Current Operations

Enabling More Effective Naval Integration into Humanitarian Responses

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Naval HA/DR Topic Week

By David Polatty

Last week, the U.S. Naval War College hosted the annual EMC Chair Symposium, with this year’s offering bringing in experts from around the world to discuss maritime strategy. Vice Admiral Charles Michel, Vice Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, kicked off the event by engaging in an energizing discussion on the missions and functions of the U.S. sea services, with a special focus on current and future U.S. Coast Guard capabilities and activities. Understandably, he spent much of his time examining the traditional security, presence, and safety aspects of maritime operations. He also provided insight into the unique ways that the Coast Guard complements forward deployed U.S. Naval forces. As a key component of this forward deployment and naval presence dialogue, he reminded participants that humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) remains a core mission for militaries. 

Participants spent the better part of the two-day event discussing challenges and opportunities facing the U.S. sea services. We had spirited dialogue on a broad range of warfighting issues viewed through the lens of maritime strategy. Prior to the last panel of the symposium, a HA/DR “urban humanitarian response” discussion, I was struck by the manner in which many attendees translated an overarching fear of Chinese and Russian aggression to pivot away from the non-warfighting roles that militaries fill. As my colleague and symposium chair, Dr. Derek Reveron has both written and said time and again, “navies do much more than fight wars.”[i]

We are at a critical point in history from a humanitarian perspective, with over 60 million people displaced across the globe – more than at any time since World War II. The United Nations (UN) and the humanitarian community are currently responding to four “L3 Emergencies” in Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.  This designation reflects the global humanitarian system’s classification for a response to the most serious, large-scale humanitarian crises.[ii] A quick scan of the news reveals many other areas of the world where vulnerable populations face monumental challenges.  While climate change impact predictions diverge greatly depending on the source, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that between 250 million and one billion people across the globe will become displaced from their region or country in the next 50 years.[iii] As significant, heartbreaking, and perilous as the current migration crisis in the Mediterranean Sea is, it pales in comparison to what the world may face in the near future if even the low end of climate change projections prove to be true.

Rear Adm. Jeffrey S. Jones, director of Coalition Naval Advisory and Training Team, speaks with a resident of Oshima, to discuss the progress of disaster relief operations. Marines and sailors assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit are on Oshima Island to help clear a harbor and assist with cleaning debris from roads and a local school in support of Operation Tomodachi.Petty Officer 3rd Class Eva Mari.
Rear Adm. Jeffrey S. Jones, director of Coalition Naval Advisory and Training Team, speaks with a resident of Oshima, to discuss the progress of disaster relief operations. Marines and sailors assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit are on Oshima Island to help clear a harbor and assist with cleaning debris from roads and a local school in support of Operation Tomodachi.Petty Officer 3rd Class Eva Mari.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps team spends much of its operational life training and exercising for war. We buy and maintain warships, combat aircraft, attack submarines, and amphibious capabilities that enable us to fight and win decisively. Many of these capabilities also provide critical life-saving support during natural disasters and complex emergencies. Because of the forward deployed nature of our naval forces, versatile multi-mission platforms, and ability to operate from the sea with minimal sustained footprint ashore, we are optimally positioned to conduct HA/DR operations. One area that the sea services need to spend additional time focusing on is the understanding of how military HA/DR missions can better integrate into civilian humanitarian responses. We must increase our education, training, and simulation opportunities in HA/DR to become more proficient when asked to respond.

The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review ranked HA/DR #12 of 12 military missions, with respect to how the Secretary of Defense and Joint Staff plan to distribute forces to U.S. Combatant Commanders.[iv] Despite being the lowest priority, history has proven that our military will respond to save lives and alleviate human suffering when called upon to do so. A 2003 study by the Center for Naval Analyses found that from 1970 to 2000, U.S. military forces were diverted from normal operations 366 times for HA/DR operations, while only 22 times for combat.[v] While these numbers do not reflect the duration of each operation, they still provide a telling story about the frequency in which our military has responded to natural disasters and humanitarian crises.

