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

Alternative analysis is the super-class of techniques of which red teaming may be considered a member… these techniques are designed to help debias thinking, enhance decision making, and avoid surprise. (From Red Team Journal)

http://redteamjournal.com/

As noted in The 2010 Announcement post, Project White Horse focus for 2010 will explore "what kind of organizations and indeed groups of organizations can operate at the required tempo demanded for survival when faced with worst case, unconventional crisis, or hyper complex events – the "CAT 5's."  

Now, consider just a quick bit of background to link red Team Journal's effort with Project White Horse perspective.

Considering that the PWH focus on decision making in unconventional crisis/hyper complex events has at its core the thread and ideas of "alternative analysis," the concept of integrating red teaming into organizational learning as significantly impacting the survival process is offered as absolutely critical – an essential element of understanding for a culture of preparedness. As such Red Team Journal is offered as an important resource. Note that the writing of Assistant Editor Adam Elkus has been featured multiple times on PWH, most recently in EEI #25 "What kind of War… Science, Defence, and Strategy … and John Boyd."

Defined by Red Team Journal – "loosely, red teaming is the practice of viewing a problem from an adversary or competitor's perspective. The goal of most red teams is to enhance decision making, either by specifying the adversary's preferences and strategies or by simply acting as a devil's advocate." For a quick look at red teaming and the writers see About.

A year ago PWH introduced a specially focused "carve-out," the INTERSECTIONS page, stemming from Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect and his model for gaining understanding, and developing innovative action -the intersection:

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.

The question was then asked "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, can ace decision makers be developed?" The following sub-pages continue to address various aspects of this question that include "red team" type functions and capabilities: 

These are considered "open/living threads.  PWH target audience will remain oriented at a community "team of leaders" inclusive of not only emergency management and first responders, but also private sector, and citizens, as required for survival of that community when faced with events that  are inherently severely de-stabilizing – marginalizing prior planning and anticipated response structure. Understanding risk – assessment, mitigation, management and the eventual acceptance level is crucial for a resilient community and part of a culture of preparedness.   By way of starting examples these Red Team Journal articles seem most appropriate

The Defense Science Board Calls for More Red Teaming    "Red teaming as the norm instead of the exception. Secretary of Defense direct the use of red teaming throughout DOD by developing and employing best practice guides, intellectual focus in professional military education, and more aggressive use of red teams in exercises."

 Interposing Tactics  " ... we are now seeing a new form of granular conflict, where the essence of tactical supremacy is achieved through coordination of multi factor, and multidimensional attacks and defense by individual force elements interposed against each other. ... will continue the process of dissolving force elements beyond the individual level to a new level of autonomous actions, which will lead to totally chaotic battles. The winner will be the force composed of individuals who are better at operating in this environment.

An Introduction to Reciprocal Net Assessment  ... good decision making is more than just reacting to threats in time to avoid them; good decision making involves avoiding surprise and creating it. The RNA approach can help analysts and decision makers do both. (and) is useful primarily as a complement to existing methods of red teaming, competitive and intelligence analysis, deception and counterdeception analysis, and business and military wargaming.

 Modeling and Simulation of Red Teaming   This and future position papers will explore possible ways to use M&S to augment or replace traditional red teams in some situations, the features Red Team M&S should possess, how one might connect live and simulated red teams, and existing tools in this domain.

Please make Red Team Journal part of your "resilient community" reading.

We continue to discuss the idea of "team of leaders."  This video well worth your time. Thanks to John Robb at Global Guerrilllas.  See his site for comments.

But let's take this one step further into the context of  "What kind of war"  determination as impacting how we approach "the war" once we have determined "what kind."  Consider the comments from  the Blog – Challenge COIN; Perspectives on the evolving U.S. Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism doctrine. What works, what does not, and what we think we know: "COIN/CT Lessons from drug induced dancing."

... The main lesson to walk away with is how crucial it was to easily mimic the dance. Were this a difficult dance, the originator would have been nothing more than an observed solo performer. Also the role of the first follower made it acceptable for a few more people to join. Once the first follower's friends join in, the tipping point is then reached at 1:15. From then on, people join in groups and the originator or "leader" is irrelevant as the movement has a life of his own. Only the music ending stops everyone from dancing, not the "leader."

Now take that template and apply it to al Qaeda in Iraq. What sort of impact would killing or capturing the leadership have today? This is precisely why the classic insurgency texts emphasized the need to destroy an insurgency at its onset. Otherwise it becomes an integrated part of a society for at least a generation if not longer. So how do we end the al Qaeda-styled movements? Find the music and turn it off…

 Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

A  "lesson in aerodynamics" might be of interest as painting- hopefully- a useful "picture" of the period from  shortly before the September 11, 2001 8th hour, 46th minute, 40th second impact of American Airlines Flight 11, on through the remainder of the day as initial reaction and response took place, and on into the  12th as intial world level response was planned. 

