Boundary Condition #3 (1)

Christmas night 1776: As General Washington kneels to pray, the candle of life for an emerging ideal flickers, a river, a bitter cold march, a battle and the fate of a nation await.  Even in victory, much defeat is still to  come with yet another horrible winter at Valley Forge to be survived.  He is no great battle captain, yet he holds the Continental Army together until victory in 1783.  Abigail Adams: "I am apt to think that our later misfortunes have called out the hidden excellencies of our commander-in-chief. Affliction is the good man's shinning time."  General Nathanael  Greene: "He will be the deliverer of his own country."

Early on the morning of December 26th, 1776, Washington's force surprised and defeated the Hessian garrison at Trenton losing only two men, and they froze to death on the march not in the battle. Contrary to popular belief, the Hessians were not a sluggish hungover group from Christmas partying. They had earlier responded to a small incursion by another unit of the Continental Army without Washington's knowledge.  Washington was furious when he learned that his surprise was compromised, but fate was with him. The Hessian commander having ordered a search of the surounding area and finding no other troops, in deference to the worsening  weather brought in his pickets.

We celebrate our country's birthday in the warmth of summer recalling the day we declared our right as free and independent states, the day the signers pledged their lives, fortune and sacred honor, but we would do well to also  recall a bitter cold Christmas night, a general and an army that made it so.

The American Revolutionary War might well be considered a "hybrid" in that much of the war was fought as European armies of the day fought, but in the South, the actions of notable leaders such as Francis Marrion were pure hit and run guerrilla warfare tactics.  And Washington's army went from defeat to defeat, yet survived, maneuvering so as to fight another day.  He was no great battle captain – he lost more than he won – but through will and leadership, held the Continental Army together long enough to receive training at Valley Forge, to "dodge and weave" until he received assistance from France … long enough to win the day. 

It would seem worth study and reflection given a focus on decision making in worst cases and unconventional crisis. And so this becomes the third boundary condition in a search for intersections for Project White Horse 084640 in the coming year.

References:

Washington by Ron Chernow

Washington's Crossing byDavid Hackett Fischer

Almost a Miracle by John Ferling

1776 by David McCulloughg

To Try Men's Souls by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forsthen

one requires little imagination to guess Washington's mind.  How heavy was the burden of the multiple  defeats, knowing there might not even be an army come the spring, knowing that defeat here most certainly would be the end to the revolution, and indeed, how heavy on his mind was the responsibility created by the words of the July 4th Declaration?

Boundary Condition #1 (1)

This was the year the Earth struck back.

Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 — the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.

How deadly? Through Nov. 30, nearly 260,000 people died in natural disasters in 2010, compared to 15,000 in 2009

How extreme? After strong early year blizzards — nicknamed Snowmageddon — paralyzed the U.S. mid-Atlantic and record snowfalls hit Russia and China, the temperature turned to broil – the year may go down as the hottest on record worldwide or at the very least in the top three

How costly? Disasters caused $222 billion in economic losses in 2010 — more than Hong Kong's economy

How weird? A volcano in Iceland paralyzed air traffic for days in Europe, disrupting travel for more than 7 million people. In a 24-hour period in October, Indonesia got the trifecta of a deadly magnitude 7.7 earthquake, a tsunami that killed more than 500 people and a volcano that caused more than 390,000 people to flee. That's after flooding, landslides and more quakes killed hundreds earlier in the year. And in the United States, FEMA declared a record number of major disasters, 79 as of Dec. 14. The average year has 34. A list of day-by-day disasters in 2010 compiled by the AP runs 64 printed pages long

And put man in the equation, what then? It was also a year of man-made technological catastrophes. BP's busted oil well caused 172 million gallons to gush into the Gulf of Mexico. Mining disasters — men trapped deep in the Earth — caused dozens of deaths in tragic collapses in West Virginia, China and New Zealand. The fortunate miners in Chile who survived 69 days underground provided the feel good story of the year.

2010's world gone wild: Quakes, floods, blizzards

By SETH BORENSTEIN and JULIE REED BELL, Associated Press Seth Borenstein And Julie Reed Bell, Associated Press Sun Dec 19, 5:31 pm ET

Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 — the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.

"It just seemed like it was back-to-back and it came in waves," said Craig Fugate, who heads the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. It handled a record number of disasters in 2010.

"The term `100-year event' really lost its meaning this year."

And we have ourselves to blame most of the time, scientists and disaster experts say.

Even though many catastrophes have the ring of random chance, the hand of man made this a particularly deadly, costly, extreme and weird year for everything from wild weather to earthquakes.

