Resilience: The Grand Strategy

OK I guess this is a bit of a book review, but I think this particular paper is worth talking about.

I recently read the short paper by Philip J. Palin which proposes a national security strategy based on the concept of resilience. The paper was a fleshed out version of what he playfully entitled “Long Blog” which he re-drafted at the request of the Homeland Security Affairs.

I found this to be a very interesting treatment of resilience. The concepts and approach laid out in this paper are a very valuable and I would suggest revolutionary contribution to the post 9-11 national security debate. Mr. Palin has torn a page from George Kennan’s seminal work Long Telegram of 1946 which first proposed the strategy of containment when dealing with the Soviet Union. Those initial thoughts by Kennan eventually became the underpinning of nearly 50 years of grand strategy, not only for the United States but also for the Western World.

As a matter of credibility and I suppose flattery, Palin has chosen to mirror Kennan’s structure or schema with a view to proving his theory of resilience as a viable grand strategy for the United States. He tackles the obvious difference between 1946 and 2009 with care and provides some very insightful observations of the national psyche. Meanwhile his comments on the national neurosis are at the same time both useful and frightening (at least to this non-American). I will leave it to you to determine whether that argument holds true to your own values or national identity.

Setting aside the one or two troubling excuses for past conduct, I find the overall concept and argument quite satisfying. Whether you subscribe to Palin’s view of the world, I think most could find the idea of resilience as a grand strategy for national security a concept easily adapted to most national value systems.

I have included the link to the article and recommend it to anyone interested in resilience and national security.

http://www.hsaj.org/pages/volume6/issue1/pdfs/6.1.2.pdf

Insurance as a Component of Resiliency

In the recovery phase of several recent disasters I have seen an increasing number of incidents where insurance was unable to satisfy the needs of the disaster victims. The failure is not that the needed insurance products did not exist; it’s appears to be an increasing number of citizens are not carrying basic insurance. Insurance is a difficult expense to justify when a normal person can go their entire life and never claim on the policy. But when faced with a catastrophic loss or major expenses due to an insurable peril, the decision to have insurance is immediately justified. This is an emerging and possible urgent issue impacting the basic resilience premise of disaster assistance programs. What makes this more tangible is that the majority of the cases where we see this gap are with the most vulnerable segments of society.

Government disaster assistance programs generally exclude assistance for perils that can be insured at a reasonable cost. There is an assumption by governments that the population will take reasonable steps to protect themselves and their property. This concept of self-protection includes an expectation that citizens will purchase reasonable insurance, and this I would argue is a key assumption in the government’s view of its social resilience. What appears to be the trend however is that large segments of society are unable or unwilling to protect themselves by investing in basic insurance products. It therefore maybe time to modify our assumptions about social resilience and recognize the potential risk that a majority of society is unable to meet the basic insurance expectations.

This issue of insurance is not particular to one segment of the population or society. At a recent conference U.S. emergency managers cited statistics that showed only 20% of eligible flood plain properties had the required FEMA Flood Insurance even though to qualify for assistance property must be insured. In Canada we also see a similar issue with water back up insurance, experience has shown that a majority of homeowners have opted not to add a back up extension to the basic homeowners policy. The damage from a recent tornado also revealed that 1 in 6 homeowners who experienced a total loss did not carry even a basic homeowners policy. Despite this lack of insurance most homeowners find a way to recover without disaster financial assistance. More concerning from a recovery perspective is that this level of personal resilience is rarer at the lower income levels of society and with those most vulnerable.

Basic insurance needs are rarely met with those of limited economic means. The economically disadvantaged make choices every day on how to spend their meager funds. As one drops down the hierarchy of needs, funds are depleted long before insurance needs are addressed. What results is a segment of society that lives without the ability to replace their basic possessions such as clothing, basic furniture, and other household items. These same people live in public housing or low rental properties in conditions that probably have greater exposure to risks such as fire or water damage. In some cases this type of housing exists in areas where the threat of natural disaster impacts is greater as the land is less desirable.

Secondly we are seeing a lack of insurance on First Nations. Setting aside cultural differences (which are too complex to address in this blog) it has been noted that with very few exceptions First Nations housing stock is uninsured. This alone is a risk that needs some mitigation as a large number of First Nations are routinely exposed to hazards such as wild fires and flooding. Until now our response programs seem to have prevented the worst case scenario, but it will only take a single wildfire to sweep through a First Nation to create a crisis. In addition to the risk to the housing stock it appears that the majority of First Nations citizens live in these hazard heavy areas without tenant’s insurance.

