Defeating Global Networks: The need for a Strategic Targeting Organization

Abstract

Abstract : The National Military Strategy clearly articulates the diverse global threats that face the United States, but the Department of Defense (DOD) has not implemented a process to deal with these adversaries effectively. Current threats involving transnational and nonstate actors operate across the areas of responsibility (AOR) of multiple combatant commands. In order to deal with these threats, there must be a single DOD entity empowered to globally integrate and prioritize targeting. Combatant commanders are assigned a wide range of missions, such as conducting Global Strike, waging the war on terror, supporting counternarcotics operations, and countering weapons proliferation. In some of these mission areas, the combatant commander's geographic boundaries are insufficient to delineate where one commander's responsibilities end and another's begin. Therefore, it is imperative that DOD adapts to cover the seams created where global networks form that can threaten U.S. interests. Current doctrine is insufficient to address these complex networks, which link adversary states, terrorists, narcotics dealers, international criminal organizations, financiers, weapons proliferators, and individual nonstate actors.