, and that grave uncertainties exist

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regarding the emergence of new methods of attack and defense, and the balance of technology
between them. The world can evolve in radically different directions, and is almost certain to do
so. The level of foreign threats can vary sharply by region, and the level of domestic threats can
change strikingly. Santayana's warning that those who cannot remember the past are condemned
to repeat it is as valid as ever, but those who ignore the uncertainty of future change may well
face far more serious problems.

These uncertainties have polarized part of the debate over the threat posed by weapons of
mass destruction and attacks producing mass casualties. There are those who believe
passionately that such attacks on the US homeland are inevitable. There are those who believe
the threat is unreal, and that it is an exaggeration that has grown out the search for new threats
following the end of the Cold War. There are debates over how the threat should be categorized
and prioritized, what response measures are needed, if any, and what kinds of attack are most
likely. So far, these debates have provided many insights as to what may happen, but no basis for
resolving the many uncertainties involved.

General Recommendations
The US faces real and growing potential threats from state actors, their proxies, or
independent extremists and terrorists. While US agencies and analysts have tendency to
exaggerate the immediate threat, or the threat posted by given actors, there are many potentially
hostile foreign and domestic sources of such threats, and some key threats like biological
weapons involve rapidly changing technologies that will pose a steadily growing threat to the
America homeland.

It is also clear from the preceding analysis that the federal government is making progress
in many areas, and laying the groundwork for improved cooperation with states, localities, the
private sector, and the public. Indeed by the standards of many governments that face far more
clear threats than the US, the US has already made significant progress in beginning to address
these issues. In many cases, the US is already well ahead of its friends and allies.

CSIS Homeland Defense: Asymmetric Warfare & Terrorism 11/30/00 Page 6

At the same time, there is much to be done. Many detailed recommendations have
already been discussed in the analysis of the threat, and federal activities and spending by
agency, and the recommendations of various commissions. In many cases, it is the willingness
and ability to address these detailed issues and recommendations that will determine the success
of the US effort in Homeland Defense and not the effort to find a few major recommendations.
The issue simply does not lend itself to vague calls for improved strategy or games with control,
coordination, and organization chart. The devil really is in the details, and "bumper sticker" or
one issue apporaches to policy are a recommendation for disaster.

There are, however, a number of general recommendations that could help refine and
improve the US effort.

Planning for Both Higher-Probability, Lower-Consequence
and Low Probability/Catastrophic Events
The US must come firmly to grips with the fact it does not exist at the end of history and
has not forged a kinder and gentler world:

* Unchecked vulnerability is an unacceptable danger for "the world's only superpower." Nature may abhor
a vacuum, but enemies do not, and the evolution of more effective homeland defense is almost certainly
essential to deterrence. At the same time, the very term "homeland defense" can be misleading. There are
no boundaries that separate US counterproliferation and counterterrorist activity in defense of the American
homeland from defense of its allies, military forces, and citizens overseas.

* Deterrence, counterproliferation, counterterrorism, and law enforcement must be closely linked in dealing
with these new threats, and it is clear that US must rethink many of its current security concepts. Even the
strongest advocates of homeland defense must recognize that a better offense may often be more effective
than improved defense. Improving the offensive threat of retaliation overseas may often be the best way of
defending both US interests overseas and US territory. A given investment in strengthening our allies may
often be a better defense against proliferation and terrorism than investing in domestic counterterrorism
programs. Hard trade-offs may have to be made between investments in the intelligence needed to
intimidate and deter foreign states and terrorist groups, and the law enforcement capabilities needed to
intercept attackers once they enter the US.

* The US cannot afford to rely on rethinking the offense as a substitute for improved defense, anymore that it
can use defense as a substitute for deterrence, offense, and retaliation: The US cannot prepare itself for the
new threats posed by asymmetric warfare, foreign proliferation and terrorism, and domestic violence using
new means like chemical, biological, and information warfare without much stronger programs to prevent
such attacks in the US and to respond to them if they succeed. The world of the 21st Century will not be a
repetition of the mutual assured destruction of the Cold War. Radical states, regimes acting under extreme
pressure, terrorists, and American citizens can turn threats like chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons

CSIS Homeland Defense: Asymmetric Warfare & Terrorism 11/30/00 Page 7

into grim realities in ways the US will never be able to deter with complete confidence.

* The US must act now if it is to prepare for the future. Developing an effective program means thinking at
least 25 years into the future. It will take at least a decade for federal, state, and local authorities to develop
the organization they need to deal with these threats. There are massive organizational problems that
federal, state, and local authorities must solve in order to cooperate efficiently. The role of the federal
government must be redefined in ways that are both compatible with a free society and which can preserve
one when it is under attack and when attacks are successful. It will take years of exercises, tests, and
training to determine what courses of action can be made to work and are most effective. Investing in such
a process of change means that it must be flexible and modular enough to react to the fact no one can
predict the nature of future attacks, but any meaningful improvement in capability will be so expensive that
it can only be justified if it can cope with uncertainty.

* The US must decide whether it will begin now to fund effective defenses against attacks on a scale far
different from any form of covert or serious attack than it has planned to deal with since the end of its
efforts to provide civil defense against nuclear attack. Marginal changes in federal, state, and local efforts,
and in the relationships between federal, state, and local agencies, can do much to cope with the threat
posed by attacks using large amounts of high explosives, chemical weapons, and low-lethality biological
and radiological attacks. While the level varies by state and locality, attacks involving 1,000 to 10,000
casualties do not require radical changes in response capabilities. Nuclear and high lethality biological
attacks can, however, easily produce casualties in excess of 10,000-100,000 Americans. To date, most
studies and exercises indicate that existing programs and capabilities would not be adequate to deal with
such attacks, and they would require far more decisive federal action and intervention than is currently
feasible. There are those who argue strongly that no such threat currently exists and those who argue with
equal force that they are inevitable. The present reaction of the federal government seems to be to try to
improve near-term response capabilities to deal with lower levels of attack while conducting research and
development into the higher levels of attack, but the policies involved remain unclear and the actions of
federal agencies reflect very different perceptions of these threats.
* The US must take a new approach to research and development and technology: There are many areas of new
technologies which must be moved off the drawing board, tested, deployed, and modified if the US is to have
defensive tools that begin to match its offensive capabilities. At the same time, the US needs careful net
assessments of the trends in the threat and how these impact on new approaches to defense and response.
Effective planning means that the US cannot afford to mix the myth of technology with the reality. The past
track record of US efforts to create and use new technologies in its defense is one of amazing eventual success.
At the same time, it is one of almost universal evidence that even the best technologists cannot be trusted to
create successful and deployable tools with anything like the promised effectiveness at the promised cost and
time.
The development of such a complex approach to threat assessment, based on a frank
admission of the vast uncertainties involved, goes against the basic grain of the American
character, and forces far more demanding criteria for program justification than are normally
required. The US cannot, however, deal effectively with threats posed by state actors, their
proxies, or independent extremists and terrorists unless it adopts such an approach.