It would appear that there is an increasing gap between society's expected level of financial protection and the coverage afforded by government disaster assistance. A more thorough study is required but my experience indicates that a vulnerability exists.

Reconstruction and Opportunity

As a Natural Disaster Recovery professional, I will be following with interest the reconstruction efforts in Haiti. My sincere hope is that those leading the effort will take a holistic view to this mammoth task. By this I mean to really succeed at the fourth tier of Emergency Management you must not only reconstruct what was lost, but you most take advantage of the opportunities presented by disaster.


The list of holistic activities is vast and limited only by the courage and leadership present in the effort. But is must include concepts such as established and enforceable building codes, depopulating hazard prone regions, relocating or redirecting transportation routes and nodes from hazards for example. In the end all investment in recovery should have as an underlying objective the goal to increase society wide resiliency.


This practical, reconstruction focused concept of holistic recovery could and should be coupled with a view that reinvesting the vast sums of money into replacing only what is lost is throwing good money away.


I and I am sure thousands of others hope that despite this tragedy, Haiti will be more resilient as a result of this reinvestment.

Generating Canada's Response to Haiti

As I sit in my office today I sense the growing frustration among emergency managers emanating from my boss's office.

Several agencies have trained and deployable Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) organizations that exist to help in situations of building collapse etc. This organizations are generally kept on a high state of readiness to respond both inside and outside its jurisdictions. Since yesterday afternoon, many of the larger organizations of been seeking permission and assistance to deploy to Haiti.

Based on some protocols in place no deployment can take place unless OK'd by the Govt of Canada. The Govt of Canada relies on the DART as the nucleus of its response, but by any measure of timely response it is way behind the needed decision cycle.

It appears that part of the problems is diplomacy and the idea that Canada cannot send its Armed Forces into another sovereign nation without invitation. As we can imagine getting a decision from the Haitian Govt took some time. Meanwhile the vast USAR resources of Canada sit by watching their opportunity to rescue live victims diminish with each passing hour.There is no wonder why many aid agencies choose to "go now and seek forgiveness later".

Perhaps its time for the Govt of Canada to ask itself if the Armed Forces is the best agency to lead Canada's disaster assistance capability or whether a civilian agency should lead. Would that speed up deployment and save lives?

Economic Impacts of Disasters

I spent the day visiting a small urban centre that experienced a major disaster last year. While the community infra-structure was protected and any damages repaired with the assistance of well established government programs, little has been done to assess or address the damage done to the businesses of the area. There appears to be an absence of assistance for business revenue issues that result from natural disasters.

This particular area is subject to isolation due to flooding on a regular basis. In the past there have been attempts at economic recovery assistance (interest free loans).

While it is tempting to look at this as a recovery issue and design a solution to address the financial losses, it really goes to community resilience and even long term sustainability of the community. I was warmed to hear the various business owners talk about their challenges but focus on the long term solutions and not just ask for compensation. These community leaders want improved mitigation and not money.

The challenge of course will be to prove that mitigation will (in the long term) be the least cost solution.

There are more meetings scheduled and I will post follow ups later.

Some Thoughts on Recovery

The term recovery as it relates to emergency/disaster management (EM) has been used in a variety of contexts including reconstruction, restoration, rehabilitation and even post disaster redevelopment. Regardless of which term is used, the focus has been on recovery as it relates to the physical environment and for the most part recovery efforts have strived to re-establish what was lost with a view to restoring to an exact replica of pre-disaster make-up or state.

While the repair and restoration of the physical environment is a tangible and expensive undertaking, it represents only one component of recovery and generally ignores the opportunities to increase resiliency in the aftermath of a disaster. It is time to move beyond the focus on the physical environment and look at recovery as a social process that focuses on issues beyond restoration of what was lost and instead focuses on enhancing resiliency and sustainability of communities.

There are many components of recovery – residential, commercial, industrial, economic, social, organizational, information, data and social support to name a few. Equally there are various degrees of recovery. Successful recovery efforts typically rely on strong leadership, vision and integration of a recovery plan into other supporting social, societal or business networks.

Cooperation

I just returned from my monthly meeting with an ad hoc organization of NGOs that provide services and support to victims of disaster.

This group has been working together for more than 10 years and represents a wide cross-section of NGOs both faith based and secular. I am always amazed by the level of respect and cooperation that exists within this group. They have set aside the differences, overlaps and competition to focus on being ready to help when help is needed.

Not only is there a great deal of cooperation among the NGOs, they have also included various Governement Departments or government agencies to participate in their good works.

Its this level of cooperation and familiarity that will serve us well when a real crisis strikes.