Interagency Command for Homeland Security

On 11 September 2001 America was brutally attacked on its own soil. Nine days later, on 20 September 2001, President Bush announced the creation of the Office for Homeland Security. This office is charged to pull together the efforts of all the organizations with a role in homeland security but it does not go far enough. Interagency interaction at only the highest levels is not enough to knock down barriers to ensure quick, richly informed, decision-making, and adaptable action. To do this, a new kind of interagency command for homeland security needs to be established. This organization would be under the Office for Homeland Security. It would take jointness to a level that transcends the military to include non-DoD, and even non-governmental actors, and effectively coordinate the use of all the instruments of power. This paper explores organizational structures and uses the structure of a combatant command to suggest on how all of the organizations involved in homeland security can effectively work together. A boundaryless war requires a boundaryless response and our current method of ensuring our homeland security is a far cry from that.