U.S. Navy Cmdr. (Dr.) Ryan Maves, Lt. Sarah Bush and Lt. j.g. Braden Spangler perform medical procedures on a simulated Ebola patient during a week-long rapid response training course. Maves, Bush and Spangler are part of a military medical response team that can rapidly respond and assist civilian medical personnel in the event of an Ebola outbreak in the United States. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)
U.S. Navy Cmdr. (Dr.) Ryan Maves, Lt. Sarah Bush and Lt. j.g. Braden Spangler perform medical procedures on a simulated Ebola patient during a week-long rapid response training course. Maves, Bush and Spangler are part of a military medical response team that can rapidly respond and assist civilian medical personnel in the event of an Ebola outbreak in the United States. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)

To highlight what many argue is a systemic lack of understanding within the U.S. military on the current state of the international humanitarian system and how it functions, below is a “pop quiz” for CIMSEC readers. These are ten of the most important questions (and yes, there are many more…) that military personnel must understand in order to quickly and successfully integrate military capabilities into civilian humanitarian responses. (Note: answers are at bottom of the article for inquiring minds who want to know.)

  • What are the four fundamental humanitarian principles and why are they so important? 
  • What is a humanitarian actor? 
  • What is the lead federal agency in the U.S. government for disaster response overseas and what relationship do they have with the U.S. military? 
  • What international organization brings together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies? Within this organization, who is responsible for facilitating civilian-military coordination, and what are the range of potential strategies for effective coordination? 
  • What is the “Cluster System”? 
  • What are the “Sphere Standards”? 
  • What are the “Oslo Guidelines”? 
  • What is a “MITAM”? 
  • What key information systems do humanitarian actors utilize to communicate? 
  • What are the key military capabilities that are routinely needed to augment the humanitarian community’s response to large-scale disasters?

After you write your answers down, please scroll to the bottom to see how you fared. There is no grading scale, because I suspect most of you, like the majority of the students who come through Newport, will quickly agree that we all have a lot to learn to be able to work effectively in the humanitarian space. It is in this intricate environment where civilian organizations operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, to help vulnerable populations around the world – through both sustained developmental efforts as well as disaster relief activities.

If you struggled with this academic exercise, or have taken part in the chaos that is a HA/DR operation and appreciate how different this mission set is from traditional naval operations, then you may agree in principle at least, with the following recommendations for improving our abilities in this area. 

The U.S. Sea Services should make small changes within their education and training efforts to ensure that our personnel have a baseline understanding of foundational issues in civilian-military humanitarian response. While the UN, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and U.S. Pacific Command’s Center for Excellence in Disaster Management all provide excellent training in this area, collectively they reach a relatively small audience. Generally speaking, our war colleges have minimal elements within their curricula that allow students to comprehend the most crucial civilian-military humanitarian issues.  Very few HA/DR exercises and simulations are run on a regular basis, with one exception being the earthquake scenario within U.S. Pacific Command’s ‘Rim of the Pacific’ (RIMPAC) biannual exercise. RIMPAC brings together international militaries, humanitarian actors, and academics in a dynamic environment to simulate a complex response and learn from one another. Combining smaller “mini-exercises” for HA/DR within larger warfighting exercises, when appropriate, makes sense from both a fiscal and preparedness perspective.

Navy Adm. Robert F. Willard, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, gives a toy to a child while touring a shelter facility in Ishinomaki city, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, March 23. Willard and John V. Roos, U.S. ambassador to Japan, assisted in the delivery of relief supplies to displaced citizens. Since March 12, Marines and sailors have delivered food, fuel, water and supplies to disaster-stricken areas near Sendai as part of Operation Tomodachi. (Photo by: Lance Cpl. Steve Acuff)
Navy Adm. Robert F. Willard, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, gives a toy to a child while touring a shelter facility in Ishinomaki city, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, March 23, 2011. (Photo by: Lance Cpl. Steve Acuff)

The Naval War College recognizes the importance of HA/DR education, and thanks to a formal partnership with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, is collaborating closely with the UN’s Civil-Military Coordination Section, as well as several other universities, including Stanford, Yale, and Oxford. Our Civilian-Military Humanitarian Response Program aims to advance civilian-military engagement and coordination during complex emergencies and natural disasters, and improve the U.S. Navy’s effectiveness in conducting HA/DR operations. These collaborations have already informed curriculum, especially in our specialized planning courses that target operational (navy component and numbered fleet) and tactical (expeditionary strike group) staffs who will likely plan and execute HA/DR operations. We are working to develop new courses and simulations that will bring military and humanitarian personnel together in the classroom and during exercises. These partnership activities will help the humanitarian community create innovative frameworks for improving disaster coordination.

