Guard and Reserves Unprepared for WMD Strike?

Citing a Commission on the National Guard and Reserves report, MSNBC states that the military is not prepared for a WMD strike on the homeland.

The commission's 400-page report concludes that the nation "does not have sufficient trained, ready forces available" to respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear weapons incident," an appalling gap that places the nation and its citizens at greater risk..."

In response, Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, chief of U.S. Northern command, said the Pentagon is putting together a specialized military team that would be designed to respond to such catastrophic events.

"The capability for the Defense Department to respond to a chemical, biological event exists now," Renuart told the AP. "It, today, is not as robust as we would like because of the demand on the forces that we've placed across the country. ... I can do it today. It would be harder on the (military) services, but I could respond."

Over the next year, Renuart said, specific active duty, Guard and Reserve units will be trained, equipped and assigned to a three-tiered response force totaling about 4,000 troops. There would be a few hundred first responders, who would be followed by a second wave of about 1,200 troops that would include medical and logistics forces.

And here's the money quote:

In perhaps its most controversial recommendation, the panel again said that the nation's governors should be given the authority to direct active-duty troops responding to an emergency in their states. That recommendation, when it first surfaced last year, was rebuffed by the military and quickly rejected by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

I haven't read the whole report, but my initial reaction is something like, um, WTFO?

First and foremost the purpose of the active-duty military and the reserves in fighting and winning wars, not homeland defense. The National Guard has the mission of homeland defense in addition to its warfighting mission. The idea of placing active forces under state governors is, at best, a stretch.

And the idea of the military's readiness to respond to a WMD incident begs a couple questions. Like, outside of a nuke, what type of realistic WMD scenario would generate such a huge response that all the civilian, and other existing dedicated response assets such as Guard civil support teams, would be overwhelmed? 9-11 and Katrina were catastrophic events that required large military responses. But, the military aspect of those operations went well, even with much of the military committed overseas during Katrina. But, an event like Oklahoma City did not require a large military response. And that's the most realistic scale for an actual WMD event.

I think the news story confuses the issue with what some of the CNGR report is actually saying about the state of readiness of our reserve component. Are our reserve forces stretched thin? Yes. Have Guard units not been available for domestic use? Yes. And that is one of the primary concerns of the report. The Guard and Reserves have evolved from a strategic reserve that was available for use in homeland defense into an operational reserve in which wars cannot be fought without. The days in which the reserve component was a vast pool of resources for domestic operations are over. And the CNGR report demands a fix.

But, what shape should that fix take? How much of our military should we hold back from its warfighting mission in order to defend the homeland? And what should our military focus on, homeland security or winning wars? And how many assets should we dedicate to the unlikely catastrophic WMD scenario? The military will always have a role in homeland defense, but that's not the reason it exists.

For WMD response, Gen. Renuart's concept of operations sounds about right. The military has always been a follow on asset for domestic response, not the lead. Gloom and doom scenarios and the dismal response to Katrina, where the state and local government was just as much to blame as FEMA, should not cause us to lose sight of that.