Poor construction and development practices conspire to make earthquakes more deadly than they need be. More people live in poverty in vulnerable buildings in crowded cities. That means that when the ground shakes, the river breaches, or the tropical cyclone hits, more people die.

Disasters from the Earth, such as earthquakes and volcanoes "are pretty much constant," said Andreas Schraft, vice president of catastrophic perils for the Geneva-based insurance giant Swiss Re. "All the change that's made is man-made."

The January earthquake that killed well more than 220,000 people in Haiti is a perfect example. Port-au-Prince has nearly three times as many people — many of them living in poverty — and more poorly built shanties than it did 25 years ago. So had the same quake hit in 1985 instead of 2010, total deaths would have probably been in the 80,000 range, said Richard Olson, director of disaster risk reduction at Florida International University.

In February, an earthquake that was more than 500 times stronger than the one that struck Haiti hit an area of Chile that was less populated, better constructed, and not as poor. Chile's bigger quake caused fewer than 1,000 deaths.

Climate scientists say Earth's climate also is changing thanks to man-made global warming, bringing extreme weather, such as heat waves and flooding.

In the summer, one weather system caused oppressive heat in Russia, while farther south it caused flooding in Pakistan that inundated 62,000 square miles, about the size of Wisconsin. That single heat-and-storm system killed almost 17,000 people, more people than all the worldwide airplane crashes in the past 15 years combined.

"It's a form of suicide, isn't it? We build houses that kill ourselves (in earthquakes). We build houses in flood zones that drown ourselves," said Roger Bilham, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado. "It's our fault for not anticipating these things. You know, this is the Earth doing its thing."

No one had to tell a mask-wearing Vera Savinova how bad it could get. She is a 52-year-old administrator in a dental clinic who in August took refuge from Moscow's record heat, smog and wildfires.

"I think it is the end of the world," she said. "Our planet warns us against what would happen if we don't care about nature."

The excessive amount of extreme weather that dominated 2010 is a classic sign of man-made global warming that climate scientists have long warned about. They calculate that the killer Russian heat wave — setting a national record of 111 degrees — would happen once every 100,000 years without global warming.

Preliminary data show that 18 countries broke their records for the hottest day ever.

"These (weather) events would not have happened without global warming," said Kevin Trenberth, chief of climate analysis for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

That's why the people who study disasters for a living say it would be wrong to chalk 2010 up to just another bad year.

"The Earth strikes back in cahoots with bad human decision-making," said a weary Debarati Guha Sapir, director for the World Health Organization's Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. "It's almost as if the policies, the government policies and development policies, are helping the Earth strike back instead of protecting from it. We've created conditions where the slightest thing the Earth does is really going to have a disproportionate impact."

Here's a quick tour of an anything but normal 2010:

HOW DEADLY:

While the Haitian earthquake, Russian heat wave, and Pakistani flooding were the biggest killers, deadly quakes also struck Chile, Turkey, China and Indonesia in one of the most active seismic years in decades. Through mid-December there have been 20 earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or higher, compared to the normal 16. This year is tied for the most big quakes since 1970, but it is not a record. Nor is it a significantly above average year for the number of strong earthquakes, U.S. earthquake officials say.

Flooding alone this year killed more than 6,300 people in 59 nations through September, according to the World Health Organization. In the United States, 30 people died in the Nashville, Tenn., region in flooding. Inundated countries include China, Italy, India, Colombia and Chad. Super Typhoon Megi with winds of more than 200 mph devastated the Philippines and parts of China.

Through Nov. 30, nearly 260,000 people died in natural disasters in 2010, compared to 15,000 in 2009, according to Swiss Re. The World Health Organization, which hasn't updated its figures past Sept. 30, is just shy of 250,000. By comparison, deaths from terrorism from 1968 to 2009 were less than 115,000, according to reports by the U.S. State Department and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The last year in which natural disasters were this deadly was 1983 because of an Ethiopian drought and famine, according to WHO. Swiss Re calls it the deadliest since 1976.

The charity Oxfam says 21,000 of this year's disaster deaths are weather related.

HOW EXTREME:

After strong early year blizzards — nicknamed Snowmageddon — paralyzed the U.S. mid-Atlantic and record snowfalls hit Russia and China, the temperature turned to broil.

The year may go down as the hottest on record worldwide or at the very least in the top three, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The average global temperature through the end of October was 58.53 degrees, a shade over the previous record of 2005, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

Los Angeles had its hottest day in recorded history on Sept. 27: 113 degrees. In May, 129 set a record for Pakistan and may have been the hottest temperature recorded in an inhabited location.