The U.S. Sea Services must, and will, spend the majority of their operational lives thinking about warfighting and maritime security. Current education and training systems ensure we retain our competitive advantage over future threats. However, minor investments in HA/DR education and training will help improve the predictability, effectiveness, efficiency, and coherence in deploying and employing military assets in support of humanitarian responses. This will allow us to build greater trust and confidence between humanitarian actors and military personnel, and ultimately improve our ability to respond during future natural disasters and complex emergencies.

Pop Quiz Answer Key

  • What are the four fundamental humanitarian principles and why are they so important?
    • Humanity, Neutrality, Impartiality, and Operational Independence.
    • “These principles provide the foundations for humanitarian action. They are central to establishing and maintaining access to affected people, whether in a natural disaster or a complex emergency, such as armed conflict. Promoting and ensuring compliance with the principles are essential elements of effective humanitarian coordination.”[vi] Militaries must have an appreciation for the principles so they can better understand the humanitarian system they are integrating into and minimize potential disruptions and negative effects in the humanitarian space.
  • What is a humanitarian actor?
    • Humanitarian actors are civilians, whether national or international, UN or non-UN, governmental or non-governmental, which have a commitment to humanitarian principles and are engaged in humanitarian activities. Military actors are NOT considered humanitarian actors.  “Even if they fulfill or support humanitarian tasks, the military is a tool of the foreign policy of a Government, and as such is not perceived as neutral or impartial. The separation of humanitarian and political or military objectives is not given or at least unclear – and military units are certainly not primarily perceived as humanitarians by the civilian population.”[vii]
  • What international organization brings together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies? Within this organization, who is responsible for facilitating civilian-military coordination, and what are the range of potential strategies for effective coordination?
    • United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). UN OCHA’s Civil-Military Coordination (CM-Coord) Section has been designated the focal point in the UN system for humanitarian civil-military coordination. It supports relevant field and headquarters-level activities through the development of institutional strategies to enhance the capacity and preparedness of national and international partners.  CM-Coord is “The essential dialogue and interaction between civilian and military actors in humanitarian emergencies that is necessary to protect and promote humanitarian principles, avoid competition, minimize inconsistency, and when appropriate, pursue common goals. Basic strategies range from coexistence to cooperation. Coordination is a shared responsibility facilitated by liaison and common training.”[viii]
  • What is the “Cluster System”?
    • This is UN OCHA’s system for managing a response. “Clusters are groups of humanitarian organizations (UN and non-UN) working in the main sectors of humanitarian action, e.g. shelter and health. They are created when clear humanitarian needs exist within a sector, when there are numerous actors within sectors and when national authorities need coordination support. Clusters provide a clear point of contact and are accountable for adequate and appropriate humanitarian assistance. Clusters create partnerships between international humanitarian actors, national and local authorities, and civil society.”[ix]
  • What are the “Sphere Standards”?
    • “The Sphere Handbook puts the right of disaster-affected populations to life with dignity, and to protection and assistance at the centre of humanitarian action. It promotes the active participation of affected populations as well as of local and national authorities, and is used to negotiate humanitarian space and resources with authorities in disaster-preparedness work. The minimum standards cover four primary life-saving areas of humanitarian aid: water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion; food security and nutrition; shelter, settlement and non-food items; and health action.”[x]
  • What are the “Oslo Guidelines”?
    • These are UN OCHA guidelines for improving the effectiveness of foreign military and civil defense assets in international disaster relief operations.[xi] While not binding, they often frame how international militaries will interact with humanitarian organizations during actual responses.
  • What is a “MITAM”?
    • USAID OFDA often employs a “Mission Tasking Matrix” to request specific support requirements from the U.S. military. This is currently in the form of an excel spreadsheet and prioritizes requests for military support.[xii]
  • What are the key military capabilities that are routinely needed to augment the humanitarian community’s response to large-scale disasters?
    • Airlift (both rotary wing and fixed wing)
    • Air traffic control
    • Communications
    • Engineering and construction
    • Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
    • Logistics and supply
    • Medical
    • Operational planning expertise
    • Relief supplies including water production and utilities
    • Sealift (depending on the geography of the affected nation)
    • Search and rescue
    • Security (with caveats)

David Polatty is a civilian professor at the U.S. Naval War College, where he teaches strategic and operational planning and leads the College of Operational & Strategic Leadership’s new “Civilian-Military Humanitarian Response Program.”  He is also a Captain in the Navy Reserve and currently commands NR U.S. European Command J3.  The views and opinions in this article are his own and do not represent the views or position of the U.S. Naval War College, U.S. Navy, or Department of Defense.

