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The reality is that our old national-security dogs are having a difficult time learning new tricks. The Department of Defense is not busy dusting off contingency plans to protect the homeland, because there are none on the shelf. For decades, the national-security establishment has not been in the business of protecting the territory of the U.S. at our borders--or within them. The Pentagon has embraced a "forward defense" approach in which our troops are primarily based, and trained to fight, overseas. Washington has long known that agencies that do shoulder the domestic security burden, like the U.S. Coast Guard, lack the staffing, training or equipment to do the job. The Coast Guard is charged with protecting America's lengthy shoreline and an "Exclusive Economic Zone" that extends 200 miles offshore covering 3.36 million sq. mi., with a force about the same size as the New York City police department, deployed on a fleet of ancient vessels and aircraft. The Customs Service has been no better off than the Coast Guard.
How is it possible that so little is being done? Part of the problem is that Washington continues to treat domestic and national security as distinguishable from each other. Our current approach is for the Federal Government and the military to deal with the distant game and leave the job of tackling the home game to state and local government and to the private entities that own and operate our society's critical infrastructure, like bridge-and-tunnel authorities. President Bush effectively said as much to the National Governors Association in February 2003. As Governor Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania reported after that session, "President Bush was honest and frank. He told us there's no more money for anything. He said essentially, 'You're on your own.'"
There is an equity issue here that deserves consideration. More than 40% of all containerized cargo that arrives in the harbor of Long Beach and Los Angeles, for example, is destined for the American interior. Is it appropriate that the security of that harbor be shouldered primarily by Los Angeles County taxpayers? Or how about the privately owned Ambassador Bridge, across which so much U.S.--Canadian trade passes each day? Should it fall only to the shareholders to secure the world's busiest commercial border crossing?
CONTAINERS: TERROR IN A BOX?
In March 2002, the group managing director of the world's largest shipping-terminal operator traveled from Hong Kong to Washington to find out how the U.S. government was handling container security and to offer help. John Meredith had spent much of his life at sea. At age 14 he signed on to work aboard a British merchant ship. Now, as head of Hutchison Port Holdings, he sits on top of a $5 billion company that in 2003 moved more than 40 million boxes through its terminals in 35 ports in 17 countries. While Hutchison owns no terminals in the U.S., 4 out of every 10 ocean containers that arrive in a U.S. port either originate from one of its facilities or pass through one of them.