In the U.S. Southeast, the year began with freezes in Florida that had cold-blooded iguanas becoming comatose and falling off trees. Then it became the hottest summer on record for the region. As the year ended, unusually cold weather was back in force.

Northern Australia had the wettest May-October on record, while the southwestern part of that country had its driest spell on record. And parts of the Amazon River basin struck by drought hit their lowest water levels in recorded history.

HOW COSTLY:

Disasters caused $222 billion in economic losses in 2010 — more than Hong Kong's economy — according to Swiss Re. That's more than usual, but not a record, Schraft said. That's because this year's disasters often struck poor areas without heavy insurance, such as Haiti.

Ghulam Ali's three-bedroom, one-story house in northwestern Pakistan collapsed during the floods. To rebuild, he had to borrow 50,000 rupees ($583) from friends and family. It's what many Pakistanis earn in half a year.

HOW WEIRD:

A volcano in Iceland paralyzed air traffic for days in Europe, disrupting travel for more than 7 million people. Other volcanoes in the Congo, Guatemala, Ecuador, the Philippines and Indonesia sent people scurrying for safety. New York City had a rare tornado.

A nearly 2-pound hailstone that was 8 inches in diameter fell in South Dakota in July to set a U.S. record. The storm that produced it was one of seven declared disasters for that state this year.

There was not much snow to start the Winter Olympics in a relatively balmy Vancouver, British Columbia, while the U.S. East Coast was snowbound.

In a 24-hour period in October, Indonesia got the trifecta of terra terror: a deadly magnitude 7.7 earthquake, a tsunami that killed more than 500 people and a volcano that caused more than 390,000 people to flee. That's after flooding, landslides and more quakes killed hundreds earlier in the year.

Even the extremes were extreme. This year started with a good sized El Nino weather oscillation that causes all sorts of extremes worldwide. Then later in the year, the world got the mirror image weather system with a strong La Nina, which causes a different set of extremes. Having a year with both a strong El Nino and La Nina is unusual.

And in the United States, FEMA declared a record number of major disasters, 79 as of Dec. 14. The average year has 34.

Through September, the 2010 disaster death toll had already surpassed such notable years as 2004, when the South Asia tsunami struck, and 2008, when Myanmar was hit by a massive cyclone and China suffered a devastating earthquake.

A list of day-by-day disasters in 2010 compiled by the AP runs 64 printed pages long.

"The extremes are changed in an extreme fashion," said Greg Holland, director of the earth system laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

For example, even though it sounds counterintuitive, global warming likely played a bit of a role in "Snowmageddon" earlier this year, Holland said. That's because with a warmer climate, there's more moisture in the air, which makes storms including blizzards, more intense, he said.

White House science adviser John Holdren said we should get used to climate disasters or do something about global warming: "The science is clear that we can expect more and more of these kinds of damaging events unless and until society's emissions of heat-trapping gases and particles are sharply reduced."

And that's just the "natural disasters." It was also a year of man-made technological catastrophes. BP's busted oil well caused 172 million gallons to gush into the Gulf of Mexico. Mining disasters — men trapped deep in the Earth — caused dozens of deaths in tragic collapses in West Virginia, China and New Zealand. The fortunate miners in Chile who survived 69 days underground provided the feel good story of the year.

In both technological and natural disasters, there's a common theme of "pushing the envelope," Olson said.

Colorado's Bilham said the world's population is moving into riskier megacities on fault zones and flood-prone areas. He figures that 400 million to 500 million people in the world live in large cities prone to major earthquakes.

A Haitian disaster will happen again, Bilham said: "It could be Algiers. it could be Tehran. It could be any one of a dozen cities."

A real love for the hard battle, knowing it offers the opportunity to be at your best when the best is required.

Competiveness: John R Wooden

 More reading about Coach Wooden and his "pyramid of success:"

The Official John R. Wooden site

Biography at Wikipedia

Pyramid of Sucess (PDF printable)

 "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail"  in his own words follow the "Favorite maxims" tab to "never stress winning"

 Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

The military, facing a complex and intractable mixture of "wicked problems" on the battlefield, has responded with a doctrinal revolution in the production and practice of operational theory.  But most police agencies don't incorporate the "operational level of maneuver" into their planning and concept of operations.   We face a constellation of complex "high-intensity policing" problems such as counterterrorism, transnational organized crime and gangs that demand development of a true operational art and doctrine, rather than current focus on tactical response. The police service desperately requires an understanding of operational theory and must develop operational doctrine to successfully address contemporary threats.

