Needed: A Seamless Vision of National Security and Homeland Security--And Budgetary Clarity, Too.

I have never quite understood why Homeland Security is seen as such a different category than National Security. I mean, surely the first and foremost mission of the US Defense Department is the defense of the US, aka the Homeland.

Now as a practical matter, I won't argue that there's a value in creating different Departments, DOD to deal with mostly international concerns, and DHS to deal with exclusively domestic concerns.

But while it makes sense for DOD and DHS to be separate bureaucracies, it still makes sense to see them as performing overlapping functions. And so, further, it makes sense to directly compare their budgets. Especially in times of straitened fiscal circumstance, it's a good idea to analyze both DOD and DHS at the same time, to make sure that we are getting the maximum amount of security for each dollar invested.

These issues were raised by Elaine M. Grossman, writing for Global Security Newswire, a National Journal publication. Grossman's piece, "Nuclear Arms Experts Tee Up Spending Debate for Obama," exactly captured the critical importance of DOD/DHS comparisons.

For example, Grossman cited the work of Randall Larsen, a homeland security expert:

"Today, the [Environmental Protection Agency] spends less than $1 million a year on research for cleanup" in the event that a radiological "dirty bomb" detonates in a U.S. city, said Larsen, national security adviser to the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

"We [also] need more funding in R&D and operations for medical and public health responses to an [improvised nuclear device]. Reduced spending on [national missile defense] will more than pay for other programs, such as these, that will have far better returns on investment."

To further underscore the relative ratios of spending, Grossman also quoted Micah Zenko, of the Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs , as making some significant cross-departmental comparisons:

In an e-mail message yesterday, Zenko cited a CIA finding that a WMD attack against the United States is more likely to be delivered by "nonmissile" means -- such as container ships, automobiles or aircraft -- than by missiles.

"The U.S. spends almost twice as much per year on R&D of untested missile defenses as it does on efforts to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism," said Zenko, a former research associate at Harvard University's Project on Managing the Atom. "More funding across the range of U.S. programs responsible for securing fissile material, nuclear weapons and weapons-related components would help."

In conclusion, it would seem that the USG is under-investing in homeland security.

And that's something to think about, especially on a day when the outgoing Bush administration, and the incoming Obama administration, cooperated on a homeland security exercise on Tuesday. R-TAC applauds such cooperative efforts, and we hope to see more of them, engaging experts and decisionmakers on a bipartisan basis. \

And if we do, R-TAC is confident that we will see better and wiser spending decisions.