[i] http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=93802

[ii] http://www.unocha.org/where-we-work/emergencies

[iii] http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/10/14/cambio-climatico-mas-desplazados-que-un-conflicto-armado

[iv] http://archive.defense.gov/pubs/2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf

[v] http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~gorenbur/all%20responses.pdf

[vi] https://docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/OOM-humanitarianprinciples_eng_June12.pdf

[vii] https://docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/UN%20OCHA%20Guide%20for%20the%20Military%20v%201.0.pdf

[viii] https://docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/v.2.%20website%20overview%20tab%20link%201%20United%20Nations%20Humanitarian%20Civil-Military%20coordination%20(UN-CMCoord).pdf

[ix] http://www.unocha.org/what-we-do/coordination-tools/cluster-coordination

[x] http://www.sphereproject.org/handbook/

[xi] https://docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/Oslo%20Guidelines%20ENGLISH%20(November%202007).pdf

[xii] https://www.usnwc.edu/mocwarfighter/Link.aspx?=/Images/Articles/Issue1/MITAM_Example_(MOC_Warfighter).xls

Capability Analysis, Future Tech

A Proactive Approach to Deploying Naval Assets in Support of HA/DR Missions

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Naval HA/DR Topic Week

By Marjorie Greene

In our current information age, there appear to be many trends that are reshaping the naval approach to operations in support of HA/DR.  Among them are the following:

  • The  extremely broad availability of advanced information and communications technologies that place unprecedented powers of information creation, processing, and distribution in the hands of almost anyone who wants them – friend and foe alike;
  • The increasing complexity of missions as naval forces increasingly form partnerships with various civilian agencies and nongovernmental organizations;
  • The rising importance of decentralized operations;
  • The data deluge – the unprecedented volume of raw and processed information with which humans must contend.

All of these trends are reinforced by the rapid rise of social media.  Many naval analysts are conducting research that will give insight into how social networks can be exploited, especially during HA/DR operations.

Deeper Civil-Naval Integration Will Be Needed for HA/DR

To help frame and inform studies about the true value of “soft power” missions in the future, CSIS conducted a study in March, 2013 of “U.S. Navy Humanitarian Assistance in an Era of Austerity.” Chaired by Admiral Gary Roughead (USN Ret.), formerly Chief of Naval Operations, the study discusses the emergence of proactive humanitarian assistance and the need for deeper civil-military integration. This will be a challenge unless the military has the cultural knowledge to know whom to communicate with during these missions.

There are still major barriers to using social media for naval operations when warfighters respond to crises. For example, how can we use social networks for theater operations in such a way that the data can be combined with traditional command and control tools (usually classified) for naval operations? How can we overcome the considerable challenge posed by information overload? How can we reconcile the traditional decision-making of hierarchically oriented commanders with that of the civilian sector which is currently cooperative and collaborative?

Until recently, most basic research has focused on developing technical solutions to filter signals from noise in online social media. But this is starting to change.  There is less emphasis on techniques such as keywords to filter or classify social network data into meaningful elements and more emphasis on introducing new methodologies to come to a conclusion about the importance, utility, and meaning of the data.  

I have also been looking for alternative methodologies to evaluate the impact of incorporating information from social media streams in HA/DR operations. Analyses have shown that naval officers often lack the regional cultural knowledge to know whom to communicate with in HR/DR missions and must build working relationships with new groups of stakeholders and responders for each mission. Naval officers are required to develop the cultural connections to conduct the mission and the operational data shows that this process often takes too long. It may be that social media can facilitate these bonds and relationships.