We propose a model for urban police operational art that has a five-dimensional view of the operational space, focusing in particular on the doctrinally neglected elements of cyberspace and temporality.

Our intention is to summarize and clarify a wide array of military thought, incorporating it into an operational framework for police operational response. In particular we will examine the military theories of Robert Bunker, Robert Leonhard, and William McRaven

 

• Toward Operational Art for Policing at GroupIntel

• Police Operational Art for a Five-Dimensional Operational Space, at Small Wars Journal

Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

Why would our societal orientation in complex, dynamic, fast moving situations be good when our educational system trains people only to think through simplified, linear, sequential problems? Strategic thinkers need to be able to see "the big picture" and handle uncertainty, or they cannot be said to be strategic thinkers.

The ship of state has been steered, over the last forty or so years, into an epistemological cul-de-sac and we are headed for the rocks. America needs a grand strategy for a competent citizenry in order to reach the point where it can again have a grand strategy to deal with an unruly world.

Culture:  The sum of attitudes, customs, and beliefs that distinguishes one group of people from another. Culture is transmitted, through language, material objects, ritual, institutions, and art, from one generation to the next.

This post is intended to set the stage for a new group of FORUM articles/discussions expanding on the recently introduced Culture of Preparedness thread.

Since first publication in Fall 2006, Project White Horse 084640 has focused on providing multiple and varied perspectives on severe crisis environments and the decision making processes required.  With the introduction of the "resilient community" concept as a major theme, we began usage of this FORUM to bring multiple discussions and articles between editions with intent to move beyond "perspective" to exploration of workable approaches for "survival on our own terms." (Boyd)

The latest edition offers that a culture of preparedness is the necessary link between the threat generated environment (whether by accident, acts of nature, or purfoseful acts of man) and the threatened community. We have offered multiple perspectives to assist in understanding the problem, but one must ask, what actually defines a resilient community, what are the quantifiable ingredients, what is the make up of this culture, we state that we need?

Consider the following, borrowed from Department of Defense definitions:

Essential Elements of Information:  The critical items of information regarding the enemy and the environment needed by the commander by a particular time to relate with other available information and intelligence in order to assist in reaching a logical decision – required to plan and execute an operation.

These next FORUM offerings will expand the original PWH theme-defining triangle of worst case events, time criticality , and leader team response by offering multiple "elements of essential information" that seem inherent yet not necessarily obvious – in the makeup of a Culture of Preparedness.

As always your thoughts and inputs on the elements and future inclusions will be most welcome at projectwhitehorseatroadrunnerdotcom.

I'm very pleased to announce that Project White Horse 084640 Edition #8 – A Culture of Preparedness and Intersectional Ideas  – is now on line.

The last two editions have provided perspective on "resilient communities" and leadership required. In Edition #8 we shift from providing "perspective" to creating actionable understanding and answers. The first part of the Edition #8 focus (and) title borrows from General Russ Honore's stated goal – developing a culture of preparedness. As Russ's words have been featured on the site, having "a culture…" seems to highlight the very essence of developing and nurturing a resilient community. As such, "culture of preparedness" can be seen to complete a "strong triangle" with the additional sides of "resilient communities," and Team of leaders. Faced with severe crisis, that model demands creative approaches. We must look beyond the norm to multiple fields and experience bases and find ideas and answers at the intersections.

Intersectional ideas are those resulting from combining concepts from multiple fields – areas of specialization gained through education and experience – as compared to those created traditionally by combing concepts within a field – noted as directional ideas. Success in intersectional idea generation is dependent upon breaking down barriers of association that would more than likely indicate a "non relationship" or at best limited context between or among fields.

To date, the site has consisted of the electronic magazine website and a Forum for posting of articles between editions. Based on the above, INTERSECTIONS now becomes a third element of PWH. This intersection will be created by providing the thinking of a group with multiple and diverse backgrounds, including medicine, first response, intelligence, academia, and military with experience from Great Britain, Israel, service in both Iraq and Afghanistan and on mean street USA. The content will be operational threads selected for potential to increase actionable understanding. The following two topics have been under discussion and the dialogue provided:

1. Actionable Intelligence and Resilient Communities
2. Training Decision Makers to the "Ace' Level

Please see the Editors Note and the article introductions for more detail and to put this edition in the context of actionable tools – useable by emergency responders, private sector organizations and citizens in the process of building a culture of preparedness. Most assuredly you will find perspectives and intersections. You will find understanding that can be acted upon. You will find answers.

