By law, DOD is responsible for two missions in the homeland: DSCA and HD. HD is the protection of US sovereignty, territory, domestic population, and critical infrastructure against external threats and aggression or other threats, as directed by the President of the US.

The Coast Guard is at all times an armed service, but it has been orphaned as the lone military branch residing in non-military executive departments—Treasury, Transportation, and now Homeland Security.

Cards

Mission Statement. The Department of Defense is responsible for providing the military forces needed to deter war and protect the security of our country. The major elements of these forces are the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force, consisting of about 1.7 million men and women on active duty.

The four Army support relationships are direct support, general support, reinforcing, and general support-reinforcing (GSR). (See figure 2.) There is no command authority in support relationships, and they are normally established when subordinating one unit to another is inappropriate. DIRECT SUPPORT.

GEOGRAPHIC COMBATANT COMMANDS

• CENTCOM (Current Page): U.S. Central Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida.
• AFRICOM: U.S. Africa Command, Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany.
• EUCOM: U.S. European Command, Patch Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany.
• NORTHCOM: U.S. Northern Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.

Combatant Commands

• Africa Command.
• Central Command.
• Cyber Command.
• European Command.
• Indo-Pacific Command.
• Northern Command.
• Southern Command.
• Space Command.

Special Operations Commands (TSOCs) and USCYBERCOM). Commanders of subunified. commands exercise OPCON of assigned commands and forces and normally over attached. forces within the assigned joint operations area or functional area. [

Each unified combatant command is led by a combatant commander (CCDR), who is a four-star general or admiral. The combatant commanders are entrusted with a specific type of nontransferable operational command authority over assigned forces, regardless of branch of service.

The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM or SOCOM) is the unified combatant command charged with overseeing the various special operations component commands of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force of the United States Armed Forces.

The combatant command “community” consists of two types, four global/functional commands such as Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) and Strategic Command (STRATCOM) and six geographic commands such as the European (EUCOM) and Pacific (PACOM) commands.

The region monitored by this command encompasses 20 countries, including Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the countries of the Arabian Peninsula and northern Red Sea, and the five republics of Central Asia.

Although the Coast Guard is one of the five armed services of the United States, the Commandant of the Coast Guard is not a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The establishment of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) for the Middle East on 1 January 1983 resulted in reassignment of responsibilities from PACOM to the new command. CENTCOM took responsibility for Afghanistan and Pakistan from PACOM; the India-Pakistan border became the boundary between CENTCOM and PACOM.

PACOM

Two of the three largest economies in the world, two of the three most populous nations in the world (China and India), the largest democratic Muslim-majority nation in the world (Indonesia), and the smallest republic in the world (Nauru) are all part of USPACOM.

The West Coast of North America was reassigned from USPACOM to USNORTHCOM. While Alaska was included in the reassignment to USNORTHCOM, Alaskan Command forces remained assigned to USPACOM in the “Forces for Unified Commands Memorandum.” Antarctica was also added to USPACOM’s area of responsibility.

Alaskan Command (ALCOM) is a subunified command of U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). ALCOM is headquartered at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), Anchorage, Alaska. Alaska-based forces include more than 20,000 Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine personnel, and 4,700 Guardsmen and Reservists.

The USINDOPACOM AOR covers more of the globe of any of the other geographic combatant commands and shares borders with all of the other five geographic combatant commands. The AOR includes the most populous nation in the world, the largest democracy, and the largest Muslim-majority nation.