Joint Chiefs Issue Doctrine on "Homeland Defense"

JOINT CHIEFS ISSUE DOCTRINE ON "HOMELAND DEFENSE"

A new publication of the Joint Chiefs of Staff presents U.S. military
doctrine on "homeland defense."

"It provides information on command and control, interagency and
multinational coordination, and operations required to defeat external
threats to, and aggression against, the homeland."

See "Homeland Defense," Joint Publication 3-27, July 12, 2007:

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp3_27.pdf

The document further extends the unfortunate use of the term "homeland"
to refer to the United States, a relatively recent coinage that became
prevalent in the George W. Bush Administration.

Not only does the word "homeland" have unhappy echoes of the Germanic
"Heimat" and the cult of land and soil, it is also a misnomer in a
nation of immigrants.

Moreover, "homeland" is defined by the military exclusively in terms of
geography: It is "the physical region that includes the continental
United States, Alaska, Hawaii, United States territories and
possessions, and surrounding territorial waters and airspace."

This means that actions to defend the Constitution and the political
institutions of American democracy are by definition excluded from
"homeland defense."

For the Joint Chiefs, constitutional liberties are subordinate to, and
contingent upon, physical security:

"To preserve the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, the Nation
must have a homeland that is secure from threats and violence,
especially terrorism." (page I-1).