6.3 DoD & NSA

WHO? The Department of Defense and National Security Agency.

WHAT? Provide the intelligence and the reach capable of finding and getting at terrorists anywhere.

WHEN? The DoD and NSA were created together by the National Security Act of 1947.

WHERE? Both operate globally.

WHY? To make certain there is no place an enemy can run or hide from US justice.

As we said in 6.1, US counterterrorism policy tries to apprehend suspected or known terrorists and render them unto justice in a US court of law. If they are in another country, we will try to extradite them. If for some reason the country won’t extradite them, we may take matters into our own hands and try and kidnap or kill them. In Topic 3.3 we explained how the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden which led to the US invasion of Afghanistan. We also described how special operation forces mounted a raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011 after Intelligence Analysts located him in Abbottabad Pakistan. In this topic we take a closer look at DoD military operations and those of the NSA. Both the Department of Defense and National Security Agency were created from the same National Security Act of 1947 that created the CIA. Before the DoD was created, we had a War Department, Army, and separate Navy Department. “Separate” being the operative word, because the Army and Navy did not work together very well. The DoD was created to make the services work closer together, especially with a new Air Force, and to administer the growing number of agencies needed to support them all, including the NSA. It was a forced marriage that took thirty years and some major failures before they worked it out. It’s still not perfect, but working together “jointly” is more the norm than the exception. Operational command of US military forces stems from the President, to the Secretary of Defense, to the Combatant Commander, a four-star general in charge of a geographic or functional command. There are six generals assigned to geographic commands. They maintain watch over an assigned region of the globe and are prepared to direct military forces within that region upon orders of the President. The six different geographic commands are as follows:

1. US Northern Command

2. US Southern Command

3. US Pacific Command

4. US European Command

5. US Africa Command

6. US Central command

There are also four generals assigned to functional commands. They maintain control of specialized capabilities that may used independently or in support of a geographic command. They are:

1. US Transportation Command

2. US Strategic Command

3. US Special Operations Command

4. US Cyber Command

The three service departments, Army, Navy, and Air Force, organize, train, and equip air, ground, and naval forces and make certain they’re ready when needed by the combatant commanders. Where are the Marines? They are part of the Navy Department… they say “men’s” department. So, for example, in Operation NEPTUNE SPEAR, Special Operations Command picked Navy SEAL Team Six to lead the raid into Abbottabad. They went in with Air Force fighter cover and Army backup helicopters, and evacuated to the carrier Carl Vinson in the Central Command area of operations. Pretty simple, right? The main point is that the 1.3 million active-duty service members work together as a team. Of course, none of it would have happened if not for the cell phone calls intercepted by the NSA. The NSA is descended from code breaking efforts against Germany and Japan during World War II. The NSA benefitted from the applied theories of Alan Turing and the first electronic computers to break the German and Japanese codes and read intercepted messages. After World War II NSA turned its attention to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Over the decades, NSA expanded its capacity to collect foreign electronic signals, and remained on the forefront of computer technology in order to analyze them. Today, NSA continues to direct its efforts against potential foreign adversaries. Because of its advanced computing experience, the NSA has become the Federal expert for defending and attacking computer networks. It is a key player in the Intelligence Community, and also an integral part of US Cyber Command.