Even if the US adopts such an approach, however, it will still have to concentrate its
limited resources on making marginal improvements in current capabilities to deal with current

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threats, while adopting a research and development-driven approach to dealing with more serious
and emerging threats. As a result, any US program is likely to have marginal impact, and require
constant evolution for at least the next half decade.

Planning for Both Terrorism and Asymmetric Warfare
No one can predict that the US homeland will be subject to major asymmetric attacks
using weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, this study has indicate that there is a clear
incentive for such attacks and that there are states that could emerge as potential attackers. There
is no firm way to assign priorities to the need to fill the gap between "terrorism" and the concern
with overt threats like ballistic missiles, but the following factors must be considered:

* Low level terrorist attacks are indeed more probable, and in fact are constantly occurring at the cyber and
false alarm level. Seen over a 25 year period, however, the probability of some sophisticated form of major
asymmetric attack is high. This probability not only affects the US, but its allies.

* The US faces a "non-Gaussian" reality in trying to predict and characterize the nature of such threats. There
is no "standard distribution curve" of past events that can be used to predict the future.

* The cumulative probability over time of a low to moderate probability event actually be the highest priority
for planning is much higher than the probability the most probable events will actually be the highest
priority for planning.

* The US cannot deal with the problem by adding analytic and technological elegance to the classic
American solution to all critical problems: "Simple, quick, and wrong."

* Crisis/war driven intentions and escalation extremely difficult to predict.

* History is irrational and is often made out of worst cases. Intelligent, prudent, "business as usual"
intentions usually means crisis never occurs in the first place.

* Asymmetric values and perceptions are very real, but extremely difficult to assess and transform into
meaningful predictions of future hostile action against the American homeland.

In reacting to the higher levels of threat posed by asymmetric warfare, the US must
consider the following factors:

* The problems of warning, defense and response differ sharply by level of attack and threat.

* The rules change for all responders as attacks escalate from conventional low-level terrorism ("crooks and
crazies") to major levels of damage and casualties:

* A true national emergency involving a nuclear and/or major biological attack will force the Department
Copyright CSIS, all rights reserved.

CSIS Homeland Defense: Asymmetric Warfare & Terrorism 11/30/00 Page 9

of Defense into a critical and probably lead role.

* Law enforcement must operate in state of national emergency, rather than on a business as usual basis. The
issue of having to retask law enforcement to operate in an undeclared state of war becomes a very real
prospect.

* Public health and emergency services will be saturated and face realities they can only half-anticipate.

* Possible threats can emerge to the basic structure of America's commerce, economic infrastructure,
continuity of government.

* Any a nuclear and/or major biological attack on the American Homeland well be linked to a serious theater-
driven crisis or war. If so, the threat will not be directed at US per se, but at US as extension of
regional/theater/foreign nation objectives.

* Allied targets, US forces and businesses overseas, and critical economic facilities can be targeted, not just
US.

* Multiple and sequential attacks become more likely, as are mixes of methods of attack.

* The availability of sophisticated biological and nuclear weapons more likely.

* The possibility of simultaneous attacks on information systems and critical infrastructure will offer
asymmetric attackers a low cost adjunct to virtually all forms of asymmetric and theater warfare.

Within this context, it is important to consider both what asymmetric threats and
terrorism have in common, and some of the critical differences. The common areas include:

* All threats relate to a wide range of different national security activities as well as a wide range of domestic
defense and response efforts.

* All efforts to improve Homeland defense compete for limited resources and federal emergency
management capabilities.

* All US response risks "squeezing the balloon:" Defending in one area while failing in the others pushes
attackers to attack the less defended area.

* There are many common problems in law enforcement.

* There are many common problems in public health and emergency services.

* Effective defense and response depends on an accurate assessment of the relative vulnerability of
commerce, economic infrastructure, continuity of government.

* Terrorist or asymmetric use of weapons of mass destruction create the risk of attacks with effects so costly
that response may prove unaffordable, and where it is unclear that technology and systems are available for
effective response.

At the same time, there are critical basic differences between the impact of most

CSIS Homeland Defense: Asymmetric Warfare & Terrorism 11/30/00 Page 10

forms of terrorism and state sponsored or proxy asymmetric warfare:

* All attacks are not created equal. Limited CBR attacks at the terrorist and extremist level are fundamentally
different from nuclear and highly lethal nuclear and biological attacks.

* Covert and proxy attacks by foreign governments are acts of war. Truly sophisticated terrorists will not
operate under the limits currently assumed in most studies.

* Such attacks sharply raise the probability of "cocktails" of different agents, mixes of CBRN and cyber
attacks, and the use of such attacks to supplement theater conflicts. NMD + CBRN + CIP is then credible.

* The current and perhaps any affordable response effort will collapse at finite and limited levels, forcing
federal/state/local governments and the private sector to improvise radically.

* Bioattacks with immune or genetically engineered strains that have unpredictable delays, persistence,
symptoms, ability to defeat treatment and vaccines, and lethality become a real possibility.

