Homeland Defense: Continued Actions Needed to Improve Management of Air Sovereignty Alert Operations
Highlights
What GAO Found
The Air Force has not fully implemented the recommendations from GAO’s 2009 report. With regard to GAO’s recommendation that the military services should formally assign ASA duties to the units that consistently conduct them and ensure that the readiness of those units is fully assessed, the Air Force did so. However, the National Guard Bureau is considering reversing that action because it believes that the recommendation can be better addressed through the Air Force’s standard deployment process. The Air Force has also not established a timetable to implement ASA as a steady-state mission; has not developed and implemented a plan to recapitalize the aging fighter aircraft that conduct ASA operations before the end of their service lives; and, when ASA units are deployed to support other ongoing operations, the Air Force continues to identify replacement units to perform the ASA mission on an ad hoc basis. All of the above were related to recommendations GAO made to the Air Force in its 2009 report. Separately, GAO found considerable confusion about the capabilities associated with ASA operations in part because, in September 2011, NORAD stopped using the term “air sovereignty alert” and created a new term, “aerospace control alert” (ACA), without clearly defining ACA or the missions that are now included within it.
DOD has taken a series of actions for ASA operations that are consistent with a risk-based management approach. However, several key actions have yet to be taken that would enable the department to better balance risk and costs. Risk-based management includes conducting routine risk assessments that evaluate threats, vulnerabilities, and criticality of assets, as recommended in GAO’s 2009 report, and selecting between alternative courses of action to mitigate risk and make decisions about allocating resources. Although threats to the nation’s air sovereignty continue to emerge and evolve, GAO found that DOD is unable to measure the extent to which ASA helps to achieve the department’s homeland-defense goal of securing the United States from direct attack because DOD has not established performance measures. NORAD has not conducted routine risk assessments of ASA operations. DOD has also yet to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for two of the three alternatives to current ASA operations that GAO evaluated. Adopting a more-rigorous risk-based management approach—including balancing risk and costs—would help policymakers within DOD and elsewhere more effectively allocate finite DOD resources.
Weak internal controls limit the ability of the Air Force and National Guard Bureau to accurately identify ASA expenditures. GAO analyzed the fiscal year 2010 expenditure information that the Air Force and National Guard Bureau submitted to Congress along with DOD’s fiscal year 2012 budget justification and found the reported expenditures of more than $246 million to be inaccurate. For example, GAO found that the Air Force overstated ASA flying-hour expenditures by at least $22 million and included expenditures related to national special-security events, which are not part of ASA operations. GAO found that the Air Force’s ability to identify ASA expenditures is limited by unclear roles and responsibilities for programming and budgeting and a lack of guidance on defining and tracking ASA expenditures. These types of internal controls are important to ensuring basic accountability, maintaining funds control, and preventing fraud and abuse.
Why GAO Did This Study
In the 11 years since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has put forth extensive efforts to protect the nation’s aviation sector and airspace. These efforts include air sovereignty alert (ASA) operations, for which the Air Force provides personnel and fully fueled, fully armed aircraft sitting on constant alert at 18 sites across the United States. In 2009, GAO found shortcomings in the Department of Defense’s (DOD) management of ASA operations, leading to a number of GAO recommendations. For this report, GAO examined the extent to which (1) the Air Force has implemented GAO’s 2009 recommendations, (2) DOD has implemented a risk-based management approach for ASA operations, and (3) the Air Force has accurately identified expenditures for ASA operations. To do so, GAO analyzed relevant strategies, planning documents, guidance, and expenditure data; and interviewed North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Air Force, National Guard Bureau, and other DOD officials.
Recommendations
Congress may wish to consider requiring the Air Force to fully implement GAOs 2009 recommendations. In addition, GAO recommends that DOD improve its risk management of ASA operations and improve the Air Forces ability to accurately identify ASA expenditures. DOD fully or partially agreed with all of GAOs recommendations.