A final note: Given the obvious, finding a picture of a leader on a white horse will surprise no one, but in this case there is more, there is purpose. While there are many representations of those who have been America's leaders throughout our history, including scores of George Washington as commander of the Continental Army and as our first President, the depiction of Washington with his troops, having crossed the Delaware and moving toward the attack at Trenton is, to me, iconic reflection of leadership in severe crisis, His adaptability and audacity after three major defeats saved not only the spirit of the Continental Army, it provided the underpinning that would remain through the victory at Yorktown. In so doing as General Nathanael Greene would say "he will be the deliverer of his own country." A century later, in a classic study of the Revolution, Sir George Otto Trevelyan stated "It may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever deployed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world."

It was he who held the army together and gave it spirit through the most desperate of times… not a brilliant strategist or tactician, not a gifted orator, not an intellectual… (but) above all, Washington never forgot what was at stake and he never gave up … again and again in letters to Congress and his officers calling for unremitting courage and perseverance. 1776 by David McCullough

Noted as one of the world's 100 most decisive battles, the Battle of Trenton was most certainly testimony to General Washington's perseverance. He would not quit on the fragile American dream. In the sense of William Shakespeare's Henry V, I submit it is America's Agincourt moment – we few we band of brothers.

As stated in the previous edition, our forefathers by their actions in 1776 placed this country forever at the "dawn of victory." That victory demands perseverance in the face of great crisis and turmoil. It will be found in "a culture of preparedness."

Please join us at Project White Horse 084640

Ed @ PWH
29 April. 2009

Invest in preparedness, not prediction…I will never get to know the unknown since, by definition, it is unknown. However, I can always guess how it might affect me, and I should base my decisions around that."     The Black Swan, Nassem Nicholas Taleb

In  2001, the Defense Science Board investigated what they termed  "a revolution in training."  

The superb performance of our military in the 1990s was not just a result of technological superiority but equally of TRAINING SUPERIORITY.   Analysis of air, submarine and other combat showed that individuals who survived an engagement in which a kill was achieved were much more likely to win the next one. This had been originally thought to be battlefield Darwinism. But the combat training approach invented some 30 years ago (now 40 years, see  Scream of Eagles – Happy Birthday TOPGUN ) beginning with TOPGUN, showed this can be a function of learning. 

But they also noted that while there had certainly been a "Revolution"  (Top Gun, Red Flag, National Training Center {NTC}),  the results had not been appreciated nor expanded to other areas such as for joint warfare training. Indeed, today, there certainly appears to be no awareness of the truly spectacular results by the Department of Homeland Security, nor the public sector in general beyond that related to Maverick and Goose.

In this light, worth considering is a recent story based on remarks by new Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and the December 2008 Defense Science Board  report Challenges to Military Operations In Support of National Interfaces:   

As governor of Arizona, ... Napolitano sent a searing two-page letter to her predecessor as secretary, Michael Chertoff, complaining that a $25 million national exercise in October 2007, which she and 23,000 other federal, state and local emergency workers participated in, was too expensive, too long in planning and 'too removed from a real-world scenario.'

Now, in her first weeks as head of the Homeland Security Department, Ms. Napolitano has ordered a review of that program and several others, including cybersecurity, a strategy for protecting the border with Canada, and the vulnerability of power plants and other critical infrastructure.

The directives implicitly raise questions about how well the Bush administration prepared the nation's defenses against a terrorist attack … Her pointed comments on the emergency preparedness exercise, which she repeated last month at her Senate confirmation hearing, offer a glimpse into how Ms. Napolitano may retool one the centerpieces of the Bush administration's domestic security architecture.

'If we're going to be doing these kinds of things, and they are valuable, the underlying philosophy is a good one, but they need to be in my view streamlined,' Ms. Napolitano told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs last month.

Ms. Napolitano's frustration with the system in place for rehearsing responses to natural disasters and terrorist attacks has struck a chord among state and local emergency managers, many of whom have long complained that the Homeland Security Department and its crisis-response component, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have failed to consult fully with local communities in disaster planning. [For complete article and comments see RC#29]

The Department of Defense must change its conceptual approach to homeland defense … (it) can no longer think in terms of the 'home' game and the 'away' game.  There is only one game. [Vol. II, Part IV, Chapter 13, pg 203]

(and further) ... processes to ensure that plans are practiced and capabilities measured against readiness metrics are lacking.  While there are many exercises (possibly too many) the exercises are highly scripted, unconnected to each other, and typically focus on top-down approach (where the supporting organizations are 'training aids' to the senior-level players) instead of bottom-up approach (focusing on an integrated and layered response beginning with the initial event). Even the national-level exercises have not been effective… often stopped before the more difficult issues of transfer of command, employment of specialized assets, or unknowns (like public panic) come into play. ... More worrisome than the disjointed nature of the exercises is the lack of any process for effectively 'learning from' the lessons of these exercises, (or) ... no mechanisms to promulgate … to the wider (HLS & HLD) community.  [Vol. II, Part IV, Chapter 16, pg 250]

