AnalysisObama offers strategic redefinition, expansion of DHS mission
In July 2002, nearly a year before DHS was created under former president George W. Bush, a handful of advisers hastily drafted in private a 90-page national homeland security strategy; that document was later criticized for being partially responsible — by overemphasizing terrorism at the expense of natural disasters — for the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina; in October 2007 the Bush administration updated its homeland security strategy; the Obama administration has now revised and expanded Bush’s 2007 changes; the new strategy states that preventing terrorism remains the cornerstone of homeland security, but it expands the definition of homeland security to include other hazards, among them mass cyberattacks, pandemics, natural disasters, illegal trafficking, and transnational crime
The Obama administration Monday delivered to Congress the U.S.first Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, defining homeland security for the first time as including hazards beyond terrorism, in a strategic document intended to drive long-term budget decisions.
Congress mandated the high-level strategic review in 2007, two years after Hurricane Katrina exposed failings in the government’s response and four years after the creation of DHS. The initiative was modeled after the Quadrennial Defense Review, another congressionally mandated effort that directed the Defense Department to reset its strategies and budgets against evolving threats every four years.
Washington Post’s Spencer S. Hsu writes that analysts said that production of the 88-page document marked a successful milestone for DHS, even though it is not as thorough as the Pentagon’s version and will not be as influential. “It is an incredible achievement,” said James Jay Carafano, homeland security expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, noting that it came months after a Democratic administration’s takeover of the department, that the Obama administration had never before run a quadrennial review for homeland security and that DHS lacked the Defense Department’s resources. “This study has given them a road map for how they are going to think through tough problems,” including developing department human resources, analytical capabilities and research priorities, Carafano said.
Stewart Baker, former DHS assistant secretary of policy from 2005 to 2009, said that while the attempt to link DHS budget, strategy and threat information might be “lightweight compared to the Quadrennial Defense Review, it’s heavyweight compared” to how, a couple years ago, officials in George W. Bush’s administration had to make decisions based on “budget politics of the moment.”
A copy of the review, obtained by the Washington Post, shows that the government’s approach to homeland security continues to evolve away from a singular focus on terrorism.
The issue is still vexing because many experts still struggle to explain, “What is homeland security?” “How is the homeland best made secure?” and “What does it mean to be prepared?” the review notes.
Hsu writes that in July 2002, nearly a year before DHS was created under former president George W. Bush, a handful of advisers hastily drafted in private a 90-page national homeland security strategy. That document was later criticized for weakening the response to Hurricane Katrina by overemphasizing terrorism at the expense of natural disasters, and in October 2007, the Bush administration updated it.
The 2007 strategy still defined homeland
