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12.26.2025 at 02:50pm
Forging the Framework: Evolving Law, Policy, and Doctrine for the U.S. Military’s Domestic Response, edited by Jonathan D. Bratten and published by Army University Press, is a timely reminder that domestic military operations are neither an anomaly nor an afterthought, but an essential, yet tenuous, mission woven into [American civil-military history](https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/Wild-Blue-Yonder/Site-Assets/PDFs/WBY%20-%206%2…
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12.26.2025 at 02:50pm
Forging the Framework: Evolving Law, Policy, and Doctrine for the U.S. Military’s Domestic Response, edited by Jonathan D. Bratten and published by Army University Press, is a timely reminder that domestic military operations are neither an anomaly nor an afterthought, but an essential, yet tenuous, mission woven into American civil-military history. The anthology argues that civil-military tension is no accident: America’s domestic response framework was not deliberately designed but forged through centuries of improvisation, friction, and crisis, shaped by recurring tensions between state and federal authority, civil primacy and military power, preparedness and overreach. By tracing Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) from colonial militias through Reconstruction, labor unrest, Katrina, and post-9/11 homeland defense, the volume refuses to sanitize history, documenting both effective responses and costly failures, showing how fragile and judgment-dependent the system has always been.
The book’s contemporary relevance is clearest in its warning about compound crises. As climate disasters intensify, information warfare amplifies unrest, and adversaries develop means to stress the U.S. homeland during large-scale combat operations, the National Guard and federal forces face competing demands that existing legal compromises (e.g., the Insurrection Act, Stafford Act, Title 10/32 authorities, Dual Status Command) were never designed to absorb simultaneously.
Forging the Framework does not offer stock solutions, because the problems it addresses are structural and enduring. But it does something more valuable: it shows that the challenges of domestic military operations—legal ambiguity, command friction, civil-military tension, and the temptation to use force as a first resort rather than a last resort—are as old as the Republic itself. Understanding that history is not an academic exercise. It is operational preparation for DSCA practitioners, joint planners, strategists, and anyone interested in how the U.S. military operates within the constitutional order.
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