Impact of 9-11 Attacks and Federal Funding on the National Guard’s Organizational and Operational Focus.

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study

The United States of America faces diverse threats to its security ranging from

existential threats from politically independent states to less catastrophic but potentially

damaging attacks from terror organizations not formally affiliated with an independent

state (see Ucko & Marks, 2018; United States Department of Defense [DOD], 2015a). In

addition, the United States faces nonkinetic challenges such as environmental, economic,

and social changes (White House, 2015, 2017). Different types of threats present a unique

challenge to the United States because the country assumes a prominent role in the

present international order and may feel compelled to solve, or more accurately address,

this variety of concerns and issues (see Allison, 2020; Sarkesian, et al., 2008, 2013). The

United States uses multiple levels of government and different types of organizations as

instruments to approach its security threats.

The nature of security threats is neither static nor constant but changes over time

based on assessment made by adversaries or potential adversaries of the approach they

think will give them the best chance of success against the United States. Traditionally,

the greatest threat to the United States has been powerful political states wishing to use

force, primarily military force, to impose their will on the country or defeat its military

forces (Kime, 2018; Snow & Drew, 2010). Internal security threats are frequently

present, but, with the exception of the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865 and

military campaigns during the 18

and 19

centuries against indigenous populations in

North America, usually do not require a significant military response (see C. R. Brown,

2008; Wilson, 1986). Traditionally, the United States has relied on the existing law

enforcement and civilian internal security apparatuses for internal security (D. J.

Campbell & K. M. Campbell, 2010).

Following the end of the cold war in the early 1990s, the United States became

the preeminent political and military power in the world, and potential adversaries began

to look for alternative ways to effectively oppose American policies and actions they

opposed to offset United States superior military capabilities ( see Kilcullen, 2009;

McChrystal, 2014; Mead, 2004). One alternative approach took the form of terrorist or

unconventional attacks against the United States overseas institutions, structures, or

personnel as well as America’s international allies (National Commission on Terrorist

Attacks Upon the United States, 2004; Weiner, 2012). This irregular form of war resulted

in a series of deadly attacks on the continental United States on September 11, 2001,

causing large-scale casualties and significant structural and infrastructure damage in

Washington, DC and New York, NY (Mahan & Griset, 2008). In response to these

unprecedented attacks, the United States began to look for ways to combat and destroy

the nonstate actors behind the attack, but it also reevaluated its own national security

enterprise to thwart or mitigate future large-scale attacks such as those that occurred on

9/11 (Olson, 2010; Votel et al., 2016).

A key component of America’s national security enterprise is the National Guard

that is an armed force with a unique, hybrid organizational structure and mission set

(Schumacher, 2011). The National Guard consists of 54 state and territorial units that are

subordinate to the governors of their respective nonfederal government, but the National

Guard units can also come under the command of the President of the United States

through the National Guard Bureau and the DOD (Doubler, 2001; Margis, 2016). The

purpose of the current study was to evaluate the National Guard’s relationship with the

DOD by focusing on the relationship between the increasingly nontraditional national

security threats contrasted with the impact of federal government funding and support for

the National Guard’s conventional military structures and capabilities.

I focused the study on two periods bracketing the millennium to compare the

transition from the cold war state-centric security paradigm to the more unsettled post-

cold-war terror security threats posed by nonstate actors. The two periods considered

were the initial post-cold war period of the 1990s and the post-9/11 period during the first

decade of the 21

century. These periods represented two significant shifts in the United

States national security paradigm with the initial period representing a shift away from

the state-centric security emphasis, with a focus on the bipolar superpower confrontation

between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the 1990s

(see Hammes, 2006; Kitfield, 2016; Tindall, 1992). The second period following the

major terror attack in 2001 represented a transition period during which the United States

and some of its allies began to actively confront transnational, nonstate, terrorist

organizations that presented increasingly serious and potentially damaging threats to the

United States (see Boot, 2013b; Morrell, 2015).

Background

Security is a fundamental element in society and, perhaps, is the most elemental

component required to provide stability within a society (Sun Tzu & Sawyer, n.d./1994).

Without security and the stability it brings, many of the other critical elements of society

become problematic (Galula, 2006; Kaldor, 2005; Schultz, 2016). Providing security for

an independent political state usually entails securing the state from external threats as

well as ensuring internal security threats do not challenge the structure or legitimacy of

the state (Mead, 2004; Millet & Maslowski, 1994). Throughout the course of American

history, a tension has existed between the four levels (federal, state, local, and tribal) that

make up the United States government and the need to provide security for the American

public (see Craig & Gilbert, 1986; Currier, 2003; Mason, 2013).

The United States Constitution provides for separation of powers both within a

particular level of government and also between the governmental levels (United States

Constitution, 1789, Articles I, II, and Amendment X). There are many different ways for

a government to provide security, but the two most common are for an effective law

enforcement judiciary system and a complementary armed forces military organization

(see D. J. Campbell & K.M. Campbell, 2010; Hammond, 1997). Traditionally, in the

United States, the law enforcement judiciary system was responsible for internal or

domestic security, and the federal military was responsible for securing the country from

external threats posed by other national states (D. J. Campbell & K.M. Campbell, 2010;

Weiner, 2012). Within the individual sovereign states, the Militia Act of 1792 permitted

individual states to maintain a state militia to provide a paramilitary armed force for

internal security and, initially, as a counter to the possibility of the federal government’s

use of the national-level armed forces in the internal affairs of individual states (see

Dougherty, 2008; Millett & Maslowski, 1994; Warren, 2019). Congress legally restricted

the federal government’s military involvement in domestic law enforcement activities

through the Posse Comitatus Act of 1876 in response to the use of the military in the

post-Civil War reconstruction period (R. Burke & McNeil, 2016; Hammond, 1997;

United States Department of State, 1879).

The combination of these two acts provided a mechanism for individual states to

develop an internal state security mechanism and force that could also be used in a

national emergency, such as a war or massive disaster. Although this improved the state’s

ability, both acts constrained the federal government’s role and capability to use military

force within the states. The initial impetus for the Posse Comitatus Act was to restrict the

federal government’s use of the United States Army in the post-Civil War south and in

the “Indian Wars” in the western United States (see R. Burke & McNeil, 2015;

Dougherty, 2008).

However, during the late 19

and early 20

centuries, there was an increasing

push to increase the professionalism and capabilities of the various state militias to

provide a more capable reserve force for the regular United States Army, which was

always a secondary mission for the state militias (see D. J. Campbell, 2014; Stentiford,

2008). This trend toward increasing federal influence became federal law through the

Militia Act of 1903, also known as the Dick Act that established the National Guard

composed of all of the state militias to create a more uniform conventional and strategic

military reserve. The states relinquished a greater degree of organizational control of their

in order to receive increased funding from the federal government (D. J. Campbell, 2014;

Wilson, 1986).

As a result of a series of additional Congressional Acts throughout the 20

century, the National Guard became increasingly integrated into the War Department

and, in the post-1947 era, the DOD incorporated the Army National Guard and the Air

National Guard into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force,

respectively (Cantwell, 1994; Mahon, 1983). The transition of the National Guard

increased its conventional military capability, and it became a more capable operational

reserve during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts in the first decade of the 21

Century

(Griswold, 2011). This transitional trend culminated in the National Defense

Authorization Bill of 2012, which designated the National Guard Bureau as a joint

element of the DOD and gave the National Guard Bureau Commander a seat on the Joint

Chiefs of Staff equal to all other military service chiefs (United States Congress, 2011).

A fundamental purpose of the current study was related to the concept of

homeland security and addressed a gap in the literature focused on the type of funding for

the National Guard between the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century.

Traditionally, the United States had bifurcated its security elements with the Department

of State and the DOD focused on external threats and activities and a variety of

organizations focused on internal security. The 9/11 attacks in 2001 combined with the

rise of transnational terror organizations reflected a change in the nature of security

threats, making a bifurcated security structure much less effective. The dual state-federal

responsibilities of the National Guard could have acted as a bridge between the bifurcated

security seams; however, its primary funding stream coming from the DOD made it less

effective in focusing on terrorism and internal security concerns and issues (see Mahon,

1983).

Problem Statement

There is a problem in the United States national security enterprise that is related

to the National Guard’s hybrid organization with split responsibilities to both individual

state governments and the federal government, and it was unknown whether this hybrid

structure caused the National Guard’s capabilities to diverge from pre- and post-9/11

national security priorities. Despite the legal authorities establishing the hybrid

organization, the National Guard Bureau is a subordinate organization within the United

States DOD, and the department is biased toward conventional military operations (see

Gates, 2014; Hammes, 2006; Punaro et al., 2008). This conventional military bias

combined with a Congressional preference to fund these types of operations creates a

similar bias within the National Guard Bureau toward conventional military operations

compared to homeland security operations (Government Accounting Office [GAO],

2008).

A conventional military and security operations bias creates a problem because

there is a lack of focus on the rising trend of nontraditional national security threats

facing the United States (see Gates, 2014; Hadley & Perry, 2010). Meeting these new

threats requires experimentation, innovation, and nonconventional approaches to combat

or mitigate the nontraditional threats (see Ucko & Marks, 2018; White House, 2015,

2017). The purpose of the current study was to analyze the changing national security

threats since the end of the cold war in the early 1990s combined with a novel statistical

analysis of how these changes were not reflected in a significant or equivalent change in

the types of federal funding to the National Guard Bureau. I hoped through statistical

analysis of Congressional funding for conventional or traditional versus irregular or

unconventional capabilities to identify capability gaps in the National Guard’s ability to

effectively combat irregular or unconventional threats to the United States homeland.

I anticipated there might be a divergence between types of funding and

anticipated threats that would provide direct evidence of divergence that was not found in

the literature related to academic studies. Although research and literature addressed the

National Guard’s operational focus and capabilities or the relative cost difference

between active duty and the reserve and National Guard forces, there was a gap in the

research regarding a comparison of the National Guard budgets between the pre- and

post-9/11periods (see Hoffman, 2016; Klimas et al., 2014; National Commission on the

Future of the Army, 2016). I evaluated the degree to which the changing nature of

security threats combined with organizational and bureaucratic inertia inhibited the

National Guard Bureau’s abilities to change its operational focus creating a mismatch

between National Guard operational requirements and existing operational capabilities

through a quantitative analytical approach.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate whether there was a

divergence between stated national security concerns and the National Guard’s

capabilities within the federal government’s DOD from 1996 to 2006. First, to assess

continuity or discontinuity in National Guard capabilities vis-à-vis national security

policies, I conducted an assessment of changes in security threats to the United States

from the pre- to post 9/11 periods. Second, I conducted a statistical evaluation of

continuity or a lack of statistically relevant change in Congressional funding to the

National Guard in pre- and post-9/11 periods. I hypothesized that if there was no

statistically significant change in capabilities funding between 1996 and 2006 and there

was a change in the national security priorities, this would be evidence of a bias toward

continuity and a focus on conventional or traditional warfare.

In the statistical analysis, I used quantitative data sets from the 1996 and the 2006

DOD budgets; these different budget years were the independent and dependent

variables. The 1996 budget was the independent variable because this spending was

completed before the 9/11 attacks occurred and therefore could not be changed. The 2006

budget was the dependent variable because it occurred after the 2001 terror attacks. These

attacks were considered an intervention or action that may or may not have affected the

United States Government’s defense spending following the 2001 terror attacks (see

Frankfort-Nachmias & Nachmias, 2008).

There was a gap in research regarding the comparative analysis of the types of

capabilities obtained using federal funding versus existing research on active duty versus

reserve and National Guard capabilities. I compared funding levels and the capabilities

obtained by the funding from pre- to post-9/11 security environments to identify whether

there was continuity in funding during a period of changing security threats, a disconnect

between funding and threats, and how this represented a potential risk to the United

States.

Research Question

To understand the relationship between America’s national security threats and

the type and level of Congressional funding for the National Guard Bureau, I used the

following research question to guide the development of this research study: According

to Congressional funding, how and to what degree do the National Guard’s capabilities

diverge from the United States national security priorities from pre-9/11 and post-9/11

periods?

Conceptual Framework

I blended two conceptual frameworks to provide structure to the research and

analysis. The overarching framework was one of organizational change that emphasized

the challenges in creating and implementing change to overcome an organization’s and

its members’s preference for inertia and stability. Lewin (1947a, 1947b) and Schein

(2010) focused on the importance of understanding and adapting organizational change to

the organization’s culture. These seminal works provided a foundation for understanding

the challenges of implementing change within organizations. Their perspectives centered

on the challenges of overcoming structural and cultural factors in an organization that

create inertia that leads to resistance to change within the organizations. According to the

conceptual framework, an organization must open up (“unfreeze”) the organization, both

structurally and culturally, to effect significant change (see Lewin, 1947a, 1947b; Porras,

1987; Schein, 2010).

The second framework focused on understanding the immediate and operational

impact of the federal government providing funding to the National Guard Bureau

through the DOD (see Dunlap, 1994). To conceptualize these processes, I used a stream

analysis framework introduced by Porras (1987) in foundational organizational

development and stream analysis work. Porras recognized the role structure and culture

play in the organizational change process, but emphasized the importance of process to

understand how the inputs and processes influence an organization’s outputs. I used these

conceptual frameworks to assess the degree to which conventionally focused funding

streams created divergence between United States security threats and National Guard

capabilities.

Organizational Change

The concept of organizational change implies the need for an organization to

adapt over time to ensure continued success in whatever mission or task (Lawrence &

Lorsch, 1967b) it chooses to pursue or that is assigned to the organization by a higher

authority (see W. W. Burke, 2011). The higher authority can be an external entity to the

organization or a higher element within the same organization. The National Guard

Bureau has both types of relationships because it is authorized and funded by an external

organization, the United States Congress, but it also receives direction and guidance from

the DOD whose organizational structure encompasses the National Guard Bureau (United

States DOD, 2017c).

The importance of adaptation and change extends beyond the assignment of a

mission because it operates on the assumption the external operational environment

frequently or almost continuously changes, which requires modifications or alterations of

the existing organization (W. W. Burke, 2011). An organization must make changes to

stay effective and relevant within the operational environment. The degree, the

frequency, and the variability of the changes present challenges to an organization

because it may be difficult to determine the appropriate response to the changing

environment (W. W. Burke, 2011; Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967a). In addition,

organizations may find it difficult to develop the appropriate internal structure to best

address the fluctuating external environment (see W. W. Burke, 2011; Schein, 2010).

Analyzing an organization at the macro or institutional level provides a strategic

perspective in understanding challenges facing an organization and the need for the

organization to address these challenges. It is important to focus the assessment and

evaluation of organizational change by using and understanding potential barriers to

institutional change as well as how an organization may overcome such impediments (see

W. W. Burke, 2011; Burnes, 2004). Organizational change theories and frameworks

emphasize the role of organizational culture and how it is important to embed change

practices within the organization’s culture to be able to effect constructive change

(Mastroianni, 2006).

Although there are many organizational concepts, Lewin’s (1947a) three-stage

organizational change model provides a widely accepted and seminal approach by

focusing on the critical importance of processes an organization should follow to institute

significant institutional change (W. W. Burke, 2011). The three stages include

“unfreezing” the organization’s structure to facilitate the critical second “change” phase

during which organizational adaptation occurs. Following the change phase, Lewin’s

organizational change model concludes with the third or “refreeze” phase to stabilize the

modified organization (see Lewin, 1947a; Schein, 2010). Another way of assessing

organizational change is the perspective that organizational culture is important to any

organization, and successfully implementing organizational change requires creating and

emphasizing institutionalized change practices within the organization’s leadership

(O’Toole et al., 2002). If an organization’s leadership is resistant to change, then

significant modifications of the organization are unlikely, if not impossible, to pursue or

implement (O’Toole & Pasternak, 2000).

