Expanding risk-based security, addressing the increasingly decentralized terrorist threat, and better connecting-the-dots between various sources of data are among the key areas of emphasis in carrying out the nation’s homeland security missions, according to the latest strategic review by the Department of Homeland Security that grapples with the shifting threats to the homeland in recent years.
“The terrorist threat is increasingly decentralized and may be harder to detect,” says the executive summary of the new Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) that DHS released on Thursday. “Cyber threats are growing and pose ever-greater concern to our critical infrastructure systems as they become increasingly interdependent. Natural hazards are becoming more costly to address, with increasingly variable consequences due in part to drivers such as climate change and interdependent and aging infrastructure.”
The QHSR highlights six changes in the strategic environment, which are the evolving terrorist threat that is more decentralized, a more digitally connected world, risks from natural disasters, pandemics and climate change, interdependent and aging critical infrastructure systems and networks, the increasing volume and speed of trade and travel, and constrained budgets at all levels of government.
The biggest challenges facing the country’s security that stem from the changes in the strategic environment include the ongoing terrorist threat, cyber threats, biological threats and diseases, nuclear terrorism, transnational criminal organizations, and natural hazards.
The QHSR maintains the five core homeland security missions outlined four years ago in the first version of the document while highlighting new, and renewed, areas of emphasis for addressing each. The review was due at the end of 2013 but was delayed to give new Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson time to put his stamp of approval on it.
The delay has drawn criticism from some members of Congress. At a hearing on Friday of the House Homeland Security Oversight and Management Subcommittee, Chairman Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and ranking member Rep. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.) both pointed out the delay in completing the QHSR weakened the ability of the FY ’15 budget submission to link resource needs to strategic priorities.
The hearing was scheduled before it was known when the QHSR would be released and included a panel of homeland security experts. Stewart Baker, a former DHS official in the Bush Administration, said that the new review was an improvement over the first one and praised the continuity in the missions and goals but criticized the new document for “speechifying” somewhat rather than making hard choices.
“It’s a little bit more a description of a strategy,” said Baker, who is also a partner with the law firm Steptoe & Johnson. “And until that strategy actually bites and produces tough budget decisions, it’s not easy to say that it’s really a strategy and I think more needs to be done to translate the QHSR into actual budget decisions.”
The core homeland security missions are to: Prevent Terrorism and Enhance Security; Secure and Manage our Borders; Enforce and Administer our Immigration Laws; Safeguard and Secure Cyberspace; and Strengthen National Preparedness and Resilience.
The goals and objectives for each mission in the first and second QHSRs remain similar. For example, within the Preventing Terrorism mission the goals essentially remain to prevent terrorist attacks and the acquisition or use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. However, in the latest QHSR, instead of “managing risks to critical infrastructure” as a goal that was part of the 2010 document, it now says to “reduce risk.”
The QHSR also includes priority areas of emphasis for each of the strategic priorities it outlines, including the need for risk-based security, strengthening the cyber security of the federal civilian government, identify biological incidents early, minimizing disruptions while facilitating the legal flow of goods and people into and out of the United States, and more.
The new QHSR also highlights potentially game changing scenarios, what it calls “Black Swans,” that are unlikely but could have significant impacts on homeland security. For example, one potential change is a “country unexpectedly becoming a failed state, leading to consequences such as loss of control over sensitive technologies (e.g., chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials) or loss of general border integrity,” it says.
Other unlikely but potentially game changing Black Swan events include abrupt changes in climate leading to tremendous shifts in weather patterns, changes in technology, and an increase in hostile non-state actors.
Duncan, the Homeland Security subcommittee chairman, said that the QHSR fails to address threats posed by nation states such as Iran, China and Russia.
“This is a major omission for a document intended to guide how we secure the homeland,” Duncan said. He said the report’s highlight of climate change as a security issue and not nation-state threats “makes no sense and it raises questions about the usefulness of this strategy.”