Bird Flu, Hurricanes, the Mexico Problem
Code Name of the Week: Ardent Sentry
Despite the administration's politically motivated push for a strong federal government response to a possible influenza pandemic and the president's love affair with all things military, the Pentagon is planning to pay only perfunctory attention to bird flu in its largest 2006 homeland defense excercise.
Ardent Sentry 06 scheduled
for next May, will take place under the conditions of an avian influenza
epidemic in Asia, Africa, and South America, but the war game itself is
centered on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction events in Maine and
Michigan, and a Pneumonic Plague epidemic that leads to a
border control crisis as Mexicans begin streaming north to seek treatment.
Oh, and there's a hurricane -- "Alex" -- thrown in
just for good measure.
No lessons learned here. The federal government may be charged with securing the domestic needs of the American people, but it is only when it comes to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction that the administration really cares.
Ardent Sentry is a joint U.S.-Canadian homeland security war game focused on "defense support to civil authorities." It is co-sponsored by the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) under the Joint Chiefs of State national exercise program. It will be held concurrently with the Department of Homeland Security exercise Top Officials ("TOPOFF") IV, a congressionally mandated event, and will primarily be played in Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Washington states in the United States, and New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario in Canada.
According to NORTHCOM briefing materials prepared for Ardent
Sentry, the exercise is primarily intended to test responses to asymmetric threats
to the United States and Canada. The exercise "objectives" are to validate
a new version of CONPLAN 0500, the overall domestic weapons of mass destruction
response plan; and to practice the logistics and command and control for the deployment
of multiple rapid response military task forces to separate parts of the
country.
Typical of all large scale homeland security exercises, Ardent Sentry includes all the simultaneous boilerplate events -- Pneumonic plague, a chlorine gas terrorist attack, crash of an airplane into a bridge in Michigan, a Sulfuric Acid leak at a rail yard, multiple radiological dirty bombs going off in American cites, blocked tunnels, large numbers of casualties, "widespread panic and displacement." The early season Category IV "Alex" is thrown in to threaten the mid-Atlantic, but only to justify calling the exercise "all hazards."
It is the southern scenario that is the most compelling and
the most sensitive in Ardent Sentry. The
Arizona scenario includes an act of biological terrorism in Mexico, with pneumonic plague spreading
throughout the northern part of the country. This results in a mass migration of Mexican nationals across the southern
border into the U.S. as people seek medical assistance.
With the migration also comes "infiltration of
universal adversary terrorists," according to exercise scenario
briefings. The straight out of Hollywood
exercise scenario posits that the epidemic is intentionally started south of
the border merely so that the universal adversary can use the panic "as
cover to facilitate ingress" into Arizona.
The universal adversary -- which I described earlier in a blog
on exercise Northern Edge -- is a concoction used in domestic war games to
represent a vaguely plausible Detroit-based Islamic al Qaeda.
In Ardent Sentry, the Mexican border becomes a war zone and
not only is sealed, but the military is called upon to supplement the Arizona National
Guard and Department of Homeland Security. NORTHCOM's new Joint Task Force
North (JTF-N) is placed in charge of the border war. JTF-N is ostensibly the counter-drug organization
on the southern border, but it is increasingly also a military command charged
with all elements of "transnational" threats to the United States.
It is a new military organization charged with seeing all
things Mexican as a threat.
Though NORTHCOM's area of operations includes both Canada and
Mexico, the Mexico elements of the exercise scenario are particularly sensitive. Exercise materials explicitly caution players
to avoid any unclassified mention of either Mexico or Sonora State opposite
Arizona.
Frankly I don't know whether NORTHCOM's Mr. Magoo approach
to the bird flu scare is good news or bad. It could on the one hand be insightful political recognition that
President Bush is only gaga about the bird flu pandemic as a diversion, and
that as soon as Plame Gate passes
and annoying New Orleans is pacified, the White House will go back to fighting
wars and neglecting domestic affairs, the Bush specialty.
It could just be that when it comes to domestic response,
the military mindset naturally gravitates towards war, hence the sealing of the
Mexican border, the attacks, the tricky logistics, the multiple commands. But it could also reflect the military's
ambivalence about being given more responsibility for domestic affairs. Holding war games with federal, state and
local authorities that focus on the worst possible scenarios reinforces the
point that the military should only to be used under the most catastrophic
circumstances at home.
