Not In Our Own Backyard: Posse Comitatus and the Challenge of Government Reorganization

The challenge to our government is to attempt organizational reform to best counter a new, non-traditional class of warfare. This requires the U.S. to abandon affinity for legacy definitions of threats to the state, to review its history and reasons for why it has embraced those various definitions, and to reconsider how it should best handle threats as they exist today and into the future. This paper argues that the Department of Defense (DoD) must resume its historic role as defender of the homeland, resuming equivalent responsibilities and authorities it once held that over time have slowly been relegated to the law enforcement community. In this broad context, current distinctions between homeland defense and security must be readdressed as hindrances to a proper defense. (Originally published by the USAF Air University)