Every time U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command get involved in a mission, a team of lawyers here pays extra close attention.

“You may not hear from us every single time at every single meeting in the building, but we are sitting in on them, and we are listening,” Coast Guard Capt. Timothy Connors, staff judge advocate for NORAD and Northcom, told American Forces Press Service.

Connors oversees a staff of 17 active-duty and 15 reserve lawyers -- the most assigned to any U.S. combatant command. Their job is to advise Army Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr., the NORAD and Northcom commander, to ensure the commands remain squarely within the law as they operate in the homeland.

With a homeland defense mission that crosses every domain -- air, land, space, maritime and cyber -- and support roles when needed during domestic disasters and to conduct theater security cooperation assistance, the commands’ activities fall within a huge body of law.

These laws dictate what military forces can and can’t do inside the United States, Connors explained. They also differentiate between missions federal forces can conduct and those reserved for National Guardsmen operating in a state capacity.

Northcom uses military assets to watch outward for threats headed toward the country, but largely plays a support role for those already within its borders. Military members can support civilian law enforcement for counterdrug operations within the United States, but can’t get directly involved in law enforcement activities. They can perform designated missions such as delivering fuel and distributing supplies following a natural disaster, but can’t do jobs that would take revenue from private companies.

Simply put, many of the missions that U.S. forces conduct every day outside the United States can’t be done within Northcom’s area of responsibility.

“Something might sound like a great use of Department of Defense assets, but things can get very complicated when you look at them from a legal standpoint,” Connors said. “There’s a robust system of laws, policies and regulations that define exactly what is an appropriate use of DOD forces. … So our job is to ensure that in everything we as a command do, we are operating within that framework.”

It all stems back to 1878, when the United States enacted the Posse Comitatus Act.

As the decade of Reconstruction following the Civil War drew to a close, Congress passed the landmark legislation to prevent the federal government from using federal troops to enforce state laws, explained Lance Blythe, command historian for Northcom and NORAD.

The years leading up to passage of the Posse Comitatus Act had been challenging for the United States, Blythe said. Some of the new legislators elected in the former Confederacy were turning a blind eye to new laws designed to institute political reforms and protect former slaves. Concerned that the federal government would dispatch troops to enforce these laws, they pressed for a statute to prohibit the federal government from imposing federal troops in any U.S. state.

More than 100 years since its enactment, the Posse Comitatus Act continues to guide everything the military does while operating in the homeland. “Basically, it means that you won’t have a posse of Department of Defense people going out and providing law enforcement,” Connors said. “That is not their role.”

Posse Comitatus does not limit the military’s role in military operations against external threats and in defense of the United States, Connors said. But it draws a clear line within U.S. borders, recognizing that law enforcement responsibility belongs to federal, state and local law enforcement, including the National Guard.

“This is important, because you want the military doing military operations,” Connors said. “It keeps defenders focused on defense, and security [experts] focused on security.”

Although initially written to prevent military forces from enforcing state laws, the Posse Comitatus Act has been extended by policy to prohibit direct military involvement in all law enforcement activity, Connors said.

But recognizing the military’s special capabilities, Congress has authorized specific exceptions in which military forces can be used domestically -- as long as they operate within strict compliance with the Constitution and U.S. laws, he said.

That generally confines them to a supporting role: typically for the Federal Emergency Management Agency during a natural disaster and, in other cases, for the Justice Department or other civilian law enforcement agencies.

Congress, for example, specifically authorized the use of military forces to support counterdrug operations, to assist the Justice Department in crimes involving nuclear materials and in emergencies involving chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction.

With growing awareness of the capabilities the Defense Department has to offer, and proven performance of U.S. forces to support domestic operations, Connors said he anticipates greater demand for them in the future.

“That is why we need to have a robust legal staff in a place like this,” he said. “In everything we do, there’s a line we need to walk. And when things start to move closer to that line, that’s when the lawyers get more and more involved.”

One example of a particularly difficult legal scenario is the Insurrection Act. That law predates Posse Comitatus, authorizing the president to use U.S. military personnel to suppress an insurrection. The last time that law was invoked was during the Los Angeles riots in 1992, and Connors said he envisions few circumstances when it might be used again.

“It would have to be the most complex of catastrophes,” he said.

Story by Donna Miles, American Forces Press Service

Source: The United States Government

"The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement."