Social media is changing the way information is diffused and decisions are made, especially for HA/DR missions when there is increased emphasis on commands to share critical information with government and nongovernmental organizations. As the community of interest grows during a crisis, it will be important to ensure that information is shared with appropriate organizations for different aspects of the mission such as evacuation procedures, hospital sites, location of seaports and airports, and other relevant topics. Social media can increase interoperability with non-military organizations and create a faster decision cycle. For example, studies have shown that even using traditional messaging, in the first 14 days of the U.S. Southern Command’s Haiti HA/DR mission, the community of interest grew to more than 1,900 users!

US Navy social media badge

Operational conditions vary considerably among incidents and coordination between different groups is often set up in an ad hoc manner. What is needed is a methodology that will help to find appropriate people with whom to share information for particular aspects of the mission during a wide range of events. A potential methodology might be to pro-actively establish relationships before a crisis occurs and a model for doing this is presented below. The model mimics the famous experiment of social psychologist Stanley Milgram, who provided the first empirical evidence of “six degrees of separation” when constructing paths from friend to friend as in a social network. 

The Stanley Milgram Experiments

In his famous series of experiments in the 1960’s, Stanley Milgram hypothesized that short paths can be found to quickly reach a target destination when an individual mails a letter to someone he or she knows on a first-name basis with the instructions to forward it on in this way toward the target as quickly as possible. The letter eventually moved from friend to friend, with the successful letters making the target in a median of six steps. This kind of experiment – constructing paths through social networks to distant target individuals – has been repeated by a number of other groups in subsequent decades.

The Model

In an approach similar to the Milgram experiments, I propose to use a unique message addressing rule which constructs social networks as events occur. It is an approach to intelligent agent-based computations that builds on behavioral models of animal colonies. These animal models show how colonies can detect and respond to unanticipated environmental changes without a centralized communications and control system. For example, the ant routing algorithm tells us that when an ant forages for food, it lays pheromones on a trail from source to destination.  When it arrives at its destination, it returns to the source following the same path it came from. If other ants have travelled the same path, the pheromone level is higher. Similarly, if other ants have not travelled along the path, the pheromone level is lower.  If every ant tries to choose the trail that has higher pheromone concentration, eventually the pheromones accumulate when multiple ants use the same path and evaporate when no ant passes.

Just as an ant leaves a chemical trace of its movement along a path, this simulated agent attaches traces of previous contacts by means of “digital pheromones” to each message that it sends. This is done by ensuring that all communicators along a path are kept aware of all previous communicators in the path. Suppose, for example, “A”, “B”, and “C” represent three naval warfighters using a social network. “A” starts a path on a particular topic by sending a message to “B”.  “B”, in turn, decides to send a message to “C” on the same topic.  Thus far, this is similar to the Milgram experiment, in which a “path” was created as a letter was forwarded from friend to friend until it reached a designated “target” in the network. However, in this case the target “emerges” from the interaction of A, B, and C. Another major difference is that a simple message addressing rule is used that asks each communicator to “copy” all previous communicators on a topic when it chooses to send a message on that topic.

The diagram below illustrates an analysis of an actual event in which A, B, C, D, and E (who are commands represented on the Y-axis) communicated using traditional messaging during a humanitarian assistance operation. The diagram shows that 7 messages were sent between the commands for this event. (An arrow from A to B means “A sent a message to B”.)  So, for example, message 1 is from command A to his subordinate Command B at 0021 and starts the message path asking for supplies to be sent to the area.  (Command A also sent this message to B’s subordinates “for information”.) In message 2, Command B addressed his own subordinate Command D, as well as Command E, a non-government organization, who ultimately sent the supplies. 

FireShot Capture 76 - (no subject) - dfi_ - https___mail.google.com_mail_u_0_#inbox_153c0e9961e8f7ed

In the event illustrated above, the third message from C to B asks the status of supplies. Because C was addressed in the first message, he knew of the request for supplies.  However, Command C was not copied in the 2nd message from B and did not know about this message. This is why I suggest that a message-addressing rule will be very important in the future use of social media.  It will achieve two major objectives:

  • It will guarantee that all warfighters along the path are automatically kept informed of previous communicators in the path on the topic. This provides the important feedback that socio-technologists have shown to be very important in the control of large-scale coordination during evolving operations;
  • It avoids keywords by defining a topic through communication that represents a path in a social network. This provides a way to deal with changing topics and an uncertain organizational structure in an evolving crisis.