Boundary conditions – the set of conditions specified for the behavior of the solution to a set of differential equations at the boundary of its domain – are important in determining the mathematical solutions to many physical problems.

  More specifically, concerning flight, the condition is noted as the boundary layer – the layer of reduced velocity in fluids, such as air and water, that is immediately adjacent to the surface of a solid – the wing – past which the fluid is flowing.  Truth is the air moving at different speeds around the upper and lower surface of the airfoil, thereby creating lift, rides not on the wing itself but rather on the boundary layer. Friction generated with the surface by the air's movement creates the slower moving  layer with the air  not only riding but additionally holding the layer to the surface. 

 If the angle of incidence of the airfoil in relation to airflow is increased, whether  initiated by the pilot or by impact of turbulent air, the layer flow can slow to the point of turbulence  ( loss of laminar flow)  and in this disruption,  the flowing air can no longer stay attached to the layer/airfoil, drag over comes lift and the wing is no longer in stable positive flight – not flying it stalls.

Characterized and understood by most under the context "lack of imagination," the 9-11 attack was planned, enabled and occured  successfully because the initial conditions – the boundary conditions –  that existed on 11 Sept were ideal for the al Qaeda attackers. They were those of the Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) as strategy, and what do do with the supposed peace dividend  as the only global suoper-power. Not appropriately factored in were events such as the Khobar Towers attack, the first WTC bombing, or bombing of USS Cole, nor the emergence of non-state, religous and ethnic  players suddenly attempting to control their own destiny in the wake of the USSR's demise and demise of acceptance of the state boundaries imposed at the end of WWI.  The conditions "of war" were metaphorically laminar for both American Flight 11's high speed attack on the World Trade Center and for al Qaeda.  A new set of boundary conditions with a great deal of turbulent flow in the layers around any future activity now existed. The fact that "what kind of war" has never been adequately addressed is evidence that "new norm" indicates only partlial recognition of  the flight environment for the ship of state.

Further, not recognized even as clearly, the initial 11 and 12 September plus later responses -

[the attack against the Taliban, invasion of Iraq, the Global War on Terrorism, the implementation of population-centric COIN tactics – and continued dithering (evidence offered in this series) on everything about "the war on terrorism" from its name to what do to with prisoner enemy combatants, to how to fight, where to fight, who or what to fight with, who gets to know what,  to how much money goes to each city or state to how to keep explosives off of airplanes] -

are direct result of operating with the wrong or at least insufficiently defined and understood boundary conditions. With the Cold War mind set prevailing to enable  the attack, the WWII, big war (tanks, fighter jets, war by technology) mind set defined the boundary layers of our planning for response.  All did what they know.  Initial Spec Ops with horses and B-52s with precision bombs, and the run up the Tigris and Euphrates by Marine and Army forces worked well.  Since then our metaphorical wing-of-war has seen more of the air flow shown at the end of the graphic than the beginning. Indeed not all airfoils are usable in all types of flight conditions.

Since Sept 11, 2001 the airfoil of our ship of state continues flight in turbulence – mostly resulting from trying to make the plans of another time and place meet a changed and ever changing 21st century circumstance.  As stated in daVinci's Horse #5 and in the lead article in this series by Dr. vob Lubitz, we persist in doing what we know, rather than taking the apparently difficult path leading to  knowing what we should do. Unstable air, unstable flight, indeed.

Rectifying the current situation – beginning by answering the question: "what kind of war is it?" – cannot be based on what we would like it to be considering our current defense posture, planning,  and investment, nor can it be built on urban legend or myth.  Retired Coast Guard Commander and recently selected president of the Center for National Policy, Dr. Stephen Flynn  elaborated on this subject  in the Washington Post on  Sunday January 3, 2010.  5 Myths about keeping America safe from terrorrism:

With President Obama declaring a "systemic failure" of our security system in the wake of the attempted Christmas bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner, familiar arguments about what can and should be done to reduce America's vulnerabilities are again filling the airwaves, editorial pages and blogosphere. Several of these arguments are based on assumptions that guided the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks—and unfortunately, they are as unfounded now as they were then. The biggest whopper of all? The paternalistic assertion that the government can keep us all safe without our help

The graphic "Boundary Layer Separation" is from Computational Fluid Dynamics and Visualization

Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

 "At this stage, the drug cartels are using basic infantry weaponry to counter government forces," a U.S. government official in Mexico said.  "Encountering criminals with this kind of weaponry is a horse of a different color," the official said. "It's not your typical patrol stop, where someone pulls a gun. This has all the makings of an infantry squad, or guerrilla fighting."