Stream Analysis

Porras (1987) and Henstra (2010) created stream analysis frameworks to evaluate

organizational structures and processes using organizational inputs, processes, and

outputs as prisms to understand internal and external influences on the organization. All

organizations have external and internal environments that influence an organization’s

structures and processes. Therefore, an organization that desires or needs to change and

adapt must analyze both environments (W. W. Burke, 2011; Hickman, 2010). In the

current study, the stream analysis framework related to evaluating a systems-analysis

approach to national security decision-making processes and, in turn, reflected how

National Guard funding inputs could affect the National Guard’s organizational processes

and influence the types of outputs produced by the National Guard’s processes (see

Sarkesian et al., 2013). There are several external and internal factors that influence the

National Guard, but I focused this study on the role of federal funding inputs channeled

through the DOD and how this funding stream influenced the internal processes and,

ultimately, the output produced in the form of operational capabilities within the National

Guard (Dibella, 2013).

Schein (1996), Vest (2014), and Yukl (2010) postulated that an analyst must

understand an organization’s culture and the role individual actions or traits play in

shaping the organization’s culture. The importance of these scholars’s work is the explicit

acknowledgement that organizations are human entities that are constructed and designed

by humans for a purpose (see Schein, 1996; Yukl, 2010). Therefore, a human

organization made up of individuals will develop a culture, and the organizational culture

influences the ability of an organization to change as well as how any change is designed

and implemented (Schein, 2010). In the case of the National Guard, the institution has an

overarching culture of military service to their respective state or territory as well as the

nation as a whole. The fact the National Guard represents 50 states and four territories

indicated the possibility, even likelihood, of a large number of subcultures within the

overarching institutional culture (see Cooper, 1997; Doubler, 2001).

In contrast, the National Guard Bureau is a joint element of the DOD and is not

formally affiliated with a specific state or territory. The bureau was likely to align closely

with the federal military culture (M. T. Owens, 2010; Punaro et al., 2008). A

complicating factor was that members from the individual state and territorial National

Guard organizations could bring their respective “Guard” cultures to the national

organization, thereby creating a hybrid military (i.e., DOD and National Guard) culture

within the National Guard Bureau.

Changing Role of the National Guard

Less theoretically, Griffith (2011), Griswold (2011), Hoffman (2005), and Lynch

and Stover (2008) evaluated National Guard transformation from a traditional strategic

reserve military and a traditional state militia force to an operational reserve focused on

regular deployments. It was important for me to acknowledge the role of the National

Guard within the national security enterprise is, to a degree, fluid and changeable (see R.

Burke & McNeil, 2015; Doubler, 2001). Through its over 100 years of existence, the

National Guard’s missions and relationship with its home state and territorial

governments as well as its relationship with the federal government, especially the DOD

and its predecessor organizations, evolved and changed based on security requirements

and political processes (see Cooper, 1997, Mahon, 1983; Punaro et al., 2008).

Therefore, placing the National Guard within this operational and political milieu

provided an essential context to use the organizational change and stream analysis

frameworks. As part of the national security enterprise, the National Guard receives

guidance and direction from both the state and federal elements of government (Riker,

1957; Schumacher, 2011; Worley, 2015). Theoretically, the federal government provides

guidance through the national security assessment and planning process starting at the

presidential level and proceeding down through the executive branch’s departments and

subordinate organizations (United States DOD, 2020). This guidance can be seen as

another form of input to the National Guard. The DOD provides guidance to the National

Guard Bureau to prioritize the bureau’s role in the national security enterprise and to

provide further federal direction to the state and territorial National Guard organizations

via the National Guard Bureau.

Nature of the Study

I used a quantitative statistical analysis to analyze the relationship between levels

of federal funding and the types of National Guard missions to assess change over time

between two time periods with different assessments of the national security challenges

facing the United States. In addition, I evaluated the relationship between the DOD and

the National Guard Bureau, a subordinate joint command linking the federal government

to 54 state and territorial National Guard organizations (see United States Congress,

2012). This research study addressed a disparity in how the federal government perceived

national security threats and the actions of the federal government to address the threats

through DOD and National Guard Bureau funding and organizational focus.

I used public documents to evaluate national security threats and quantitatively

analyzed the impact of federal funding of through the DOD on the National Guard

Bureau and on the organizational structure and operational focus of subordinate National

Guard units. I used public documents as the primary data sets to facilitate analysis of

Congressional funding for DOD and National Guard Bureau budgets and assess the levels

of funding for different types of operations. This quantitative data analysis addressed the

level of change or lack of change in funding for traditional military conventional

operations compared to homeland security (traditional state militia) missions. I used a t

test analysis to compare relative spending and capabilities between the fiscal years would

provide insight into potential limits on organizational change within the National Guard.

This survey research project was a quantitative statistical analysis study because I

analyzed existing public data to identify the existence of a diverging trend between

federal government assessments of national security threats and the actions the

government takes to address these threats (see W. W. Burke, 2011; Creswell, 2009). I

selected two time periods bracketing a major national security event (the 9/11 terror

attacks against the United States) to assess whether there was a significant change in the

assessment of the threats and the response to the threats. Following the security threat

assessment, I conducted a quantitative analysis of the National Guard’s primary areas of

investment and expenditures from a fiscal year during the 1990 and 2000 decades.

The quantitative analysis included a comparative analysis of the levels of

spending of the targeted fiscal years to evaluate the lack of change in National Guard

Bureau spending emphasis that, in turn, indicated the government’s lack of adaptation to

changing security threats (see Creswell, 2009; Green & Salkind, 2011). The result of the

quantitative analysis of the public data sets was compared to prioritized national security

threats facing the United States in the pre- and post-9/11 time periods represented by the

budget years of 1996 and 2006. For comparison purposes, the United States Congress

National Defense Authorization Acts of 1996 and 2006 were used to compare spending

priorities 5 years before and 5 years after the 2001 terrorist attacks. This approach

assisted in addressing the hypothesis that if there was no statistically significant change in

capabilities funding between 1996 and 2006 and there was a change in the national

security priorities, this would be evidence of a bias toward continuity and a focus on

conventional or traditional warfare.

Operational Definitions

The following terms were operationalized in the following way in this paper:

Active duty: “Full-time duty in the active military service of the United States.

This includes members of the Reserve Component serving on active duty or full-time

training duty, but does not include full-time National Guard duty. Also called AD. See

also active duty for training; inactive duty training” (United States DOD, 2017b, p. 5).

Citizen soldier: “A person who is primarily a civilian, acting, in war or peace, as a

soldier. He may be a militiaman, a National Guardsman, or a member of Army, Navy,

Marine, or Air Force Reserves. He may have been brought into military service via

volunteering or conscription” (Mahon, 1983, p. 4).

Complex warfare: “The arena of complex warfare blends confrontation and

cooperation in a struggle to achieve national ‘security’ objectives, and is not necessarily

violent. This type of warfare is consistent with East Asian-style Sunzi warfare as distinct

from Western-style Clausewitzian warfare. Sunzi warfare is heavy on deception and

indirect use of force to subdue the adversary, while Clausewitzian warfare is heavy on the

use of force against the adversary to get him to submit” (Drohan, 2019, para. 17).

Conventional forces: “Those forces capable of conducting operations using

nonnuclear weapons and includes forces other than designated special operations forces”

(United States DOD, 2017b, p. 53).

Differentiation: “Is defined as the state of segmentation of the organizational

system into subsystems, each of which tends to develop particular attributes in relation to

the requirements posed by its relevant external environment” (Lawrence & Lorsch,

1967a, pp. 3–4).

Enterprise: “A project or undertaking that is especially difficult, complicated, or

risky; readiness to engage in daring or difficult action; a unit of economic organization or

activity or a systematic purposeful activity” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). An alternate

business definition considers it to be an “establishment of means of production with a

permanent organization…the enterprise contains both material and human components

(Jinoria, 2014, p. 132). The combination of a traditional dictionary definition combined

with the business definition accurately represented the complexity, purposefulness, and

material and human elements of organizations and enterprises.

Homeland: “The physical region that includes the continental United States,

Alaska, Hawaii, United States possessions and territories, and surrounding territorial

waters and airspace” (United States DOD, 2017b, p. 106).

Homeland defense: “The protection of United States sovereignty, territory,

domestic population, and critical defense infrastructure against external threats and

aggression or other threats as directed by the President. Also called HD” (United States

DOD, 2017b, p. 106).

Homeland security: “A concerted national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within

the United States; reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, major disasters, and other

emergencies; and minimize the damage and recover from attacks, major disasters, and

other emergencies that occur. Also called HS” (United States DOD, 2017b, p. 106).

Integration: “Is defined as the process of achieving unity of efforts among the

various subsystems in the accomplishment of the organization’s tasks” (Lawrence &

Lorsch, 1967a, p. 4).

Irregular warfare: ““This form of warfare is characterized as a violent struggle

among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant

population(s).” (United States DOD, 2017b, p. 121). An alternate definition is

“campaigns undertaken to suppress rebellions and guerilla warfare in all parts of the

world where organized armies are struggling against opponents who will not meet them

in the open field” (Boot, 2002, p. xv).

National defense strategy: A document “signed by Secretary of Defense (SecDef),

outlines DOD’s approach to implementing the President’s NSS (National Security

Strategy) (United States DOD, 2017a, p. xii).

National Guard: “The inheritor of the militia tradition, the crucial part is the dual

connection, state and national (or federal). Traditionally, the National Guard has been

manned by volunteers” (Mahon, 1983, p. 4).

National Guard Bureau: “Is a joint activity of the Department of Defense” that

serves as “the channel of communications on all matters pertaining to the National Guard,

the Army National Guard of the United States, and the Air National Guard of the United

States between (1) the Department of the Army and Department of the Air Force, and (2)

the several States” (United States Congress, 1994, section 10501).

National Security (a): “A collective term encompassing both national defense and

foreign relations of the United States. Specifically, the condition provided by: a. a

military or defense advantage over any foreign nation or group of nations; b. a favorable

foreign relations position; or c. a defense posture capable of successfully resisting hostile

or destructive action from within or without, overt or covert. See also security” (United

States DOD, 2017b, p. 164).

National Security (b): “US national security is the ability of national institutions

to prevent adversaries from using force to harm Americans or their national interests and

the confidence of Americans in this capability” (Sarkesian, et al., 2008, p. 4).

National Security Council: “A governmental body specifically designed to assist

the President in integrating all spheres of national security policy. The President, Vice

President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense are statutory members. The

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Director, Central Intelligence Agency; and the

Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs serve as advisers. Also called

NSC” (United States DOD, 2017b, p. 164).

National security enterprise: A collective term encompassing both national

defense and foreign relations of the United States combined with a systematic purposeful

activity or a difficult, complicated, or risky project or undertaking (my definition derived

from combining the definitions of national security and enterprise). A recent assessment

of United States national security purposefully used the term enterprise to explain the

broadest possible interrelationship between all elements of government as well as non-

governmental elements such as the media, think tanks, and lobbyists (George & Rishikof,

2017).

National security establishment: “Normative-analytical term referring to those

responsible for national security decision-making as well as a descriptive term that

identifies a set of actors and processes that actually produce security policy outcomes”

(Sarkesian et al., 2008, p. 19).

National security interests: “The foundation for the development of valid national

objectives that define US goals or purposes. National security interests include preserving

US political identity, framework, and institutions; fostering economic well-being; and

bolstering international order supporting the vital interests of the United States and its

allies” (United States DOD, 2017b, p. 164).

National security strategy: “A document approved by the President of the United

States for developing, applying, and coordinating the instruments of national power to

achieve objectives that contribute to national security. Also called NSS. See also National

Military Strategy; strategy; theater strategy” (United States DOD, 2017b, p. 164).

Operation: “1. Military action or the carrying out of a strategic, operational,

tactical, service, training, or administrative military mission. 2. The process of carrying

on combat, including movement, supply, attack, defense, and maneuvers needed to gain

the objectives of any battle or campaign” (United States DOD, 2017a, p. 14).

Organization: “Is defined as a system of interrelated behaviors of people who are

performing a task that has been differentiated into several distinct subsystems, each

subsystem performing a portion of the task, and the efforts of each being integrated to

achieve effective performance of the system” (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967a, p. 3).

Paramilitary forces: “Forces or groups distinct from the regular armed forces of

any country, but resembling them in organization, equipment, training, or mission”

(United States DOD, 2017b, p. 181).

Regular military forces: “Forces maintained both in war and peace by the national

(federal) government. The members are military first and citizens second. They are also

referred to as Standing Military Forces” (Mahon, 1983, p. 4).

Reserve: “1. Portion of a body of troops that is kept to the rear or withheld from

action at the beginning of an engagement, in order to be available for a decisive

movement. 2. Members of the Military Services who are not in active service but who are

subject to call to active duty. 3. Portion of an appropriation or contract authorization held

or set aside for future operations or contingencies and, in respect to which, administrative

authorization to incur commitments or obligations has been withheld. See also

operational reserve” (United States DOD, 2017b, p. 201).

Reserve component: “The Armed Forces of the United States Reserve Component

consists of: a. the Army National Guard of the United States; b. the Army Reserve; c. the

Navy Reserve; d. the Marine Corps Reserve; e. the Air National Guard of the United

States; f. the Air Force Reserve; and g. the Coast Guard Reserve. Also called RC”

(United States DOD, 2017b, p. 201).

Reserves: “Individuals or units available to fill out national forces when needed.

Reservists are presumed to have skills which the military needs and have at least

rudimentary military training. The Army and Air Force Reserves differ from the National

Guard in that their chain of command starts with the federal military departments and

does not run through the state military hierarchy” (Mahon, 1983, p. 4).

Security (a): “1. Measures taken by a military unit, activity, or installation to

protect itself against all acts designed to, or which may, impair its effectiveness”. 2. “A

condition that results from the establishment and maintenance of protective measures that

ensure a state of inviolability from hostile acts or influences”. 3. “With respect to

classified matter, the condition that prevents unauthorized persons from having access to

official information that is safeguarded in the interests of national security” (United

States DOD, 2017b, p. 2010).

Security (b): “We adopt Arnold Woofer’s definition of security—the absence of

threats to acquired values. This basis for agreement or disagreement about values

encourages different perspectives to understand threats, values, and interests. Unknown

or ignored differences matter, as we find out when we make bad assumptions. So, we use

a comparative prism to avoid mirror imaging others behaviors and desired effects”

(Drohan, 2019, para. 7).

Special operations forces: “Those Active and Reserve Component forces of the

Military Services designated by the Secretary of Defense and specifically organized,

trained, and equipped to conduct and support special operations. Also called SOF”

(United States DOD, 2017b, p. 219).

Standing militia: “Universal military training for men of military age. First the

colonies and then the states required eligible, able-bodied men to muster and to be

associated in companies and larger units to drill. State laws specified the frequency of

training” (Mahon, 1983, p. 5).

Task (a): “Is defined as a complete input-transformation-output cycle involving at

least the design, production, and distribution of some goods or services” (Lawrence &

Lorsch, 1967a, p. 4).

Task (b): “Is a clearly defined action or activity assigned to an individual or

organization. It is a specific assignment that must be done as it is imposed by an

appropriate authority” (DOD, 2017c, p. x).

Terrorism (a): “The unlawful use of violence or threat of violence to instill fear

and coerce governments or societies. Terrorism is often motivated by religious, political,

or other ideological beliefs and committed in the pursuit of goals that are usually

political” (United States DOD, 2017b, p. 236).

Terrorism (b): “Use of violence by nonstate actors directed primarily at

noncombatants (mostly civilians, but also government officials, policemen, and off-duty

soldiers) in order to intimidate or coerce them and change their governments policy or

composition” (Boot, 2013a, p, xi).

Terrorism (c): “Warfare…primarily…carried out by bands of loosely organized,

ill-disciplined, and lightly armed volunteers who disdained open battle in favor of

stealthy raids and ambushes: the strategies of both tribal warriors and modern guerrillas

and terrorists (Boot, 2013b, p. 100).

Traditional warfare: “Is characterized as a violent struggle for domination

between nation-states or coalitions and alliances of nation-states. With the increasingly

rare case of formally declared war, traditional warfare typically involves force-on-force

military operations in which adversaries employ a variety of conventional forces and

special operations forces (SOF) against each other in all physical domains as well as the

information environment (which includes cyberspace)”. (United States DOD, 2017c, p.

x).

Unconventional warfare: “Activities conducted to enable a resistance movement

or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by

operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area.

Also called UW” (United States DOD, 2017b, p. 243).

