Homeland Security Watch

Comment by William R. Cumming

June 21, 2010 @ 6:35 am

Well disclosure! Have not read Lee Clarke’s book which I intend to do. It seems that I cannot quite get my head around Lee’s basic point as explained by Phil and Phil’s seeming thrust that no plan can every capture all contingencies. Or series of plans. I basically agree with that point but disagree with any notion that planning is not a useful arrow in the quiver of EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT and HOMELAND SECURITY. Again as President Eisenhower is reputed to have stated during a large-scale mobilization exercise in the 50′s in which he played stating “Planning is everything but the plan is nothing.”
So my point has always been for planners to try and percieve events that may require mobilization of resources, personnel, funding and other assets to respond to the event. And since the worst case cannot usually be foreseen or addressed then the plan must identifiy how its capabilities can be surged upwards if possible and what that mobilization effort will entail.
Perhaps strangely, President Ronald Reagan called for a unified civil-military mobilization effort in NSDD 47 issued in 1982 and based on the worst case domestic scenario of a large-scale catastrophic earthquake or all-out conventional warfare. Drafte to identify not “who is in charge” but to identify in advance “who can do what” the primary purpose was a notification document that some organizations that had other day jobs might just be tasked to do related things when national survival was at stake. Partially rescinded by NSDD 188 that mobilization document still stands as planning guidance but unfortunately not reflected in any of the HSPDs or NSDD’s issued subsequently by various Presidents.

Well folks, the Gulf Spill may not threaten National Survival but it does directly threaten five (five) Gulf States and the time has come to deal with the planning for a worst case where this “spill” continues for several years. So time to roll up our (US) sleeves and stop pretending that it will end sooner rather than later.

The real problem with the products of the planners is that those charged with implentation ususally have other issues that are more pressing until the actual incident/event occurs. Well this is no longer a matter of choice.

Comment by Philip J. Palin

June 21, 2010 @ 6:47 am

Bill, Let me try to clarify (my view, not necessarily Lee Clarke’s). I agree with you that anticipating threats, identifying risks, taking action on prevention and mitigation, and considering in advance strategic and operational capacity to respond to emergencies is helpful and important. Doing this together, training, exercising, and evaluating together is all helpful. But too often we base this entire process around an approach to planning that is intellectually mistaken and, as a result, the entire process is corrupted. There are problems that can (and should) be anticipated, but cannot be predicted. We cannot, in other words, define the problem with sufficient specificity to develop a realistic tactical plan. In such a situation, the development of a detailed tactical plan can actually add to our risk by giving us misplaced confidence in our ability to control what is beyond our control.

Comment by William R. Cumming

June 21, 2010 @ 7:52 am

Okay acknowledged but now how do you organize for response to the unexpected incident/event?

One of the things that fascinated me about the September 2007 National Preparedness Guidelines that replaced the Interim Preparedness Goal issued March 2005 is that neither addressed catastrophic events or even routine disasters in regulated sectors of the economy. Was this a gap that has now led to the expected failures in the response to the Gulf Oil Spill, assuming that you argue that deep oil ocean drilling was in fact subject to regulation, no matter how ineffective? othe h tthdisslant

Comment by William R. Cumming

June 21, 2010 @ 8:07 am

For examples of extensive and preemptive [legal] statutory regulatory schemes that may be deficient, review the discussion of regulating to “protect public health and safety” in the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1990″) or the Water Pollution and Control Act of 1972 [more commonly referred to as the “Clean Water Act” and make you own determination if the primary purpose of these statutes as an example was protection of ‘Public Health and Saftey” or otherwise. My point of course is the Emergency Management, emergency planning and other concepts of contingencies contemplated by the regulators were not the subject of greatest emphasis or concern. These all relate to the Commerce Clause of the Constitution and are not statutes premised on the so-called Tax and Spend Clause, Article 1 Section 8 that includes promotion of the general welfare. When the Constitution was written no concept of “Public Health and Safety” existed but is instead a concept founded in the modern Adminstrative State largely created by Judge Kennishaw “Mountain” Landis in the 1930′s. That state was erected on the practical notion that not all could be reconciled adminstrative by hearings adverse or otherwise but in fact included generic regulation.
Perhaps, the law establishing the Congressional Budget Office should be modified to create a “Public Health and Safety and Emergency Management Office” that could issue reports not just on budget implications but the implications for public health and safety. Perhaps both incentives in those draft bills for public health and safety could be analyzed as well as disincentives.