[From INTERSECTIONS II (Scenarios for Training to the Ace Level) – 4. The 'Cat 5? Next Door: Drug Cartels' New Weaponry Means War describing the on-going drug based vilolence in Mexico. ] 

 In "What Kind of War Is It," EEI#15, it was offered for consideration  four broad types of user/method 4GW operations that include mixes of terrorism, insurgency, small unit tactics, media warfare, and cyber warfare.  These methods can be characterized as manifesting themselves as follows:

1) war-within-war to include counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism (Iraq, Afghanistan)

2) expeditionary attacks (Mombai, World TradeCenter/Pentagon)

3) lone wolf attacks (murders at Ft Hood)

4) adaptation of 4GW concepts and methods by criminal elements and gangs (Mexico's drug war). 

As a continuation of "essential elements of information for a culture of preparedness," and several previous posts under EEI on the impact of current high level government decisions on  how we fight in future conflict, the following three articles/links discuss the over-here aspects of continuing war, warfare, violence in the context of fourth generation warfare (4GW).  Discussion of counter operations then continues on the INTERSECTION pages: III. Crime and Fourth Generation Warfare- A really bad Intersection.

On War #323 Milestones by Bill Lind

Excerpt: One of the ongoing themes of this column has been gangs and the role they play in a Fourth Generation world. Here in the United States they already serve as an alternative primary loyalty (alternative to the state) for many urban young men. Gangs will likely be a major player in 4GW because gang members are expected to fight. Those who won't do not remain gang members.

The November 15 Washington Post had a story about gangs in Salinas, California, that deserves close attention from 4GW theorists. ... what is interesting in the Post's article is not the gangs themselves. It is a new response to the gangs. Salinas has brought in the U.S. military to apply counter-insurgency doctrine to a situation on American soil.

Border Zones and Insecurity in the Americas by John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus

Excerpt: Border zones are incubators of criminal instability and violence. Weak state presence and the lucrative drugs trade is combining to challenge state sovereignty in acute ways. Consider Mexico, where the northern frontier with the US and southern border with Guatemala are contested zones. The bloody center of gravity of Mexico's drug cartels is the 'plazas', the drug smuggling corridors that link the borders….While some have fretted that these zones could harbor jihadi terrorists, the real danger lies in the violence produced by bloody competition over these lucrative areas and the spread of criminal reach and power throughout the state and across frontiers.

The 'Lone Wolf Problem' poses security challenges for feds - Dallas Morning News

Excerpt: What made the Fort Hood case so hard to prevent, Zarate said, "was that Maj. Hasan allegedly acted alone, in lone wolf fashion, and may have used his medical research to mask his own inner turmoil and attraction to a violent ideology."...  It is impossible for the government to identify and, if necessary, take pre-emptive action on every person who espouses violence – to separate the wheat from the chaff.

"In many ways, the lone wolf insider threat is the most challenging and difficult of problems for the counterterrorism and law enforcement communities," said Juan Zarate, former deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism for President George W. Bush.

Please continue further: III. Crime and Fourth Generation Warfare- A really bad Intersection.

 Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

"Man is a peculiarly constructed animal who cannot read the handwriting on the wall, until his back is up against it." Unknown

 TAMPA - Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, speaking at the America Association of State Troopers Law Enforcement Training Conference asked law enforcement officials Monday if they're ready for a hurricane.

 From the St. Petersburg Times:  (Inpart) Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the man widely credited with restoring order to a chaotic post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, has a word of warning for Floridians who believe they have hurricanes figured out.

"The people in Florida think they're smarter than the people in Louisiana," the retired Army general who commanded Joint Task Force Katrina said Monday, addressing law enforcement officers at Tampa Airport Marriott. "No, you're not. You just haven't been hit by a Katrina."

 Speaking before the National Law Enforcement Training Conference, which goes through Wednesday (August 12, 2009), Honore said complacency is the greatest challenge communities face when it comes to disaster preparedness.

 His new book, SURVIVAL: How a Culture of Preparedness Can Save You and Your Family from Disasters, (Atria Books, 304 pages, $25.00) – part memoir, part how-to manual – focuses on the responsibility of the individual to be ready in the face of disaster.

"My concern with Florida is the last time you really got smacked hard was Andrew," Honore said."I'm telling you," Honore said, "there's an a—whipping coming for Florida."

