Winning the war at home: stability operations strategy for homeland security

Abstract

While much progress has been made in American homeland security, there remains a lack ofstrategic consensus for state and local agencies. Communities are increasingly outspoken in their expectations of unified homeland security efforts. Remarkably, the U.S. military has a long history of using stability operations strategy to execute similar missions in foreign and domestic settings. Stability operations strategy is a non-traditional U.S. military approach emphasizing community collaboration to restore order. Despite similar objectives, stability operations strategy and its use of civil affairs forces do not appear to have been studied as a possible model to unify state and local homeland security activities. This research uses a case study and policy options analysis to explore the questions: Is the U.S. military's stability operations strategy a useful consideration for domestic homeland security applications? If so, how could military stability operations strategy be implemented in homeland security efforts? The research recommends adopting the strategy and organizing state and local homeland security initiatives into six stabilization sectors: civil security, civil control, essential services, support to governance, support to economic and infrastructure development, and information management. Stability operations strategy offers state and local decision makers a comprehensive, community-focused model for homeland security initiatives.