Fighters, not First Responders
Tags: posse comitatusProf. Mackubin Thomas Owens of the Naval War College offers the recommended "Fighters, not First Responders". It includes this:
The U.S. military is structured to play "away games." It is good at protecting the United States by threatening the sanctuary of adversaries abroad. There are, of course, things the military can and should do to enhance the security of the American homeland, but we should not be blurring further the distinction between military activities and domestic affairs. To paraphrase what Caspar Weinberger said in opposition to the use of the military in the drug war, weakening the statutes that govern the use of the military in domestic affairs in response to Hurricane Katrina makes for terrible national security policy, poor politics, and guaranteed military failure sometime in the future.