Besides raising the flag over hurricane readiness, Honore predicted the H1N1 flu, or swine flu, will pose an increasingly significant challenge to the United States in the coming months and year, especially as football season begins, drawing large crowds together on a regular basis.

"We're not ready," he said. "I don't think we've spent the time getting the country ready and I don't think the country has spent the time getting the states ready."

Local governments, he said, need to start warning citizens now about how they will administer vaccinations to various populations and age groups once a high-demand vaccine is developed and, more than likely, is in short supply.

Additionally, there needs to be a culture shift in the American workplace, he said. Employees who experience symptoms associated with the pandemic strain should be encouraged to stay at home without risk of being penalized by their bosses.

 "We've been talking about this for years," he said of the pandemic. "This is no stranger to people familiar with pandemic scenarios. But what we haven't done is talk to the public.

 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.

In The Resilience Doctrine, we argue that globalization is both unstable and inevitable, and that governments have little choice but to build collaborative platforms to manage risk. We conclude with a dozen guidelines for building an international system fit for the 21st century.

The introduction …

In a Time of Crisis – In the past year, we have witnessed a global emergency, with the world experiencing the worst economic meltdown since the 1930s. This crisis will not be a one-off. Over the next 20 years, we will be confronted with a series of systemic and interlocking risks that will cross national borders with alacrity. As a result, the divide between domestic and international policy will largely be erased.

To carve out a strategic response to these risks requires huge effort. Our assumptions about the world were formed in another age and are ill-suited to contemporary challenges. The international system, meanwhile, is inveterately short-term in its outlook, national governments are myopic and complacent, and the media is unforgiving towards politicians who fail to conform to the dictates of an increasingly frenetic news cycle.

Leaders therefore need a new lens through which they can view the task of creating security in the 21st century. The projection of power, and attempts to balance the power of others, no longer provides a useful perspective. Instead, the concept of resilience should be at the heart of a new doctrine for managing transnational risk and global instability.

Resilience offers a guiding principle for informing strategy and animating alliances. It also provides a yardstick for measuring success. At present, much of what governments do internationally inadvertently increases vulnerability. This must change if globalization is to be saved from itself.

By Captain Charlie Meinema

Tacoma Washington Police Department

Disasters may be local, but few are.  Even local disasters are not local, as Yogi Berra might say.   This is often because criminals, explosions, terrorists and fires fail to respect jurisdictional borders, and / or because the crisis – even if inside one geographical or jurisdictional boundary – is too big for any one agency to handle with troops available at the time of the incident.  We staff according to anticipated 'normal' work load.  Any major event immediately stresses the system, because we have to send pretty much all we have and that leaves everything else insecure.   We just can not staff to crisis level unless we are SURE the crisis will occur – and when do we know that?  After it has happened.  

>> This is one problem constantly besetting the Israelis.  In the period 1969 / '73, the Arab nations – especially the short lived United Arab Republic of Syria and Egypt – practiced a policy of 'no war / no peace' toward Israel.  There was – like today – constant agitation, raids, small incidents, and every fall large 'war game' exercises in western Egypt and Syria.  Israel routinely activated a significant percentage of reserves when raids reached a certain frequency and / or to offset the potential of the large annual war games, since Israel knew that their neighbors were only waiting for the right moment.  However, the cost of such heightened levels of activation became overwhelming to Israel.  Israel stopped the raised activation level during the fall 'war games,' due largely to the cost of the deployments.  

This of course was what the Arabs were awaiting and in 1973 the 'normal war games' were held on the west bank of the Suez Canal.  The Israelis did not make significant additional activations of reserves, because 'they do this every year.'  1973 was different.  On Yom Kippur the Egyptians cut through the berms on the east side of the Suez Canal and the Yom Kippur War was launched.   Israel simply could not afford to keep staffing to a level appropriate to meet the threat unless they KNEW the threat was real on a particular occasion.

 We are all in this situation.  We live our lives day by day and the Devil waits for but a moment – but his moment spans far beyond our lifetimes.  The threat is always there, but we can not afford to staff sufficiently to address it on a daily basis.   

The 'normal' crisis (e.g. Lakewood, a suburb of Tacoma, just experienced a homicide / robbery of an armored car guard inside a major department store.) may be local to Pierce County, Washington, but may span 05 police jurisdictions and as many fire districts. 

One result of the 'squad' or 'all crisis is local crisis' mentality is 'chasing the pain.'  Post operative pain medications are meant to be taken on schedule to PREVENT pain from becoming disabling (help me out here, Dr. von Lubitz).  People are told not to wait until they hurt – get ahead of the pain, don't chase the pain – to take the pain meds because the meds take some time to begin to work.   If someone / agency thinks, 'I can handle this,' and he / they find they can not 'handle it,' the unnecessary delays in obtaining, briefing, deploying the help can result in a greatly increased level of 'pain,' as in New Orleans.    

