The history of military assistance for domest...

The history of military assistance for domestic natural disasters: the return to a primary role for the Department of Defense in the twenty-first century?
Article from: Army Lawyer | December 1, 2006 | Osborne, William A. | COPYRIGHT 2007 Judge Advocate General's School (Hide copyright information)Copyright
Introduction
The primary responsibility of the U.S. military is to provide for the common defense of the United States. (1) The traditional role of the military has been to fight wars and conduct combat missions. (2) The Department of Defense (DOD) is responsible for providing a standing military needed to deter war and maintain the security of the nation. (3) In furtherance of providing for the common defense and at the direction of Congress (4) or the Commander-in-Chief, (5) a properly trained and equipped military can act quickly and move massive amounts of personnel and equipment to a troubled area, as was the case in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. (6) It is not a surprise that the inherent military chain of command and the structure of functional specialized units within the military are ideal "for the kinds of tasks which emerge during natural disasters." (7) The media has increased public awareness of the military's demonstrated "capability for rapid response," (8) which has led to a greater interest in a bigger role for the military in non-combat missions. (9) One of the most visible recent noncombat roles of the military was the provision of disaster relief assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. (10)
For the most part, the after-action reports and formal in-depth assessments, which measure and assess the military's role in handling the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief effort, will be forthcoming over the next few years. (11) It appears, however, that once again the military has not only demonstrated the capability to respond quickly to a natural disaster but also the ability to execute excellent consequence management. (12) The history of U.S. natural disasters is rich with examples of military assistance. (13) A continued support role for the military in domestic natural disaster relief missions seems to be certain. What remains unclear, however, is whether the military should play a lead role in federal domestic disaster relief for the twenty-first century.
The role of the military in domestic operations can encompass many scenarios outside the traditional combat role. (14) If the traditional role of the military is to fight the nation's wars, then non-traditional military roles must include the long-standing practice of domestic operations. (15) Therefore, it is important to define and narrow the subject parameters of this article since domestic operations is a broad term and includes many topics.
As the name suggests, domestic operations are limited to the fifty geographical United States. (16) Generally, domestic operations for the military are termed Military Assistance to Civilian Authorities (MACA) missions (17) and include the following: support for domestic civil disasters (natural and man-made), civil disturbances, counter-terrorism operations, sensitive support operations (which include radiological accidents and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) incidents and terrorist incidents involving chemical and biological agents), and counter-drug operations. (18)
Until recently, the Secretary of the Army, as the executive agent of the Secretary of Defense for civil emergencies, was responsible for MACA missions. (19) However, this responsibility was transferred in 2003 to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense. (20) The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense is specifically charged with executing consequence management. Consequence management is defined as "those essential services and activities required to manage and mitigate problems resulting from disasters and catastrophes. Such services and activities may include transportation, communication, public works and engineering, fire fighting, information planning, mass care, resources support, health and medical services, urban search and rescue, hazardous materials, foods and energy." (21)
Although it exceeds the scope of this article, domestic operations may also include military support to law enforcement--Military Support to Civilian Authorities. (22) Direct federal military support to civilian law enforcement is limited by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (23) (and by the DOD (24)) and is otherwise illegal unless specifically authorized by Congress or the U.S. Constitution. (25) This article, however, will focus exclusively on those domestic operations that do not include or contain a primary or supporting law enforcement role by the military.
Additionally, it is necessary to distinguish between federal military forces and state military forces when discussing domestic operations. Generally, the federal military includes those forces in a federal active duty status. (26) For purposes of military domestic operations, federal active duty forces are distinguished from military forces that are performing state active duty missions and who are not on federal active duty status. (27) It is important to recognize that not all disaster response missions by the military necessarily include a federal response since most states depend on their respective National Guard units, acting in a state military status, (28) to respond to state and local emergencies. (29) For purposes of this article, unless otherwise noted, the term "military" will refer only to those military forces in a federal active duty status. Natural disaster relief includes responding with assistance to the hazards associated with earthquakes, hurricanes, flood or dam failure, tornados, and fires. (30) Military assistance and support play an important role in the DOD's mission. For example, in fiscal year 1999, there were 283 instances of military support to civil authorities. (31) Such a large and active military participation in domestic disaster assistance, however, was not always the case. The following examples of domestic natural disasters illustrate the major historical instances of military assistance to civilian authorities in the overall development of domestic disaster history.