On the other hand, NORTHCOM's almost exclusive focus on spectacular
WMD events and terrorism reflects a debilitating crutch. The mindset, the preparations, and the
assumptions associated with terrorism and WMD have the effect of suppressing
the issues associated with natural disasters like Katrina or avian flu, should
one in the future become so destructive that the military would have to be call
upon.
I would much prefer to see the military exercise really scary natural disaster and pandemic scenarios with State officials, and to have the process be transparent enough for the public and Congress to debate the implications of President Bush's foggy plan for quarantine and martial law. But for now, while real people in Louisiana, Mississippi and New Orleans still wait for government assistance, while Floridians sit in the dark and Indiana reels after a catastrophic tornado, the military prefers to play war with Mexico.
By William M. Arkin |
November 8, 2005; 8:30 AM ET
Domestic Role of the Military
, Homeland Security
, War Games
Previous: Wag the Damascus? |
Next: The War on Flu
Posted by: PETE SANDIFER | June 2, 2006 1:03 PM
I'm a student at Air War College, and we were just briefed yesterday by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense (who has oversight for much of NORTHCOM's mission). Without breaching the nonattribution rules of the Air War College, I can say that contrary to recevied wisdom, neither he nor NORTHCOM are almost exclusively focused on terrorism. While defending from so-called "rogue states" and from terrorists is clearly mission #1, it is similarly clear that a signifiacnt part of their planning and preparation effort addresses disaster recovery and mitigation. Both in his address and in the Q&A, there was a huge amount of discussion on these topics, as well as on the terrorist threat.
Posted by: Dartman14N | November 9, 2005 11:27 AM
This administration (and probably the previous) has seemed to turn the Pentagon into a one-stop-shop for all things dealing with security. But I can understand why the DoD's exercises pay little attention to the possible flu pandemic. First, it's a public health issue. The civilian government infrastructure, both state and federal, has to be activated first. Only in an overwhelming situation would the military even need to respond.
I agree with some of the earlier postings about the over-eagerness of this administration to find a big enough boogeyman to declare martial law. Is the government afraid of it's citizens?
Posted by: stephen | November 8, 2005 8:59 PM
I had to laugh as I read the article...
"The straight out of Hollywood exercise scenario posits that the epidemic is intentionally started south of the border merely so that the universal adversary can use the panic "as cover to facilitate ingress" into Arizona."
So now the government imagines that an adversary needs panic to get through the US/Mexican border. Brah ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Not only could an adversary walk across the border today with little problem from US officials, they could then go to almost any American city where day-labor sites are set up to allow illegals to find work. They could quickly settle into American society with a job and housing as so many illegals have already done, with the support of America's employers who want cheap labor.
How about this as a real exercise that would not only train our military but also get something constructive done:
1) Actually seal the US Mexican border to all but legal immigrants/tourists.
2) Revise immigration laws and procedures to make it easier for immigrants who want to work to get properly documented and be properly tracked by the INS.
3) Investigate illegals already in the US working in the open for American companies who KNOW they have hired illegals.
4) Deport the illegals.
5) Prosecute all employers who knowingly hire illegals.
After this "war game" America will be more secure and the use of the US/Mex border in normal and "panic" times will be less attractive to any adversary.
Or we could continue to use Hollywood as our guide defining the real problems we could face and ignore reality. The choice by Bush of Julie Myers to head Customs and Immigration and her approval by the republicans on the committee indicates to me that none of the current republican leadership cares about illegal immigration into the US. Here's a link to an article about her confirmation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/07/AR2005100701812_pf.html
She's also the daughter of Richard Myers, you know, the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Can you say up with cronyism and down with protecting the American people?
Posted by: Sully | November 8, 2005 2:53 PM
Um.... Is it just me or has the libertarian, NRA, extreme right-wing been warning of just such an excuse for the military to intervene on U.S. soil ever since someone first mentioned "gun control"? Isn't this the doomsday scenario they've been using as the reason we may have to defend ourselves/overthrow the gov't/own 50 caliber assualt rifles, whatever?
