Chapter IX. Transform America's National Security Institutions to Meet the Challenges and
Opportunities of the 21st Century
Section B. Current Context: Successes and Challenges
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B. Current Context: Successes and Challenges
In the last four years, we have made substantial progress in transforming key national
security institutions.
· The establishment of the Department of Homeland Security brought under one
authority 22 federal entities with vital roles to play in protecting our Nation and
preventing terrorist attacks within the United States. The Department is focused on
three national security priorities: preventing terrorist attacks within the United States;
reducing America's vulnerability to terrorism; and minimizing the damage and
facilitating the recovery from attacks that do occur.
· In 2004, the Intelligence Community launched its most significant reorganization
since the 1947 National Security Act. The centerpiece is a new position, the Director
of National Intelligence, endowed with expanded budgetary, acquisition, tasking, and
personnel authorities to integrate more effectively the efforts of the Community into a
more unified, coordinated, and effective whole. The transformation also includes a
new National Counterterrorism Center and a new National Counterproliferation
Center to manage and coordinate planning and activities in those critical areas. The
transformation extends to the FBI, which has augmented its intelligence capabilities
and is now more fully and effectively integrated with the Intelligence Community.
· The Department of Defense has completed the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review,
which details how the Department will continue to adapt and build to meet new
challenges.
· We are pursuing a future force that will provide tailored deterrence of both state
and non-state threats (including WMD employment, terrorist attacks in the
physical and information domains, and opportunistic aggression) while assuring
allies and dissuading potential competitors. The Department of Defense also is
expanding Special Operations Forces and investing in advanced conventional
capabilities to help win the long war against terrorist extremists and to help
dissuade any hostile military competitor from challenging the United States, its
allies, and partners.
· The Department is transforming itself to better balance its capabilities across four
categories of challenges:
National Security Strategy 43
· Traditional challenges posed by states employing conventional armies, navies,
and air forces in well-established forms of military competition.
· Irregular challenges from state and non-state actors employing methods such as
terrorism and insurgency to counter our traditional military advantages, or
engaging in criminal activity such as piracy and drug trafficking that threaten
regional security.
· Catastrophic challenges involving the acquisition, possession, and use of WMD
by state and non-state actors; and deadly pandemics and other natural disasters
that produce WMD-like effects.
· Disruptive challenges from state and non-state actors who employ technologies
and capabilities (such as biotechnology, cyber and space operations, or directed-
energy weapons) in new ways to counter military advantages the United States
currently enjoys.
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