Matter for Congressional Consideration
| Matter | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| In order to ensure that the Air Force is taking action that addresses the long-term sustainability of ASA operations, Congress may wish to consider requiring the Secretary of the Air Force to fully implement the remaining actions identified in our 2009 report within a time period that Congress believes most prudent. | The House Armed Services Committee has included an Aerospace Control Alert (Air Sovereignty Alert) related provision in the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization bill that passed the House on May 18, 2012. The provision precluded any changes to the alert status of the 18 alert sites throughout the United States until the enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 or September 30, 2013, whichever of the two dates was later. It also required DOD to submit (1) a consolidated budget exhibit detailing all aspects of the aerospace control alert mission and (2) a report on the cost-benefit analysis and risk-based assessment on the aerospace control alert structure. No further action has been taken on this Matter for Congressional Consideration. |
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | In order that all DOD components may better understand the mission they have been asked to perform, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas' Security Affairs, in coordination with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to clearly define ASA operations and its relationship to NORAD's ACA operations. |
Based on GAO's recommendation, DOD integrated ACA terminology into its planning documents and doctrine, including concept plan 3310 (completed in May 2012) and Joint Publication 3-27,(completed in July 2013) thereby defining ACA operations and explaining their relationship to ASA. As a result, Department of Defense components will better understand the homeland defense mission they have been asked to perform.
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| Department of Defense | In order to implement a more-complete risk-based management approach that balances risk and costs for ASA operations, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in coordination with the U.S. element of NORAD and U.S. Pacific Command, to develop performance measures for ASA operations and then use these measures to evaluate the mission and make adjustments, as warranted, on the basis of the performance-measure results. |
DOD partially concurred with the recommendation. DOD stated that it recognized the merit of measures of performance. Though it stated that each Military Department has long-established procedures and measures of performance to certify units as combat ready, DOD did not specify any such efforts related to NORAD and ASA operations.
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| Department of Defense | In order to implement a more-complete risk-based management approach that balances risk and costs for ASA operations, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas' Security Affairs, in coordination with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to issue updated guidance, which includes a prioritized list of metropolitan areas and critical infrastructure that NORAD is supposed to protect. |
DOD partially concurred with this recommendation but has not provided information on what actions it may take to implement it.
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| Department of Defense | In order to implement a more-complete risk-based management approach that balances risk and costs for ASA operations, the Secretary of Defense should direct the U.S. element of NORAD to update its ASA computer model to address identified areas for improvement to include incorporating the elements of risk--threat, vulnerability, and consequence. |
Based on our recommendation, NORAD improved its risk-based management approach of the ASA operations by improving its risk analyses. Specifically, in 2013 NORAD prioritized the list of metropolitan areas and critical infrastructure to protect and its model used those priorities in its current analyses of ASA basing locations. As a result, NORAD and DOD decision makers have more current information with which to manage ASA operations.
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| Department of Defense | In order to implement a more-complete risk-based management approach that balances risk and costs for ASA operations, the Secretary of Defense should direct the U.S. element of NORAD to document the results of its risk assessments so that NORAD and DOD can identify trends over time. |
DOD partially concurred with the recommendation. DOD identified several NORAD studies or assessments-including a 2009 Collateral Damage Study and the 2010 ASA Basing Study-that are subject to trend analysis. We believe that NORAD's efforts to study or analyze different aspects of its missions are positive actions. However, while NORAD issued a one-time report to Congress in March 2011 that identified the results of its 2010 ASA Basing Study, a one-time study is not a trend analysis and the command has not documented the results of its analyses of the ASA model since that time.
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| Department of Defense | In order to implement a more-complete risk-based management approach that balances risk and costs for ASA operations, the Secretary of Defense should identify the appropriate DOD entities that should conduct a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of NORAD's ASA basing strategy and then have those entities conduct such an analysis. |
In 2013, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Secretary of Defense's Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office, and the Air Force conducted analyses looking at the costs and benefits of Air Sovereignty Alert/Aerospace Control Alert's basing strategy. These actions address the intent of the recommendation.
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| Department of Defense | In order to accurately identify ASA expenditures and address other internal control weaknesses, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Air Force and the Director of the National Guard Bureau to issue guidance that (1) defines ASA programmatic and budgeting roles and responsibilities; (2) defines all expenditures that should be identified as ASA expenditures in financial-management systems; and (3) identifies the proper procedures to track ASA expenditures in their financial-management systems. |
DOD partially concurred with the recommendation. In its response, DOD stated that it believes that programmatic and budgetary roles are clearly understood and well defined in DOD's planning, programming, budgeting, and execution process. It further stated that the Secretary of the Air Force is responsible for ASA programming and budgeting and that the Office of the Secretary of Defense will continue to work with the Secretary of the Air Force to clarify and standardize tracking and ASA expenditures. No further action has been reported.
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