Conclusion

I have developed an approach to coordinate activities during HA/DR missions as naval warfighters continue to see greater use of nonhierarchical communications for complex interactions. Collaboration with external partners is expected to grow when conducting HA/DR missions. If a social network of trusted coordinators were established before a crisis occurred, military and civilian commanders would already have working relationships with each other and could plan HA/DR missions in advance. Deeper integration could be achieved using social media to exchange information and the right group of trusted collaborators would be pro-actively defined.  Such an approach would assist in sustaining planned assistance in an era of global austerity.  

Marjorie Greene is a research analyst at CNA.  She has more than 25 years of management experience in both government and commercial organizations and has recently specialized in finding S&T solutions for the U.S. Marine Corps.  She is active in both the Military Operations Research Society and IEEE, where she serves on the Medical Technology Policy Committee and the Bioterrorism Working Group.

Featured Image Source: Open DNS Security Labs Visualization of Canada’s Internet Infrastructure

Capability Analysis, South America

Aligning HA/DR Mission Parameters with US Navy Maritime Strategy

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Naval HA/DR Topic Week

By CAPT John C. Devlin (ret.) and CDR John J. Devlin 

The US Navy has a long history of providing Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HA/DR) to our partner nations. These operations are a vital part of US Navy maritime strategy by ensuring regional stability through building partner nation capacity and expanding our sphere of influence. When successful, HA/DR missions prevent atrocities and armed conflict. Admiral Mullen in his 2011 National Military Strategy said, “preventing wars is as important as winning them, and far less costly.”1 The Departments of Defense and State need complementary strategies to export America’s greatness and win the peace rather than win the war.  With the rampant expansion of barbaric totalitarian ideologies, collaboration is in America’s best interest. CNO Admiral John Richardson expressed this more succinctly at the recent Future of War Conference: “I want to be the best at not fighting Russia and China.”2

For this reason, the operational structure, manpower utilization, and assessments of impact for HA/DR missions will need to be studied and refined. Numerous articles have been written on CIMSEC and elsewhere concerning the paucity of US Navy ships and the extraordinary costs to build and maintain them. We have read about the rebalance to Asia where the Chinese are expanding along the nine-dash line and the pivot back to the Middle East where Russia, unopposed, began conducting an air campaign in Syria, followed by the Iran’s reneging on the nuclear deal before the ink was dry. America needs to grow allies rather than trying to project military might in a global full court press.

In the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility, both Russia and China strive to establish footholds of influence. Since 2005, China has invested $100 billion dollars in foreign aid to the region, while Russia has courted leadership in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.3 To counter these activities, USSOUTHCOM engages in continuous partner nation capacity building bilateral and multilateral exercises. These exercises are augmented by humanitarian and civic assistance programs. In the USSOUTHCOM AOR, the biennial Operation Continuing Promise, delivered by the USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) platform, represents the major medical-civil engagement activity.

What is the ideal platform from which to deliver the HA/DR mission package?

USNS Comfort and her sister ship Mercy (T-AH 19) are large ships with an enormous operating cost.  Both are converted San Clemente class oil tankers whose keels were laid over 40 years ago. Maintenance of the vessels is costly, their suitability debatable, and their funding is continually in jeopardy.4 Additionally, the vessels’ drafts are 33 feet, forcing them to anchor well offshore in most locations, transporting personnel by two unstable organic tenders and transporting equipment by helicopter. The Continuing Promise 2015 Directorate of Medical Services Lessons Learned identifies transportation delays as a significant negative impact on mission package delivery.5 Many feel that Comfort’s value, impact-to-operating cost ratio, is rapidly declining and this is reflected in the Navy’s 2016 budget reduction of 150 full operating status per diem days for USNS Comfort.6

Perhaps linking this mission with scheduled deployments would be more cost effective and yield greater regional impact. Global fleet stations (GFS) have been proposed by Captain Wayne Porter.  “Global fleet stations were to operate in cooperation with host nations, and would provide basing facilities for U.S. federal agencies and nongovernment organizations… as a way to shape regional security by using capabilities that would normally have been considered support functions.”1 A pilot GFS was initiated in April of 2007 using the high speed HSV 2 Swift tasked from USSOUTHCOM. The next year Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division published a paper titled:  Global Fleet Station: GFS Station Ship Concept. These global fleet stations are akin to the new Afloat Sea Basing ships. They support LCACs and other amphibious craft and aircraft. Expanding their role to scheduled humanitarian assistance tasks might be in the best interest for regional security and expansion of US sphere of influence. Other options include utilizing LHD and LHA platforms. These amphibious landing ships possess hospital bed capacity for hundreds of patients, including critical care beds, and up to four operating rooms.7 Both the GFS Ship Station concept and amphibious landing ship option utilize air-cushion landing craft (LCAC).