These military intervention proposals, along with the Patriot Act's monitoring and detaining without cause, should have the NRA, anti-gov't right-wingers going absolutely berserk! Where are they? Somebody go whisper under their shooting range earmuff silencer thingees that their democracy is being seriously infringed upon. Or didn't they consider that it might be a republican who'd be responsible?
Posted by: Sr. Bojangles | November 8, 2005 1:30 PM
Um.... Is it just me or has the libertarian, NRA, extreme right-wing been warning of just such an excuse for the military to intervene on U.S. soil ever since someone first mentioned "gun control"? Isn't this the doomsday scenario they've been using as the reason we may have to defend ourselves/overthrow the gov't/own 50 caliber assualt rifles, whatever?
These military intervention proposals, along with the Patriot Act's monitoring and detaining without cause, should have the NRA, anti-gov't right-wingers going absolutely berserk! Where are they? Somebody go whisper under their shooting range earmuff silencer thingees that their democracy is being seriously infringed upon. Or didn't they consider that it might be a republican who'd be responsible?
Posted by: Sr. Bojangles | November 8, 2005 1:29 PM
Um.... Is it just me or has the libertarian, NRA, extreme right-wing been warning of just such an excuse for the military to intervene on U.S. soil ever since someone first mentioned "gun control"? Isn't this the doomsday scenario they've been using as the reason we may have to defend ourselves/overthrow the gov't/own 50 caliber assualt rifles, whatever?
These military intervention proposals, along with the Patriot Act's monitoring and detaining without cause, should have the NRA, anti-gov't right-wingers going absolutely berserk! Where are they? Somebody go whisper under their shooting range earmuff silencer thingees that their democracy is being seriously infringed upon. Or didn't they consider that it might be a republican who'd be responsible?
Posted by: Sr. Bojangles | November 8, 2005 1:28 PM
Um.... Is it just me or has the libertarian, NRA, extreme right-wing been warning of just such an excuse for the military to intervene on U.S. soil ever since someone first mentioned "gun control"? Isn't this the doomsday scenario they've been using as the reason we may have to defend ourselves/overthrow the gov't/own 50 caliber assualt rifles, whatever?
These military intervention proposals, along with the Patriot Act's monitoring and detaining without cause, should have the NRA, anti-gov't right-wingers going absolutely berserk! Where are they? Somebody go whisper under their shooting range earmuff silencer thingees that their democracy is being seriously infringed upon. Or didn't they consider that it might be a republican who'd be responsible?
Posted by: Sr. Bojangles | November 8, 2005 1:28 PM
Um.... Is it just me or has the libertarian, NRA, extreme right-wing been warning of just such an excuse for the military to intervene on U.S. soil ever since someone first mentioned "gun control"? Isn't this the doomsday scenario they've been using as the reason we may have to defend ourselves/overthrow the gov't/own 50 caliber assualt rifles, whatever?
These military intervention proposals, along with the Patriot Act's monitoring and detaining without cause, should have the NRA, anti-gov't right-wingers going absolutely berserk! Where are they? Somebody go whisper under their shooting range earmuff silencer thingees that their democracy is being seriously infringed upon. Or didn't they consider that it might be a republican who'd be responsible?
Posted by: Sr. Bojangles | November 8, 2005 1:26 PM
Um.... Is it just me or has the libertarian, NRA, extreme right-wing been warning of just such an excuse for the military to intervene on U.S. soil ever since someone first mentioned "gun control"? Isn't this the doomsday scenario they've been using as the reason we may have to defend ourselves/overthrow the gov't/own 50 caliber assualt rifles, whatever?
These military intervention proposals, along with the Patriot Act's monitoring and detaining without cause, should have the NRA, anti-gov't right-wingers going absolutely berserk! Where are they? Somebody go whisper under their shooting range earmuff silencer thingees that their democracy is being seriously infringed upon. Or didn't they consider that it might be a republican who'd be responsible?
Posted by: Sr. Bojangles | November 8, 2005 1:25 PM
There is no objective reason to claim that there is inherent hatred between people in the Arab World and the people of The US. It has been the dream of most people here - in Egypt particularly - to travel to the US for many reasons including their admiration of the American culture and hoping that by doing so they can help their country develop and acquire the means to progress and prosperity. Yet , once narrow interests prevail and the power of extremists on both sides takes over tables turned and instead of love and cooperation hatred and hegemony show up.