Volunteer militia: “Individual militiamen often volunteered for particular duty,

usually for the limited duration characteristic of the militia. If they volunteered for a

longer tour, or for service beyond the boundaries of state or colony, they entered into a

different legal category, that of a war volunteer. Elite militia units often volunteered into”

(Mahon, 1983, p. 5).

War volunteers: “Individuals or units, more often than not from the militia, who

volunteered to serve for an extended period, perhaps for the duration of an emergency.

They became subject to laws different from those for the militia” (Mahon, 1983, p. 5).

Assumptions

I focused this study on United States national security enterprise organizations

and their members because the perspectives these entities had on the national security

threats are likely skewed and biased. This was because the complexity and scale of the

security threats are so great and varied that they were virtually impossible to quantify (see

Sarkesian et al., 2013). The members within the national security enterprise base their

security analysis on an assessment derived from a fusion of knowable facts and

qualitative evaluations of potential capabilities and intentions (see Millen, 2012). This

circumstance led to a key assumption for the current study’s analysis because the

qualitative nature of members and organizations analyzed in the study allows these actors

within the national security enterprise to skew, adjust, or modify their threat assessments

to develop their organizations and capabilities aligned with their preferences (see Morag,

2006).

The issue of bias within an organization and the influence this bias may have in

developing or sustaining an organization’s culture plays an important element in an

organizational change analysis (Gerras & Wong, 2013). The issue of bias influencing a

risk assessment to justify a certain organizational structure or capability is especially

critical with issues involving the provision of security (see Bacevich, 2007). Providing

security is a key responsibility of any government. If security professionals biases

adversely affects security policies and decisions, this likely creates risks, both external

and internal, to a country’s security and stability.

A second assumption in this paper was the United States national security

enterprise should focus efforts to address national security threats identified or assigned

by the national security strategy (United States DOD, 2012a; White House, 2017). The

absence of an empirically provable security threat prompts the federal government to

create a consensus around the most likely or the most dangerous security threats to the

country (Posen, 2013). The elements representing the national security enterprise should

focus on threats prioritized by national leaders through national strategy process rather

than members of a bureaucracy identifying threats to justify their organization’s

capabilities, cultures, and existence (see Bacevich, 2007; Collins, 2013). Since the end of

the cold war, the rise of nonstate actors with the capabilities to inflict significant

casualties and losses to a country combined with their proven operational success should

spur the national security enterprise to focus in this security arena (Kurth, 2007; Worley,

2015). Although these changes happened, a senior Air Force general declared much of

the DOD remains interested in developing and preparing for large-scale conventional

warfare between states (Chief of Staff, United States Air Force, personal communication,

October 29, 2013).

Scope and Delimitations

The scope of this study was limited temporally to two time periods focusing on

the federal government’s funding of the National Guard from the mid-1990s to the mid-

2000s. Second, the scope of the study was limited organizationally to the National Guard

and excluded the individual state and territorial subordinate National Guard

organizations. The National Guard Bureau is the DOD element responsible for

integrating state and territorial National Guard organizations into the DOD and the

national security enterprise (Jean, 2010; United States DOD, 2015b; United States

Congress, 2011).

The two periods covered in this study provided an effective time frame to

evaluate the effect of national security strategy changes spurred by the successful

nonstate terror attacks evidenced by the 9/11 terror attacks in New York; Washington,

DC; and Pennsylvania. In addition, the consideration of federal funding levels and types

provided to the National Guard through the DOD reflects the level of credence Congress

and the DOD puts on terrorist threats by nonstate actors (Hadley & Perry, 2010; Worley,

2015). I evaluated changes in perceived national security threats and the federal

government’s national security enterprise’s response to the threats (see Biddle, 2015;

Donnelly & Kagan, 2010). However, the primary focus of this study was the evaluation

on the National Guard’s funding and its impact on the organization’s operational focus

and enduring relationship with the DOD.

I focused the study on the period from the end of the cold war (circa 1990–1991)

to the withdrawal of United States military forces from Iraq (circa 2009–2010). The post-

cold-war period is important because it represents the first period in United States history

when the country did not face a major conventional threat from another country (Offner,

2007). In modern military parlance, the United States did not have a “near-peer” military

competitor (see Dunlap, 2010; Eliason, 2017; O’Hanlon, 2009; Work, 2016). Although

there may have been periods earlier in the country’s history when major foreign powers

were unlikely to attack the United States, throughout the United States history countries

existed that had equal or greater military capabilities. However, the decade of the 1990s

into the new millennium was a period in American history when no country could claim

military parity or superiority to the United States (see Mead, 2004; Snow & Drew, 2010).

This time frame also included the rise of nonstate terrorist organizations as

significant security threats to many countries including the United States. A series of

increasingly lethal terror attacks against the United States and its allies in the 1990s

culminated in the successful 2001 attacks by Al Qaeda in the United States, that caused

the largest single loss of primarily civilian lives in the country’s history as a result of

terrorism (Morell, 2015; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United

States, 2004). Comparing the pre-9/11 and the post-9/11 periods provided a clearer

understanding of potential and actual contemporary threats facing the United States and

permitted an assessment of the preparation and response to the threats by the DOD and

the National Guard.

I limited the area of analysis to the National Guard’s and the DOD’s relationship

with the United States Congress. The enormous size, scale, and complexity of the

national security enterprise required limiting analysis to a single element of the

enterprise. The threat posed by Al Qaeda and other nonstate terrorist organizations

emanated primarily from outside the United States during this time period (National

Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, 2004). Focusing the current

study on the United States military represented by the DOD and its subordinate elements

was appropriate because defending the country is the DOD’s fundamental mission (see

United States DOD, 2017c).

However, even the DOD was too large and complex an organization to evaluate in

this study. Therefore, narrowing the focus further to the National Guard provided a

bridge between the National Guard’s domestically focused state and territorial

responsibilities and the organization’s externally focused federal security missions (see

Ellis & Mackenzie, 2014). However, limited personnel, resources, and time precluded

evaluating each state and territorial National Guard organization. As Mahon (1983)

articulated, throughout the 20

century federal funding took precedence over state

funding for state National Guard organizations. This funding was provided primarily

through the DOD, and it provided insight into the overall capabilities of the individual

state National Guard organizations.

Limitations

A major limitation to the study was associated with the assumptions and related to

the difficulty of empirically defining the security threats facing the United States. The

purpose of this study was to provide a quantitative analysis of the possible divergence

between stated national security concerns and the National Guard’s capabilities within

the federal government’s DOD from 1996 to 2006. The major impact this research may

have on the National Guard, the National Guard Bureau, and the DOD is a challenge to

the cultural paradigm of the preeminence of traditional or conventional warfare. The

results showed no statistically significant change in major program spending between the

1996 and 2006 defense budgets compared with a shift in national security threats. This

finding suggested the need to make changes to the existing organizations that threatens

organizational personnel with vested interests in the status quo.

The ill-defined nature of national security threats limited the ability to critically

evaluate all of the approaches to mitigating or defeating potential threats until after the

potential threat occurs (see Dempsey, 2013). Due to this ill-defined nature, spending

large sums of money for the military defense of a country can only accurately be

evaluated once war breaks out and one side’s preparation is better, such as in Germany’s

rapid defeat of France in World War II (Deighton, 2000; Macksey, 2003). Likewise, the

uncertainty of security threats makes analyzing bias within a security organization

difficult because absent a convincing defeat it is hard to prove the bias is unfounded (see

Boot, 2006; Gray, 2009). Therefore, the overall impact of the current study may not be

understood until United States security forces face another major war or another 9/11-

type terror attack.

To address this definitional limitation, I used national security strategies

developed by United States presidential staffs to serve as a proxy for defining national

security threats. The national security strategy documents represent the United States

government’s assessment of potential threats and provide a simple but effective way to

highlight major and prioritized security concerns in a single document (White House,

2010). The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether there was a

divergence between stated national security concerns and the National Guard’s

capabilities within the federal government’s DOD from 1996 to 2006. I evaluated

whether the DOD and the National Guard failed to adapt to meet an evolving security

environment, and using national security strategies during this period provided the best

framework and the appropriate context for the analysis (see Allison, 2020; Bacevich,

2007). This study was not designed to evaluate national security strategy development. A

related limitation to the study was the magnitude of the United States national security

enterprise. The enterprise consists of elements of all four main levels of governance

within the United States, including federal, state, local, and tribal governments (Sarkesian

et al., 2013).

Significance

The overall goal of the study was to improve America’s homeland security

enterprise by analyzing the degree of bias within the DOD and the National Guard toward

conventional military operations. The National Guard’s operational focus on federal

missions provides a strategic, conventional military reserve but neglects state-centric

requirements creating unfunded homeland security mandates (see Gates, 2009; Griswold,

2011). The federal government faced changing security threats in the 1990s from

opponents using nontraditional operations, but delayed initiating significant security

changes until after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 (see National Commission on Terrorist

Attacks Upon the United States, 2004). After 9/11, the federal government created the

Department of Homeland Security that incorporated 22 federal departments and agencies

including the Coast Guard, but not any DOD elements, to provide a limited armed forces

capability within a largely civilian and law enforcement organizational structure (R.

Burke & McNeil, 2016; United States Department of Homeland Security, 2017).

The retention of the National Guard’s federal missions within the DOD allowed

the National Guard to remain focused on traditional or conventional military operations

and, consequently, less responsive to nontraditional domestic security threats and

significant natural disaster challenges. The study design enabled assessing the degree of

institutional biases and potential National Guard responses to the diverse national

security threats in the 21

century. By better integrating the state and territorial National

Guard organizations into Department of Homeland Security’s planning and operations,

the country should have improved responses to changing and nontraditional national

security threats (see R. Burke & McNeil, 2016).

Expected Social Change

Anticipated improvements in United States national security enterprise operations

and programs could result in an overall increase in the country’s national security.

Security is a fundamental building block for socioeconomic development, although the

security expenditures compete for government resources (see Holshek, 2014). Massive

federal expenses associated with conducting wars in response to terror attacks diverted

resources away from domestic social welfare spending and potentially created a

significant internal instability threat that could deter economic investment and

development (O’Hanlon, 2009). Bias and resistance to organizational change discovered

in this study could prompt changes in national security policy and produce improved

security. Improvements in effectiveness and efficiency could provide increased social

welfare and economic development and lead to a better socioeconomic environment for

the American public.

Summary

This research study provided insight into potential organizational cultural bias

within the United States national security enterprise that potentially reduced the country’s

effectiveness in meeting nontraditional security challenges. Failure to meet these security

threats provides a significant threat to the American public through potential physical

attacks as well as potentially degrading their socioeconomic status. This chapter

addressed challenges facing the United States national security enterprise following the

end of the cold war. I researched the role of the National Guard’s organizational and

cultural bias toward conventional military operations compared to traditional state militia

and internal security missions.

In addition, I used an organizational change concept that included a stream

analysis framework to analyze the impact of federal funding to the National Guard

through the DOD. I analyzed changes in the United States national security strategy over

two periods and evaluated changes to the country’s national security threats to support a

statistical evaluation of the National Guard Bureau’s budget and operational capabilities

in the two periods. Chapter 2 provides a review of the relevant literature of the

organizational change discipline with emphasis on organizational culture and stream

analysis. The literature review also addresses military and governmental security studies

emphasizing the importance of the United States military’s reserve component and the

role the National Guard plays within the United States national security enterprise.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

In this chapter, the academic literature review justified the research topic’s

relevance and indicated gaps in the academic research on challenges and resistance to

organizational change within the National Guard and the National Guard Bureau. The

National Guard is a key element in the United States national security enterprise, but the

organization’s role within the enterprise has evolved over its long history (see Doubler,

2001; Mahon, 1983; Stentiford, 2008). The current study was situated within an ongoing

context of change and evolution. A second key element regarding the National Guard

addressed in the current study was the nature and complexity of the National Guard’s

relationship with state and territorial governments and a more extended relationship with

the federal government through the National Guard Bureau and the DOD (see Punaro et

al, 2008; Riker, 1957). A third element of this study was the relation between the state

and territorial governments and the federal government and how these ties affect the

types of change within the National Guard. In addition, I investigated how the

government authorities and entities affected the nature and types of the funding for

National Guard, as well as the organization’s operational focus and change processes.

The relationship between these three concepts was the heart of the study and drove the

framework of the literature review.

The National Guard’s hybrid responsibilities and authorities are nested between

the federal level and the state and territorial levels of American government, and this

related to the problem addressed in the current study. The security threats facing the

United States were changing from interstate conflict and competition to less well-defined

and more ambiguous threats from nonstate actors represented by terror organizations and

groups. Meeting those changes in a responsible, fiscally prudent, and operationally

effective manner was the fundamental challenge facing the United States national

security enterprise. I reviewed the changing nature of security threats through a review of

government documents and academic literature highlighted in this chapter. The initial

research indicated there was tension between existing conventional security capabilities

and changes occurring in the international and domestic security environments, and this

tension supported the current study’s research question and relevance.

This study’s research question addressed the relationships and tensions within the

national security enterprise. The research question addresses whether Congressional

funding to the National Guard Bureau through the DOD created a bias toward

conventional military operations and created a divergence between changing national

security threats and National Guard operational capabilities. The literature review

focused on organizational change concepts as well as analyses of national security topics

and threats through a combination of strategy development and operational planning

concepts.

The literature review was organized into the following sections: the literature

search strategy, a discussion of an organizational change theoretical framework, and a

literature review related to key concepts. The key concepts section had five subsections:

organizational change, National Guard, budgets and finance, law and authorities, and

strategy and security threats that provided insight and background into the overall

research project’s focus on the organizational change and the National Guard. The

theoretical framework section focused on organizational change theory and concepts with

special attention paid to the concept of challenges and resistance to change within

organizations. The theoretical organization change assessment established a framework to

address the analysis of national security challenges facing the United States. Using a

narrower focus, I analyzed the roles and relationships between the National Guard and

the DOD to address the national security challenges.

Literature Search Strategy

I used a wide range of research strategies including multiple academic databases

and search engines as well as several university library systems. The three primary

research areas related to this study were organizational change theory with an emphasis

on stream analysis framework, the National Guard’s role in the national security

enterprise, and the contemporary security environment. Walden University’s library was

the primary academic library used throughout the research process. In addition, the

United States Air Force Academy’s library was also used because I was a faculty member

with unlimited access and found the Academy’s document repository valuable. The ready

access to government documents facilitated research on the national security and

operational assessment aspects of the literature review. A third library was the Naval

Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The Naval Postgraduate School was an

excellent resource because it is a premier repository and research center for DOD and

interagency research on homeland security and homeland defense issues.

The database research strategy focused on accessing academic articles and

journals as well as government documents through Walden University’s library and other

academic libraries. I used the following databases: Academic Search Complete, Business

Source Complete, EBSCO Host, Global Terrorism Database, Google Books, Google

Scholar, Homeland Security Digital Library (Naval Postgraduate School), International

Security and Counter Terrorism Reference Center, Military and Government Collection,

Political Science Complete, Political Science: A Sage Full-Text Collection, ProQuest

Central, Sage Encyclopedias and Handbooks, Sage Premier, and Walden Library Books.

In addition, multiple searches and reviews of journal articles and monographs occurred

on key military research and journal websites associated with colleges and schools within

the DOD professional educational system. Searches using these institutions were

conducted to locate current and relevant supporting documents. The three most

productive military research sites were the United States Army’s Combined Arms Center,

the center’s Military Review journal, and the United States Army War College Press,

which includes the Parameters journal and the Strategic Studies Institute’s papers.

To maximize the academic research using these journals and databases, the

following keywords were used to frame the search process: National Guard, National

Guard Bureau, National Guard budget, Department of Defense, United States

Congressional Budget, national security strategy, national military strategy, homeland

security, Department of Homeland Security, homeland security strategy, organizational

change, organizational design, and stream analysis. These terms focused on three broad

areas: organizational change, the National Guard, and national security strategy.

The organizational change literature included Lewin’s seminal work in the late

1940s and Schein’s (1996, 2010) work that broadened Lewin’s work to include culture as

a key element of organizational change. The national security and National Guard

searches focused on historical trajectory, the 1980s through the post-cold-war period, and

emphasized the period following the 9/11 terror attacks. The research illustrated the

change and transition of national security threats from the cold war to a contemporary

security environment with nontraditional security threats (Ucko & Marks, 2018).

Major challenges for this literature review were the specialized nature of

homeland security studies in combination with the recent development and incorporation

of homeland security as an integral element in the United States national security

enterprise (see Buchalter, 2007; Winslow, 2013). Prior to the 9/11 attacks, the United

States viewed security threats as a bifurcated process of external threats being the

responsibility of the DOD, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the State Department

with internal security challenges treated as criminal in nature and the responsibility of the

Federal Bureau of Investigation within the United States Department of Justice, the

country’s other law enforcement agencies, and local National Guard (National

Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, 2004). The impact of the 9/11

terror attacks in 2001 combined with the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina in

Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005 led to a blossoming of homeland security studies and

academic research. The period from 2002 to 2010 resulted in the publication of a

significant amount of research on national security threats and homeland security

concepts. However, in the years following this burst of publications, there was a

reduction in studies on these topics.

From a literature review perspective, this created challenges in prioritizing and

utilizing academic and governmental research conducted in the past 5 years. One way to

address this was to consider some of the key studies on homeland security done in the

first decade of the 21

century as seminal works in a new academic concentration. The

rise of the Islamic State in the Levant in the Middle East during 2014–2015 and the

increase in terror attacks associated with this terrorist group, such as those in Paris,

France and San Bernardino, California in 2015, spurred new research on homeland

security threats and challenges as well as operational approaches to meet these threats.

Additional factors likely to add valuable research on homeland security studies

and the National Guard were the push by Congress under the Obama administration to

reduce DOD spending and the size of the various military services that make up the

department as well as President Trump’s and Congress’s reversal of this policy that

provided significant additional resources to the DOD (see United States Congress, 2017;

United States Congress, 2020; Alexander & Shalal, 2014). Congressional scrutiny

frequently evolves into tensions between the active military components and the reserve

components made up of the service reserves and the National Guard. Bureaucratically,

the various elements strive to retain as much funding and manpower as possible and this

“defense” of their national security missions and authorized resources frequently spurs

additional governmental and academic research (see Mahon, 1983; National Commission

on the Future of the Army, 2016).

Conceptual Framework

Organizational change theory provided an effective, but broad, theoretical

foundation to research the issue of whether the National Guard did or did not

significantly change its organization following the emergence of a significantly new and

different national security threat manifested in the 9/11 terror attacks against the United

States. To narrow the broad organizational change theoretical perspective, I used stream

analysis as a conceptual framework to analyze the effects of inputs on an organization’s

outputs. The primary inputs analyzed in this study were the levels of funding for major

programs and acquisitions funded through the DOD for the National Guard. A changing

national security environment should be reflected in the nation’s national security

enterprise and the things that it spends public resources to procure. If the national security

enterprise does not modify or adapt its spending to changed security challenges and

threats, then it may reflect a resistance to organizational change. If true, this condition

made organizational change theory and the stream analysis framework very appropriate

for this research study.

Organizational Change Theory

Organizations don’t just appear, they are created. Likewise, they are not static

entities that never change. Therefore, how organizations develop and adapt to their

environments provides important perspectives into understanding an organization’s

culture and decision-making processes. The concept of “environment” regarding

organizations needed to take both external and internal environments into account when

analyzing organizational changes and cultural factors (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967b).

These complex factors were critical in the analysis of an organization using applied and

practice-oriented research into how a particular organization’s members and leadership

act and the impact these actions or failures to act have on the organization, entities

associated with the organizations, and the environments or ecosystems within which the

organization operates (see W.W. Burke, 2011).

Organizational change is a broad and complex field of study that was essential to

consider when designing the research or analytical project on an organization. A seminal

scholar in the field was Kurt Lewin whose research and writings from the 1940s set the

stage for envisioning the fundamental perspective required to initiate, implement, and

sustain an organizational change program (see Lewin, 1947a, 1947b). His value to the

organizational change community was summed up by Hendry (1996); “Scratch any

account of creating and managing change and the idea that change is a 3-step process

which necessarily begins with a process of unfreezing” (p. 624). Lewin asserted it is

critically important to stop an organization from continuing current organizational

activities that require modification in order to make substantive changes to the

organization. He described this as the first of a three-step process and described it as

“unfreezing” the organization. Only after the organizational bureaucracy is thawed can it

be shifted to the second step of implementing changes and Lewin described this process,

unsurprisingly, as the “moving” that transforms the organization (Lewin, 1947a,).

Finally, after the organization’s changes are implemented, the third step of “freezing” the

organization is critically important because it creates a “quasi-stationary equilibrium to

describe how to keep a bureaucracy from becoming constantly in a change mode and

from becoming chaotic” (Burns, 2004, pp. 985-987).

As with most good models or frameworks, it is best to keep an organizational

change concept simple because any change process rapidly becomes complex, and the

model or framework provides the scaffold that helps manage the complexity. This

complexity can be exhibited in the size, structure, processes, or products the organization

and its personnel create (W.W. Burke, 2011). Schein’s (1996 & 2010) research further

enhanced Lewin’s model without fundamentally changing its basic structure. The key

modification involved the introduction of the concept of culture to organizational change

theory. The introduction of culture as a strong stabilizing force for organizations was

critical to address in any change process (Schein, 1996). In order to better describe the

change process, Schein (2010) introduced the concept of “stages” instead of “Lewin’s

“steps” to better articulate the overlap between the various elements of the change

“processes” (see Schein, 2010; W.W. Burke, 2011). This was a tremendously important

perspective because an organization is made up of its individual members even if the

members may work in various jobs with different levels of authority.

As Lewin and Schein astutely understood, any change process that disregards the

individuals who create and change the organizational cultures and norms will create a

change process that is unsustainable because an organizational bureaucracy is made up of

individuals (Lewin, 1947a, 1947b; Schein, 2010). Organizational members always get a

vote, even if it is voting with their feet and leaving an organization that they don’t like.

An organization’s leadership, who are also individual members of the organization albeit

more powerful than the average worker, that ignores its workforce’s perspectives on the

organization and the proposed change process courts disastrous failure over the long

term. The interactions that occur between individuals and groups create an organizational

culture that plays an important part in any organizational change process (see Jungdahl &

MacDonald, 2015; Kotter, 2012; Lambert, 2019; Schein, 2010).

The importance of the individuals and groups in developing an organizational

culture seems to downplay the importance of organizational leaders. In some respects this

is appropriate, but it is also imprudent to completely dismiss the role of leadership in

organizations and, especially, in any organizational change process (Dunford, 2017).

Leadership, if effective, does precisely that – leads. In all three phases of Lewin’s model

and throughout Schein’s cultural expansion, leadership is crucial to formulating, initiating

(the “unfreezing process), overseeing the implementation (the “change” process), and

reigning in the trend toward chaos by “refreezing” the organization. These tasks need to

be done in association with the organization’s members, but leadership is required to be

effective (Jergin & Cooper, 2018). Leadership sets the tone and fosters a favorable or

unfavorable organizational climate and culture and communicates the need and

conditions for successful organizational change and evolution (see Heckelman et al.,

2013; Kotter, 2012; Yukl, 2012).

O’Toole (1999, 2002) provided important contributions to organizational change

scholarship from developing the classic and widely referenced compendium, literally an

“A-Z guide”, on leadership (1999) as well as other works focusing on the multifaceted

nature of leadership. At times it seems leadership as an organizational development or

organizational change concept is overstated and expands the role of the leader at the

expense of the other elements of an organization, especially the rank and file members.

O’Toole, described by W.W. Burke (2011) “as one of the paramount thinkers and writers

in the area of organizational change” (p. 272), emphasized the importance of effective

leadership, but over time came to extoll the need for new and more diverse perspectives

on leadership. This included treatises, frequently co-authored with another seminal

scholar Warren Bennis, focused leadership needing to be forward thinking, transparent,

candid, and ethical. Ultimately, an organizational change process is to build a better

future for the organization (see O’Toole et al., 2002; O’Toole & Bennis, 2009).

As this survey of organizational development or change indicated, there is no

singly unitary theory of organizational change, nor is there a single model, framework, or

approach that elucidates the complexity that represents a modern organization. W.W.

Burke (2011) is perhaps the most comprehensive chronicler of the field and his survey,

now in a fourth edition, deftly captured the breadth of the field, but also provided

sufficient depth to enlighten readers and guide researchers. Much of the research

highlighted above acknowledges the place of an organization in its environment, but

generally the authors had a bias towards what an organization can do within itself to

initiate, make, and consolidate change (Jernigan & Cooper, 2018; Lawrence & Lorsch,

1967b).

My research nested within the larger organizational structure of the United States

security enterprise and, in particular, the National Guard Bureau within the DOD.

However, it explicitly acknowledged the impact on the overall “environment” within

which an organization exists is equally or, at times, more important than the internal

organizational machinations of change. In the latter case, failure to understand the

operational environment likely means a much higher chance of organizational failure

than any internal process.

Another influential scholar who attempted to corral the complexity of

organizational development and change was Porras (1983, 1987) who developed a stream

analysis approach to understanding organizational change in complex organizations.

Porras and his associates focused on the nature of organizational change acknowledging

the obvious existence of unplanned change but argued for the importance of planning

organizational changes using a theoretical framework or model (W.W. Burke, 2011;

Porras, 1987). According to Porras (1987), “…everyone working in change settings

should hold at least some theoretical perspective to guide their work (p. x)”. I used

Porras’s framework because his systems-grounded approach overtly acknowledged the

importance concerning the roles of external resources or inputs, internal organizational

processes, and the organizational outputs provided to external entities (see Porras, 1987).

Stream Analysis and Stream Organization Model

As the previous section on organizational change highlighted the breadth and

complexity of the organizational change field, Porras purposefully divided his stream

analysis approach into both a theoretically based stream analysis analytical tool or

process and a stream organizational model to incorporate aspects of organizational design

theories and concepts into a tool practitioners could use to evaluate real-world

organizations (Porras 1983, 1987). Porras’s work was a combination of a practical

application tool and a cogent model derived from organizational design theories that

provided a powerful tool for managers, practitioners, and researchers. Originally defined

as a “stream approach” in a 1983 journal article, Porras further expanded the stream

analysis concept, a stream organizational model, and three applications of the model in a

seminal book on the topic in 1987 (Porras, 1983, 1987).

Purposefully, Porras incorporated many elements of organizational change and

leadership highlighted previously in the literature review. Porras’s model combined

Lewin’s overt understanding of organizational complexity, the explicit relationships

required to lead a change process, and a deliberative approach required to stop the change

process at an appropriate time to allow the organization’s ongoing processes to best affect

change (Lewin, 1947a; Porras, 1987). Likewise, Schein and Porras accepted this

“refreezing” concept but increased the complexity of change analysis by highlighting the

implicit role of culture in a change process (Porras, 1987; Schein, 2010).

In addition, Hickman (2010) emphasized the role of leadership in strategic

planning and integrated these with Lewin’s (1947a) 3-Step Process and was correlated

with the stream analysis approach (Hickman, 2010; Lewin, 1947a; Porras et al., 1983).

Porras also explicitly aligned his approach within the existing academic schema of stream

organization management perspectives presented by Beckhard & Harris (1987), Beer

(1980), Kotter (2012), Nadler (1981), and Weisbord (1976), but differentiated his

approach by using four different or minimally addressed approaches such as

organizational physical settings, technology’s impact on change, organizational purpose,

and the importance of individuals. These four concepts were not completely addressed by

all of the previously noted researchers and several were only minimally addressed by one

or two (Porras, 1987). This made Porras’s approach more robust and more inclusive of

the breadth of organizational change theory field of study.

The combination of theoretical grounding and practical applicability to real-world

problem sets made Porras a viable framework to apply to any organization during an

organizational change process because resource sourcing, resource allocation, and

resource transformation into organizational outputs are all fundamental purposes to any

organization (Henstra, 2010). If these concepts are not addressed, then it is reasonable to

question the purpose for which the organization exists. Although Porras explicitly

designed his stream analysis model to help businesses more effectively deal with a

rapidly changing business environment in the 1980s, the model remains applicable to a

governmental institution such as the DOD, the National Guard and the National Guard

Bureau (see Dunford, 2017; Porras, 1987). The rapidly changing national security

environment identified in Chapter One provided an analogous changeable and uncertain

operational environment similar to one faced by 1980 business organizations (Coletta,

2018; Jungdahl & MacDonald, 2015).

The stream analysis model’s balance of theoretical and practical application to

non-business case studies was supported by research Henstra (2010) conducted on

Canadian emergency management policymaking processes where controlling access to

resources for specific actions or programs is well-integrated into the Canadian democratic

policy making processes. Consequently, using stream analysis to assess the impact of the

DOD’s funding on the overall National Guard’s operations was an effective analytical

approach to understanding how the National Guard conducts its role in national security.

In the current organizational and bureaucratic structure, the department and the National

Guard Bureau function as a “gatekeeper” for the distribution of funds (Jungdahl &

Macdonald, 2015; Lewin, 1947b).

Over time, this did not present an insurmountable obstacle for the National Guard

because since the late 1800s, the guard created effective avenues of access to the United

States Congress that could by-pass the Department of War and its successor the DOD, if

the state and territorial guard units did not agree with certain policies or programs (see

Cooper, 1997). From a National Guard organization management and leadership

perspective, the organizational change model provided a valuable perspective on how

resource sourcing influences resource usage and ultimately the impact of these decisions

on organizational outputs. This research study used the stream analysis model to assess

current national security threats, the roles the National Guard and the DOD play in the

national security enterprise, and how potential changes to national security threats

highlight weaknesses in the current relationship between the National Guard and the

DOD within the overall national security enterprise.

Literature Review

The literature review in support of the research project involved using the search

parameters to narrow the search to improve the likelihood of finding relevant and timely

sources from the appropriated academic databases and other scholarly works. This was

successfully accomplished by combining contemporary academic research and selective

incorporation of seminal or critically important research from earlier than 2014. This

latter category especially applies to research and studies related to the National Guard

research on the militias and the National Guard accomplished to a large degree prior to

2001. Although there are a number of more focused academic papers since 2001,

scholarly histories and analyses concerning the National Guard frequently pre-date the

2001 attacks. This is an indication of a perennial discussion of the role of the state

security forces in the United States security enterprise and tensions between the federal

government and the states and territories authorities and responsibilities.

As stated in this chapter’s introduction, for much of American history the active

duty (aka regular) military and the militia/guard had competing interests and perspectives

on the state-level security forces. What they did agree about was the need for the

country’s reserve forces to have the ability to help the country fight conventional-style

military campaigns and wars. Both the federal and the state governments understood the

state militias, as well as their current construct as the National Guard, needed to perform

multiple missions from major interstate warfighting against foreign enemies to internal

state constabulary and humanitarian relief missions (see Cooper, 1997; Riker, 1957).

However, the state-level forces considered their mission to be in support of the national

defense and consequently organized themselves towards conventional interstate

warfighting. This trend accelerated after the United States Congress passed the Dick Act

in 1903 that initiated the creation of the National Guard and formalized the

“federalization” of the state militias (see Doubler, 2001).

The process of conducting the literature review influenced the research project

parameters to evolve over time based on the research findings and the interrelationship of

the various source topics and research. The research findings and sources evolved into the

following research topic areas:

• organizational change

• National Guard role in American security

• budgets and finance

• law and authorities

• strategy and security challenges

These areas captured the essential areas of interest or concern for both federal and state

governments when they assess their respective security concerns. It was important to note

that most of the topic areas were interrelated and many sources related to more than one

of topic sections.

In essence, these topics areas served as the variables in this research project

because their interrelationships represented tension between the different levels of

governments and reflected their different priorities regarding these topical areas impact

on their security issues. It was important to understand that these topical areas provided

the variables and structure necessary to evaluate the research question as well as the areas

drove the direction for data collection and analysis in the later phases of the study,

especially Chapter Four. The following sections addressed the sources related to each of

these topic areas and also addressed the interrelationships as appropriate.