LCAC
LCAC Delivering Disaster Relief Supplies in Sumatra after the 2005 Tsunami.
Air Cushioned Vehicles can Access 70% of the World's Shorelines even after a Disaster.
Air Cushioned Vehicles can Access 70% of the World’s Shorelines even after a disaster.

Use of the LCAC would ameliorate identified mission inefficiencies associated with the use of existing organic tenders and locally procured commercial tenders. The LCAC can operate in 70% of the earth’s littoral regions.  It does not require pier-side support. It can carry CONEX containers outfitted as mobile clinics to perform routine clinical procedures or more advanced mobile surgical suites. Using the LCAC in this role would necessarily mean a greater number of them, which could be converted to their traditional amphibious mission when necessary.

How are personnel most effectively leveraged to accomplish the HA/DR mission?

According to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the “principle objective” of US foreign aid is “the encouragement and sustained support of the people of developing countries in their efforts to acquire the knowledge and resources essential to development, and to build the economic, political, and social institutions that will improve the quality of their lives.” This principle objective harmonizes well with the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability, essentially the consensus document which informs non-governmental humanitarian activities.8 One of the principle mechanisms by which USNS Comfort personnel contribute to partner nation capacity building is through subject matter expert exchanges.

Subject matter expert exchanges (SMEEs) are collaborative efforts where physicians, nurses, educators, and other healthcare domain experts meet with partner nation peers to discuss common goals, best practices, and perspectives unique to each nation. In the end, partner nations learn about technology and practices that may improve healthcare delivery in their country and US personnel learn about cultural and regional context of healthcare delivery, improving future interoperability for contingencies. Ultimately, SMEEs build partner nation capacity and, therefore, adhere to the “principle objective” for US foreign aid while fostering goodwill and facilitating Navy familiarity. SMEE participants are often leaders and decision-makers in their own right or are closely associated with their country’s leadership, thereby, quickening our sphere of influence.  

U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Suzanne Maldarelli, right, a medical officer, conducts a subject matter expert exchange on advanced cardiac life support with Lissette Recinos, a public health nurse, at a hospital in Toledo, Belize, June 27, 2014, during Southern Partnership Station (SPS) 2014. SPS is an annual deployment of U.S. ships to the U.S. Southern Command's area of responsibility in the Caribbean and Latin America. The exercise involves information sharing with navies, coast guards and civilian services throughout the region. MC3 Andrew Schneider.
U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Suzanne Maldarelli, right, a medical officer, conducts a subject matter expert exchange on advanced cardiac life support with Lissette Recinos, a public health nurse, at a hospital in Toledo, Belize, June 27, 2014, during Southern Partnership Station (SPS) 2014. SPS is an annual deployment of U.S. ships to the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility in the Caribbean and Latin America. The exercise involves information sharing with navies, coast guards and civilian services throughout the region. MC3 Andrew Schneider.

Manpower to fulfill the partner-nation requested SMEEs is drawn from the same manpower pool as that which supports the medical engagement sites and surgical activities. Metrics reported up the chain of command include numbers of patients seen at medical engagement sites, number of procedures performed, number of subject matter expert exchanges occurring, and number of construction projects completed. However, these individual activities do not receive equal attention. The progression of USSOUTHCOM public affairs newsroom publications demonstrates the drift in focus away from capacity building and toward short-term successes. By the midway point of Operation Continuing Promise 2015, public affairs had stopped highlighting the number of community assistance projects and expert exchanges, showcasing only the numbers of patients seen and surgeries performed.9 At any given time, less than 10% of provider manpower was leveraged for capacity-building through subject matter expert exchange while the majority was dedicated to onboard surgical support and direct patient care ashore at medical engagement sites.  This manpower distribution is not in alignment with the principle objective of US foreign aid and sacrifices long-term impact for short-term gains. Future missions should focus on SMEEs in lieu of patients seen with the requisite manpower distribution.