Mumbai attackers had hit list of 320 world targets http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/19/mumbai-attacks-list-target s

Lashkar-e-Taiba ringleaders had ambitions well beyond causing mayhem in India, the Guardian has learned – Western intelligence agencies have accessed the computer and email account of Lashkar's communications chief, Zarar Shah, and found a list of possible targets, only 20 of which were in India.  The plotters behind the Mumbai attack, which left more than 170 people dead, had placed India's financial capital on a list of 320 worldwide locations as potential targets for commando-style terror strikes, the Guardian has learned.  It suggests that Lashkar-e-Taiba, the outlawed terror group that planned much of the attack from Pakistan, had ambitions well beyond causing mayhem in India.

As worthy of historical reflection, remember that Napoleon's army was not only great in terms of winning battles, but when his enemy broke and fled the battlefield, his troops pursued relentlessly, bloodily  insuring that there indeed, would not be "another day"  to fight.  Red-teaming  the world right now, what better time to pursue the "far enemy" (us) and destroy his will and confidence to go about in the world than now in our time of immense financial crisis when everything and everybody is focused on pure survival – all running in one direction, our backs to all other aspects of the environment?

Considering current preparation and readiness, there are two key elements missing from most training programs.  First is the notion of dedicated opposing force and second,  the need to include non-scripted decision making situations.   Most training events and drills are based on availability of resources – both human and physical - necessary for the management of, or the consequences of, a specific disaster type.  As stated previously, these mostly pre-scripted drills fail to address crisis development, eliminate the Observation and Orientation stages of the Observe Orient Decide Act (OODA) Loop by pre-determining their characteristics, thus eliminating uncertainty, and therefore, bypassing the essential element of critical command thinking.

The result: Level of readiness defined as instantaneous ability to respond to a suddenly arising major crisis based on locally available, un-prepositioned and un-mobilized countermeasure resources is either unchanged or decreased due to these flaws built into current philosophy of drills.  Therefore, this approach reduces or negates achievement of performance that our technical superiority promises. 

Resolution suggests a TOPGUN or "combat training center" type approach for homeland security and defense education, training, and exercises.  Elements would include:

• Highly competent Opposition Force using "enemy" equipment & tactics


• Objective, no-holds barred feedback so that no longer does first person to blackboard (or Bar) win


• Expectation of failure in the trained unit AND its commanders


• Metrics – You can't know there is a training problem until you have ways to measure proficiency

Development of an HLS/HLD "TOPGUN" will require answering these Questions?

1. Can the "train to the ace level" concept behind Top Gun, Red Flag, National Training Center at Ft Irwin, i.e. the combat training center or "CTC" concept be applied to hyper complex crisis, worst case  disaster command control learning?


2. Would "first mission" exposure for operational level decision makers provide value added? (consideration that  given funding constraints, daily normal real world law enforcement, fire response, emergency management, and job rotation, there may be only one opportunity in a three year cycle to expose the candidates. Can one exposure make a difference?  What would be the impact of dynamic simulation interjected into the classroom?


3. What needs to be included in pre-exercise classroom and simulated command problems to make the learning and training effective? In particular, by who and how are cognitive elements and related decision making in crisis taught?


4. What kind of research needs to be done in this area?

In closing, based on reports like that on Mumbai and Secretary Napolitano's concerns, is there a need and a receptive ear for a Scream of Eagles II from the first responder community?

Forty years ago, 3 March 1969, the first TOPGUN class  began "graduate level" fighter pilot education and training at Naval Air Station Miramar at the Fighter Weapons School. They were there because eagles screamed.

They were there because fighter pilots will not accept failure. In 1966 North Vietnamese fighter pilots (flying MiG 17 Frescos and MiG 21 Fishbeds) had accounted for only 3 percent of U.S. air losses. In the first three months of 1968, the MiG pilots now were responsible for 22 percent. The U.S. kill ratio was just about 2 to 1 (Air Force a little below, Navy, a little above) – as compared to the 10 to 1 of WWII and the Korean War – notably the worst ratio in the history of Naval aviation. Air crews were getting killed or becoming Hanoi Hilton residents, missiles and tactics developed to shoot down Russian bombers at long range were useless against an enemy intending to engage at close range coupled with U.S. rules of engagement prohibiting firing until positive ID obtained (which therefore put your aircraft inside the missile launch parameters.)

