Week Eight – Risk, Threat and Consequence in the Future

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Discussion Question:  Looking over the next five years, in your opinion, what will be the single greatest threat to the nation’s homeland security posture? Explain the reasoning for your selection.  How well does DHS’ Fiscal Years 2014-2018 Strategic Plan address this threat?

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Instructions: Fully utilize the materials that have been provided to you in order to support your response. Your initial post should be at least 350 words.

Lesson

Week Eight – Risk, Threat and Consequence in the Future

Predicting the future is an activity frequently fraught with uncertainty. Still, it is an activity that those of us who find ourselves within the homeland security enterprise must constantly engage in. Whether it’s those within the intelligence, the emergency response and emergency management communities, or those who might not be sure what role they play (such as academia or the business community), we all make decisions based upon what might occur in the future (whether that be the next moment, week, or years down the road). In addition, the input we provide and predictions we make impact others as well, whether that is our elected leaders who could utilize such information in their decision making process, or simply family members, coworkers, or students. Lastly, any steps taken moving forward must support the current National Preparedness Goal, which is:

A secure and resilient Nation with the capabilities required across the whole community to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from the threats and hazards that pose the greatest risk. (DHS, 2015, p. 1)

Therefore, a balancing act of sorts must be taken that keeps an eye on present responsibilities and commitments, while looking ahead to what the future might hold. So in this our final week of class, we will look at factors likely to affect risk, threat and consequences for our communities in the future.

In 2010, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) launched the Strategic Foresight Initiative (SFI) as an ongoing effort to determine those factors that will impact risk factors in the nation as a whole and in our nation’s communities over the next 20 years.  The SFI has resulted in the publication of a number of documents.  Perhaps the most relevant to this current discussion is Crisis Response and Disaster Resilience 2030: Forging Strategic Action in an Age of Uncertainty. The information found within this report is a culmination of the efforts of literally hundreds of emergency management and homeland security professionals and practitioners. They admit that moving forward; there is both an increased complexity and decreased predictability related to the operating environment our nation will find itself addressing. Therefore, it would behoove us to seriously consider the issues they have highlighted and make needed changes where applicable.

Forces of Change

With the help of technology and other factors, the world in which we live is an extremely interconnected one. Whether this is viewed on a community to community basis or on a global scale, what affects and changes one government body, geographic area or organization can quickly impact another. Realizing this, these forces of change must be fully acknowledged so that they can be accounted for and addressed accordingly. To this end, the SFI identified a number of factors, many found at the macro level that can significantly impact the world around us. These factors have been placed into five different dimensions – Social, Technological, Environmental, Economic, and Political (STEEP). Within these dimensions, nine different “drivers” were identified as being particularly significant in the way our nation must approach future risks, threats, and related consequences. These are shown in Figure 1, as well as the manner in which they relate to one another. A brief summary will now be offered concerning these drivers.

(Figure 1: FEMA, Crisis response and disaster resilience 2030, 2012)

Social and Technology

It should come as no surprise that our society’s reliance upon technology will certainly accelerate moving forward; affecting all facets of life. However, such an increased use and prevalence of technology produces new-found risks as well. Where individuals now depend upon technology to make simple calculations or communicate with one another, so it is on a broader scale as well. For instance, computer systems now control vast amounts of our nation’s critical infrastructure. This not only increases vulnerabilities on a system-wide basis, but raises the potential for attacks upon the cyber environment as well. Conversely, such innovations in technology change the profiles of our communities as a whole’ “communities of place, interest, believe, and circumstance, which can exist both geographically and virtually” (FEMA, 2012, p. 7). Thus, our nation’s population as a whole is changing in a number of ways; age, ethnicity, where they reside, how they interact with one another, and what they expect from government. All of these factors can on one hand enhance the preparedness and resiliency of its citizens, while at the same time making them more susceptible to a host of ever-evolving threats and hazards.

Environmental

Issues such as pollution, fresh water supplies, and the reduction of certain natural resources are all matters of concern related to our environment. However, there is one overarching issue that seems to be at the forefront of such discussions and will remain so moving forward, and that is common change. No doubt, there are both supporters and dissenters of this issue within the science community, political arena, as well as a host of others to have an opinion regarding this topic. Yet, as it relates to the disciplines of homeland security and emergency management, there is an awareness and acceptance that such changes in our climate are expected to “increase the severity, frequency, or scale of extreme weather events, droughts, floods, sea level rise, precipitation patterns, and the spread of life-threatening diseases” (FEMA, 2012, p. 8). The end results include likely increase in the magnitude of these types of events, their magnitude, which in turn, will have a dramatic impact upon the resiliency of local communities, or lack thereof.