Logically, the National Guard and the Military Reserves were the primary

research topic area. Understanding the complexity of this element of the national security

enterprise provided the intellectual underpinnings of this research project. As discussed

previously in this chapter’s theory section, organizational change was not only the

theoretical basis for the stream analysis model applied to this study but was almost a

constant in the relationships between the federal and state levels of government in the

United States. Another factor in these relationships was research on how United States

military organizations can be highly resistant to change. Although military adaption and

innovation were often touted, research indicated the bureaucracies could be resistant to

change (see A. B. Carter, 2014; Coletta, 2018; Jungdahl & MacDonald, 2015).

This interrelationship and tension in the establishment or competition for

authorities was especially evident when it came to security issues and the role of state

militias in the national security model. A broad narrative derived from the literature

review was that the federal government reflecting both the executive and legislative

branches, but mostly the executive, were interested in increasing the federal

government’s authority and control over the state’s militias. Within the narrative, the

state governments resisted elements imbedded in this trend primarily through developing

allies with the Congress (see D. J. Campbell, 2014; Cooper, 1997; Griswold, 2010).

A related theme derived from the research was the challenge for most states was,

and remains, to find the financial and personnel resources to develop and maintain a state

militia. Over time, and especially after the Civil War, many states stopped trying to

maintain a militia (see D. J. Campbell, 2014; Griswold, 2010; Mahon, 1983). As with any

trend, there are exceptions, northern states had the resources and the interest of segments

of the population to maintain rather robust and capable militia units (Stentiford, 2008).

Other states perceived a lack significant security threats to both the nation and the

individual states and chose to let their militias wither and, in some cases, to essentially

cease to exist. Those that did remain became community-based and socially focused

institutions.

One consequence was the states acquiesced to significant federal involvement in

state militia affairs in return for major financial support for state militia development and

operations. This trend continued from the late 19

Century to the present with the federal

government funding representing approximately 95 percent of all militia expenditures

(Cooper, 1997; Doubler, 2001; GAO Report 08-331, 2008). This trend toward increasing

“federalization” of the militia capability created a paradox where state leadership and the

population view state-based National Guard units as “state-controlled” institutions;

althought technically correct, the high cost of maintaining the current National Guard

units required the high level of federal funding.

Therefore, to conduct training and operations missions, state National Guard units

had three funding streams; state-funding for purely state missions, federal funding

through United States Code Title 32 appropriations for training missions to prepare them

for federal missions, and funds through United States Code Title 10 to conduct federal

operational missions (C.R. Brown, 2008). Realistically, for any mission other than a

small-scale state-level emergency, the state or territorial governor will resort to asking the

President of the United States for financial and operational support. Effectively, the

National Guard was, and remains, a federal institution “cloaked” in a state government

structure.

This trend toward federalization was not inherently a bad thing; however, it did

create a degree of frisson because the states continue to use the militia clause within the

United States Constitution to justify their control of the state’s National Guard units as

representing their state militia (Cooper, 1997). The literature review indicated this created

tensions between the federal government and the states and potential delays to use the

National Guard associated with operations requiring a request for federal support. If not

for training, this required the National Guard operate under federal not state authorities

command. These tensions and delays affected the states because it potentially delayed

military support to a state-based humanitarian or natural disaster (see R. Burke &

MacNeil, 2015; Bush, 2010; Griswold, 2010; Schumacher, 2011).

Organizational Change

Key theories and models of organization change were discussed in the earlier

theoretical foundation and conceptual framework section of this chapter. Admittedly, it

was not possible to discuss all organizational change theories and models and this

required narrowing the research focus to several fundamental and basic theories. I then

used this foundation to analyze how they informed Porras’s stream analysis research in

the 1980s and 1990s. These theories and models were applicable to the study because the

research conducted used them to evaluate whether there was any statistically significant

change that occurred in U.S Congressional resources provided to individual state and

territorially based National Guard organizations before and after the mass casualty

foreign terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. Congress provided the federal resources

for the DOD budget and managed through the department’s National Guard Bureau.

Using Porras’s stream analysis framework, the key question was whether the

“inputs” (federal funds and equipment) changed the various National Guard

ofganizational “processes” that, in turn, changed the guard’s “outputs” as defined as

National Guard operational capabilities or missions. I reviewed the various national

security guidance such as appropriate national security strategies, national defense

strategies, and national homeland security strategies to assess if the federal government

changed guidance and directions following the 9/11 attacks. There were several possible

anticipated outcomes of this assessment:

• Threat Changed – Inputs Changed – Process and Outputs Changed

o Confirms Porras Stream Analysis Framework

• Threats Changed – Inputs Changed – Process and Outputs Same

o Indicates possible DoD/NG resistance to environmental change

• Threats Changed – Inputs Same – Process and Outputs Same

o Indicates Congress/DoD/NG resistance to environmental change

• Threats Same – Inputs Same – Processes and Outputs Changed

o Indicates possible independent DoD/NG innovation

The first scenario would be expected using Porras’s (1987) stream analysis model.

The second scenario indicated the strong possibility or probability of organizational or

bureaucratic resistance to change and bias for the status quo, which would not be

surprising for the DOD (see A. B. Carter, 2014; Coletta, 2018; Worley, 2015). The third

scenario indicated the threat changed but Congress didn’t provide different resources

(inputs) and the DOD and National Guard didn’t request nor want different resources.

Clearly, this indicates a national security enterprise resistant to change. The fourth option

may indicate the DOD was innovative. However, given the National Guard’s 100-year

tradition of focusing on conventional war capabilities and the high degree of

Congressional oversight and control of funding, this scenario was unlikely (A. B. Carter,

2014).

The following sections discussed the various concepts relevant to the research

process and helped evaluate their impact on the National Guard’s particular, perhaps

unique, role and place in the United States national security enterprise. Perhaps, the

National Guard’s dual-status as a state and federal institution provided the National

Guard the ability to bargain or negotiate with elements within the two levels of

government against each other in order to maintain or create the type of organization the

Guard wants to be (see Cantwell, 1994; Griswold, 2010). Or, it may represent a potential

bias towards the “regular or traditional”, conventional, large-scale, industrial warfare that

arguably was the “preferred American way of war” for both federal and state armed

forces (see Barnett, 2004; Boot, 2002; R. Burke & McNeil, 2015; Gray, 2005;

MacCarley, 2012; Schumacher, 2011; Waldman, 2018).

National Guard’s Role in American Security

The National Guard, consisting of both the Army National Guard and the Air

National Guard, represents the first line of reserve defense forces for the United States

(Cantwell, 1994) as well as serving as a state militia for 54 states and territories (Doubler,

2001). This simple description belies the complexity of the National Guard’s legal

authorities, missions, funding and resources, and personnel policies. As described in

Chapter One, I limited the scope of the research study and concentrated on the National

Guard’s missions as well as its budget and resources received during the time period

spanning the 5 years prior to and following the terror attacks on 9/11 in 2001. The budget

and the resources received served as the inputs in Porras’s (1987) stream analysis

framework whereas the missions represented the outputs produced from the inputs. In

order to better understand the value of this framework, it was important to have an

understanding of the National Guard to include its history, culture, structure, and

missions. This knowledge helped to understand how the historical trajectory from state

militia to the National Guard resulted in a conventional military reserve integrated into

the national Army and Air Force services.

The historical trajectory of the state militias and the National Guard was critical in

helping to understand the organization’s place in the American security enterprise at both

the national and state levels of government. The term “National Guard” came into official

federal usage with the passage by Congress of Militia Act of 1903 (commonly known as

the Dick Act) that converted the volunteer state militias into a formal state-based federal

reserve that remained under the original constitutional parameters – federal standards and

resources with state governments executing training and development (see Doubler,

2001). The National Guard’s relationship with the federal government was further

strengthened and formalized with additional Congressional legislation in 1916, 1920, and

1933 (see Cooper, 1997).

Cooper (1997), Mahon (1983), and Riker (1957) wrote scholarly historical works

on state-centered military forces, during the state militia or the National Guard periods.

These works remain critically important for understanding the trajectory of the militia or

guard institutions and especially for understanding the ebbs and flows of authorities,

mission effectiveness, and funding streams. Additional works were relatively few in

number and most were not recently produced. Mahon (1983) and Riker (1957) focused

on the militia from colonial times to their publication dates and along with Cooper’s

(1997) seminal work on the National Guard period from 1865 to 1920 were essential

sources for understanding the organizations and their relationships with both their

individual state and their relationship with the federal government.

These broadly focused works combined with service-specific works by Doubler

(2001) for the Army National Guard, Rosenfeld and Gross (2007) for the Air National

Guard, and Cantwell (1994) for the Air Force Reserve provided a foundational

understanding of the ebbs and flows of federal government control as well the varying

levels of the state militias and National Guard’s effectiveness throughout the republic’s

history. They were effective in highlighting the interaction of legal authorities, at least

interpretations of authorities, with the operational requirements for both the state, from an

internal security perspective, and the federal government’s priority on maintaining a

conventional military strategic reserve. In addition, Stentiford’s (2008) more narrowly

focused research on the Richardson Light Guard, a pre-Civil War volunteer unit from

Massachusetts, that later became absorbed into the National Guard. This work

highlighted how the unit lost control of its operations, funding, and, more importantly, its

local identity and connections to the town that founded and supported it (see Stentiford,

2008).

The interaction between federal government and the state, territorial, and district

governments perceptions of their security requirements were a perennial issue between

the different sovereign political entities with each frequently claiming precedence over

the other’s requirements (Doubler, 2001; Spangler, 2014). The competition was often

manifested in a competition between the federal active duty components and the state

militia or the National Guard. This competition frequently came down to which level of

government forces had command and control of the forces and the missions required by

the federal and state governments (see Doubler, 2001; Ellis & Makenzie, 2014; Riker,

1957).

The literature on these topics beyond the treatment in the broad histories of the

militia, National Guard, and their elements varied from time period to time period and

reflected the position and role of the reserve components (state militias, National Guard,

and component reserves) in the historical security environment. The period of interest in

this study focused on the decade following the “end” of the Cold War and the decade

following the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. One of the strongest themes in contemporary

research and writing reflected the varying perspectives concerning the issue of whether

the National Guard was a “strategic reserve” or should it become an “operational reserve”

(see D. J. Campbell, 2014; Ellis & Ingram, 2012; Irwin, 2019; Lieb, 2016; Lynch &

Stover, 2008; MacCarley, 2012; Makenzie, 2014; W. Matthews, 2016; Morris, 2004;

Tussing, 2008; Wormuth, 2006). All the authors generally argued for a transition into an

operational reserve with caveats highlighted below.

The predominant argument supporting an operational reserve was the high usage

of the National Guard to support operations in Afghanistan and Iraq indicated the active

component armed forces were unable to conduct major military operations without using

the reserve component forces, the National Guard and component reserves (see United

States DOD, 2008; Ellis & Mackenzie, 2014; Nagl & Sharp, 2010). The proponents of

this perspective generally fell into the operational reserve camp and supported the

National Guard continuing to be a key and regular participant in these type of

contemporary military operations, but they also generally argued there must be

organizational changes and increased funding (see Campbell, 2014; Ellis & Makenzie,

2014; Ingram, 2012; Lieb, 2016; Lynch & Stover, 2008; MacCarley, 2012; Wormuth,

2006).

Ellis and Mackenzie (2014) argued throughout their paper that an operational

reserve was required, but they hedged in their recommendations and conclusions by

finally recommending additional research was necessary. Keene (2015) presented an

interesting contrast to the American-centric writing above by discussing the reserve

utilization from a British perspective and generally sided with an “operational reserve”

perspective as way to keep a larger military force at a lower overall cost. Although all the

authors argued there was a need for the operational reserve, there was also a trend in the

papers that the barriers might be too high for the reserve component to truly transition

into a fully functioning and capable operational reserve force. A good example of this

was MacCarley (2012), who argued in his conclusion that the Army needed one, but the

paper’s historical survey provided evidence that the reserve components, both the

National Guard and component reserves, have initially performed poorly transitioning

from strategic reserve status to operational status.

Authors who differed on operational reserve or strategic reserve perspectives also

tended to differ on the types of missions the National Guard should perform in their

preferred roles. The proponents of operational reserve almost always agreed the National

Guard should retain a robust conventional combat capability to include significant

operational units such as divisions and, especially, combat brigades with heavy weapon

systems like tanks and other armored vehicles (see Chitwood, 2014; Ellis & Mackenzie,

2014; Johnson, Kniep, & Conroy, 2013; W. Matthews, 2016; Wormuth, 2006). The

argument for increased resources and funding generally paralleled the argument that

being an operational reserve meant the National Guard units must have comparable

equipment to merge seamlessly when deployed with the active and reserve component

forces. However, the National Guard still must retain the capability and funding to

perform their state-centric militia and domestic operational capabilities (MacCarley,

2012).

The importance of domestic and state-centric militia mission areas was supported

by the proponents who believe the National Guard should be a strategic reserve. One

outlier to the predominance of operational reserve supporters was Morris (2004) who

argued against the continued focus of the National Guard on being the combat arms part

of the nation’s reserves. Morris (2004) made the case that the National Guard should

change its missions to primarily focus on homeland defense and homeland security

missions because both the international threats to America and internal threats to America

writ large and the state-centric risks will primarily be non-traditional, irregular threats

such as terrorism or a consequence management following the use of a weapon of mass

destruction.

This argument aligned with the United States Commission on National Security in

the 21st Century (2001) report published just before the 9/11 terror attacks. This report

along with the commission’s co-chairman and former Senator Gary Hart’s (2003) short

post-9/11 article called for shifting the focus of the National Guard from foreign combat

missions to homeland-centric security missions (see United States Commission on

National Security/21st Century, 2001). Even with a primary homeland security mission

focus, the National Guard could revert back to being a strategic reserve and remain ready

to support the active component’s missions, but just not on the regular, predictable, or

frequent basis required of an operational reserve.

Given these assumptions, the strategic reserve proponents proposed shifting the

National Guards focus from conventional combat capabilities, though none called for

completely divorcing the National Guard from retaining combat capabilities. The type of

forces for non-combat type missions made the National Guard look much more like the

state militia constabulary force of the late 19

Century (see Cooper, 1997). The

supporters also emphasized this type of National Guard would still be relevant to support

the active component because these broad constabulary capabilities would be needed

when the United States was involved internationally in irregular or non-traditional

conflicts and operations (see Griswold, 2010; Hart, 2003; MacCarley, 2012; National

Guard Bureau, 2016).

The discussion of strategic versus operational reserve and the accompanying

argument for combat-focused capabilities versus constabulary forces reflected ongoing

tensions between the active component and the reserve component’s views of their place

in the national security enterprise. It was important to note this enterprise represents a

conceptual grouping of all the elements of federal government and state, territorial, or

tribal governments that were part of security mission to protect the United States against

external or internal enemies and threats (Troeder, 2019). Clearly, this was a broad group

of organizations that had an equally broad set of capabilities and authorities to conduct

security operations for the United States. It was also clear there were finite resources such

as personnel and funding to conduct these operations at both the federal or state level.

This was the arena where the active components and the two reserve components

competed for resources and authorities (Griswold, 2010, 2011; Kievit & Bankus, 2014).

Research on these relationships focused on the issues of complexity, competition,

and cooperation and was also essential in providing a clearer picture on how the National

Guard not only operated, but how it interacted with the larger national security enterprise.

In other words, researchers focused on relationships and interactions of the National

Guard with elements of the DOD, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department

of State, and the Department of Justice on a recurring and regular basis. Likewise, the

federal and state governments interacted on numerous issues to include security concerns

(see Bergeron, 2013; C.R. Brown, 2008; Merutka, 2014; Roberts, 2014; Troeder, 2019;

Weiner, 2012; Wilde, 2014).

These interactions frequently, perhaps even usually, were positive and

cooperative in mutually working towards securing the United States. However, as was the

case with all bureaucracies, it was important to understand the federal and state

governments consisted of bureaucracies and there were frequent disagreements on

authorities, responsibilities, and funding (Griswold, 2010). When the disagreement could

not be mutually agreed upon there must an arbiter. In this case, it was the United States

Congress. How Congress made these decisions and how the decisions affected the

National Guard’s relationships with aforementioned elements of government was a

complicated and fascinating research topic (aww Cooper, 1997; Doubler, 2001;

Lowenberg, 2005; Mahon, 1983; Punaro et al, 2008).

