DoD Responses to Transnational Threats - The Black Vault

oversight assigned to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and to the Under Secretary of
Defense for Acquisition and Technology, respectively. At the operational level, the regional
warfighting Commanders-in-Chief are given responsibility for both crisis management and
consequence management. Specifically SOCOM and USACOM are assigned to crisis
management; USACOM is assigned to consequence management within the continental United
States and the appropriate regional commanders are responsible in cases occurring abroad.
Function Policy Oversight Operations Operational &
Systems
Architectures
Nuclear, Chemical
Warfare,
Biological
Warfare, and
Conventional
Threats
Information
Warfare Threats
USD (P)
SOCOM and USACOM
for crisis management
Area CINCs for
consequence
management; USACOM
for CONUS
JCS Task Force and
USD (A&T)
R&D Oversight
USD (A&T) Appropriate CINC DDR&E
Figure 12. Example of Ownership Within DoD
DDR&E, supported
by ASD (SO/LIC) for
crisis management
and
USD (A&T) for
consequence
management
The task force proposes a temporary Joint Task Force, within the Joint Chiefs of Staff
organization, coupled with a team assigned by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition
and Technology, to design operational and systems architectures. Research and development
oversight is broadly assigned to the Director, Defense Research and Engineering, and supported
by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict in the
area of crisis management, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and
Technology in the area of consequence management.
Recommendation: No new organizations.
⇒ The Secretary of Defense must assign responsibility for transnational missions with greater clarity
than exists today.
⇒ The Secretary of Defense must clarify and assign, to a single policy office, responsibilities for
counterterrorism, counterproliferation, transnational threats, and infrastructure protection.
⇒ The Secretary also must assign responsibilities for the National Guard in the area of civil
training, exercises, consequence management, deterrence, and regional combatant commander
consequence management support in chemical and biological warfare incidents.
⇒ The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs must assign responsibilities for
◊ Updating all operational plans to include transnational threat contingency planning, crisis
response and consequence management responsibilities
◊ Budgeting by the Services for new transnational threat requirements derived from Joint Task
Force outputs in the program period beginning in fiscal year 1999
⇒ DoD must also work cooperatively with the Department of Energy to develop an expanded
memorandum of understanding and research and development plan to address transnational
threats.
31