Examination of USNORTHCOM's Ability to Respond to Domestic Catastrophes in Support of Civil Authorities.

摘要

In the wake of 9/11, the Secretary of Defense assigned to USNORTHCOM the mission of providing military forces in support of civilian authorities in case of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack anywhere in the United States or its territories. With this directive, USNORTHCOM planners formed Joint Task Force-Civil Support (JTF-CS) with the mission of providing support to civilian authorities. This Task Force contains multiple units across the United States to support a myriad of potential scenarios. In the structure of JTF-CS there are representatives from the Army, Air Force, and Navy ready within 24-48 hours' notice to assist civilian authorities based on identified gaps in states' capabilities. Distributed across the USNORTHCOM area of responsibility, these military forces must deploy following a strict timeline set by USNORTHCOM. To support the deployment of these forces, base support installations synchronize and coordinate deployment support efforts to ensure that these forces abide by USNORTHCOM timelines. Factors that this research will consider are USNORTHCOM's ability to deploy military forces to the incident area, capabilities required to support civil authorities, and requirements necessary to support domestic catastrophes. Successful synchronization will safeguard a unified effort among all stakeholders to include military forces and civilian authorities, especially at the state level. The monograph also will consider the increased emphasis on responsibilities by local state response forces. Additionally, based on recent changes to Army Doctrine Publication ADP 3-0, Defense Support of Civil Authorities is part of the unified land operations concept. This capstone doctrine places increased emphasis on the systems available to deploy military forces in support of civilian authorities.