Citations[]
The National Strategy for Homeland Security (July 2002) (full-text).
Homeland Security Council, The National Strategy for Homeland Security (Oct. 2007) (full-text).
2002 strategy[]
In July 2002, President Bush issued the "National Strategy for Homeland Security," with strategic objectives to (1) prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, (2) reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, and (3) minimize the damage and recovery from attacks that do occur. To ensure coverage of critical infrastructure sectors, this strategy identified 13 industry sectors, expanded from the 8 originally identified in PDD 63, as essential to U.S. national security, national economic security, and/or national public health and safety. Lead federal agencies were identified and directed to work with their counterparts in the private sector to assess sector vulnerabilities and to develop plans to eliminate vulnerabilities.
This strategy articulated the vision for a unified “American Infrastructure Protection effort” to “ensure we address vulnerabilities that involve more than one infrastructure sector or require action by more than one agency” and to “assess threats and vulnerabilities comprehensively across all infrastructure sectors to ensure we reduce the overall risk to the country, instead of inadvertently shifting risk from one potential set of targets to another.”
This strategy called for the development of “interconnected and complementary homeland security systems that are reinforcing rather than duplicative, and that ensure essential requirements are met ... [and] provide a framework to align the resources of the Federal budget directly to the task of securing the homeland.”
This strategy called for the Office of Homeland Security and the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board to complete cyber and physical infrastructure protection plans, which would serve as the baseline for later developing the comprehensive national infrastructure protection plan. Such a plan was subsequently required by the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
2007 strategy[]
The 2007 "National Strategy for Homeland Security" builds on the first National Strategy for Homeland Security and complements both the National Security Strategy issued in March 2006 and the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism issued in September 2006. It reflects the increased understanding of threats confronting the United States, incorporates lessons learned from exercises and real-world catastrophes, and addresses ways to ensure long-term success by strengthening the homeland security foundation that has been built. It serves to guide, organize, and unify our nation’s homeland security efforts. It is a national strategy (not a federal strategy) that articulates the approach to secure the homeland over the next several years. It reflects the increased understanding of threats confronting the United States, incorporates lessons learned from exercises and real-world catastrophes, and addresses ways to ensure long-term success by strengthening the homeland security foundation that has been built.
Graphic summary of the U.S. strategy[]