* Sophisticated attackers will respond to US defensive measures by (a) shifting their methods of attack to
strike at the least defended areas, and (b) developing countermeasures to exploit the weaknesses in any
defense.

* This makes "cost to defeat" and net technical assessment of all defensive programs and options critical.

* There does not seem to be any current prospect of dramatic changes in the ability to build a nuclear bomb
in the basement and in domestic/foreign terrorist ability to acquire nuclear weapons.

* The situation with biological technology may be radically different. Bioattacks with immune or genetically
engineered strains that have unpredictable delays, persistence, symptoms, ability to defeat treatment and
vaccines, and lethality then become a real possibility.

* The are major and natural differences in priority between Defense and Law Enforcement/Responder
communities. Each focuses on business as usual.

* Responders/defenders do not focus on levels attack so different from their experience that they are
regarded as "mission impossible."

* The linkage to foreign threats and wars is largely ignored outside the Department of Defense and
national security community.

* Intelligence and law enforcement efforts are now decoupled in ways that pose serious legal barriers to
effective action in dealing with asymmetric warfare and the the threat of nuclear and major biological
attacks.

* Asymmetric warfare can push US rapidly towards Presidential state of emergency, most terrorism is
business as usual.

* Defense/response may have to be given priority relative tor normal legal procedures and civil
rights.

* Federal, regional, and state efforts to cope with the breakdown/collapse of local defense and

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response efforts must have a much higher priority.

* The risk of attacks with effects so costly in damage and casualties that response may prove unaffordable is
much higher, and there is a very real uncertainty that the technology and response systems are nowq
available for effective response.

Reacting to the Uncertain Nature of the Threat
There are many "true believers" who feel that a given threat will or will not materialize in
a given form. Given the inherently uncertain nature of predictions as to who will be a threat, the
means of attack they will use, and the effectiveness of the means of attack they use, it is almost
certain that some of these "true believers" will prove to be right. The problem is that there is no
sufficient evidence to say which threats are most important, or to predict the means of attack and
level of effectiveness.

Federal programs are being forced to deal with an extremely broad spectrum of potential
threats that individually have low probability, but where there is high probability that some of
these threats will emerge as threats to the American homeland. As a result, each agency and
department tends to treat the threat in terms of its own mission and institutional bias, and this
problem cannot be resolved by central direction. Having the National Security Council, a
"terrorism" czar, or an interagency forum agree on a given threat or threats will not affect the
laws of probability. Uncertainty is simply uncertainty.

There is also an inherent danger in attempting to create a truly coherent program. When a
truly high degree of uncertainty exists regarding the need for specific forms of federal action,
enforcing a high degree of coherence from the center may actually interfere with the efficient
use of resources. In many cases, individual agencies will achieve a higher capability to deal
with uncertainty if they suboptimize around those marginal steps each can take to improve their
existing capabilities to deal with a wide range of threats. This is particularly true in a sharply
resource-constrained environment where many potentially desirable actions will remain
unfunded until a much clearer pattern of threats emerges.

This is also true because the threats at issue involve a wide spectrum of extremely lethal

CSIS Homeland Defense: Asymmetric Warfare & Terrorism 11/30/00 Page 12

biological weapons and nuclear weapons. Large amounts of high explosive, chemical weapons,
and less lethal biological weapons can produce truly tragic consequences. However, the level of
deterrence, defense, and response pales in terms of cost in comparison with the ability to deter,
defend, and respond to the kind of attacks that could involve casualties far in excess of 10,000
Americans and billions of dollars worth of damage.

There are three further problems involved in such threat analyses that badly need to be
dealt with in further US efforts to plan and execute effective programs:

* Most of the lethality and effects data for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons involve
major uncertainties that badly need to be resolved, and the federal government is just beginning to develop
effective models and simulations of such effects. There is no lack of effects data or models per se, simply an
immense lack of credibility and parametric modeling of uncertainty in a form that goes from dramatizing the
problem to being useful in developing specific lessons for federal, state, and local responses. These problems
have also been compounded by a natural tendency to build models to justify given policy recommendations or
programs. To be blunt, agencies in the federal government, FCRCs, contractors, and NGOs are far better at
using analysis to market given policies and programs than to perform analysis per se. There is a striking lack of
intellectual rigor and analytic integrity in many of today's efforts that must be remedied if the US is to
prioritize federal actions and funding.

* Programs shaped around today's threats, or some prioritization based on current assessments, will not solve
any of the key problems in planning and programming. Democracies do not suddenly develop solutions they
can then keep secret from their enemies. US programs take time to implement and must be publicly funded and
implemented in an open society. As a result, potential attackers can adopt new methods of attack and respond
to any remaining gaps in US capability. This makes it absolutely essential to explicitly analyze the cost of
defeating any given federal program over time, and the probable impact improving any US capability will have
in driving attackers to use other means.

* New methods of analysis must be developed that examine the present and future balance of offensive,
defensive, and response capabilities. They must be supported by adequate net technological assessments, and
analysis of countermeasures and costs to defeat all ongoing and proposed federal activities. It is difficult
enough to analyze current or near-term risks, but such analysis simply is not adequate. Effective US programs
can take a decade or more to fully implement, and the technology shaping current threats is constantly
changing. This is not simply a matter of basic advances like biotechnology, it is a matter of the steadily
growing dissemination of the technology equipment needed to produce and deliver large amounts of high
explosive, chemical weapons, and biological weapons. Much of the description of potential threats does not
explicitly analyze the potential growth or changes in threat technology even when it proposes the adoption of
new deterrent, defensive, and response technologies over a period of many years. There is a lack of
technological net assessment that is a key not only to identifying and prioritizing effective programs, but to
managing them so they counter technology growth.

CSIS Homeland Defense: Asymmetric Warfare & Terrorism 11/30/00 Page 13

The Lack of "Transparency" in Federal Programs
There is nothing unique about the lack of transparency in federal programs to deal with
the threats posed by state actors, their proxies, and foreign and domestic extremists, and the use
of high explosives, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. The US budget, and
agency program and budget descriptions often fail to describe their budgets, the nature of their
programs, and measures of effectiveness in any detail. Aside from the Department of Defense,
there are virtually no future year spending projections, and the Department of Defense classifies
the breakouts of its future year spending projections that provide any useful description of how
money is to be spent.

