Contemplating the Role of Precision and Range in Homeland Security Policy Analysis: A Response to Mueller Warren S. Eller and Brian J. Gerber In an effort to address some of the gaps in homeland security policy analysis—at present a relatively understudied topic from an analytic perspective—Professor Mueller offers an examination of policy decision making for a subset of low probability–high consequence events; particularly the idea of passive asset defense. This article provides a critical examination of Professor Mueller’s work, tendering what we identify as a number of critical limitations with his framework and argues it does not provide an adequate basis for sound analysis in this policy area. We also offer several suggestions where one could build upon a portion of the groundwork his paper lays, especially in moving toward a greater appre- ciation of what terrorism means for an all-hazards management system. Introduction The United States currently devotes a tremendous amount of resources to home- land security across its federal system. The breadth of the homeland security rubric—encompassing natural and technological hazards along with the terrorism hazard—presents a variety of policy development and public management chal- lenges. From a policy analysis perspective, generating assessments of what govern- ment should do in the face of an array of complex and potentially interdependent problems is no mean feat, to put it mildly. For example, even defining with precision the actual dollar value of resources devoted to antiterrorism 1 measures requires subjective judgments. Consider the case of accounting for the dual (perhaps multi- dimensional) nature of resource expenditures that an agency like the Center for Disease Control commits to addressing the threat of pandemic illness. Such efforts have simultaneous preparedness and mitigation effects for potential bioterrorism attacks (hence homeland security relevancy), in addition to their more direct intent of protecting public health. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a roughly 50 billion dollar annual budget, but as an amalgam of nearly two dozen separate administrative agencies at its creation, the subunits of DHS have a variety of functional tasks that probably should not be construed as directly constituting anti- terrorism efforts—unless, of course, one wishes to define those tasks as such. To The Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2010 23 0190-292X © 2010 Policy Studies Organization Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ.