Defending the Homeland: An Historical Perspective

摘要

The emphasis on homeland security over the last year has generated intense interest in a range of possible threats. Understandably, the current focus has been on civil defense, with concern for protecting innocent populations from weapons of mass destruction. Planners today as in the past, however, recognize that civil defense is only one part of a larger issue. In analyses conducted for both the Quadrennial Defense Review and the global war against terrorism, the U.S. Army Center of Military History added rear area security, border security, aid to the civil authority, internment, humanitarian relief, economic intervention, and domestic disturbances to civil defense in its consideration of homeland defense-the military component of homeland security.