Far too much of the federal literature on "terrorism," however, is threat-driven. It does
not describe and justify the program, it describes the threat. There is no description of exactly
what program activities are involved, or of past, current, and projected costs. There are no
measures of effectiveness, or total spending and procurement are confused with such measure.
As a result, it becomes extremely difficult to understand what the federal government is doing
and why it should do it. Many of the descriptions that agencies do provide raise real questions
about the extent to which given agencies have simply reshaped existing activities to take account
of the fact the Congress is providing new incremental funding, and counter-terrorism has become
fashionable.

These problems are compounded in part by the fact that OMB is required to report to the
Congress, but there is no central agency charged with creating a plan, program, and budget. At
the same time, they are compounded by a host of jurisdictional problems with the Congress, and
the lack of a single committee or joint committee structure that could provide a cohesive degree
of overview. As a result, there is a large pool of federal reporting on individual problems and
issues, but little effort to appraise the overall program.

There are those who would argue that part of the reason for the lack of transparency is
security. There are certainly areas like intelligence where detailed program descriptions could
compromise security. There are other areas where too detailed a description of US

CSIS Homeland Defense: Asymmetric Warfare & Terrorism 11/30/00 Page 14

investigative and response capabilities could aid an attacker in planning an attack. In broad
terms, however, there is little reason to classify most of the information needed to allow outside
analysts to fully understand the nature of federal efforts, and there are good reasons to require
federal agencies to provide such data.

To put it bluntly, far too many federal activities seem to have limited substantive value,
raise major uncertainties, reflect the reshaping of existing programs to obtain incremental
funding, or raise questions about duplication. Furthermore, there is a tendency to imply short-
term solutions can be found to long-term problems, or fund minor palliatives simply for sake of
seeming to act. Few, if any, programs provide any picture of what it will cost to fully implement
the activities agencies are now beginning. None seem to provide meaningful measures of
effectiveness, or any analysis of the current and future costs of "defeating" the capabilities being
funded.

* While there are sharp limits to how much coordination can be forced on a wide range of federal activities,
the federal effort would almost certainly benefit from a requirement for a comprehensive annual report
similar to the one the Secretary of Defense provides on the national security activities of the Department of
Defense, and for including both a net assessment of the threats and US capabilities, and the future year
budget implications of given federal activities as well as a description of the current budget request.

* Regardless of how the issue of Congressional jurisdiction is resolved, there is also a clear case for
requiring the federal government to submit an annual budget justification document, and future year
budget plan, that covers all related federal activities at the same time the President submits the federal
budget. Such a document could be both unclassified and classified. It would thus ensure that the Executive
Branch had to coordinate its programs fully as part of the budget process. It would ensure that whoever is
in charge in the federal government had real review authority, and control of money is generally better than
a title. It would ensure that all elements of Congress reviewed a common plan, which may be far more
important that creating a single new committee. It would also allow full public review and state and local
access to the overall federal plan. It is easy to talk about "reinventing government;" it would be nice to
actually provide some degree of functional transparency in a critical new mission area.

Focusing on Priorities, Programs, and Trade-offs: Creating
Effective Planning, Programming, and Budgeting
The US would face serious resource allocation problems even if CBRN threats were less
uncertain and ambiguous. The threat posed by covert, terrorist, or extremist use of weapons of
mass destruction is only one of the new threats the US must react to. Homeland defense includes
direct threats such as missile attack, and other evolving threats like information warfare. There

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are other transnational threats like narcotics, organized crime, and illegal immigration that pose a
serious threat to American society even if they are not military or paramilitary in character. At
the same time, the US faces major problems in funding its existing future year defense program,
and its civil discretionary and entitlements budget. Money is, and will remain, a critical factor,
and will force hard trade-offs on all government action.

This report focuses on the threats to the American homeland posed by state actors, the
use of proxies, terrorist and extremist attacks by foreign groups or individuals, and terrorist and
extremist attacks by residents of the US using conventional weapons and weapons of mass
destruction. Separate reports focus on the threat posed by direct attacks by foreign states using
weapons like ballistic missiles, and the threat of information and economic warfare.

This focus is not intended to imply that the emerging threats to the American homeland
can be neatly compartmented, or do not interact. The spectrum of threats foreign governments
can pose includes all of these methods of attack. Well-organized foreign and domestic
terrorist/extremist groups have the potential to pose a wide range of high explosive, chemical,
biological, and information warfare threats. There are no rules that say foreign governments and
foreign and domestic terrorist/extremist groups cannot cooperate or piggyback on each other's
activities. In broad terms, however, the threats to the American homeland posed by state actors,
the use of proxies, terrorist and extremist attacks by foreign groups or individuals, and terrorist
and extremist attacks by residents of the US using conventional weapons and weapons of mass
destruction require a different mix of responses. These responses can only be discussed in terms
of practical alternatives if it is narrowed down to the point where each of the major relevant
homeland defense options can be analyzed in depth.

As is the case with national missile defense, this report also deals with issues that are
highly politicized. Preparing to deal with the spectrum of threats posed by foreign states and
terrorists using weapons of mass destruction is currently fashionable and "politically correct."
This has had major benefits in many ways. The President and high level officials have set forth
clear policies for dealing with many aspects of the problem. The Congress has passed dramatic

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new legislation, and major changes are well underway to improve federal, state, and local
preparation to deal with the threat. There is new money available to federal agencies at a time
when severe budget constraints exist on virtually every form of government spending.

Unfortunately, however, the very popularity of the issue of terrorism and weapons of
mass destruction also means that there has been a rush to react to potential threats without
developing a common definition of the combined threat posed by covert attacks by state actors,
state use of proxies, terrorist and extremist attacks by foreign groups or individuals, and terrorist
and extremist attacks by residents of the US. There is still insufficient definition of the different
kinds of threats that different kinds of weapons of mass destruction pose and how these relate to
threats using conventional explosives. In many cases, departments and agencies are defining the
nature and intensity of the threat to meet their own internal needs and perceptions, or are acting
on assumptions that imply a far better ability to predict the future than can possibly exist.