Comment by Philip J. Palin

June 21, 2010 @ 8:20 am

Since the Long Blog or its more concise rendering as Resilience: The Grand Strategy, I have pushed for broad-based participation, collaboration, and deliberation well in advance. This will build the foundation for other elements of resilience. I see the relationships emerging from the process of participation, collaboration, and deliberation as the essential pre-condition. Everything else, in my experience, depends on the quality of these relationships. Bill, I am not accusing you of this, but in other settings I have encountered professionals who “acknowledge” this as a principle, but entirely ignore it as a practical prerequisite that takes signficant time and investment.

Comment by Claire B. Rubin

June 21, 2010 @ 8:24 am

Phil:

You say participation, collaboration, and deliberation — by whom?

Claire

Comment by Philip J. Palin

June 21, 2010 @ 8:30 am

Claire, What Ostrom et al have found — and my more limited experience also reflects — is that the participation, collaboration, and deliberation must involve all stakeholders, with particular attention to those who will be most affected by the emergency-disaster-catastrophe. I think this is where the Prince William Sound Citizens’ Advisory Council offers such fascinating resources.

I am frustrated that I have to leave for meetings that are likely to keep me off-line much of today. I think your question and Bill’s response have begun to uncover a key aspect of resilience that I have failed to make sufficiently clear. But maybe others can take it up and — through this participation, collaboration and deliberation — a better answer will emerge.

Comment by William R. Cumming

June 21, 2010 @ 9:19 am

Just noting for the record that money talks and walks as to who gets to cooperate and collaborate deliberate. One fascinating development in the Obama Administration is the very very large number of environmental issues piling up on Carol Browner’s desk. Perhaps a needed government refore to promote collaboration, cooperation, and deliberation would be to have each of the almost 50 offices in the Executive Office of the WH publish a list of items under consideration by staff and decision makes every 90 days. This would be sort of like the Regulatory Agenda published in the Federal Register on a semi-annual basis.

AT least at the moment at Thomas.loc.gov we can find out pending legislation and its status even if often only the staff of Congress and the lobbyists know what is in it. Perhaps a sworn statement under penalty of perjury should be signed by each member of Congress before the final vote on any legislation stating the following: “I have read in its entirety bill number —–” but of course it would be futile to add the words “And I understand its implications for my constituents.”

Comment by Art Botterell

June 21, 2010 @ 10:49 am

In a better world it might be feasible, but in this one I wonder whether the sort of universal stakeholder participation Phil recommends might not itself be another kind of fantasy.

In practice the logistics alone, starting with the question of who gets to say what comprises “all stakeholders,” are daunting. (This, I believe, goes a long way to explain the Beltway Syndrome: once participation spreads beyond Washington things get very complicated and expensive, so better to invoke FACA and keep the problem small!)

And then we get to problems of information asymmetry and decision-making power. In almost every case I’ve seen “stakeholder involvement” has been largely, if not entirely, a rhetorical mechanism for getting folks’ fingerprints on somebody’s proposal.

This is particularly true in the case of “unforeseen” (i.e., under-recognized until after the fact) hazards. The agenda-setting activity of identifying and promoting attention to particular risks is in fact the first claim of that alleged expertise that Clarke suggests fantasy plans serve to bolster.

Personally I think the bottom-line message of Clarke’s book is one of humility. The first step to true resilience is to admit how much we don’t know and can’t control. There is, alas, no political benefit to be had from that.

So is government participation futile? I don’t think so… but I do believe it needs to be understand in a fairly narrow context and not mistaken for the whole of the undertaking.

Comment by Dan O'Connor

June 21, 2010 @ 11:03 am

My contention and experience is that most plans are not written for execution, but to meet the litigious nature and requirements of an organization.

Once crafted, they become ornamental shelf ware and their potential effectiveness is measured by their heft and not their merit.

I clearly remember on more than one occasion, both in Gov’t and Private Industry hearing self proclaimed experts, evaluators, and inspectors comment that its not what’s in the plan , as long as you have one, you’re good… dangerously wrong thinking and point of view.

Eisenhower said; “Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” How very true.

Plans are worthless if they are not living documents that are constantly validated and used for tools of discovery, not simply something blown off once a year for some annual exercise dog and pony show.

A plan must not be a binary document; it must demonstrate robustness, redundancy, rapidity, and resourcefulness in its application and methodology. These are also elements of resilience. We all have different definitions, but a one dimensional plan, never exercised as a tool of discovery, but merely to check a box is in many aspects more dangerous than not having one at all.

Also dangerous is the outright plagiarism of plans. It’s not the borrowing that’s bad judgment, but the failure to read it in the first place and not correcting obvious differences in nuance. Imagine sitting down with an attorney and explaining that malfeasance!

They also can be limiting factors if they are in fact fantasy. They not only create allusion and delusion, but more so a false set of constraints and regulatory requirements that are unrealistic and completely untenable.

