Beware of the Security Industrial Complex....

In January 1961, President Eisenhower went on national television to give his last public address from the Oval Office. The best known element of that speech was the President's admonition that America be weary of the growth of the "military-industrial complex." What Eisenhower meant by this has been the subject of much debate (and the source of many conspiracy theories), but he was openly worrying about the peacetime growth of the American military and the troubling intersection of Pentagon bureaucracy, private sector military contractors, and their political paymasters in Congress; a classic "iron triangle."

I have been giving some thought to whether a similar kind of complex has perhaps descended on post-9/11 North America; the Security Industrial Complex?


What Might Have Been

In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) launched a new era of trilateral economic openness and prosperity by reducing barriers to trade and investment. Although the NAFTA remains highly controversial (indeed, radioactive in many quarters), it also ushered in a robust scholarly and policy debate about "next steps." For advocates of deeper North American integration, the ensuing twenty years were an exercise in frustration. In fact, rather than advancing closer to the kinds of pooled sovereignty witnessed in Europe, the NAFTA came to symbolize almost everything that was wrong with globalization and the integration of markets. Hence, while there were many outstanding trilateral issues that needed attention, including the incompleteness of the NAFTA itself, there was never enough political will in any of the three countries to advance the ball.

The terrorist attacks on the United States in September of 2001 changed all of that by bringing renewed attention to North America's borders (see for example, the C.D. Howe Institute's "Border Papers"). In many ways, the decade since 9/11 was a remarkable period of intellectual and policy creativity about the future of the North American economic space. Unfortunately, not all of that creativity has turned out so well. Many readers of this blog will know that the years immediately following 9/11 witnessed the marriage of a new and dynamic security agenda to a mature (some argued stale) economic agenda anchored in the NAFTA. The entire effort-- Smart Border Accords, the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the North American Leaders' Summits, and now the Beyond the Border Initiative-- has been designed to balance the new imperatives of security with the benefits of economic openness.

In principle, the two objectives were not necessarily irreconcilable, but would have required forms of pooled sovereignty in a number of policy areas in order to thread the needle. Instead, the focus and attention of policy makers was directed at North America's existing borders. In 1994, we were all talking about how globalization (an the NAFTA as a component part thereof) was minimizing the importance of international borders in our economic, social, and political lives. Indeed, while economists salivated at the potential for efficiency gains and economic growth from a minimized border, nationalists in all three countries openly worried about the harmonization of culture, the end of single-payer healthcare, or the incursion of American consumerism, and the exodus of jobs to Mexico.

What Actually Is

However, North America's borders have roared back to life. Indeed, they are more prominent now than ever, having become the focal point for nearly all of our concerns about security. The post-9/11 focus on existing borders was, to a certain degree, understandable. Policy-makers were under tremendous pressure to secure gaping holes in nearly every element of border management, including the flow of people and the screening of cargo. The task at hand was overwhelming and time was not a luxury.  In spite of advocacy by some academics and the private sector, thinking the "big thoughts" about how to move toward a trilateral perimeter strategy was not in the cards.

Instead, we began to focus on securing and modernizing a border infrastructure that was actually ill equipped to deal with the expansion of trade flows induced by the NAFTA. All along both North American borders, a 1950s infrastructure had been asked to handle contemporary trade volumes. That infrastructure was even less well-equipped to handle enhanced security as well. Borders that had already become commercial choke-points became even more so with every new security threat and measure put in place to counter it. Sadly, the intellectual battle to find a middle ground between security and prosperity seems to have been lost. Security won. Full stop.

The extent of change along North America's borders is sobering to think about, but most of us don't actually think about it much anymore. Every new measure that is put in place, article of clothing we need to remove, every juice bottle we have to throw out, and every scanner we have to walk through is now treated with a collective shrug of the shoulders. As importantly, we've gotten pretty good at the security business, so much so that periodic concerns about civil liberties fade and are chalked up to the price we now pay for travel.

