Boundary Condition #1 (3)

The previous post (2), presented the parameters defining an unconventional crisis as developed by Dr. Erwan Lagadec.  Here in the following table and discussion we  provide comparison of the characteristics that differentiate decision making, leadership and operational response in relation to both routine emergencies and conventional disasters and to unconventional /hyper complex catastrophic level events:

Summary of Contrasting Features of Routine and Crisis Emergencies

 (Modification from Leonard and Howitt, Against Desparate Peril: High Performance in Emergency Preparation and Response, John F. Kennedy School of Government. Harvard Business School, 2007.)

The last box under "defining competence" notes "recognition of novelty. Novelty is not only an endemic property of our environment, it is also a fundamental characteristic of social systems and activities. Unconventional crisis create uncertainty as do complex systems.  As uncertainty is central to unconventional crisis, andindeed seems pervasive in our time, it is imperative for organizations to create the ability to operate comfortably in this condition.  Novel input requires adaptability or creation of novelty in response. (Boyd 1992, Osinga 2007)

Discussion of novelty will be a recurring thread thoughout the various boundary condition discussions. For now consider the following:

• The novelty of the situation implies that there is less than complete understanding of the circumstances—or even of which circumstances are relevant. Responders do not necessarily know which facts and observations are relevant and, therefore, which to collect.


• Scripts developed for routine situations may be applicable, but, by definition, there is no comprehensive "playbook" from which the response can be directed;  The existence of significant novelty implies that significant customization or improvisation is likely to be needed. (Clarke, 1999)


• Given the uncertainties born of novelty and the corresponding lack of available comprehensive routines, decisions cannot reliably be driven by pattern recognition (because, by definition, the patterns are not available).  Decision making must proceed through a standard analytical process: the identification of objectives, the development of alternatives, the prediction of likely results from different approaches, and the choice of a best action.


• Because newly improvised approaches or previously untried combinations of existing routines may be implemented, execution is likely to be much less precise than in routine circumstances, which call for more tolerance of imperfections and errors in execution;


• Since new actions may be taken, skills will not have been comprehensively developed for either the design or the execution of the required response. While training in the skills necessary to use existing routines as elements of the newly developed response will be useful, the need for the relevant skill base for components of what is being invented and improvised cannot reasonably have been foreseen and will not be available.  Adaptability will be THE key skill required for both operational and political actors (including departmental participants in EOCs, etc) – a learning requirement.


• A leadership approach generally oriented to producing collaboration that works for directing the development of understanding and the design through invention and improvisation of a new approach—followed by a more authority-driven approach during the execution phase.

Concluding remarks

The level of personnel training, system performance and system-system interoperability acceptable for routine or conventional crisis events does not guarantee usefulness when the environment becomes hyper- complex and severely stochastic.  Nor does the 1) training and experience of key decision makers in the lower end of the spectrum, nor 2) "planned for in the playbook script" leadership insure that the magnitude and novelty of the emerging catastrophe does not overwhelm communities and emergency management, or simply negate "the plans" and won't destabilize the entire response structure. 

Unconventional/Hyper-complex/Catastrophic level events are often noted as Low Probability, High Impact events.  But we should keep in mind that these events are actually Absolute-Certainty, Low-Predictability, High-Impact incidents that take place all the time. (Essmaeel, comments on PWH, 2009)

Hyper complexity makes it near impossible for "traditional" leaders to plan, let alone coordinate response efforts.  Extrapolation of training and system evaluation suitable for routine emergencies and conventional disasters as suitable for unconventional or catastrophic operational response is an intrinsically flawed strategy.

References

Beakley, James E, Evaluation of Interoperability Capability for the Department of Homeland Security, June, 2010

Clarke, Lee, Mission Improbable: A critical look at how governments and corporations plan for accidents and disasters, University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Concept Development: An Operational Framework for Resilience, Homeland Security Studies and Analysis Institute, Arlington, VA., 2009

Elkus, Adam, Science, Defence and Strategy; Without strategy, the science of war overtakes the art of war, http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/adam-elkus/science-defence-a nd-strategy, Jan 2010

Ellis, Aaron, What the Hell is strategy, anyway? http://thinkstrat.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/what-the-hell-is-strategy-a nyway/, June, 2010

Henderson, Joseph V., The Virtual Terrorism Response Academy: Training for High Risk, Low Frequency Threats, Institute for Security Technology Studies, Dartmouth College, 2004

Lagedec, Erwan, Unconventional Crises, Unconventional Responses: Reforming Leadership in the Age of Catastrophic Crises and Hypercomplexity, Center for Transatlantic Relations – The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.c., 2007

Leonard, Herman B. and Howitt, Arnold M., Political Control and Operational Command: Building a Balanced Disaster Response System, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2006

Leonard, Herman B. and Howitt, Arnold M., Against Desperate Peril: High Performance in Emergency Preparation and Response, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2007

Leveraging Exercise Programs in a New Fiscal Environment, CNA, Alexandria Virginia, 2009

Orr, George E., Major United States Air Force, Combat Operations C3I: Fundamentals and Interactions, Air University, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 1983

Quarantelli, E.L., Catastrophes are Different from Disasters: Some Implications for Crisis Planning and Managing Drawn from Katrina, Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware, 2006

Re-Evaluation of National Security Ordered,  (Article), New York Times, 16 Feb. 2009

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

After more than 37 years of uniform service to the U.S. army and our nation, I will spend the second half of my life committed to a new mission: Creating a "Culture of Preparedness'' in America. Every effort I take, whether it is this new Web site, public speaking/lectures, fund-raisers, or the books I have written or will write, will be committed to this cause.

Please Visit General Honore's Website: http://www.generalhonore.com/

Ed @PWH

We now move to

• >> Intelligence implications for a resilient community response force team in a low probability/high impact  worst case disaster environment:

• critical information – what, where and how


• education aimed at preventing "victimhood"


• planning on multiple levels


• being a responder not a victim


• building leaders AND followers – who, how 

By necessity that team will most likely include professionals (public safety and military – Guard and  Active Duty), private sector, and individual citizens or community organizations

If all would agree on the "team" response requirement and given the above – how do you inform, plan, and educate/train/learn across a team with few common linkages on a very practical basis?  How do you get ready for the "Black Swan?

It is easy to identify the problems, not too hard to come up with solutions, BUT the how and the doing is something else.

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…you always control what you do, so make this your end.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb – The Black Swan; The Impact of the Highly Improbable

>>  Thread #2 Intelligence meaning and usage in natural disasters with Katrina as an event example

This post continues the comments on resilient communities and actionable intelligence from RC#25 related to thread #2 focused on what we can learn from the response to "Katrina." It's significance is that the comments address "intelligence" – generally thought of in terms of  acts by humans, either criminal or warfighter – as a function of needs in response to a non-human generated disaster.

The issue is not so much what is most efficient or effective (though obviously important), but rather what can be learned from an intersection of experience from Marines and firemen and cops and brain surgeons in light of unconventional crisis, unconventional responses.

The development and exploration of critical "operational threads" for future editions is still necessary. It would appear to me that education for wearing a uniform in Detroit … or in Baghdad requires a global focus as well as local. Lessons in one are needed in the other.
Here are some issues under consideration: