Maritime Homeland Security (MHS) and Defense (MHD) of the United States have evolved since the tragic events of September 11, 2001. However, effective operational command and control (C2) to ensure unity of effort of the myriad federal and state agencies involved in MHS still does not exist to prevent or recover from a terrorist attack or natural disaster. This paper examines the development of current U.S. structure for MHS involving the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Defense (DoD), and other federal and civil agencies with often overlapping, confusing, and conflicting jurisdictions. A proposal is made to expand DHS's capability with an operational unified command structure comparable to the military. DHS would exercise increased authority under the National Response Framework (NRF) and National Incident Management System (NIMS) for disaster response (DR). A new combatant commander (CCDR) for DHS with two geographic maritime Joint Task Forces (JTFs) based on the Joint Inter Agency Task Force-South (JIATF-S) model would conduct counterterrorism (CT) and counternarcotics (CN) operations with support from all other federal, state, and local agencies.


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