 Eagles screamed. Sometimes leaders listen and do what they're supposed to do – pay attention to those who've been in the crucible, and then act to take care of their people. This time they did.

Vice Admiral Tom Connolly (Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air) and Rear Admiral Bob Townsend (Commander Naval Air Systems Command) together representing both the operational and technical sides, assigned former Commanding Officer of the USS Coral Sea, Captain Frank "Whip" Ault to find out what was wrong. Ault was the right man. His nickname/call sign, "Whip," came from Korean War days as Executive – soon to be Commanding – Officer of VA-55 on USS Essex. He had told his squadron pilots "I can out-drink you, out-fight you, and out-fly you," and there's nothing more obnoxious than a guy who can back up what he says. When being interviewed for consideration to be Executive Officer of the Navy's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, he so outraged the interview game playing Admiral Hyman Rickover, that Rickover called his boss and told him Ault was the most irreverent Naval Officer he'd ever interviewed – but he got the job.

... we sent our people out there not trained for dogfighting. We sent the aircraft out there not equipped for dogfighting… and we got into nose-nose combat situations where neither the guy flying the airplane nor the airplane itself had ever fired a missile.  Further, based on the expected nature of air war and our technical developments to intercept bombers at long range, we have lost expertise and continuity in 'being dogfighters' ... there is a need to establish a fighter weapons school to reverse this trend and to eliminate aircrew and ground personnel error…

Using Thomas (The World is Flat) Friedman's terms, they created a "different context, different narrative, different imagination" and they changed the Navy fighter pilot paradigm.

By January 12, 1973 when the last air-air MiG kill occurred (by TOPGUN graduate Vic Koveleski, VF-161, CAG 5, USS Midway) Navy fighter pilot kill ratio had risen to 15 to 1. Air Force, (had not yet established any higher level training) ratios remained throughout the war at 2 to 1. These statistics helped to create a virtual revolution in air combat training.  They had proven that what had been originally thought to be battlefield Darwinism can be a function of learning.
It is possible to train to the "ace" level without bloodshed

In 1975, the Air Force initiated "Exercise Red Flag," a graduate level air-air course.

Happy 40th

Fly Navy, The BEST Always Have

[Article sources: Friends and personal experience 1) while at the Naval Missile Center (NMC) Point Mugu (1970-1971) providing adversary support for Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Four (VX-4); 2) while flying with VA-56 off USS Midway in the Gulf of Tonkin, 1972-73 (MiG killers of VF-161 resided in Ready Room next to VA-56): and 3) Rober K. Wilcox's Scream of Eagles]

TOPGUN today – from Wikipedia:

On 11 July 1996, The Navy Strike and Air Warfare Center (NSAWC) consolidated three commands into a single command structure under a flag officer  to enhance aviation training effectiveness. The Naval Strike Warfare Center (STRIKE "U") based at NAS Fallon since 1984, was joined with the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN) and the Carrier Airborne Early Warning Weapons School (TOPDOME) which both moved from NAS Miramar as a result of a Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) decision in 1993. The Seahawk Weapon School was added in 1998 to provide tactical training for navy helicopters.

New York Times, 16 February, 2009— 

The homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, is re-evaluating the largest federal program for testing the country's ability to respond to terrorist attacks, one of several Bush administration initiatives she has ordered to come under review.

PWH Chapter 1 (Part 1 of 2) The Constant Gardner http://www.projectwhitehorse.com/pdfs/B[1].%20PWH_Chapter1(1of2).pdf

(From Page 11) ... Studies clearly indicate that highly trained (i.e., prepared) personnel exposed to a sudden crisis whose nature falls outside the scope of prior preparation commit grave errors of judgment and procedure. Current training and drills are focused on availability of resources, both human and physical, necessary for the management of, or the consequences of, a specific disaster type. These mostly pre-scripted drills fail to address crisis development, eliminate the Observation and Orientation stages of the Observe Orient Decide Act (OODA) Loop by pre-determining their characteristics, eliminate uncertainty, and therefore, bypass the essential element of critical command thinking.

Result: Level of readiness defined as instantaneous ability to respond to a suddenly arising major crisis based on locally available, un-prepositioned and un-mobilized countermeasure resources is either unchanged or decreased due to current flaws built into current philosophy of drills.

In this high-end crisis, where orientation to the problem is so essential, where potential is very high for decisions that could save or cause to be lost the most number of lives – decision makers have NOT been exposed to and are not aware of ingrained decision making biases, nor trained, or exercised in complex decision making in chaotic, uncertain environments.

The transnational and "total warfare" aspect of 21st Century conflict and the always possibility of "Category 5" natural disasters dictates a need for changes in how we educate and train, including exercise design and evaluation processes. The chaotic intent of terrorism and the complexity of the required multilevel, multi-agency response dictate that learning opportunities in complex environments must be provided.

RE-EVALUATION OF NATIONAL SECURITY ORDERED
By Eric Schmitt
16 February, 2009 The New York Times

In part:

WASHINGTON — The homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, is re-evaluating the largest federal program for testing the country's ability to respond to terrorist attacks, one of several Bush administration initiatives she has ordered to come under review.

As governor of Arizona, Ms. Napolitano sent a searing two-page letter to her predecessor as secretary, Michael Chertoff, complaining that a $25 million national exercise in October 2007, which she and 23,000 other federal, state and local emergency workers participated in, was too expensive, too long in planning and "too removed from a real-world scenario."

Now, in her first weeks as head of the Homeland Security Department, Ms. Napolitano has ordered a review of that program and several others, including cybersecurity, a strategy for protecting the border with Canada, and the vulnerability of power plants and other critical infrastructure.
The directives implicitly raise questions about how well the Bush administration prepared the nation's defenses against a terrorist attack. But they also reflect what homeland security analysts say is Ms. Napolitano's desire to apply her practical experiences as a border-state governor to several important homeland security policies.
Her pointed comments on the emergency preparedness exercise, which she repeated last month at her Senate confirmation hearing, offer a glimpse into how Ms. Napolitano may retool one the centerpieces of the Bush administration's domestic security architecture.

"If we're going to be doing these kinds of things, and they are valuable, the underlying philosophy is a good one, but they need to be in my view streamlined," Ms. Napolitano told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs last month.

Ms. Napolitano's frustration with the system in place for rehearsing responses to natural disasters and terrorist attacks has struck a chord among state and local emergency managers, many of whom have long complained that the Homeland Security Department and its crisis-response component, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have failed to consult fully with local communities in disaster planning.

… It will not take long to put Ms. Napolitano's new thinking to the test. FEMA is completing plans for the next major exercise, scheduled for late July.

…The exercise this year, for the first time, focuses on preventing a potential attack, not just responding to a crisis, federal officials say.

Emergency planners say they have already taken Ms. Napolitano's criticisms to heart, improving federal coordination with state and local partners in planning the disaster drill this summer, increasing the frequency of national exercises to every year from every two, cutting costs to encourage wider participation and providing feedback within 90 days to participants on what went well and what did not.
"Most of them were already on the radar scope in one way, shape or form," said Steve Saunders, a retired Army National Guard major general who is an assistant FEMA administrator overseeing the national exercise division, "but her letter helped crystallize, I think, some of the things we needed to do."

Mr. Saunders said he expected some changes as a result of the review ordered by Ms. Napolitano, but he cautioned in an interview, "don't mess around" significantly with this year's exercise or drills on the drawing board for 2010 and 2011 that will simulate an improvised nuclear bomb attack and a catastrophic earthquake.

Mr. Saunders said states and localities had already started budgeting for those exercises. "If we start shifting near-term activities," he said, "it becomes fairly problematic."

… States and cities routinely conduct emergency preparedness drills. Specialists in domestic security agree that it is also essential to hold large-scale national emergency exercises to test how federal, state and local officials and emergency personnel work together to prevent or deal with terrorist attacks.
Congress directed the government in 1998 to carry out a national exercise program, formerly called Topoff for the "top officials" who participate. There have been four major exercises since then, simulating chemical, biological and nuclear attacks. The exercises now also include foreign partners, like Britain and Canada.

Specialists in domestic security say Ms. Napolitano offers a new perspective to the program.
"She brings to the table real-world experience as a governor, as a person responsible for implementing these programs where the rubber hits the road," said David Heyman, director of the domestic security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Ms. Napolitano's unhappiness with the program stems from her participation in the five-day October 2007 exercise, which simulated a dirty-bomb attack against Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; and Guam. It was planned to test how well federal, state and local officials responded to such a cataclysm.
Within days after the exercise wrapped up, Ms. Napolitano complained to Mr. Chertoff that federal officials never contacted top Arizona emergency officials during the drill, did not involve her as much as she said she would have been during a real disaster, and gave participants too much advance information about the drill.

"When you have months to prepare for an exercise and you know the exact scenario being contemplated," Ms. Napolitano said, "a large part of the exercise's value is lost."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/us/politics/17terror.html?pagewante d=1&_r=1