As yet, there is only limited coordination in many federal, state, and local efforts except
at the organization chart level. Departments and agencies struggle for resources and influence,
and there are good reasons for the resulting "feeding frenzy." Even if one ignores all federal
funding for critical infrastructure protection, the funding for counterterrorism has risen from $6.5
billion in FY1998 to $8.3 billion in FY2001, and the funding for new efforts like dealing with
the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction have risen from approximately $645 million in
FY1998 to $1.6 billion in FY2001.

Under these conditions, old programs are being recast to suit new policy priorities and
rhetoric, while agencies compete to create new programs and assume lead responsibility. In some
ways, homeland defense has replaced the Strategic Defense Initiative as the "next best thing." As
the GAO and CBO have pointed out, the sharp rise in spending has not yet led to tight central
management of the homeland defense effort, although there is a growing and steadily more
effective effort to develop balanced and coordinated capabilities. There also has been little
success in estimating the mid and long term budget implications of program growth and new
responsibilities at the federal level, much less the state and local level. Many RDT&E efforts

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have been started without clear deployment and life cycle implementation plans, and there are
few meaningful measures of effectiveness for federal spending.

The sharp limits on how much money and human resources can be allocated to this
aspect of homeland defense will, however, soon force the US to be much more selective in
choosing the programs it can continue to expand or sustain. Even today, the government needs to
make every effort to coordinate its efforts and prioritize them. Regardless of partisan rhetoric, it
is clear that US is not yet prepared to pay for its existing military forces and capabilities.
Furthermore, there are other major transnational problems like drugs, immigration, and
cybercrime. There are many unrelated shortfalls in law enforcement and emergency response
capabilities. For example, the US faces a major crisis in medical spending even without
considering the impact of responding to chemical, nuclear, and biological attacks, and is sharply
reducing the size of its emergency medical facilities and hospital intensive treatment capabilities.

It is only possible to ignore these realities at the start of a homeland defense program, at a
time when planning is largely threat driven and the cost of new activities is relatively limited. As
long as current outlays are limited, it is all too easy to find a credible potential threat, issue
warnings, make a speech, issue an executive order, or pass a law. Any competent analyst,
contractor, research firm, NGO or advisory group can find a new way to focus on potential
threats and the potential merit of uncosted and poorly defined solutions. The end result is starting
far more activities than can be finished, failing to consider the future trade-offs that must be
made to deploy effective capabilities, duplicating other efforts, or refashioning existing programs
under new labels.

* Improvements in policy and strategy are no substitute for effective management, programming,
budgeting, and measures of the effectiveness. The practical challenge is to use more management
information systems and PPB methods to tie the efforts of government together to develop clear
priorities, ensure that cost estimates are provided of bringing programs to maturity and sustaining
them, tightly manage where the money goes on an ongoing basis, ensure that the risk of
countermeasures and cost to defeat is assessed on a continuing basis, find suitable measures of
effectiveness, and make suitable iterative trade-offs. In fact, one recommendation of this report is that
there be one central point in the federal government charged with developing a budget overview of
current programs, an analysis of their future year costs and deployment costs, relevance to the threat,
and measures of effectiveness.

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Unless this transparency is ruthlessly forced upon the federal government both in the
executive branch and Congress no amount of organizational changes, committees, legislation,
and directives will create the proper focus. The creation of lead agencies will be a bureaucratic
farce, and state and local authorities will be confronted with conflicting demands, and will often
have little impact on federal bureaucratic infighting.

Equally important, Congressional oversight and effective outside review and constructive
criticism will be impossible. The constant misuse of security classification will create large areas
of "black programs" that encourage departmental empire building and a lack of management.
Programs with limited relevance will be recast as part of the homeland defense effort, and areas
that really need funding will be ignored.

Effective Action Must Be Broad-Based and Sub-Optimize
Efficiently
At the same time, there are limits to how much coordination is practical, and how much
central direction can be applied. The federal government, individual agencies, and state and local
governments will often have to sub-optimize changes to their current programs in those areas
where they can do the most in the near term with the least money. While the Clinton
Administration is seeking to create a cohesive federal program, and has made progress towards
this end, there are no models, analytic methods, or simulations which can hope to integrate all of
the elements of homeland defense into some master analysis or set of priorities based upon a
common model.

The problem is not specialization and compartmentation per se. It is that it must be the
result of central management and oversight, particularly given the severe limits on what any
foreseeable combination of allied, federal, state, and local efforts can do. Cost constraints will be
tight, trade-offs will be made whether or not they are made openly and explicitly, and the result
will be anything but leak-proof. Most importantly, central direction is needed to ensure that the
capabilities the US creates evolve to respond to reality and not to established bureaucratic

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priorities.

It is also far from clear that threat and risk assessments can be used to create a set of
scenarios that focus the defense effort, or which prioritize it around a select and well-defined
group of scenarios. Once again, the problem is to determine the range of low probability events
the US may have to react to, and what this means for deterrence, offense, defense, and response.
While it is most likely that the US will have to react to a series of relatively low level events in
the near term, the cumulative probability that the US may have to react to a few much more
serious events over the mid to long term may well be equally high. As a result, threat and risk
assessments must consider nuclear and highly lethal biological attacks.

Furthermore, there are deep conceptual problems. As has already been discussed in
depth, the range of threats simply are not predictable enough for given agencies to attempt more
than a constantly evolving and uncertain process of suboptimization. Put differently, departments
and agencies must often do what they can to improve their capabilities at the margin, rather than
seek to create building blocks in some kind of coherent homeland defense.

Such efforts may not, however, have great impact on US ability to defend against nuclear
and highly lethal biological attacks. They may give the impression of defense and response
capability, but the end result might not be able to cope with very high levels of attack, which
may well force all levels of government to improvise radically with little warning and under
intense pressure. Marginal improvements in resources may fail to deal with response
requirements or be impossible to allocate efficiently within the time windows required. This is
particularly true because there currently seems to be little practical understanding of what a
"worst case" or high level attack would really do, and how uncertain its effects now are.

Finally, the present coordination effort often focuses either on "worst cases" or on those
federal programs identified as being directly designed to defend or respond to the threat state
actors, their proxies, or independent extremists and terrorists pose to the American homeland.
This is almost certainly not the right way to create the most effective overall program to actually
improve homeland defense. Such a program must explicitly consider the offensive,

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deterrent, and retaliatory capabilities of US military and intelligence agencies, and the role their
activities overseas can play in creating an effective deterrent to foreign attacks on the US.

As a result, the US needs to rethink its approach to develop a program that constantly
evolves, and which is based on the dilemma that it must try to manage chaos:

* Effective homeland defense must be based on responding to the patterns of threats that actually emerge,
and to shifts in the most likely contingency requirements. It is virtually an iron law that any effort will fail
that is based upon the current theories of what threats may emerge in a given area. Once again, a guiding
principle is that there is a timeline of at least a quarter of a century of uncertain risk. No program or
analysis made today can possibly be based on the correct priorities. The issue is rather how quickly and
effectively programs can anticipate change and react to it.

* The key to a successful result is that sub-optimization must be deliberate and subject to broad review, and
not simply evolve by accident. Whatever the federal government does, it must involve an explicit and well-
reasoned balance between:

* Offense and defense.

* Action overseas and in concert with our friends and allies, and measures actually taken in the US.

* Counterproliferation and counterterrorism.

* Defense and response.

* Including threats in the spectrum of threats requiring special action by the federal government as
part of homeland defense, and the role played by conventional law enforcement.

Managing Research and Development, Rather Than
Treating CBRN As A Wish List and Slush Fund
Research and development programs receive little detailed description and the description
that is provided often concentrates on the threat being dealt with, and provides little program
detail. No agency provides a meaningful description of its future program, future costs,
milestones, or measures of effectiveness. Cooperation with state and local agencies is often
ignored, and when it is not, it tends to be discussed in anecdotal terms

There is no evidence that any department or agency has provided a technology net
assessment to examine whether its programs will provide defensive capabilities that outpace
advances in offensive capability. There is virtually no discussion of the risk posed by

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countermeasures or the cost to defeat current and planned programs. There is no discussion of
the outyear costs of research and development activity or of estimated deployment schedules,
measures of effectiveness, and life cycle costs. Almost without exception, there is no way to be
certain to what degree which given programs in given departments or agencies are actually
focused on CBRN and other counterterrorism activities, or have simply recast ongoing or desired
programs to compete for such funds.

* Federal research and development efforts have a poor to dismal record of effective management. It is time to
reverse this situation.

Looking Beyond CBRN: Dealing with All Medical Risks
and Costs
The previous analysis indicates that there is a need for a zero-based review of the current
data on the lethality of biological weapons, and for a comprehensive net technical assessment of
current and future trends in biological offense and defense. Biological warfare defense and
response efforts cannot, however, be separated from the need for an effective national health
program.

Response measures against biological and nuclear attacks can require truly massive
increases in public health efforts and emergency services at a time when the US already faces
major problems in funding medical entitlement programs and growing cost constraints are being
placed on investments in medical capabilities which normally have high utilization rates. The
response capabilities required to deal with large biological and nuclear "incidents" may simply
be unaffordable without far more evidence that such attacks are likely, and effective treatment
may simply be impossible. One grim result is that "triage" may have to be performed in ways
that deliberately leave a very high number of casualties to die.

The risk of attacks on the American homeland that have massive medical consequences
requires that homeland defense measures deal with two major interrelated problems in public
health policy and spending.

* The key limiting factor in terms of response capability and expense will be medical treatment. This

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requires nationally distributed capabilities, but it is unclear that they are technically credible and can be
made cost effective? It is far from clear that today's defense and response training really prepares
anyone for threats other than relatively small and easily characterized events. Much of the non-medical
response effort seems to be focused around obtaining equipment and facilities to "get well" from past
underfunding or provide equipment for small events. It is unclear that creating standard packages of
such equipment, or responding to responder's priorities, really deals with the problem of homeland
defense. The question is what kinds of training and equipment really help and what can really be done
locally on a nation-wide basis.

* There is a significant amount of medical literature including a recent report by the National
Intelligence Council that indicates that the US is under significant cumulative threat of the outbreak
of some disease for which current medical treatment is not adequate. In short, the US may face a
serious threat from nature as well as from foreign attackers and domestic extremists.4

* However, US medical spending has already reached the point where it dominates much of the end use
of the entitlements in the federal budget, and where drastic efforts are being made to down-size
medical spending. These facts are largely ignored in much of the current discussion of homeland
defense, which focuses on threats and then on research and development measures that do not have a
deployment cost, and which often involves response efforts so limited in estimated casualties that the
list of equipment is "affordable" largely because it is assumed that the existing infrastructure can deal
with the casualties and the medical impact is both treatable and involves non-infectious threats. These
assumptions, however, are only valid as long as the most serious threats are defined away and the
eventual need to pay for facilities and a full spectrum of response measures is ignored.

Homeland Defense and/or Law Enforcement
The US also faces major problems in defining the point at which federal intervention in
some form of homeland defense program is needed, as distinguished from a reliance on normal
federal, state, and local law enforcement. Many of the definitions now used for terrorism can
include virtually any threat of violence by an individual or small group with a political or
ideological agenda, or who is willing to attack civilians. In practice, however, most such threats
are dealt with as normal law enforcement activities unless some foreign element is involved.
Even in those cases where foreigners are involved, many cases are dealt with through normal law
enforcement means.

