National Counterterrorism Strategies

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member and other members of the committee, for the honor of being asked to testify on the critical subject of our nation?s struggle against terrorism, and the administration?s many strategies for countering this serious threat.

There are indeed a multitude of U.S. national strategies for countering terror. In fact, there probably are too many. It is hard to keep them straight, even for someone who tries to make it his business to follow them, and hard to know their relative importance and centrality in determining actual policy such as allocation of budget resources. There should be fewer.

For example, the national strategy for the physical protection of critical infrastructures and the national strategy to secure cyberspace could logically be part of the national strategy for homeland security. Also, one might merge the national strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction with the national military strategic plan for the war on terrorism.