Near Term Command and Control of Homeland Air and Missile Defense

<p>The events of 11 September 2001 revealed that America was no longer impervious to aggression. When terrorists attacked no defensive forces were immediately available to defend the homeland. One of the comprehensive changes was an update of the Unified Command Plan creating a new command NORTHCOM to oversee defense of North America and splitting the Unified Command of NORAD and USSPACECOM. NORAD aligned under NORTHCOM while USSPACECOM was subsumed by STRATCOM. This created the paradox of what to do with the mission of homeland air and missile defense. The geographic combatant command of NORTHCOM retained NORAD's mission of aerospace defense of the homeland while STRATCOM's functional command gained the integrated missile defense mission. Missiles can traverse multiple AORs yet the defense remains the geographic commander's responsibility. It is not viable to split the roles and missions of the limited assets performing the dual role of air and missile defense. Applying the FAS test to different COA determined that it is best to maintain the AMD mission but divide the assets between the two commands based upon system capabilities and threat launch locations.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>