Disaster Relief Missions Prior to the Twentieth Century
Initially, during the early years of the nation, the federal government's response to provide disaster relief to states was limited. (32) The federal government was small in size, and many viewed federal disaster relief as a "dangerous exercise of power," unauthorized by the Constitution. (33) Most Presidents turned down state requests for federal aid in keeping with the philosophy of the time that "maintenance of order within the nation belongs primarily to state and local authorities, and only (35) ultimately to the central government." (34) The prevalent political view also considered a large standing army as dangerous. As authors Sam Sarkesian and Robert Connor note,
[t]he historical aversion to standing armies evolving from therevolutionary period and the cautions expressed by the FoundingFathers about the dangers of large standing armies are deeply rootedin the American psyche. When faced with major conflicts, the USmilitary, composed of a small number of regulars, was expanded bythe influx of citizen-soldiers. These episodic surges of the USmilitary were quickly followed by demobilization and reduction ofthe military. (36)
Because the early standing peacetime Army was small and widely disbursed, even if the Army had the ability to offer assistance, there was no rapid transportation to "dispatch troops to the scene of a calamity in time to be of real help." (37) When the Army was called upon to fulfill a domestic operations role, generally the role was limited to suppressing domestic disorders (38) (which was ultimately limited in 1878 with the passing of the Posse Comitatus Act (39)). Congressional support to enact relief authorization did not begin in earnest until after the Civil War. (40) One of the first congressional acts authorizing the military to assist in a non-combat or law enforcement role was in the form of civil works. Congress tasked the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) to survey and improve the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in 1824. (41)
Despite the lack of an active, direct role in domestic disaster assistance early in the nineteenth century, the military contributed indirectly in disaster planning. During the War of 1812, the Army began to record daily weather. (42) The act of tracking weather was initially recognized for its military value but later served as the basis for the establishment and development of the weather services by the U.S. Army Signal Services in 1870. (43)
After the Civil War, the military, especially the Army, found itself with an increased role in civil matters. (44) Post-Civil War occupation by federal troops in the south generated several federal assistance programs administered by the military, most notably the Freedmen's Bureau. (45) The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Property Act of 1865 created The Freedmen's Bureau, and the War Department was responsible for "supervise[ing] all relief and educational activities relating to refugees and freedmen, including issuing rations, clothing and medicine." (46) As federal aid to domestic disasters increased after the Civil War, Congress became more "depende[nt] on the Army" (47) to administer disaster relief.
[The U.S. Army] still maintained more of a presence throughout thenation than did any other federal agency. In addition, it heldstockpiles of rations, clothing, and tentage--the staples ofgovernment grants to victims of disasters. Even when it did not havestores on hand, the Army--again more than any other governmentagency--had [an] established purchasing and transportation systemFinally, the military chain of command facilitated quick response.Once the Army had undertaken the task of relief in a few instances,its role became so fixed that Congress rarely questioned its useduring the remainder of the century. (48)
Another post-civil war example of military domestic assistance occurred after the Great Fire of Chicago on 8 October 1871. (49) In a telegram on 9 October 1871, Lieutenant General (LTG) P. H. Sheridan reported to Secretary of War W. W. Belknap, "[t]he city of Chicago is almost utterly destroyed by fire." (50) Calling it a "national calamity," (51) LTG Sheridan requested and the government provided "rations from St. Louis, tents from Jeffersonville, and two companies of infantry from Omaha" (52) to accommodate the estimated 100,000 homeless. (53)
Overall, the U.S. Army assisted in over seventeen domestic relief operations associated with fires, epidemics, floods, storms, tornadoes, and a locust plague between 1868 and 1898, (54) including disaster relief for a massive earthquake that destroyed most of Charleston, South Carolina in August of 1886. (55) The ACE undertook its first formal disaster relief mission during the Mississippi Flood of 1882 when it supported the Army Quartermaster Corps' efforts to rescue people and property. (56) The ACE also played a critical role in responding to the Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood of 1889. (57)
During these relief operations, the War Department typically received funds from Congress and detailed the Army to purchase and deliver the relief supplies to the disaster area. (58) By the end of the nineteenth century, the U.S. military was firmly embedded in domestic disaster relief missions, and the Army became the "primary agent for disaster relief." (59)
Disaster Relief Missions in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a new sense of federal government activism in disaster assistance and relief operations replaced the reluctance that was once so prevalent during the early nineteenth century. (60) This change may be explained, in part, because of the shift from an agrarian nation to an industrial metropolitan nation and the subsequent emergence of a society with a "greater sense of …