Question

A traditional view of security promotes the idea that countries need a strong military to survive and achieve security. With a changing and more diverse set of challenges to security, is this traditional view still relevant or do countries need more and other resources? In other words, in our world today, what resources and expertise do state need for security?

(as always, building on existing posts is preferable)

Answer 1

• Some States did not yet have all the necessary counter-terrorism measures in place, while others faced challenges in ensuring that measures currently in place were consistently reviewed and amended as terrorists developed new operational methods and techniques.Strengthening coordination and coherence would be the top priority for the Office of Counter-Terrorism.
• The Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard are all charged with the responsibility of protecting the United States from foreign enemies and, at times, domestic disasters. In this day and age, warfare is not just hand-to-hand combat, sailing the seas, flying through the air, dropping bombs, or launching missiles; it also includes the logical warfare of cyber-attacks. If an enemy wanted to harm the United States, weakening the military would be a great place to start.
• With the increased sophistication of spear-phishing tactics and social engineering attacks, the military sector has good reason to provide its employees with security awareness training.
• The Goldwater-Nichols Act also made significant changes to the organization of the armed services. The act also empowered the combatant commanders to accomplish their missions with appropriate authorities, and made overall changes to create a stronger joint military force.
• In order to solve the complex problems facing the U.S., the national security enterprise must be restructured so that the synchronization of interagency national security activities becomes institutionalized.
• At the national-strategic level, these changes should be centered on the restructuring and repurposing of the National Security Council. The NSC should retain the responsibility for advising President of the United States and coordinating all national security activities, but should also become the command and control mechanism for them.
• Interoperability of equipment, whether that be radios that can communicate with one another, medical supplies that are interchangeable, or any other equipment required by the interagency to conduct national security operations, will need an integrated system of procurement. Consolidating the national security structure and budgeting process also lends itself to consolidating the procurement process.
• Each military service component would continue to be responsible for Title X requirements to organize, train, equip, etc. their service in each geographic area of responsibility.
• Having the subject matter experts implementing their specific element of national power, rather than using the military as a proxy, will increase the effectiveness of the national security system as a whole.
• Due to department parochialism, lack of equipment and network interoperability, and a lack of institutionalized coordination, the current national security enterprise is insufficient to address the complexities of the nation’s global interests. The proposed model is an attempt to overcome the existing institutional parochialism and create unity of effort amongst the contributors to the U.S. national security enterprise to address global foreign policy and national security challenges.