And if you want to get on the mailing list or help contribute intelligence on a pro bono basis, please use this form: CEMIR - CSMO Information Request Survey – Fill out form

Share

Show Notes:

Prasad’s COVID-19 Article, including non-linear disasters, at Pracademic Affairs: https://www.hstoday.us/pracademics_affairs/pracademic_affairs_2023/global-pandemics-are-extinction-level-events-and-should-not-be-coordinated-solely-through-national-or-jurisdictional-emergency-management/

Matheny’s 2007 paper, “Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction”, from Risk Analysis. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2007.00960.x

What if China attacked Taiwan. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12481

Quin Lucie, 2019 essay at Homeland Security Affairs, https://www.hsaj.org/articles/15017

Should “State Disaster Forces” fall under the circle of Civil Defense? Details on state defense forces, as of 2026: https://www.dodig.mil/reports.html/Article/1119021/evaluation-of-department-of-defense-interaction-with-state-defense-forces/

U.S. National Preparedness Goal - https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_gpd_national-preparedness-goal-2nd-edition_051525.pdf

Prasad’s HDIAC Article: https://hdiac.dtic.mil/webinars/emint/

Six new CSMO related core capabilities, source: NorthCom, MG Sherman presentation to the 2026 HD Symposium 18Feb26 on CSMO

Warfare occurs outside of declared wars. And nations have always used propaganda to help frame warfare. Today, we call this disinformation, which certainly can be a threat to domestic Emergency Management missions, operations, planning, etc. Here is a short primer on the history of nation-state generated disinformation.

Here’s a piece in the Berlin Policy Journal from Mark Galeotti from 2020, indicating he created the phrase “Gerasimov Doctrine”: https://berlinpolicyjournal.com/the-gerasimov-doctrine/

---

Share

Read more

The history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has its roots in both civil defense and emergency preparedness. Here’s an abbreviated timeline:

• FEMA traces its roots to the Office for Emergency Management created in 1940 to manage national mobilization.

• In the 1950's its functions were split between the Office of Defense Mobilization in the EOP (an…

Read more

Read more

There are a lot of acronyms on that slide. Let’s unpack them.

HD is homeland defense.

DSCA is Defense Support to Civilian Authorities.

IA is inter-agency partners.

FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

DoD is the Department of Defense (also referred to as …

Read more

We put CSMO through the Emergency Management paradigm of POETE: Plans, Organization (who does what), Equipment, Training, and Exercises/Evaluations. We have these organized as ‘active verbs’ now, since the CSMO concept is still on paper, only. In Emergency Management, POETE is …

Read more

Read more

Terrorism plays a significant role in FEMA’s preparedness goals as part of the Protection and Prevention Core Capabilities. ​ These capabilities specifically address terrorism as a threat, marking a shift from a focus solely on natural threats to include human-made threats, specifically terrorism. ​ This change was formalized in 2011 through Presidential Policy Directive 8 (PPD-8), which expanded FEMA’s emergency management missions to encompass terrorism preparedness. ​

The three core functions associated now with prevention and protection (Intelligence and Information Sharing, Interdiction and Disruption, and Screening, Search, and Detection are the ones most commonly associated with homeland security elements both federally and within each state and territory – for effectively anti-terrorism/counter-terrorism within the homeland.

Share

These core capabilities start with civilian government at the State and Territorial level (with the respective governors) and can encompass support from the military (Title 10) via current protocols for Defense Support to Civilian Authorities (DSCA). These missions from the U.S. military have limits, generally to logistical support such as transportation and does not include policing activities, per the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. It should be noted that the U.S. Coast Guard is not subject to this law. Also, Congress can specifically approve troops for any purpose in the homeland, but it is the Legislative Branch which has this power – just as it holds the power to declare war – not the Executive Branch. State Governors, however, can authorize their Title 32 troops to perform police-like actions, as we have seen in 2025 and into 2026.

If the U.S. Congress declares War, all the emergency management core capabilities could be subject to change. For example, what is considered critical infrastructure in a civilian society, as determined by a governor, may not be the same as critical infrastructure as determined by the U.S. military for the war effort. Our federal interstate highway system may become prioritized for military transport and become part of the defense industrial complex. This is actually what it was designed for. If the Defense Production Act is activated, a number of businesses may be retooled for the war effort, and they too become part of the critical infrastructure to be protected. These aspects and more, become part of what will be a reverse of the DSCA, what could be called a Civilian Support for Military Operations, or CSMO.

The CEMIR has started a more detailed analysis of six new potential core capabilities associated with CSMO - and this is a work in progress – available for paid Substack subscribers and CEMIR Parliamentarians.

Read more

Note this is our analysis only – and this is a work in progress. As we get more intelligence on this, we will update these posts directly. None of this is approved or endorsed by the U.S. Government.

Read more

Note this is our analysis only – and this is a work in progress. As we get more intelligence on this, we will update these posts directly. None of this is approved or endorsed by the U.S. Government.

Read more

Note this is our analysis only – and this is a work in progress. As we get more intelligence on this, we will update these posts directly. None of this is approved or endorsed by the U.S. Government.

Read more

Note this is our analysis only – and this is a work in progress. As we get more intelligence on this, we will update these posts directly. None of this is approved or endorsed by the U.S. Government.

Read more

Note this is our analysis only – and this is a work in progress. As we get more intelligence on this, we will update these posts directly. None of this is approved or endorsed by the U.S. Government.

Read more

Note this is our analysis only – and this is a work in progress. As we get more intelligence on this, we will update these posts directly. None of this is approved or endorsed by the U.S. Government.

Read more