The more complicated and onerous the plan is, the less likely it is to be read, let alone exercised and validated.

So while there are millions if not billions of dollars spent on plan creation and templates, very few people actually read them. Even fewer are validated and executable. That’s been my experience.

Comment by Art Botterell

June 21, 2010 @ 11:23 am

Two things are important about plans. The first is to have them. The second is to not take them too seriously.

Comment by Claire B. Rubin

June 21, 2010 @ 1:50 pm

We are on to something with the topic of resilience. Excellent posts so far.

I have to moderate a session on resilience at a major conference in Colorado next month, and I welcome comments and observations about how we will be able to explain and teach this concept to future EM and HS researchers and practitioners.

For starters, it would be nice to know where the big research projects are already underway and any findings out thus far — I know about ongoing work at HSI, Oak Ridge National Lab, some military work groups.

Comment by William R. Cumming

June 21, 2010 @ 1:56 pm

Exract from Senate Report 94-922 from the FINAL REPORT of the SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL EMERGENCIES AND DELEGATED ERMERGENCY POWERS, dated May 28, 1976,entitled “National Emergencies and Delegated Emergency Powers” page 35:
“Planning
An evaluation of planning efforst within the government seems wise in light of widespread skepticism about planning. Critics contend that the levelof planning has been excessive in the past that efforts that are understaken in the future should be more realistic, emphasizing existing structures and resources rather than relying on contingency structures and plans. They view planning efforts as an academic exercise, an impractical activity conducted in a world of contingencies too often separated from more mundane realities. They argue that planning is an expensive luxury that is hard to justify when all programs are being scrutineized for possible savings and other programs provide more concrete and visible results.
Former OEP {Office of EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS]officials and current FPA [Federal Preparedness Agency] spokesmen strongly defend the need for advance planning. In defining planning, they speak of the anticipation of potential crises and preparation of appropriate governmental responses, including the establishment of procedures, the perfection of methodologies, the collection of important data, and the identification of skilled personnel. These officials argue that the complexity and increasing interdependence of the world and the concurrent growth in the potential for and ramifications of devastating disasters make advance work absolutely essential.”

Comment by Philip J. Palin

June 21, 2010 @ 3:53 pm

I will jump back in with a few responses to Art:

1. Thanks for pointing me to Mission Improbable;
2. Yes, we need plans and we should not take them too seriously;
3. In regard to, “sort of universal stakeholder participation Phil recommends might not itself be another kind of fantasy”, a longer response:

I absolutely agree that the broad stakeholder involvement I advocate is difficult to achieve. But Ostrom and others document it happening and being effective in contexts considerably less privileged than the US.

Further, while difficult, probably never complete, and sometimes even counter-productive, I would argue that trying to authentically engage stakeholders is never quite the “fantasy” that too many plans can become.

Lee Clarke makes the case that plans, especially for the most catastrophic of prospects, can become products of pure imagination… and that’s when they become dangerous (Echoes of Dan O’Connor and Bill Cumming’s quotes above).

Actively involving stakeholders is a matter of communication, encouragement, incentivizing, inspiring, and holding accountable.

Tomorrow I am facilitating a public-private tabletop and proto-exercise. With a year of consistent work we have significant (but still not universal)public-private participation. There has been plenty of collaboration and deliberation to get us to this point.

Whatever the results of tomorrow, we will take readiness to a new level as a result of the shared experience. So… I would argue that we may certainly fail to engage all stakeholders, but any effort to engage stakeholders is a rigorous exercise in counter-fantasizing

Comment by Mark Chubb

June 21, 2010 @ 4:22 pm

I’ve recently begun a local public involvement initiative that I will share some insights about on Wednesday. Suffice it to say for now that the process does not generate instant results. But it is equally clear that it is far from fantastical to assume that average people will engage or have opinions apart from the private and group interests that often try to hold sway over the public debate.

Comment by Philip Palin

June 22, 2010 @ 4:39 am

In regard to Claire’s request for information on available research, two suggestions:

1. International Association for the Study of the Commons Digital Library.

2. Community Resilience: A Function of Resources and Adaptablity by Patricia Longstaff et al.

Comment by William R. Cumming

June 22, 2010 @ 7:34 am

We may be about to be held witness to the failure of government to promote resilience.

Now that we are almost assured of heavy turnover in the Obama Adminstration post November (rats?) why do we have to wait?

It is clear that the “vision thing” which was the primary rap on George H.W. Bush and his Presidency may be a latent virus which has now popped up.

We now realize that legal training and teaching may not yield the life experience necessary for the Presidency and sometimes experience painfully earned is the real heart of Presidential leadership.