If we experience a disaster in just one jurisdiction, we still likely have to deal with multiple departments within that one jurisdiction to handle it.  The problem still may require seeking outside help in the future of the event.  We would always be ahead if we not only trained to work together but also had an automatic briefing / notification system to alert nearby agencies of each other's big issues as they emerge.   This would allow the groundwork for effective interaction when and if it is needed.  (e.g. On the small scale compared to the nation, the county wherein Tacoma dwells was 'host' to a large gathering of an outlaw motorcycle gang at one of their taverns.  This was an intentional display for turf and for recruiting – the bikers were in full colors and the party was in the parking lot of the tavern next to a major street.  Although the tavern hosting the event was 02 – 03 miles outside the city, the swing shift commander for TPD contacted his opposite number for Pierce County to determine how we would provide assistance if something were to erupt, such as another gang driving past the tavern and shooting – a plausible issue given motorcycle gang turf and dominance issues in the state recently).

Further, the contact gave the TPD commander a direct line from county on where the group was going when it left the tavern.  'tis always good to know if 40 – 60 bikers in full colors are motoring into your town before they get there.  However, had this gone badly, we would have had officers from other cities and the state patrol arriving to help in short order.   We do not have any automatic incident notification system that would tell ALL nearby agencies of the situation and which could be updated to include direction for responders.   Working on it.).  

A problem that probably hits us all is the scope of the disaster and appropriate assessment of crisis.  "How bad is it, really?"   Inevitably, after some major debacle we have reports of people who DID accurately predict the incident, attack,…., but could not get a serious hearing from anyone in position to make a difference.    Sometimes this is because the predictors – like the seers of old – said there would be an attack, but could not say where or when with any degree of certainty.   They only attain prescience in retrospect – and we have all probably met a few of these folks.   By contrast, sometimes disasters happen and the initial reports are accurate, but are not given sufficient weight.  The response is insufficient and the disaster – which might have been contained – grows out of control. 

[In the recent terrorist attack in Mumbai, I am sure initial intelligence reports / assessments were confusing.  Responses were not in scope to the level of attack.  Worse, the troops responding were using weapons they had almost never shot and suffered problems in coordination, …    I do not disparage Mumbai Police / military.  Any one facing what Mumbai faced is going to have a very bad time of it.  However, getting a handle on how big / bad the problem is as soon as possible is critical.]

For every legitimate disaster we have multiple Chicken Littles yelling 'The sky is falling. The sky is falling,' in regards to relatively minor issues.   We have to develop the ability to make rapid and accurate determinations of the level of crisis to trigger the appropriate level of response as quickly as possible.  . 

The military analogy to the above is having a plan for incorporating reinforcements / augmentations into the battle without loss of coordination.  Each squad has to fight as a squad (and often each man in the squad only knows what the squaddie to his right or left is doing at best), but it needs to be aware of at least what the squad on either side of it is doing, in case it has to defend a flank if their neighbor is overrun or has to detach a couple of riflemen or machine gun / mortar crew to reinforce a squad getting hit hard next to it.   No officer should go into battle without knowing some idea of what will need to be done, how do we proceed to the forward edge, where do we go, what do we need to prepare, how will we exploit a sudden opening, where is the rally point,.. ,if the enemy fails to react as expected – something the unpleasant enemy has a habit of doing.

All this is a lot of coordination even if we are on the attack.  'tis all that much harder when adversaries attack us.  If we fail to assess enemy strength and assume an assault is only a probe or the famous 'reconnaissance in force,' we are courting disaster.  The penny packet reinforcements sent will be gobbled up as they arrive and the crisis will only get worse.  If we make the right assessment and an effective deployment of reinforcements in strength coupled with combined arms support, we can – hopefully – stop the attack or at least minimize the damage.

In the civilian world, we are almost always on the defensive.   We can not eradicate a threat before it strikes.  We can not plan to attack a specific problem – we can and must develop the best possible plans for general responses.  In the modern world, such plans would not be old fashioned plans as we know them, but effective preparation for and use of the 'teams of leaders' concept and related ideas. 

In our world we have done a better job of determining generally what is available and how to request it in the past few years.  Alas, we still tend to await the actual crisis to have any serious work on what is needed at that moment in that situation, and how to integrate it effectively into our reaction without unnecessary loss of time and effectiveness.  We are still.'chasing the pain,' and the patients often suffer..