The relationship between the active component and the National Guard had both a

positive side of cooperation as well as a darker side of competition. This ambivalent

relationship followed the state militia and then the National Guard through their historical

trajectory since the Revolutionary War with ebbs and flows in their mutual relationship

with the federal government. As mentioned previously, Cantwell (1994), Cooper (1997),

Doubler (2001), and Mahon, (1983) all described and explained the historical trajectory

by providing details on both the mission sets as well as the relative power of the

organizations. Other works focused their efforts towards explaining the contemporary

give and take interactions between the active and reserve components (see Ellis &

Mackenzie, 2014; Griswold, 2010; Irwin, 2019; Lynch & Stover, 2008; Punaro et al,

2008; Stentiford, 2008).

Recent research focused on the concept of duality within both the National Guard

organizations as well as with the citizen-soldiers within the units, but it was important to

note the research diverged in interpretations. The fundamental nature of the National

Guard was it consisted of citizen-soldiers who, theoretically, were closely tied to their

communities (see Krebs, 2009; Punaro et al, 2008; Vest, 2014). Krebs (2009) argued this

was one of the fundamental strengths of the National Guard and the militias before it.

However, Stentiford (2008) and Vest (2014) argued the ties to the community were

strained in the contemporary environment. Stentiford (2008) used an historical case study

to show how a Massachusetts volunteer militia unit was more closely aligned to the

community in the 19

Century because it was directly supported by volunteers and local

funding. When it shifted to the National Guard, members came from a broader regional

area and the national-level requirements broke ties to the local community’s needs. This

break from state and local to federal requirements actually resulted in organizational

funds for the specific unit decreasing during the federally funded National Guard era

(Stentiford, 2008). Vest (2014) took a different perspective and assessed the unit

members were challenged to maintain dual-identities and with increased operational

activities they had increased difficulty managing their community and National Guard

member identities.

The concept of duality was also a contested issue between the active component

and the National Guard when it came to the issue of active component support to civil

authorities in cases of domestic crises or unrest. These missions were described as

Defense Support to Civilian Authorities. Griswold’s (2010, 2011) papers were important

works describing the National Guard and the DOD’s relationship through agency

response, principal agent theory, and historical institutionalism analytical frameworks.

This duality of domestic security needs of sovereign state governments and the national-

level federal government security requirements were prioritized and managed through a

process of bargaining and negotiation through the political process.

Griswold asserted the “durable” relationship, however contested it was, could be

attributed to the National Guard’s relationship with both the state governments and

United States Congress. Mahon (1983) argued the National Guard has successfully

managed to maintain its position by insisting to both Congress and the DOD that it

should be the first reserve the federal government should use in times of national

emergencies. This prioritization for the National Guard has been consistently approved

by Congress with the Militia Act of 1792, the Dick Act of 1903, and the Armed Forces

Reserve Act of 1952 (see Buchalter & Elan, 2007; Mahon, 1983, Riker, 1957).

Dual-command status was another relative power issue contested between the

active component and the National Guard. Traditionally the active component resisted

putting its federal Title 10 forces under the command of a National Guard commander

during domestic security or natural disaster missions. Although envisioned in previous

federal and state emergency planning sessions, the tensions related to dual-command

status culminated after major difficulties having parallel command structures and

organizational cultures during the multi-state Hurricane Katrina disaster response (see R.

Burke & McNeil, 2015; Bush 2010; Hayes, 2015, Schumacher, 2011). Congress

interjected in the disagreement and dictated in the National Defense Authorization Act of

2012 that dual-command will be the “usual and customary” command and control

arrangement during simultaneous employment of National Guard and active component

forces in domestic disaster response scenarios. In other words, a National Guard officer

could command federal active component forces during a domestic disaster mission. (R.

Burke & McNeil, 2015).

Ultimately, this Congressional intervention reinforced Griswold’s (2010, 2011)

perspective on the Guard using Congress to balance active and reserve components

relationships. Johnson, Kniep, and Conroy (2013) complemented Griswold’s perspective

by introducing the concept of symbiosis and the value of viewing active and reserve

component’s relationship as symbiotic or complementary. They argued this should help

reduce friction and change the less than helpful “zero-sum” perspectives. The command

and control issue was symptomatic of the friction between the two key military elements

of national security.

It was important to note, this was what the makers of the United States

Constitution desired when they authorized all the country’s sovereign entities (federal

and state governments) to maintain military forces (United States Constitutional

Convention Delegates, 1787). This was another element of checks and balances, but it

was important to question how independent was the National Guard when the federal

government provided the vast majority (over 90 percent) of the National Guard’s funding

through Title 10 and Title 32 authorizations via the DOD’s National Guard Bureau (see

GAO-08-311, 2008; Griswold, 2011).

Budgets and Finance

Funding and resources for the National Guard changed throughout United States

history from periods where the state governments provided the majority of the funds to

other times when the federal government provided the majority of National Guard funds.

The United States is currently in a period where the federal government is the preeminent

provider of National Guard resources and has done so for over 100 years (see GAO-08-

331, 2008; Cooper, 1997). The reason the federal government began to supply the

majority of the guard’s funding was to allow the National Guard to prepare for and

perform federal security missions (Ellis & Mackenzie, 2014). The funding was provided

under the authority the United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8 as well as and two

United States Codes, Title 10 for the Armed Forces and Title 32 for the National Guard

(United States Congress, 1994, 2004).

Although the National Guard is formally part of United States Armed Forces, the

National Guard’s funding through Title 32 indicated a formal separation of national

wartime security issues and state-level training and security missions. This federal versus

state separation are discussed further in the legal and authorities section. From a

budgetary perspective, Title 10 resources primarily funded wartime or combat missions

and Title 32 provided support for state-managed programs and missions, such as training,

internal security, and disaster relief activities (Punaro et al, 2008). It was very difficult to

divorce discussions whether a strategic versus operational focus was required for the

National Guard element of the reserve component forces from what were the funding and

resource streams. Legal authorities permit the flow of federal government funding that

Congress then assigns to a particular type of program or mission through its budgetary

processes. This complex interaction of legal, budgetary, and operational authorities was,

and remains, a somewhat murky locus of federal versus state responsibilities for the

National Guard.

This locus was the heart of this research study and why budgeting, funding, and

the resources they provide to the National Guard were critical elements in this study. It

would then be possible to consider funding and material resources, which were almost

solely obtained by Congressional funding vice state government processes, as the critical

inputs utilized by the Porras stream analysis paradigm for organizational change analysis

and assessment of the National Guard’s 1996 versus 2006 resources and mission

prioritization (see GAO-08-331, 2008; Mahon, 1983, Porras, 1987). Based on whether

there was a statistically significant change over this decade, then it could be possible to

assess if there was any change of perspective, focus, or operational capability and

whether the change was directed towards non-traditional types of conflict. If there was no

statistically significant change, then it was reasonable to assess the National Guard as part

of the national security enterprise was likely to be resistant to change and might likely be

biased toward conventional, industrial security or military operations.

There was another fundamental reason to consider budgetary data in an analyzing

an organization. A budget represents tangible “things”. In this case, the somewhat

nebulous and ill-defined concept of the American national security enterprise and, more

concretely, the National Guard and resources it received from the DOD. The National

Guard’s share of the DOD’s Congressional procurement budget is the amount of federal

financial resources the National Guard can use to obtain tangible items such as personnel,

equipment, and facilities as well as execute actual missions and activities (National

Guard Bureau, 2019). (Note: These expenditures are above what the DOD transfers from

its appropriations for operations and equipment). In short, an organization does not exist

without resources.

Since the passage of the Dick Act in 1903, the federal government has become the

predominant revenue source for the National Guard, although the National Guard units

still receive some funding from their respective State governments (see GAO-08-311,

2008; Mahon, 1983). (Note: The state share of funding went from 33% in 1933 to 6% in

1963 and the federal government still provided the “vast majority” in 2008). The review

of the budget-focused literature identified two primary types of data sources; United

States government-directed studies and reports along with a limited quantity of academic

research studies and reports. Regarding the government produced documents, a

significant amount of the reports focused on the broader reserve component to include

both the National Guard and component reserves and were generally narrow in focus and

tended to focus more on policy.

One example was the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves Final

Report (2008) that had a 69-page section on “Developing a Ready, Capable, and

Available Operational Reserve” including an 18-page subsection concerning “Equipment

and Supplies”. However, this analysis did not discuss specific capabilities of the National

Guard nor the component reserves. In addition, almost all the discussions were broad-

stroked discussion of policy with general figures but did not focus a significant amount of

attention to specific capabilities. The only exception to this trend was a graph that

highlighted five items consisting of transportation equipment and personal equipment

items that were Army Reserve equipment shortages (Punaro et al, 2008). This analysis

was not intended as an overall critique of the commission’s work, but merely identified a

gap or shortfall in government funded research and a lack of academic focus within the

government’s research.

The quantity of academic articles and research focused on the National Guard was

quite limited. This included academic research conducted at military educational

institutions and think tanks and those articles frequently focused on broader DOD

funding, programs, or policies. Wipfli and D. D. Owens (2008) produced a colloquium

brief from a “State of the United States Military Reserve Components” event. Although

not specifically a budget-focused event, the experts attending the colloquium delved into

the importance of the role types of funding played in establishing priorities. The authors

cogently described the National Guard fear that shifting operational focus into stability or

civil support operations might jeopardize the National Guard’s critical reliance on Title

10 warfighting funding (see Wipfli & D. D. Owens, 2008).

Morrison (2014) does drill down to analyze a reserve component program area or

functional capabilities budget issues. In Morrison’s work, the research reported the

analysis of the relative Army National Guard and Army Reserve costs to conduct a series

of functional missions compared to the cost of Army Active Component unit. The results

showed mostly lower costs ranging from 71%-102%, but the National Guard’s heavy

combat unit costs were much closer to the active forces. The overall analysis was from a

budget and cost perspective and argued the heavy combat units should remain in the

active component because of the higher costs combined with the additional readiness

time needed to get reserve components ready for deployment (Morrison, 2014). The

longer deployment readiness timelines for the National Guard’s heavy combat units is

also supported by MacCarley’s (2012) research. These assessments challenge the

National Guard Bureau’s assertion that keeping combat forces in the National Guard was

a cost savings with little or no degradation in mission capabilities (National Guard

Bureau, (2013).

The literature search discovered other works on defense spending and

recommended reductions, but none were specifically targeted at the National Guard or

the reserves. Adams and Leatherman (2011) research focused more broadly on the

DOD’s budget, but the authors did make recommendations to cut specific programs

ranging from the F-35 to attack submarines. However, these recommended program cuts

only affected the Air National Guard’s F-35 program (National Guard Association of the

United States, 2016 & National Guard Bureau, 2018). The other programs reviewed did

not represent current or projected National Guard capabilities. Other defense spending

research tended to be more broadly focused on overall spending and the implications for

United States budget deficits (see Hale, 2015; Leffler, 2013; W. Matthews, 2016).

Law and Authorities

Almost all legal discussions of state militias or the National Guards roles in the

United States national security enterprise fundamentally involved two major issues. Legal

authorities and the authorities to control the National Guard’s activities and operations.

The legal authorities were referred to in every history work and journal article reviewed

and they revolved around the militia’s authorities provided by the United States

Constitution and Congressional Laws passed to expand or curtail interpretations of these

authorities. The second issue, which was directly derived from the first, involved the

authority to direct and manage various types of activities and operations along with the

training required to perform them. This section of the literature review analyzed these

major issues through these two “authority” lenses, but added a discussion on the types of

missions related or assigned to the National Guard as well as discussing the important

issue of National Guard funding. Legal authorities, command and control, mission types,

and funding streams provided a broad-based perspective on the National Guard’s

development and employment throughout its history, especially on its national security

role over the past 120 years.

The issue of constitutional or legal authorities for the state militias and the

National Guard to exist and to operate started from the very foundation of the American

Republic. Throughout the initial phases of the American Revolution, state and local

militias provided the overwhelming preponderance of military forces for the rebels

(Mahon, 1983). This reflected the fact that the militias represented the faction of

American Colonial society that was frustrated by British Colonial rule and was willing to

use force to resist and eventually overthrow imperial rule. A second reason was that the

rebel government, represented by the Continental Congress, did not have the ability nor

the resources to develop a significant national army and through necessity had to rely on

the existing colonial militias (Cooper, 1997).

When a researcher departs from using long and detailed militia and National

Guard history products, the field of academic research narrows considerably and

frequently used the historical constitutional issue as a starting off point. Campbell and

Campbell (2010), Dunlap (1994), and Merutka (2014) assessed how authority issues

affected mission types, effectiveness, and command and control structures of these

organizations. These areas of research became rather important following the less than

seamless state and federal interaction during and after the Hurricane Katrina disaster in

Louisiana in 2005. Related to this area of studies was the Posse Comitatus Act passed by

Congress as part of Army Appropriations in 1878 to constrain the use of the Army in law

enforcement activities. This became an issue of debate concerning not only domestic

disaster relief and humanitarian assistance, but also the role of the federal government’s

armed forces in counterterrorism missions (see Currier, 2003; Daugherty, 2009; M.

Matthews, 2006; Merutka, 2014).

Works by M. Matthews (2006), Newland, (1989), and Sulmasy & Yoo (2007),

were written to address the broad issue of the National Guard’s command and control

requirements. These works paid particular attention to a state’s authority to appoint

National Guard officers and how the state military leadership interacted with the federal

government and active duty military leaders. It was important to note this was not a

distant historical issue, rather it was a recurring issue from the Revolutionary War to 21

Century disaster relief and emergency response requirements to include not only

Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast, but also in the Northeastern United States for the

9/11 terror attacks response and Hurricane Sandy (C.R. Brown, 2008).

A less frequently discussed, but important, militia studies area was the funding

required to maintain the state militias and how to fund state-centric missions using

federal government funds. This area was discussed in greater depth in the separate budget

and finance section within this chapter. However, a cursory discussion was applicable

here because funding and legal authorities were closely aligned. Many people overlook or

lack understanding of the concept that the United States Government cannot legally

spend money unless it is authorized and appropriated by the United States Congress

(United States Constitutional Convention Delegates, 1787).

Many, if not most, of the works associated with this law and authorities section

devoted key sections of their works towards funding issues and research. Of course, the

general militia and National Guard historical works emphasized the importance of

funding issues to the militias with same going all the way back to the British Colonial

governments. However, Mahon’s (1983) was by far the most detailed in providing data

on the multifaceted financial battles waged between the regular army and the

militia/guard organizations, between the state and federal governments, and between the

regular army and Congress. This work and to lesser degree those by Cantwell (1994),

Cooper (1997), and Doubler (2001) detailed the three-way relationship between the state

militia/National Guard units (National Guard was not the official title for all states

militias until 1916), their respective state governments, and the National Guard

Association of the United States (formerly known as the National Guard Association

from the 1880s to 1911). This organization functioned as a lobbyist for the state-based

military organizations and their respective state governments (see Doubler, 2001).

Interestingly, this triangular relationship existed not only within the individual

states, but this relationship was also replicated these same entities and their federal

government counterparts, especially the United States Congress. The state militias

interacted with the War Department and then the National Guard interacted with the

Department of Defense through the National Guard Bureau. Likewise, state governments

interacted with the federal government including the state governor’s relationship with

the President, the nation’s Commander in Chief. The National Guard Association of the

United States lobbying duties shifted accordingly to the United States Congress (Mahon,

1983). The connection between all these relationships from the relationship between legal

authorities, to command authorities, and to mission authorities were enabled through

funding authorities and appropriations.

This discussion came back full circle to the this section’s opening discussion

regarding interpretation of constitutional authorities and how various state and federal

actors operationalized their federalist or antifederalist perspectives. The spectrum of these

competing viewpoints illustrated the competition reflected in the state militia and

National Guard histories and their contemporary status within their relationships to the

federal government manifested in United States Codes Title 10–”Armed Forces” and

Title 32–”National Guard” (United States Congress, 1994, 2004). Over the past two

decades, three instances of National Guard or active duty military actions or failure to

take effective actions spurred a reassessment of the role of military forces in domestic

events. Two cases reflected the use of the National Guard, both concerning support for

policing the nation’s international boundaries, and one case reflected the delay in using

active duty military forces for a domestic humanitarian assistance/disaster relief mission

to support Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. Not surprisingly, the academic and

professional research on these cases was mixed.

The research followed the well-trod trail of the federalism versus states rights or

“antifederalist”. Several authors fell into the antifederalist camp that argued using or

relying on military forces to conduct operations within the United States undermined the

concept of civilian control of the military (see Dunlap, 1994; Hammond, 1997; Hughes,

2017; Sulmasy & Yoo, 2007). The general argument was that even if the short-term

benefit of using military forces alleviates a domestic problem there was a longer-term

diminution of the power and credibility of the civilian elements of both the federal and

state governments. These concerns reflected a perspective of a slippery slope between

civilian and military authorities combined with a sense of increasing militarism within

society when the citizenry began to view the military as more capable than the civilian

components of government and society (Dunlap, 1994; Hughes, 2017).

Associated with this line of research, J. J. Campbell and K. M. Campbell (2010)

viewed militarism in American society through a perspective of convergence between the

militarization of civilian police forces and “constabularization” of the military since the

9/11 attacks. It was interesting the authors did not mention the National Guard’s state

militia role in supporting internal security for their respective states. Nor did the authors

discuss the potential to use the National Guard’s constabulary capabilities in support of

their perspective on the DOD’s missions included a “significant degree of peacekeeping,

civil-conflict stabilization, and nation-building” (D. J. Campbell & K. M. Campbell,

2010, pp. 327-332).

Much of the research on the role of the National Guard reflected the interplay

between the authorities and missions of the National Guard under Title 10 (federalized

status) and Title 32 (state-controlled status). Traditionally, Title 32 was reserved for using

federal funds to support the state-controlled training of the National Guard in order to

maintain federal military standards. Much of the recent research focused on the loosening

interpretations of the “Other Duties” clause within Title 32 (see C.R. Brown, 2006;

Mason, 2013; Romano, 2005; Sliney, 2016). The “Other Duties” clause was enacted by

Congressional amendment in 1964 and over the next 50 years expanded to include

counterdrug and counterterrorism missions originally under state control.

Later, it was further expanded to include using the National Guard to support

federal counterdrug, weapons of mass destruction, and counterterrorism missions (C.R.

Brown 2008). Regarding what was becoming a perennially contentious issue of the using

the National Guard to help secure the nation’s borders, Sliney (2016) argued Congress

should further expand authorizations under the Title 32 “Other Duties” category because

it was advantageous to enhance federal and state coordination. Although the state

governments retain the right to call their National Guard for internal state-centric

missions, albeit at the state’s expense, border security and immigration control missions

along the international boundaries were inherently the responsibility of the federal

government and controlling both federal agencies and the National Guard would improve

coordination and performance (Sliney, 2016).

The net assessment of all the historical studies and contemporary academic

research indicates there was no consensus on a way forward towards resolving the

federalist or state’s rights perspectives regarding control of the state-centered National

Guard units. In many ways this was to be expected because the framers of the

constitution purposely created this tension to prevent one level of government from

dominating the other. However, Dunlap (1994) summed up this relationship best when he

stated the federal government controls the National Guard because with “almost all of its

budget drawn from the federal government, the National Guard is, for all practical

purposes, a federal force” (p. 384).

What was extensively discussed in this section’s research was the degree of

control or the level of funding, but not the National Guard’s capabilities. This was a

major gap in national security academic research and led to the question: Should the

National Guard change its orientation from a “combat-warfighting” organization to a

“constabulary” force to increase support for internal state security concerns? These

increased constabulary capabilities would bring skills and capabilities needed for non-

combat requirements for DOD responsibilities and missions (D. J. Campbell & K. M.

Campbell, 2010). If the answer to this question was yes, then Congress must change the

laws and authorities pertaining to the National Guard and the DOD must also change the

mission and training requirements expected of the National Guard.

Strategy and Security Challenges

As stated in Chapter One, there was no way anyone can capture or encapsulate all

the security risks facing the United States nor effectively prioritize a list even if

developing a comprehensive list was possible. In light of what is an essentially

insurmountable challenge, researchers must resort to using estimates or “proxies” of

security threats. Some threats were known, at least conceptually. Russia, China, North

Korea, India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and France were all states with declared

nuclear weapon capabilities. All these countries theoretically presented a potential risk of

nuclear attack against the United States, or its interests protected under a United States

security assurance or a “nuclear umbrella” (White House, 2017). Of course, not all risks

were equal and some may have legitimately presented almost a zero degree of risk (i.e.

United Kingdom or France).

To a security professional the questions were; which was a nuclear threat to the

United States and what type of risk did they pose? Although a somewhat simplistic

example, this example added to other potential threats to the United States provided

insight into the challenges of assessing or even understanding the complexity of national

security threats (see Ben-Haim, 2016). Faced with this conundrum, I chose to use the

United States National Security Strategy documents as “proxies” for what the United

States Federal Government assessed to be security challenges facing the country at the

time of their publication.

The national security strategy is produced by the National Security Council for

the President’s approval. Every president from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump

approved at least one national security strategy document during their administrations

(White House, 1987, 2017). President Jimmy Carter issued the United States National

Strategy and, later, the Modifications to United States National Strategy documents that

left the reader to assume the word strategy is implied (White House, 1977, 1981). All of

these documents contained an assessment of risks or the key threats to the United States

and/or its national interests as well as a declaration of approach or intent to combat or

mitigate these challenges.

For the purpose of this study, these documents were treated as primary data

sources that captured the executive branch’s perspectives on the United States interests

and potential threats to these interests. I focused my assessment on President William

Clinton and the President George W. Bush administrations’s national security strategies

because their terms of office included the nine years prior to and seven years after the

terror attacks in New York City, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania in September 2001.

Their National Security Strategy documents (1994, 1999, 2002, 2006) provided a

baseline threat assessment in order to guide additional research on security threats and

provided a sense of the environment American security enterprise leadership faced before

and after the 9/11 attacks.

Admittedly there were limitations in using the national security strategy

documents as a proxy. First, national security strategy documents were not really

strategies. The generally accepted broad elements of a strategy consist of ends, ways, and

means. What goal was it you wanted to accomplish, what methods and practices you

would use, and what resources were required to achieve your goal (see Hoffman, 2016;

Liddell Hart, 1967; Rathke, J, 2018; Strachan, H. 2011; Yarger, 2006)? The national

security strategy documents set out broad security objectives (ends or goals?) for the

United States as a whole, but they did not really identify what the country would do (the

ways?) nor what resources (the means?) the government would provide in order to

achieve the desired objectives.

These limitations existed because, although the executive branch controls the

identification of the desired “ends”, it does not completely control the “ways” and

“means” that would be used to achieve the “ends”. Other elements of the United States

political system control some, if not many, of the activities often required to support the

“ways” of addressing the national strategy (see Krepinevich, 2012; Murdock & Flournoy,

2005). Likewise, Congress and state legislatures control federal and state budgetary

decisions and they decide what “means” will be provided and, also frequently, the

“ways” acceptable to be used to assist their governments achieve their desired “ends”

(White House, 1987; Worley, 2015).

Second, a national security strategy presented the national government’s

executive branch’s view of the nation’s security concerns. However, this may or may not

have been representative of other branches of the federal government, state, tribal, or

local governments, or the even the American public’s, perspectives or concerns. As

previously mentioned, Congress was in charge of the purse strings that paid for resources,

to include personnel, funding for operations or equipment, and also provided the legal

authority to conduct operations. Therefore, the executive branch required Congressional

support to provide the “means” and approve the “ways” needed to execute a national

security strategy. It was important to note that the national security strategy may not have

reflected the opinion of a large percentage of American citizens, especially if they were

not political supporters of the administration responsible for the strategic documents. In

addition, if there was a gap between the federal and state governments regarding their

perspectives or prioritizations of national security concerns, this would likely create

problems for the National Guard as it tried to address a variance in state and federal

security concerns.

Lastly, the national security strategy was a political document and therefore

almost certainly could not necessarily reflect the diverse perspectives of the country’s

security threats resonating within the nation’s national security-focused academic and

research communities (see Hoffman, 2016; Lamb, 2016; Waldman, 2018). Even with all

these limitations, it was important to note national security strategy documents do

provide a type of longitudinal series of documents produced by the same government

organization over time but by different groups of individuals. Albeit, these governmental

and academic groups were extremely diverse and it was impossible to capture all of their

ideas and concepts in the national security strategies, even if the National Security

Council wanted to incorporate them. Likewise, for all the same reasons it was an

impossible task for this research study. Therefore, a national security strategy provided

the best possible proxy to guide an assessment of the federal government’s executive

branch leadership’s overarching security concerns at the time of publication.

Besides the national security strategies, there was a considerable body of

associated research that provided insights into the nature of the security threats facing the

United State in the post-Cold War era (1991-present) as well as national security

implications derived from the 9/11 terror attacks. One theme present throughout this era

was the rise of significant terror threats, both state-sponsored and nonstate sponsored and

how they presented a different security challenge than other national states (see

Blanchard & Humud, 2018; Coletta, 2018; Kitfield, 2016; Weiner, 2012). This rise of

nonstate versus state threats became a recurring theme in American security perspectives

following the end of the Cold War, with the notable and recent exception of the Trump

administration’s heavy emphasis on “near-peer” competitors (see Bush, 2001; Renz,

2016; White House, 1994, 1999, 2002).

There have been multiple terms used to describe this security perspective to

include global war on terror, irregular war, long war, unconventional war, hybrid war,

and the gray zone to name just a few of the most common descriptors (Mazarr, 2015).

One element of the National Guard’s national security roles relevant to this study was its

support to the DOD as a one of the nation’s two reserve components. Perhaps what was

even more important for this research study, the National Guard was the only element of

the federal government’s national military forces with continuous national and state

authorities relevant to addressing the novel security challenges that emerged in the post-

Cold War period (see R. Burke & MacNeil, 2015; Punaro et al, 2008; Schumacher,

2011).

The United States government’s reaction to the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001 was to

almost immediately initiate significant military, intelligence, and law enforcement

operations and for President Bush, not Congress, to declare the campaign against Al-

Qaeda was a “War on Terror” (White House, 2002). This term essentially survived

through the Bush administration, but both academia and national security specialists

challenged the term and the concepts it implied. The migration from a war on terror

through titles such as the long war, irregular war, hybrid war or gray zone conflicts

represented an increasing awareness of the need to think differently about the operational

security environment.

This was an important idea to help conceptually understand that both the

operations required and the environment where they occurred were fundamentally

different than required for the standard concept of conventional and industrial war in a

traditional war-peace dichotomy (see Banasik, 2016; Barnett, T., 2004; Freier, 2007;

Hunter & Pernik, 2015; Mazarr, 2015; Olson, 2010; Takahashi, 2018; Votel, et al., 2016).

Essentially, the “Gray Zone “concept asserted there was an operational realm between the

dichotomy of war or peace. To successfully deal with nonstate extremist organizations as

well as state actions that occurred in the gray zone required changes within the United

States security enterprise (see Freier, 2007; Troeder, 2019; Votel et al., 2016).

One challenge to a national security enterprise that emphasized “gray zone-

centric” threats operations was the potential loss of focus on and the capabilities to

conduct traditional, conventional, industrial warfare. Proponents of this view, such as

Thomas (2013), Kaplan (2016), Odierno (2012), and Boot, (2003) used the specter of

increasing conventional military capabilities of America’s competitors and potential

adversaries, such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, as existential national security

threats. If there was ever a war between the United States associated with potential

regional or global conflicts, countering these increasing conventional threats would

require the United States to use conventional military capabilities to defeat these

countries (A. B. Carter, 2014; Odierno, 2012). The National Security Strategy (2017)

stated the “United States must retain overmatch—the combination of capabilities in

sufficient scale to prevent enemy success and to ensure that America’s sons and

daughters will never be in a fair fight.” (p. 28).

This strategy document and other proponents of this perspective minimized the

strategic nature of terror threats and often suggested changing the focus of counter-

terrorism from war back to crime. This change could be seen as moving counter-terrorism

from a military-focused effort into primarily one of law enforcement agencies and the

American justice system. Reynolds (2007) reported observing a similar shift in the

United Kingdom’s government’s position that by ceasing to use the term “war on terror”

(para. 16) it represented the government’s perspective terrorism was essentially a crime.

Taking an even broader position, Head (2011) discussed at length whether terrorism is

even a crime because it is associated with political acts and therefore should be protected

likewise as “free speech” (pp. 181-218). Not surprisingly, the words war or warfare were

not used at all in Head’s chapter on terrorism.

Ultimately, the issues of terrorism and conventional war should not be considered

to be “one or the other”, i.e., all terrorism is war or all terrorism is crime. The issue really

came down to one of scale. Was there a “group” with a form of structure and did this

“group” have access to weapons or modified “weapons” that could inflict large-scale

damage or casualties, i.e., the 9/11 attackers using hijacked aircraft to kill 4,000 people in

one day? This shift towards treating terror as a crime represented a return to pre-2001

strategies (White House, 1994). Although these were reasonable and cogent arguments,

to be truly valid the arguments required proving that the 9/11 attacks could have been

prevented by better civilian law enforcement capabilities. The concept of all terrorism is a

crime or protected political act was challenged following the 9/11 attacks precisely

because the overall assessment of the attack was that to avoid this kind of catastrophic

attack required a “whole of government approach”. This type of response includes

civilian law enforcement, the military’s homeland defense capabilities to include, at a

minimum, fighter aircraft able and authorized to shoot down hijacked planes, and civilian

and military intelligence to be able to operate against well-financed, capable, and highly

motivated transnational terror organization(s) (see Punaro et al, 2008; Troeder, 2019;

Weiner, 2012).

The importance of this assessment was that accepting the argument implies

accepting that national security should not be defined in a binary way; either a military

with all conventional military capabilities versus a military that emphasizes in

capabilities effective in the “Gray Zone” associated with reduced conventional warfare

capabilities (Mazarr, 2015). The primary purpose of asserting the importance of a

nonbinary perspective was to help generate discussion and analysis about what type of

potential national security environments the United States was likely to face and what

were the best type of national security capabilities likely to be most effective in these

environments (Boot, 2002). Votel, et al. (2016) highlight that the “Gray Zone” is just one

segment within a continuum of potential security challenges and operations. Therefore,

the intra-military discussion of conventional versus irregular capabilities must be

integrated into a “whole of government” assessment that would include law enforcement

and other civilian “constabulary” capabilities.

Summary and Conclusions

This review of literature associated with the National Guard and its place within

the broader American national security enterprise highlighted the ongoing dialogue

between the elements of national power and the various constitutionally mandated

structures within the United States. A challenge related to the topic of the National Guard

was associated with the organization’s complexity from the breadth of the organization,

which includes 54 National Guard organizations in all 50 states, three territories, and the

District of Columbia, to the depth of how the National Guard worked with organizations

and situations from the President down to local citizens within their state. Another

challenge associated with the National Guard’s complexity was the challenge of utilizing

and integrating the many different types of research appropriate and necessary to analyze

the National Guard’s role in the national security environment. This literature review

addressed these issues and identified there was a gap in the research and discussed how

this research study nested in both theoretical and practical analyses. I developed this

research proposal to help fill this gap.

The focus of this research study was to assess using a quantitative approach the

relationship between perceived national and sub-national security threats and whether the

American political and security systems, to include the National Guard, are biased toward

conventional military capabilities rather than state-centered constabulary functions. The

gap in the research found there was very little academic research focused on this

particular element with in the broad National Guard topic and there was no contemporary

research that analyzed the relationship of DOD funding levels and provision of other

resources to the National Guard before and after the 9/11 attacks. The literature reviewed

represented superb work on the National Guard and its historical trajectory, its

relationship to the contemporary security environment, its organizational challenges, and

issues related to the law and pertinent authorities. Although the research did touch on

National Guard budget issues, the literature focused much more intently on policy and

addressed the National Guard’s budget, funding, and resourcing processes mainly in

broad terms. It also tended to focus on the shift of funding from state-centric to national-

centric security concerns.