Have the full assets of the inordinately expensive National Security State been turned loose on the oil spill yet? IMO NO!

But hey stay tuned. Perhaps the de facto merger of the Coast Guard, formed in 1916 from the former Coastal Life Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service and the US NAVY needs more consideration. The underfunded and understaffed Coast Guard would make a nice commmand opportunity for an overstaffed and overfunded Navy.

Comment by Citizen Joe

June 22, 2010 @ 7:40 am

Planning, Resources, Resilience, Response….the four R’s as I refer to them and the reality to all this talk, the reality portrayed by Katrina, Haiti and the “Great Oil Spill of 2010″ which is no surprise senior Russian industry consultants tell me when inviting me to waters off of Russia to see outright same discolor of water from spilling oil wells galore!

Here on the street, foreclosures happening and you Mr. President with your promises, well, folks’ mortgages have not been modified, the bankers win again Mr. Barney and smug smiled Pelosi….

Here on Main Street USA, teachers are getting pink slips while they look yonder Mr. President and seee new schools and teachers recruited in Iraq and Afghanistan while we here on Main Street USA take a look at the stats, India and China once again handing diplomas to Science, Engineering and IT/software development grads – the future of the 21st and 22nd century – in far greater numbers this year over last year as we slip away into a third world country and you Mr. President should be making a real address on national television emphasizing the need for your party and the other across the aisle, very similar to one another, dictating to those WE have “entrusted” to get the job done….Congress has failed and this partisanship has placed us in much peril!

The “Realities of Preparedness” show in every way of American way of Life, our Life, our watch, that it is in fact the blatant ill preparedness in every aspect whether it be disaster, education, etc., WE have in fact been enslaved by the bankers Mr. Barney, isn’t that right?

I have 2,000 citizen signatures to place my name on the 4th Congressional ballot versus you Mr. Barney and I just don’t know if I want to jump onto a sinking ship beneath water as many of homeowners are these days as a result of the arrogant and indifferent manner of professional “pols” like Kerry and others who are so condescending to the “little people” isn’t that the BP CEO reference….

Listen, wake up!

You Mr. President have taken a budget deficit and far worsened our probable demise – It is not AQ we here on Main Street that we are as concerned with as you and Congress who have taken a $12trillion deficit in outright bankruptcy and made it worse not words of threat from AQ and the Taliban and other reckless and immature fools who do not see what we see, an America already broken and held together by only our dedicated and real Americans at NSA, the triple letter club, intel folks, the NYPD and other local and hardworking law enforcement agencies on the front line for us day and night! It is our foot soldier, those in front of computer, a DoD prepared and understanding the need to focus on cybersecurity -

As far as you Mr. President and your executive branch self-impressed immature and inexperienced staffers and most of Comgressional members young and old who prefer self-agenda versus doing the job, it is not only we here on Main Street USA who see the blatant lack of response in ill-preparedness despite “Planning, Resources, Resilience, Response” – BUT we are no longer as worried ’bout the kids or grandkids, WE are worried about today, tomorrow, next week and the hurricane which will only enhance the complacency and lack of skill sets and experience, the obvious void in leadership which foretells our destiny…bankrupt in our coffers and at the helm!

God Bless our beloved Republic and while not yet 60 years of age, hearing elders at the local donut shop, the really “ol guys” who wear caps from WWII, born in the mid 1930′s or so, well, hearing their stories of heroism and pride for their country with shaking heads in their hands wondering what the hell happened and all those real stories they share, the blood spatterted on them from buddies shot right netx to them…what happened? My reply, “The lack of real planning, depletion of resources when we have no manganese and other depending on China for not only a depository for the “fiat” federal reserve note, resilience replaced with stagnation, and an indifferent and perverse response with incestuous accolades of a Congressional membership who se only purpose…their own.

We are at great peril at a time when it will not be earthquake causing anguish, but a Middle East about ready to result in much strife and danger to mankind as the “Brutes of Tehran” may use the Israeli and Palestinian good people as pawns, but their intent with much planning, resources, resilience and response which the “Brutes of Tehran” have proven of themselves, attack on Gulf states and much global instability….We best be prepared!

God Bless our law enforcement, first responders, foot soldiers and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and those in command who are protect us and are now speaking their mind as our existence is being jeopardized and not by a corrupt BP oil company which the “KGB Putinites” have been forcing the BP stock pricing down with a BP “buyout” in their planning scope which will cause much discomfort let me assure you Mr. President and “entrusted” Congressional members – Wake up!

Christopher Tingus
aka Joe Citizen
Main Street USA
chris.tingus@gmail.com