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War Plan Part III: North American Theater of Operations
September 26, 2001
Summary
Although the United States has renewed its focus on homeland defense following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, true security will require the United States to implement a continental defense system with Canada and Mexico. In the meantime, Washington must face the challenge of countering what may be a more rapid tempo of terrorist operations.
Analysis
The Sept. 11 attacks on the United States effectively created a North American theater of operations. There are three goals in this theater: the identification and capture or liquidation of the remaining members of the attacking group; the determination of whether other attack groups are currently present within North America; and the prevention of penetration of North America by other groups.
A North American theater of operations is a more useful concept than focusing only on the United States. The United States has vast, virtually unprotected borders with Canada and a long, ineffectively protected border with Mexico. Access to either Canada or Mexico creates innumerable opportunities to penetrate the United States.
Any attempt to create an effective defensive perimeter along these two frontiers would, apart from issues of cost and economic efficiency, take an extremely long time to put into effect and would divert substantial manpower from other missions. Therefore, a perimeter defense of the United States is untenable.
In a sense this was already recognized during the 1950s, when the United States established its air defense system. It was understood that a defensive perimeter that began at the Canadian frontier would be entirely ineffective. Therefore, the United States induced Canada to join in the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), which move the air defense perimeter farther north to include Canada, essentially creating a continental perimeter.
NORAD is conceptually a model for the current situation. The significant entry points into North America are at airports where international flights are permitted to land. Those airports, along with some maritime facilities, are North America's interface with the world.
There are a finite number of such facilities, and it would be possible to reduce the number if need be. These airports are the control points through which attackers pass. They are the primary security screening point, and once past them attack teams can rapidly disappear into the general population and move into the United States almost at will.
If Canada and Mexico are unwilling to integrate their international arrival security systems with that of the United States, the situation rapidly becomes unmanageable. True frontier security is impossible in the United States in any meaningful time frame. Any airport that accepts international flights but is not part of an integrated screening process immediately obviates the ability of the United States to effectively screen attackers prior to entry.
Creating a notional North American theater of operations -- instead of focusing on a definition of homeland defense that is concerned mainly with the United States -- therefore removes any possibility of a perimeter defense. It is then necessary to think and operate continentally rather than nationally.
With the concept of NORAD as a model, a continental defensive system against Al-Qa'ida and other groups needs to be implemented. Obviously, this interacts with other issues dividing the United States and its neighbors. Canada is deeply concerned about protecting its sovereignty, while Mexico has fundamental issues concerning migration with the United States.
These are serious challenges in transforming the notion of continental defense into an operational entity. It may even become impossible to implement a full system because of these issues. Implementing such a system, however, will become the first test of the coalition the United States is seeking to construct. Inducing Canada and Mexico to create a continental screening system for entrants is the foundation of any workable system of homeland defense. It is unclear that such a model would be sustainable for an extended period of time without a substantial shift in Canada's and Mexico's political culture. Nevertheless, it is the essential prerequisite for American homeland defense.
(The Rest of the Story)
Related Analyses:
* War Plan: Part I
Conceptual Framework of the War
September 24, 2001
* War Plan: Part II
Afghan Theater of Operations
September 25, 2001
(c) 2001 Stratfor, Inc.
Dan
War Plan: Part III . . .