NORTHCOM Operational Plans, Pandemic and Endemic
William M. Arkin, 16 April 2020

In the wake of 9/11, U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) was established on October 1, 2002 "to provide command and control of Department of Defense (DOD) homeland defense efforts and to coordinate defense support of civil authorities." As such, NORTHCOM is the lead domestic combatant command for coronavirus, carrying out its normal and enhanced homeland defense missions and responding to "requests for assistance" from FEMA to provide civil support.

A combatant command for America, a single chain of command, one entity. NORTHCOM has settled in to a certain routine over two decades, starting with defending America's skies and the National Capital Region, then in building up an expansive weapons of mass destruction response and "consequence management" apparatus, and then, after Katrina, an all-hazards and national response framework military counterpart to the non-military world, no hurricane, earthquake, wildfire or pandemic outside of its mission set.

If there's any entity that should have been ready for coronavirus, it's NORTHCOM. That proposition will undoubtedly be closely examined as commissions and blue ribbon panels go to work when it's all over. Who said what to whom when will no doubt be exhaustively examined. It's obviously way too early to say much, but one thing can be said with assurance: after Donald Trump is long gone, NORTHCOM will still be there.

That's when all of the exceptions will be uncovered, that NORTHCOM is the singular command except. Except for Hawaii and the Pacific Islands territories, where U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) has identical homeland defense responsibilities. Except for counter-terrorism, where U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is the lead. Except for nuclear deterrence, obviously under STRATCOM. Except for the counter-everything missions under U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). Except for those responsibilities that the State hold to themselves. Except for those operations that the Navy and the other services have doggedly retained. And except for all that is not under the military's direct control -- continuity of government, WMD domestic response, and even national mobilization -- where other organizations such as the FBI and the White House Military Office have both public and non-public responsibilities. And then there's the defense of virtual and exo-atmospheric space, now under U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) and the new U.S. Space Force.

There are so many exceptions and it is such a patchwork not only because bureaucracies furiously guard their turf but also because it's the United States, where what is federal and what is state continues to be hotly contested, as well as what is military and what is civilian. Then comes the question as to whether an organization with so many different missions -- from air defense to dealing with a pandemic -- can adequately prepare for any of them. This will undoubtedly raise the issue of national security versus public health, about 9/11 versus coronavirus, about domestic need versus the wages of perpetual war.

I've been endeavoring to keep an eye on all of this for two decades, not only because of a Reagan-era fascination with continuity but also because the many exceptions rub up against the Constitution and the laws of our land. It's not just that matters of emergency and extraordinary powers are sexy to study and write about, it is also that the secrecy surrounding so many of these missions -- and the exceptions -- confuses those outside the system, stymies good government, and undermines public confidence.

With coronavirus, NORTHCOM is out there working furiously to carry out its many missions, implementing at least five different operations plans simultaneously. Implementing might be too strong of a word, because even though these plans run in the hundreds of pages, most are thrown out the window almost as soon as they are taken off the shelf, useful in laying out how things should be organized but otherwise too rigid -- or fanciful -- to apply to the real world. Or so I say.

That why laying out what those operations plans are is so important, so that we can study them closer, to understand planning, forecasting, organization, mission and implementation. My assertion is that surely we can do better. And in the case of domestic operations plans, surely we can be more transparent as well. Is there any reason you can imagine that the pandemic response plan shouldn't be public? Or the plan for Defense Support of Civil Authorities? And though we justify those plans, even some recounted below that are highly classified and even compartmented because they deal with special operations forces or weapons of mass destruction, even there I would argue that there needs to be greater transparency, that in order for NORTHCOM and the military overall to do its job in the United States, the Congress and Judiciary, the States, the local community and the public needs to have as much confidence as we can provide them that the military is operating lawfully, and that it knows what it's doing.

The 19 plans described below are what I can piece together as the current and active operations plans of NORTHCOM. I say operations plans broadly, for all of them are actually CONPLANs, which is not an abbreviation for contingency plan but officially an "operation plans in concept format". Because of the exceptions I described above, INDOPACOM has parallel plans that deal with Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, not under the authority of NORTHCOM. And the first two plans listed, in the Joint Chief of Staff "Zero-series" are thought to be NORTHCOM plans but probably still reside within the purview of the JCS. The rest of the plans are all in the 3000-series, allocated to NORTHCOM.


CONPLAN 0300, Counter-Terrorism Special Operations Support to Civil Agencies in the event of a domestic incident (entire title classified) (Power Geyser)

CONPLAN 0400, Counterproliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Granite Shadow)

CONPLAN 3310, NORTHCOM/NORAD, Aerospace Warning, Aerospace Control and Maritime Warning for North America

CONPLAN 3400, Homeland Defense

CONPLAN 3405, Department of Defense Nuclear Weapon Incident Response CONPLAN 3407, Defense Support to Prevent a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or High-Yield Explosives (CBRNE) Attack in the Homeland

CONPLAN 3475, Regional Campaign for the War on Terrorism (WOT)

CONPLAN 3500, Defense Support of Civil Authorities for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High Explosives (CBRNE) Consequence Management (CM) Operations

CONPLAN 3501, Defense Support of Civil Authorities CONPLAN 3502, Civil Disturbance Operations

CONPLAN 3505, Nuclear Weapons Accident Response Plan (NARP)

CONPLAN 3551, Concept Plan to Synchronize DOD Pandemic Influenza Planning

CONPLAN 3591, Theater Response Plan for Pandemic Influenza and Infectious Diseases

CONPLAN 3600, Emergency Preparedness in the National Capital Region (NCR)

CONPLAN 3601, Continuity of Operations

CONPLAN 3729, International Disaster Response

CONPLAN 3768, Repatriation Operations

CONPLAN 3800, Mobile Consolidated Command Center Operations

CAMPLAN 3900, Strategic Communication