Military Reviews Placing Special Ops on U.S. Soil

[Ironhorse]

Late to this great discussion. A few things to add....

Troufion's made a comment early in this thread about military forces being "restricted from internal operations" and also correctly indicated that there are other permissive authorities. Posse Commitatus, which has been drug out in this thread already but whose application has not really been discussed, prevents only the use of the military (by combo of law and policy as discsussed) directly in the enforcement of laws in the U.S. And of course things like the Insurrection Act and Stafford Act have more to say. But in short, the U.S. military is in no way prevented from the conduct of military operations within the U.S. By Posse Commitatus or other. PC is far less restrictive than is often touted. Martial law is something dramatically different and for most situations a red herring.

So a corollary of that permissiveness becomes the legal wrangling, executive decisions, political landmines, etc. of what is law enforcement and what is military operations in today's context of the GWOT.

Not to die in that rat hole, I'm glad it has been brought out here already that NORTHCOM's AOR includes areas outside of the 50 states, possessions and territories to which PC applies. BTW, PACOM and I think even SOUTHCOM own areas to which it DOES apply. PC does not map perfectly 1:1 to NORTHCOM.

Finally, there is a legitimate componency argument to be made in the context of Defense Support of Civil Authorities. SOCOM forces are lending their special capabiltiies in support of civil authorities (whether it be HRT, LA SWAT, USSS or other for NSSEs, etc.), so NORTHCOM damn well better have a liaison cell that knows the secret handshake. Then they can at least get along with SOCOM and step on each others's toes like all the other geographic CINCs (can we say that now that Gates is in?), rather than being completely out to lunch. There's a lot of debatable issues with regard to the COCOM of SOF, but not having a SOF connection at the NORTHCOM HQ is akin to a head in the sand and abdication from engagement in those issues.

In the net, there certainly is a reason to be worried about this and the details of its execution. But to call this an inherently and epicly bad thing is I think premature. Let us screw it up first, before we lambast it.