I hope that politicians in The US understand this simple idea - people's hearts can not be won with swords ( sorry with missiles).
Posted by: Mohamed EL Nagdi ( Egypt) | November 8, 2005 1:10 PM
There is no objective reason to claim that there is inherent hatred between people in the Arab World and the people of The US. It has been the dream of most people here - in Egypt particularly - to travel to the US for many reasons including their admiration of the American culture and hoping that by doing so they can help their country develop and acquire the means to progress and prosperity. Yet , once narrow interests prevail and the power of extremists on both sides takes over tables turned and instead of love and cooperation hatred and hegemony show up.
I hope that politicians in The US understand this simple idea - people's hears can not be won with swords ( sorry with missiles).
Posted by: Mohamed EL Nagdi ( Egypt) | November 8, 2005 1:08 PM
It would be useful to see what the military would do under a pandemic situation. One would think that might have been covered in the hot new bestseller - HHS's Pandemic Plan - that was just released. Unfortunately, that plan is really only a health care response plan (and a vague one at that), not what the federal government would do in a pandemic. The HHS Plan refers to the "Federal Pandemic Influenza Plan" for all those loose ends that Bush is never interested in, such as how to keep society functioning when transit systems and schools are closed and lots of stuff is in short supply. "The role of other
Federal agencies in enforcing community containment measures will be detailed in the Federal Pandemic Influenza Plan. (page S8-6)" That's right, will be, as in there is no Federal Pandemic Influenza Plan, yet. I guess we have to beat the Mexicans first.
Posted by: Gimlet | November 8, 2005 12:59 PM
It would be useful to see what the military would do under a pandemic situation. One would think that might have been covered in the hot new bestseller - HHS's Pandemic Plan - that was just released. Unfortunately, that plan is really only a health care response plan (and a vague one at that), not what the federal government would do in a pandemic. The HHS Plan refers to the "Federal Pandemic Influenza Plan" for all those loose ends that Bush is never interested in, such as how to keep society functioning when transit systems and schools are closed and lots of stuff is in short supply. "The role of other
Federal agencies in enforcing community containment measures will be detailed in the Federal Pandemic Influenza Plan. (page S8-6)" That's right, will be, as in there is no Federal Pandemic Influenza Plan, yet. I guess we have to beat the Mexicans first.
Posted by: Gimlet | November 8, 2005 12:58 PM
It would be useful to see what the military would do under a pandemic situation. One would think that might have been covered in the hot new bestseller - HHS's Pandemic Plan - that was just released. Unfortunately, that plan is really only a health care response plan (and a vague one at that), not what the federal government would do in a pandemic. The HHS Plan refers to the "Federal Pandemic Influenza Plan" for all those loose ends that Bush is never interested in, such as how to keep society functioning when transit systems and schools are closed and lots of stuff is in short supply. "The role of other
Federal agencies in enforcing community containment measures will be detailed in the Federal Pandemic Influenza Plan. (page S8-6)" That's right, will be, as in there is no Federal Pandemic Influenza Plan, yet. I guess we have to beat the Mexicans first.
Posted by: Gimlet | November 8, 2005 12:57 PM
WE HAVE SO MANY PROBLEMS HERE AT HOME, BUT ONE PERSON IN OUR GOVERNMENT DECIDED WE NEEDED TO GO TO WAR IN IRAQ FOR HIS AND DADDY BUSH PERSONAL REASONS. WE HAVE GONE DOWNHILL SINCE THEN.
I TRULY AM AFRAID THAT WE HAVE LET THE GOVERNMENT GO TO FAR AND THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY.
Posted by: mickey lawson | November 8, 2005 11:38 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.
YOU FOLKS NEED TO GET A
LIFE! YA'LL ARE LIKE KITTENS JUMP'N AT SHADOWS.
AMERICA NEEDS TO GET TOUGHER OR DIE.
WE ARE SO BLESSED TO HAVE ALQUIDA FOR AN ENEMY;ANY ONE W/ORGANIZATION WOULD ALLREADY OWN OUR WEAK ASSES!