The highest priority for the Army to win in a complex world is: for the Army to conduct

homeland operations to defend the Nation against emerging threats.

MAJ. Wilmer Melendez

Command and General Staff Officer Course-Common Core
November 14th 2015

The highest priority for the Army to win in a complex world is: for the Army to conduct
homeland operations to defend the Nation against emerging threats. On June 26, 1996, the
Senate, because of a concern of an increase threat to our nation by domestic terrorism, passed by
a vote of 96-0 the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 1996 (Allison 1997).1
This vote reflected by a large majority that the Senate believes the nation needs to take action to
reduce this form of threat to the United States of America.
The Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 1996 also confirmed the
judgment of the Senates own 1995-96 investigations into this new danger, which
concluded that:
Weapons of mass destruction are becoming increasingly accessible to rogue states and
terrorist groups. Terrorist groups and rogue states are becoming increasingly likely to use
weapons of mass destruction against the United States. The United States is very poorly
prepared to defeat or limit the damage of a domestic nuclear, biological, or chemical
attack (Ibid).2
Unfortunately, this threat did materialize with the attack on the World Trade Center on
September 11, 2001 in which 2,996 people died. Since this senseless attack, there has been many
terrorist plots that have been prevented, according to the Heritage Foundation, since they began
tracking attacks on the nation since 2007. In 2007, they had reported a total of 19 attacks on the
United States that had been prevented. Today, the number of prevented terrorist attacked on the
nation is up to forty. (Carafano 2011).3 This illustrate the need for the nation to remain vigilant
and to avoid complacency. As a nation, we, the citizens, need to remain alert to potential terrorist
threat. The Army also needs to utilize every means available to continue to foil any future attack
on our soil.
A new capability that I believe that Army should develop to further address this threat is the
training of Soldiers and leaders (both military and civilian). The goal being to ensure they are
prepared to accomplish the mission of protecting our Nation across the range of military
operations while operating in complex environments against a determined and adaptive enemy.

Utilizing two of the DOTMLPF-P domains i.e., Training and Personnel, this objective will
require intensive and ongoing training for both military and civilian personnel to train them in
how to recognize potential terrorist threats. The Army should also develop a campaign with a
theme of maintaining vigilance for both Military and civilian personnel to reinforce the goal of
not becoming complacent.

Notes

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1. Allison, Graham T., Matthew Bunn, Ashton Carter, John Deutch. "Defending
the United States Against Weapons of Mass Destruction." Belfair Center For Science
and International Affairs. 1997.
http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/2697/defending_the_united_states_a
gainst_weapons_of_mass_destruction.html (accessed November 4th, 2015).
2. Ibid
3. Carafano, J. James & Zuckerman, Jessica. 40 Terror Plots Foiled Since 9/11:
Combating Complacency in the Long War on Terror. Sept 7, 2011.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/09/40-terror-plots-foiled-since-9-11combating-complacency-in-the-long-war-on-terror (accessed November 4th, 2015).

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Bibliography
Allison, Graham T., Matthew Bunn, Ashton Carter, John Deutch. "Defending the
United States Against Weapons of Mass Destruction." Belfair Center For
Science and International Affairs. 1997.
http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/2697/defending_the_united_st
ates_against_weapons_of_mass_destruction.html (accessed November 4th,
2015).
Carafano, J. James & Zuckerman, Jessica. 40 Terror Plots Foiled Since 9/11:
Combating Complacency in the Long War on Terror. Sept 7, 2011.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/09/40-terror-plots-foiled-since9-11-combating-complacency-in-the-long-war-on-terror (accessed November
4th, 2015).