In sum, the works highlighted, although important and certainly useful for this

study, did not analyze the National Guard’s relationship to funding and the impact of

9/11 on the organization using an academic prism or an organizational change

framework. The literature review indicated data from the federal budget was a critical

element within this research study, but the missions and activities of the National Guard

funded via the budget processes were an equally, if not a more, important element. My

goal was to critically analyze and compare what the budget bought and what missions the

procured resources enabled the National Guard to perform in order to obtain a sense of

the focus and priorities the National Guard had prior to and after the 9/11 attacks. I

identified the Porras stream analysis model as an appropriate framework to identify and

analyze the budget and resources that provided “raw” inputs for the National Guard and

then analyze how the DOD and the National Guard processed these resources to produce

outputs in terms missions and activities in support of the national security strategy

objectives. Building upon the foundation established in this chapter, I will propose a

quantitative methodology in Chapter 3 to assess National Guard adaptation and response

to changes in national security threats and priorities.

Chapter 3: Research Method

The United States faced diverse threats to its security ranging from existential

threats from other politically independent states to less catastrophic but potentially

damaging attacks from terror organizations by nonstate organizations (United States

DOD, 2018a). In addition, the United States faced nonkinetic challenges such as medical,

environmental, economic, and social changes (White House, 2017). A recent example of

this type of nontraditional threat along with the challenges of coordinating 54 state and

territorial governments with the federal government was the COVID-19 pandemic. This

national and global crisis was responsible for approximately 200 times the American

deaths from the 9/11 terror attacks (Balz, 2020; Sonmez et al., 2020). These types of

threats presented a unique challenge to the United States because the country assumes a

prominent role in the international order and addresses a wide variety of security

concerns and issues (Sarkesian et al., 2008, 2013). The United States used multiple levels

of government (federal, state, local, and tribal) and different types of organizations as

instruments to approach these security threats.

Although the types of threats facing the United States were not static, the most

significant threat to the United States was other political states using military force to try

to defeat the United States military forces and impose their will on the country (see

Rosecrance, 2014; Snow & Drew, 2010). Internal security threats were traditionally dealt

with by using law enforcement and civilian internal security apparatuses (D. J. Campbell

& K.M. Campbell, 2010). The rise of transnational terror groups in the latter quarter of

the 20

century presented a third threat to the United States both domestically and to its

overseas institutions, structures, and personnel (National Commission on Terrorist

Attacks upon the United States, 2004).

The unprecedented 9/11 attacks in 2001 came to be seen as an irregular form of

war, and the United States began to look for ways to combat and destroy the nonstate

actors behind the attack. During the 2000s, the United States reevaluated its national

security enterprise to thwart or mitigate future large-scale attacks such as those that

occurred on 9/11 (Olson, 2010). A key component of America’s national security

enterprise was the National Guard that was an armed force with a unique, hybrid

organizational structure and mission set (Schumacher, 2011). In the current study, I

evaluated the National Guard’s relationship with the DOD by investigating the

relationship between nontraditional national security threats and comparing that change

to the impact of federal government funding and support for the National Guard’s legacy

conventional military structures and capabilities.

To assess the impact of Congressional funding to the National Guard through the

DOD, I used two periods bracketing the millennium in order to compare the transition

from the cold war state-centric security paradigm of the 1990s to the unsettled post-9/11

terror security threats posed by nonstate actors following the 2001 terror attacks. In the

pre-9/11 period, the United States military forces concentrated on traditional military

concerns facing the country such as conventional warfare capabilities or weapons of mass

destruction threats from other states (see Tindall, 1992; United States DOD, 1995, 2004).

In the mid-1990s security strategies, counterterrorism was addressed within a peacetime

engagement section and was considered a support to civilian law enforcement

responsibility (United States DOD, 1995). The second period of this study followed the

major 9/11 terror attack in 2001 and represented a transition period during which the

United States and some of its allies began to confront transnational nonstate terrorist

organizations that presented serious and potentially damaging threats to the United States

(see Boot, 2013a; United States DOD, 2004).

There was a significant transition within the national security and national

military documents from a predominantly conventional warfare focus in the pre-9/11

period to an emphasis on counterterrorism and other irregular threats in the post-9/11

period. As a major reserve component of the United States Army and Air Force, the

National Guard was assumed to experience a corresponding shift in the focus of missions

and budgets. Comparing budget data between these two periods was expected to show a

significant change to reflect an adjustment to changing priorities. In contrast, no

statistically significant budget changes could indicate bias within the national security

enterprise toward conventional military operations and a divergence between stated

national security priorities and what this enterprise did or was funded to do.

Research Design and Rationale

To achieve the purpose of this quantitative study, I used a comparative statistical

analysis to identify whether there was any statistically significant change to the type of

funding (resources) provided by the United States Congress through the DOD to National

Guard between the two time periods. The time periods chosen were the federal

government’s Congressional Fiscal Years 1996 and 2006. Within the federal government,

budgetary resources provide justification for and capabilities to do activities or missions.

Therefore, it was appropriate to analyze budgets as a proxy for permissions and resources

for operational capability. The rationale behind this research study was to examine

whether there was a bias toward conventional military operations compared to

unconventional, nontraditional, or irregular military operations that could be observed

through a quantitative study of federal resources provided to the National Guard (see

Creswell, 2009; Green & Salkind, 2011).

I used the federal government’s budget for Fiscal Years 1996 and 2006 because

these years were 5 years before and 5 years after the 2001 terror attacks on New York

City and Washington, DC. Prior to 2001, the United States Government considered

terrorism a national security threat, but it considered terrorism a crime not an

unconventional warfare activity (White House, 1994). During this the first period, I

expected to find the National Guard’s funding to be focused on giving the nation’s first

reserve a conventional warfighting capability. Therefore, I anticipated the 1996 defense

budget, which occurred approximately 5 years after the end of cold war and 5 years

before the 9/11 attacks, to be focused on conventional military capabilities. In contrast,

the 2006 defense budget was anticipated to illustrate a transition from conventional

warfighting toward increased capabilities that supported unconventional, nontraditional,

or irregular warfighting capabilities suited for challenging terror organizations that used

these capabilities to attack the United States in 2001. This type of shift would be logical

to help the National Guard address the number one priority in the National Security

Strategies of 2002 and 2006 (White House, 2002, 2006).

Assessing whether there was a statistically significant change in resources or

funding changes over this decade was the primary purpose of this study. Based on that

assessment, it would become possible to assess any changes of perspective, focus, or

operational capability and whether the change was directed toward nontraditional types

of conflict. If there was no statistically significant change in fiscal resources or

capabilities provided, it would be reasonable to assess the National Guard as part of the

national security enterprise that was resistant to change, and to assert a bias toward

conventional industrial operations.

Variables

I used statistical analysis of quantitative data sets from both the 1996 and the 2006

DOD budgets. In the broadest sense, I considered the 1996 budget as the independent

variable because this spending was completed before the 9/11 attacks occurred. The DOD

could not return to or influence the data in the 1996 budget after the 2001 attacks

occurred. Therefore, I considered the 2006 budget to be the dependent variable because it

occurred after the 2001 terror attacks. I considered these attacks an intervention or action

that may or may not have affected the United States Government defense spending

following the 2001 terror attacks (see Frankfort-Nachimias & Nachimias, 2008).

Time and Resource Constraints

This study required access to publicly available information because I planned to

use open-source, unclassified congressional budget data and other nationally recognized

research regarding a particular subset of the DOD’s budget focused on the National

Guard and the DOD resources provided to the National Guard. The data was stored as

historical documents and there were no anticipated resource constraints in collecting the

pertinent data. The only potential time constraint was related to managing the complexity

and quantity of data available. These potential constraints were discussed further in the

methodology section of this chapter.

Design Choice and Knowledge Advancement

I chose the Porras’s stream analysis model as a conceptual framework to analyze

either a consistency or a divergence in the level and, more importantly, the type of federal

government funding and capabilities provided to the National Guard in two

Congressional Budgets over a ten-year period (Porras, 1987). I am confident this study

advanced knowledge within the national and homeland securities disciplines by analyzing

how federal government funding affected or did not affect capabilities that existed in the

National Guard. It was important to improve the discipline’s understanding whether the

United States government did not have the appropriate capabilities or programs available

to avoid the losses involved with the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001 and whether this type of

funding did not change after such a major national security defeat. A key outcome of this

research study was the improvement of the understanding of the national security

enterprise’s ability or inability to adapt to changing security environments. Security is a

fundamental element of all societies and, if the United States government was unable to

adapt to the 2001 attacks, the risk to the United States society would likely increase.

Methodology

Archival public data created and published by the United States government was

the preferred data source for a comparative quantitative study to assess whether there was

any statistically significant change between the two data sets. Obtaining this data was

rather straightforward. The federal budget data is published on an annual basis by

Congress and can be downloaded from United States government websites. The data

could be used without restrictions because it is United States law and therefore it is

considered publicly available data. There was no need to obtain any permission prior to

downloading or using these data. The reputability of the data was high because the source

of the data is the United States Congressional Budget for both 1996 and 2006 (see

Frankfort-Nachimias & Nachimias, 2008).

There was one unavoidable limitation to the data sets because I was limited to

using only unclassified data for this study. If there was any classified funding provided to

the National Guard by the federal government, I could not obtain the data. Given this

limitation, the data used still represented the best data to assess the national security

focused capabilities of the National Guard because the federal government provides most

of the funding to the National Guard. As discussed in the research design section, the

most fundamental input a government organization receives is funding. In the case of the

National Guard, funding from Congress was essential to obtain capabilities and

effectively function by using permissions to conduct missions for the federal government

under Title 32 or Title 10 United State Codes (see Ellis & Mackenzie, 2014; Mahon,

1983).

I anticipated using the Congressional Budget allocations to the National Guard as

a proxy for capabilities to assess whether the National Guard modified its capabilities

relative to changes in the national security priorities before and after the terror attacks in

2001. Limitations and threats to validity to this study were discussed in the threats to

validity section of this chapter. A potentially significant limitation and challenge could

have been data collation processes needed to ensure various elements of the two budgets

could be effectively compared. If sub-elements of the Congressional budget did not align,

an assessment would need to be made regarding the disparate budget elements whether

they focused on conventional or irregular warfare capabilities. This “binning” processes

analysis and manipulation hopefully could use Congressional budgets and equipment

transfer documents, but proxy type data might be needed.

Research Question

In order to better understand the relationship between America’s national security

threats and the type and level of United States Congressional funding for the National

Guard Bureau, I developed the following research question during the initial planning

and development phase of the study: According to Congressional funding, how and to

what degree do the National Guard’s capabilities diverge from the United States national

security priorities from pre-9/11 and post-9/11 periods?

Data Analysis Plan

The initial data analysis plan anticipated using data derived from the 1996 and

2006 DOD budgets. This approach assisted in developing answers to the hypothesis that

if there was no statistically significant change in fiscal resources or capabilities provided,

it would be reasonable to assess the National Guard as part of the national security

enterprise that was resistant to change, and to assert a bias toward conventional industrial

operations. The data, although published by the United States government, needed to be

collated into two separate data sets to facilitate evaluation. The two data derived sets are

separated by a ten-year period and United States Congress, or the DOD may have

reclassified the budget data differently over the intervening years between 1996 and

2006. There were no instruments, pre-validations, site permissions nor informed consent

required for this quantitative research study because the data was publicly available and

open source for public evaluation and usage with the exception if a need arose that

required ancillary, auxiliary, or additional data to support analysis of the government data

sets.

Unfortunately, the scale and scope of the effort required to develop workable data

sets was unknown prior to execution. The extent of the statistical research and evaluation

was assessed during the research process and the actual data analysis plan executed.

Fortunately, ten years was not a long period of time for the United States Government

and particularly the DOD. The Congressional Budget process for the DOD was driven by

as the President’s budget process and the department’s Future Years Defense Program

(McGarry, 2020). The purpose of this process was to help the government attempt to

forecast out sufficiently into the future to help both the executive and the legislative

branches plan for the often multi-year, defense development programs. The key to this

initiative was to categorize “like” items and budgets across the two data sets.

The goal of the data analysis plan was to compare the cost of major equipment

items either procured for the National Guard by the Congress or transferred to the

National Guard from other DOD active duty services. As identified in the previous

paragraph, capturing all the data and categorizing it into similar sub-categories from the

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two Congressional Budgets other DOD actions over ten years was challenging. A

difficult task, but one that was reasonable and achievable.

Threats to Validity

Threats to validity of the data and statistical analysis in this research study was

expected to be minimal. The largest challenge to validity discussed in the previous

methodology section (see pp. 96-97) and related to the scale and scope of the data within

the DOD’s budget as well as the constraint of using only unclassified data. For example,

the recent 2019 DOD budget was approximately $675 billion out of a $1.205 trillion

discretionary federal budget was large. This represented a distribution of approximately

56 percent for defense versus 44 percent for all other department’s discretionary budgets

(Office of Budget Management, 2019). Fortunately, the scope of this study was limited to

only National Guard resources provided through the DOD Department of Defense. The

size of this funding was substantially smaller than the department’s active duty research,

development, and operational budgets.

The National Guard Bureau’s budget for the individual state National Guard

organizations for the most current Fiscal Year 2019 budget was approximately $27

billion out of the DOD Budget $600+ billion budget (National Guard Association of the

United States, 2020; United States DOD, 2018b). However, this amount does not include

transfers of equipment and material from the services active components to the National

Guard and, consequently, the federal budget support is likely greater than reflected in the

annual DOD budget (United States DOD, 2016). Care needed to be taken with the

“binning” of the data sets to ensure consistency between the individual budget data sets.

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As previously mentioned, the fact that this study was limited to using only

unclassified budget data did present a threat to validity. This could not be helped. The

estimated federal government’s current intelligence budget was approximately $85

billion for the National Intelligence Program. The amount to support tactical military

operations was reported to be $23.1 billion. Therefore the amount supporting all DOD

strategic, operational, and tactical operations and research is somewhere between 3 and

11 percent of the overall DOD budget. (Office of the Director of National Intelligence,

2022). The proportional share of the classified budget did not present a significant threat

to the study’s validity.

The last, but albeit, minimal threat to the validity of the data was the exclusion of

any individual state or territory’s budget allocation for their respective National Guard’s

budget. The reason this was not considered a problem relates to the significant and

fundamental shift from primarily state funding for the National Guard institutions to

United States Congressional funding becoming the preeminent source of funding through

United States Code Title 32 for training or Title 10 for operations in support of federal

security missions (see Ellis & Mackenzie, 2014; GAO-08-311, 2008; Mahon, 1983). The

contemporary fiscal reality remains that the states and territories could not afford to

maintain their National Guard organizations without the federal government’s fiscal

support.

Summary

I used the national security strategies of President William Clinton and President

George W. Bush administrations as proxies for the prioritized security threats facing the

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United States in 1996 and 2001 respectively. These strategies showed an evolving

perspective that non-traditional threats to the United States, such as terrorism, grew in

contrast to a more traditional threat perspective of other national state conventional

militaries (White House, 1994, 2002, 2006). I focused this study on the state and

territorial National Guard because these organizations had a dual-role as local, non-

federal militia units as well as a strategic and operational reserve for the nation’s active

duty armed forces. In its non-federal militia role, the National Guard was always the most

likely military force to respond to the rise in the domestic non-traditional security

challenges highlighted in relevant national security documents.

This study consisted of a quantitative statistical assessment of the 1996 and 2006

United States Congressional Budget for the DOD’s fiscal and material support to the

country’s National Guard units. The goal of this simple, yet powerful, statistical analysis

was to ascertain whether there was or was not a statistically significant change in the

National Guard’s budget and capabilities to reflect a change in prioritization from

conventional military operations to the newly prioritized unconventional, non-traditional,

or irregular security threats. If there was no significant change, it is reasonable to assess

this represents bias towards resistance to change within the DOD and the broader national

security enterprise. Chapter 4 will operationalize the plan set forth in the proposal and, in

particular, execute the methodology proposed in this chapter.

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Chapter 4: Results