It does not make sense to change these arrangements without clear cause, and the
previous statistics on terrorism in the United States need to be kept in perspective in allocating
law enforcement resources. According to the FBI's uniform crime statistics, there were 10 cities
in the US with populations of 100,000 or more that had more than 100 murders in the first six
months of 1999, and three with over 200 murders. If rapes and assaults are counted, there were

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47 cities in the US with populations of 100,000 or more that had more than 1,000 "casualties" in
the first six months of 1999, and nine with over 3,000.5

There is a reason why it now takes some 40,000 armed men and women to try to secure
the greater New York metropolitan area alone. There is also a reason why law enforcement
activity cannot be centered around counterterrorism or dealing with low probability covert
attacks until there is a far clearer and more dangerous threat than now appears to exist. At the
same time, it is inconceivable that the US could develop an effective approach to homeland
defense that did not attempt to make use of these resources at every level of law enforcement.

* The task is to find the right trade-offs between reliance on normal law enforcement and specialized
homeland defense activity, and between using existing resources with other primary missions and creating
new dedicated homeland defense components.

* It may be that the US will require a more decentralized and distributed defense and response effort than the
federal government now realizes. Most forms of federal response, and a great deal of state and regional
response, could come too late to fit the critical time windows for biotreatment. And dealing with the prompt
effects of nuclear explosions and fall out. Some form of decentralized and distributed local/civil defense
may be the only answer. The questions then become prompt attack characterization, instructions to flee or
stay, proper guidance to responders, and options for very low-cost distributed defensive aids like masks,
medicines, etc.

* The US needs to rethink civil defense. It must look beyond asymmetric warfare and terrorism, consider
broader national public health priorities, and NMD "leakage" problems. Real-time warning and threat and
attack characterization, allow federal, state, and local defenders and responders to cover widest area most
cheaply: The effective use of media to warn and advise citizens at risk will often help people avoid the
effects of attack. Flee or stay advice will be critical, so will detailed advice on what to do in the office,
home, and car a. There must be a real time linkage between defender, responder and media. At the same
time, the US should analyze whether there are credible and affordable low cost civil defense options, and
examine what can citizens, corporations, local, state, and federal governments might really be able to
afford. Options like gas and biological defense masks, home shelters, etc. need examination.

* At a different level, the US needs to study ecological and agricultural defense. The risk posed by
biotechnology cannot be evaluated solely in terms of threats to human beings.

Rule of Law, Human Rights, Asymmetric Warfare, High
Levels of Attack and "New Paradigms"
Homeland defense impacts heavily on legal and human rights issues. Until now, the
threats to the US have been limited enough so that the US can afford to shape its response on the
basis of strict observance of civil law and human rights. There is also ample emergency authority

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for the President, Governors, and local officials to use virtually all of the assets of government to
deal with homeland defense emergencies if they arise. Even restrictions on the use of the
military, such as the Posse Comitatus Act (18 USC 1385), have so many exceptions that the
problem is much more likely to get sufficient warning to act than any practical legal barrier to
effective action.

Much of the present discussion of legal and human rights issues, however, ignores what
would happen if the threat of the use of biological or nuclear weapons against the US homeland
became more tangible and immediate. It also ignores the real world effects of state actors or
terrorists/extremists carrying out highly lethal attacks. These effects include the problems in
human rights created by the need to deal with mass triage in the face of saturated medical
facilities and/or to contain a civil population with force in the event of an attack using a highly
infectious agent.

* US intelligence efforts and law enforcement must both reorganize to deal with the risk of a "paradigm"
shift in the willingness and ability to use weapons of mass destruction in unconventional attacks on the US
homeland, and be given the proper legislation and regulations. Many states are now involved in a process
of proliferation that will change their capabilities to carry out such attacks. Advances in manufacturing,
petrochemicals, and the biological sciences are making it steadily easier for both states and non-state actors
to build lethal chemical and biological weapons. The technology and components to develop every aspect
of nuclear weapons other than weapons grade uranium and plutonium are becoming steadily more
available.

* At the same time, there is a need for new basic safeguards to the rule of law and human rights. No change
should be made to the protection of civil and individual rights that does not require extraordinary due
process and carefully defined levels of threat and potential risk. Virtually all attacks and threats to date
have not posed a level of risk that justifies any change in current legal restrictions or protections of civil
liberties. Such threats may emerge in the future, but they also may not. The risks posed by weapons of mass
destruction and asymmetric warfare must be defined in ways where changes in the role of US intelligence,
defense, and response are clearly linked to outside judicial review, and where only the most serious risks
involve changes in the way in which government deals with such threats. There must be clear plans for
possible states of emergency that do more than enable effective governmental defense and response. The
US must define how it will act to protect civil rights and liberties even under worst case defense and
response conditions, and provide a clearly defined set of reviewing authorities for any action in a state of
emergency,

* The issue of live or let die triage in the event of an actual attack where casualties saturate response
capability poses the greatest single threat to human rights. It must be addressed to guide local responders
and determine whether new diagnostic and detection technology can reduce the medical burden. The US
should not wait for the event to come to grips with the critical issue of how triage can be provided in
response activities in ways which best protect individual rights as well as allow the most effective use of
limited response resources.

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The Need for Central Coordination and Management, and
the Creation of Effective Future Year Planning and
RDT&E Management Systems
There is broad agreement that some central office is needed to coordinate the federal
effort, to ensure proper program and budget review, to coordinate auditing of capability, and to
coordinate emergency response capability. There is also broad agreement that such a coordinator
needs sufficient rank and authority to speak for the President on these issues, and to ensure that
agency budget submissions must include adequate programs and funding. Some have proposed
an independent office similar to the Y2K program, some a new form of drug Czar, and some a
cabinet level officer.
* These issues, however, need far more careful study, and the issue is not as much one of who is in charge as
one of what they are really in charge of and the planning and management tools they need. Similar
arguments are being made about providing a coordinator to deal with critical infrastructure attacks and all
of homeland defense. At the same time, many of the prevention and response skills involved are highly
specialized and duplicate the activity needed to respond to many other forms of emergency accidents,
weather, etc. At this point in time, what really seems to be needed is a Presidential Task Force to review the
broad need to deal with all of the emerging threats to the American homeland, and to draft
recommendations and a PDD for the next President.