DHS Leviathan

The idea of an integrated, efficient, and secure North America has not completely faded from view, particularly among a small group of scholars. Yet, I think we need to acknowledge that particular ship has sailed. One reason for my skepticism about reviving the "North American Idea" is the rise of the Security Industrial Complex. It is a topic that I don't think scholars of North America have devoted enough attention to and is, in many ways, now the foremost challenge when thinking about what remains of the "North American Idea."

In late 2002, the United States embarked on the largest reorganization of the federal government since World War II. More than 20 existing federal agencies with more than 180,000 employees were cobbled together into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Homeland Security has quickly become the third largest executive branch department with a $60 billion budget (only Defense and Veterans Affairs have more employees). Early in it's life, DHS was a bureaucratic nightmare, in part, because it stripped agencies away from some departments (Immigration and Naturalization Service), created new ones (Transportation Security Administration), and put them all under a single roof (at a huge cost on the site of a former insane asylum). Knitting different bureaucratic cultures together as one has been no small task and was being done under heavy pressure to prevent any and all potential terrorist incidents. DHS still has many long standing challenges to sort out, among them, the very definition of what homeland security is and the poorest job satisfaction in the entire federal government.

Homeland Security may be a mess, but it is here to stay. Once created, bureaucracies become resource hungry entities that are hard to reign in or reform. We now have an alphabet soup of programs and bottomless pit of technological gadgets designed to ease border crossings, maintain the efficiency of just-in-time production techniques, and reduce the pain and suffering of airport security. The scale of DHS inherently confers influence within the U.S. political system, but a key means by which DHS has sought to fulfill its mandate is by coordinating and partnering with hundreds of state and local law enforcement and first responder entities. In many cases, this has meant the acquisition of new equipment, investment in training, and the expansion of personnel, often with the aid of federal grants for emergency preparedness. There are numerous academic assessments (one is linked here) about the imperfections of DHS efforts as they confront an imperfect federal system that often defies centralization. However, DHS is now big business for cash-strapped local authorities. In 2010, DHS officials testified before the House Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that they employed more private contractors than actual DHS staff. DHS has also become big business for big business as the agency has enlisted firms (or compelled them) in the securitization of their supply chains and manufacturing processes, while others offer technological solutions. Clever firms like United Parcel Service have transformed themselves from simple package delivery services into logistics and supply chain management firms by providing compliance with DHS security measures.

Congressional oversight of DHS is also a nightmare since the various agencies within have ties to virtually every aspect of domestic policy. In late 2004, the Center for Strategic and International Studies produced a report detailing the challenges of Congressional oversight. It's sober reading, but most remarkable is the graphic they produced showing the complicated lines of oversight from different House and Senate committees to each unit within DHS. With dozens of committees and sub-committees claiming some form of oversight over DHS operations, the governance of homeland security is at best messy. With DHS tasked with such an array of issue areas, and with so many resources at stake, it is not hard to imagine the kind of "iron triangles" and bureaucratic siloing social scientists have studied for years in places like the Pentagon having taken firm root at DHS.

All of this has been disheartening for advocates of deeper stages of integration since the range of stakeholders and interests pursuing the entrenchment of the status quo has grown large and powerful. In chalkboard economics terms, one means of moving toward a more prosperous (and secure) North America would be to pool sovereignty over customs enforcement or immigration screening-- in essence a perimeter strategy rather than one focused on fortifying existing national borders. Both would have been politically noxious before the advent of Homeland Security. It's stating the obvious to say such ideas are now untenable. There are only so many trusted cargo and traveller's programs we can put in place to mitigate the inefficiency of security screening; only so much more alphabet soup that we can eat.

Advocates of North American integration like to point to these inefficiencies and note how Asian nations are outstripping the competitive advantage we once enjoyed due to liberalized trade and investment. That intellectual case in favor of liberalization remains as strong today as it was in the 18th Century when Adam Smith and David Ricardo first fleshed it out. In the pre-9/11 context of porous borders, doing something about it was a much easier political case to make (in retrospect, possibly the heyday of North American integration). Today, that political case would entail dramatically altering the form and function of DHS; unravelling the Security Industrial Complex.

Good luck with that.