Economic and Political

Obviously, the United States and its homeland security efforts are primarily concerned with addressing those issues that take place within its borders. Yet, it is recognized that issues that transpire around the world have a direct impact on what takes place on the domestic front as well. Interdependencies on governance and how these political changes evolve (i.e. Brexit), limited budgets, restrictions on available resources and related issues can produce a variety of negative results. For instance, the supply chains that are developed on a global basis could become threatened, which could then have a direct and dramatic impact upon our nation’s critical infrastructure and the many essential services it provides. Also, even though many developing regions around the world have seen economic and other forms of growth in recent years that have enhanced their levels of preparedness and resiliency, others still require international relief and assistance, where the United States is certainly impacted by such demands for such aid as well.

So in considering these various dimensions and forces of change, it would also appear that risk populations within our communities will likely grow and change in composition.  Our communities will have increasing numbers of elderly and non-English speaking citizens, and migratory populations inside our geographic areas of responsibility will likely increase as well.  As we look at risk as a measure of threat and consequence, these population changes will increase the likelihood of negative consequences of any disaster event that might occur. To mitigate these consequences, public officials will need to expend greater resources than ever before to ensure the safety of these populations during critical incident.

Constraints on resources required to lessen the impact of the consequences of disaster events will continue to grow. These constraints will be experienced in terms of increasing needs, such as those caused by changes in community demographics, and experienced in a decrease of resources.  This will result in overall increases in gaps between what is needed to lessen the impact of identified risk, and what is available to do so.  New ways of resource management and resource allocation will be needed to deal with these gaps.

There will likely be increases in disparities between communities in terms of resources, and thus in terms of risk and consequences. Wealthier communities and states will have increasingly better infrastructure, more aware citizens, and stronger mitigation measures countering possible disaster consequences. In comparison, those states and communities with fewer resources may not fare as well.

The concept of whole community will continue to grow.  It will become increasingly integrated into the disaster resiliency postures of our communities.  Individual citizens will be asked to play greater roles in being prepared for disaster events to help counter disaster consequences, and private sector businesses will be asked to do the same.  How they respond will be a strong determining factor in the effectiveness of future mitigation efforts.

Therefore, it is apparent that the landscape for risk assessments will obviously change significantly over the next couple of decades. As has been discussed throughout this lesson, this will be due to an increase in the complexity of the environment in which community emergency managers and homeland security practitioners operate, as well as a decrease in the predictability of their operational environment. There will likely be more disaster events, coupled with new and unfamiliar threats.  Technology will provide more information than ever before to process and consider in the analysis of risk, and perhaps less time to process it.  Public expectations of government at all levels, which is already high, will only increase.  Elected leaders will be expected to adequately prepare for whatever disaster might be anticipated on the rise, while at the same time fall under increasing pressure to solve problems immediately following such an event. So where does our nation and its leaders currently stand regarding the threats and hazards that it feels are worthy of consideration and the expenditure of its vital resources? Some light can be shed on this issue by looking at some current documents focused upon such issues. First, we can look at the current National Security Strategy which “outlines priorities based on a realistic assessment of the risks to our enduring national interests and the opportunities for advancing them” (Obama, 2015, p. 5). The four overarching priorities and underlying goals needed to achieve them are as follows:

Taking this a step further, a review of the most current missions developed by the Department of Homeland (DHS) offers additional insight regarding its posture related to what it considers to be current and future areas of concern. As noted in the most recent Quadrennial Review, DHS acknowledges that “as the threats and hazards we face change, the way we and our partners and stakeholders carry out our missions must change as well” (DHS, 2014, p. 15). So it is obvious that the following missions and supporting goals also speak to the need to adapt to the dynamic, ever-changing landscape that is homeland security.

Conclusion

Our communities face an unprecedented amount of both risk and opportunity for mitigation in the years ahead. Just a generation ago, few of the greatest challenges facing our nation today, such as terrorism, climate change, and biological events were seldom considered as significant risks to our communities. Today, they are the topics of many routine conversations whenever risk, consequences and mitigation measures are discussed. Although cyber-attacks and homegrown terrorism may be at the forefront of the ever-growing list of threats our nation must contend with, they will certainly not be the last and will be replaced with others that will deserve our attention. How our various levels of government, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and ordinary citizens move to prepare for these issues will also continue to evolve. Yet, one of the few certainties we can see as we attempt to peer into the future is that innovation, cooperation, partnerships, and the whole community will be necessary to ensure the resiliency of our communities in the face of disaster events.

References

Department of Homeland Security. (2014). 2014 Quadrennial homeland security review. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Department of Homeland Security. (2015). National preparedness goal. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2012) Crisis response and disaster resilience 2030: Forging strategic action in an age of uncertainty. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Obama, B. (2015). National Security Strategy. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.