* There are fundamental differences in the response needed at given levels of attack and threat: Coordinating
counterterrorism, civil law enforcement, and response to relatively limited attacks does not involve a state
of national emergency, an undeclared war, or involve the kind of defense and response efforts need to deal
with major nuclear and biological attacks. It is not clear that an office focused on "peacetime" threats will
have the staffing, contingency planning capability, and crisis management capability to deal with the kind
of threats posed by asymmetric warfare.

* Nuclear, large-scale biological attacks, and infectious biological attacks require very different levels of
skills. Regardless of the federal direction of Homeland defense efforts, the technology and effects of the
most lethal forms of attack are so different that any effort to manage the response must include different
mixes of skills and federal departments and agencies.

* No change in management or direction can be effective unless it resolves how to integrate the Department
of Defense and US intelligence community into a Homeland Defense effort designed to deal with
asymmetric threats, state and proxy attacks using nuclear weapons or effective biological weapons. Scale
is a critical issue, as is the potential need to integrate the response to attacks on the US Homeland with US
action in theater or regional conflicts.

* Effective coordination and management means effective review of budgets and future year programs. No
change in leadership or management can be effective that is not based on review authority over the budgets
of federal departments and agencies, and the development and review of an integrated future year program
that includes a rolling program budget that project expenditures at least five years into the future, and
allows mission-orient assessment of the overall federal effort.

* Similarly, effective coordination and management requires full review of all federal RDT&E efforts, and
sufficient net technical capability to make risk assessments and carry out net technical assessments.
Technology offers major potential improvements in Homeland defense, but it must be applied as a system
or systems, not a series of uncoordinated increments, and analysis of the cost to deploy technology and

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means of defeating it needs far more explicit analysis than it currently receives.

* Crisis and operations management can be required at radically different levels and involve radically
different levels of planning assistance. Anyone can be called a crisis manager. Actual crisis management is
extremely difficult. The moment a crisis escalates from "conventional" terrorism to a major threat, or
response to major uses of weapons of mass destruction, an effective operations command or management
capability must be in place.

Broader Solutions and New Approaches to National
Strategy: Reacting to Asymmetric Warfare
Finally, the US needs to close the current gap between counterterrorism and asymmetric
warfare in ways which go beyond narrowly defined defense and response efforts. Homeland
defense should not be defined purely in terms of reactions within the US homeland. The US must
examine ways it can use its offensive capabilities to deter such attacks, and respond to them in
ways that will ensure such attacks are limited in scope or do not occur in the future.

* There is a need to revise US strategic offensive doctrine to deal with these issues. The Cold War may be
over, but the threat of CBRN attacks is not. Homeland defense should not mean that the US drifts towards a
response-oriented approach or a Maginot Line-like emphasis on defense. Major asymmetric attacks must be
firmly deterred, preempted or reduced in size, and firmly retaliated to. It must be clear that attacking states,
and states that deliberately host terrorist movements, will be the target of US strikes directed at the nation
and not simply at the leadership, and .the US needs to give its theater and strategic forces this option. As
part of this effort, the US must answer the following questions:

* What changes to deterrence, offensive strike capability, and retaliation really matter if states and foreign
movements are involved?

* What can be done to aid defenders in securing US borders and territory?

* What can be done in terms of intelligence/technology to rapidly and conclusively identify the attacker?

* What can be done to accelerate and improve warning time for offensive/counterattack/deterrent purposes?

* When is the threat/attack one that justifies "war?" When does a civil emergency become a de facto
conflict"

* What should the retaliatory doctrine be? How lethal should the escalatory action be? How can the US best
halt or punish the attacker? How can it prevent follow-on attacks? Deter future attackers?

* What strategic linkage is needed between Homeland defense and theater defense. What will act best to both
defend the US homeland and enhance force protection? Protect our allies? Deter third party adventures and
copycats? Cope with multiple, mixed (cocktail), and sequential attacks.

* Responding to the threats posed by asymmetric warfare also means revisions to intelligence, threat
assessment efforts, arms control, and counterpoliferation efforts. Once again, effective US efforts raise key

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issues that go beyond the scope of this study:

* Establishing opportunities and limits for intelligence capability is critical to effective action.

* How much can targeting, precision strike, weapons effects, and BDA really be improved?

* Limiting asymmetric capability and peacetime improvements in threat characterization are critical:
Limiting and monitoring technology transfer and RDT&E efforts is the first line of defense.

* What can be done to improve or replace HUMINT? Can data-mining and AI provide a new technological
approach?

* The myth that expanding HUMINT efforts will help either needs to be transformed into a reality or
dismissed.

* How can cooperation with our allies intelligence services and international law enforcement agencies be
used as a first line of defense?

* Detection of efforts to proliferate is not enough. Homeland defense requires US intelligence to improve its
capability to characterize the nature of possible attacks as precisely as possible to reduce burden on
defender and responder, and help prioritize and define options for offensive/counteroffensive action.

* Nunn-Lugar is extremely cost-effective Homeland defense. It needs to be fully extended to biological
weapons.

* Sanctions and arms control and export control regimes like the NPT, MTCR, Australia list, Wassener
Convention, Chemical Warfare Convention, etc. may be effective tools. They too are potential tools in
creating a more effective approach to Homeland defense.

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1 United States General Accounting Office, GAO Report to Congressional Requesters, "Combating
Terrorism, Federal Agencies' Efforts to Implement National Policy and Strategy," GAO/NSIAD-
97-254, September 1997, p. 15.

2 GAO/T-NSIAD-98-164, "Combating Terrorism," April 23, 1998, P. 3.

3 GAO/T-NSIAD-98-164, "Combating Terrorism," April 23, 1998, P. 4.

4 National Intelligence Council, "The Global Infectious Disease Threat and Its Implications for the
United States, CIA NIE-99-17D, January 2000.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/nie/report/nie99-17d.htm.

5 FBI, Uniform Crime Reports, January-June 1999, November 21, 1999. Table 4.