How do we determine the success of HA/DR missions?

US medical-civil engagements foster collaborative solutions to mutual problems and strengthen regional partnerships. In this sense, US Department of Defense medical-civil activities are a form of battlespace-shaping. However, what performance metrics can we employ to determine success and impact in military global health engagement?

Identifying the most meaningful performance metrics has been elusive. A 2009 USAID critique of its evaluation practices found that only 9% of the 296 evaluations utilized an experimental design with randomization and control-group comparison.10 Developing metrics for Department of Defense humanitarian activities has been equally elusive. Some have suggested tracking indicators of general health such as sanitation, pediatric injury rates, and access to dental care.1,11 Unfortunately, improvements in these indicators of healthcare are difficult to attribute to an individual military operation.  

However, use of civilian marketing influence metrics may inform the military’s evaluation of humanitarian and civil engagement activities. As opposed to patients seen and procedures performed, measures of effort, defense strategists and military planners should focus on post-operation measures of impact. Social media and internet surveillance are excellent tools by which to measure success. Civilian marketing experts evaluate “brand” and “influencer” metrics to determine if resources allocated to a particular marketing campaign yield sufficient market return.12 Similarly, defense analysts and/or our host nation counterparts could partner with social media providers and other information technology professionals to determine several metrics:

  • Using IP address origins, determine how much message traffic is generated in general and to US healthcare or humanitarian agency websites specifically after a medical-civil health engagement concludes.
  • Identify if there is a surge in how many times the US is mentioned online.
  • Track how many white papers or fact sheets are downloaded from US aid agencies or healthcare websites.

Additionally, communication with USAID could determine how many new inquiries to State Department representatives in the partner nation are received and how many new medical-civil engagement projects were organized after USNS Comfort’s departure.

These metrics better indicate long-term impact of humanitarian missions, degree of influence gained after these missions, and could better inform decisions regarding how frequently a recurring mission should return to a location. Although social media metrics are limited as they only represent areas of Latin America where internet is relative accessible, the region is an emerging market and internet accessibility is predicted to expand exponentially in the near future.13

Conclusion

The Navy’s HA/DR missions in general and Operation Continuing Promise specifically will play a larger role in cultivating regional influence during peacetime and battlespace-shaping for future combat operations. For this reason, the operational structure, manpower utilization, and assessments of impact for HA/DR missions should be studied and refined. Use of alternative operational platforms, more flexible manpower allocation, and alternative metrics of success could improve mission accomplishment and potentially supplement task organizations in times of war.

John C. Devlin, CAPT (ret), USN, Director of Navy Programs, ISPA Technology, Inc.

John J. Devlin, MD, CDR, USN, Emergency Physician / Officer-in-Charge, Medical Engagement Sites, Operation Continuing Promise 2015.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or the United States Government.

References

  1. Haynes PD, Toward a new maritime strategy. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2015.
  2. McGrath B, “’You’re gonna need a bigger boat’: Principles for getting the US Navy right,” March 14, 2016. Available at http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/youre-gonna-need-a-bigger-boat-principles-for-getting-the-u-s-navy-right/, accessed March 20, 2016.
  3. Kelly JF, Posture Statement of General John F. Kelly, USMC, Commander, US Southern Command, March 12, 2015. Available at http://www.southcom.mil/newsroom/Documents/SOUTHCOM_POSTURE_STATEMENT_FINAL_2015.pdf, accessed March 20, 2016.
  4. Cahn D, “No comfort: Cuts leave hospital ship at Norfolk pier,” August 3, 2013. Available at http://pilotonline.com/news/military/no-comfort-cuts-leave-hospital-ship-at-norfolk-pier/article_00e6e9ac-dcc5-59c1-9833-14f1c49e16bb.html, accessed March 20, 2016.
  5. Continuing Promise 2015 DMS Lessons Learned document, September 21, 2015.
  6. Department of the Navy Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Estimates, Operation and Maintenance: Justification of Estimates, February 2015. Available at http://www.secnav.navy.mil/fmc/fmb/Documents/16pres/OMN_Vol1_book.pdf, accessed March 20, 2016.
  7. http://fas.org/man/dod-101/navy/unit/dept-lhd-3.htm#MEDICAL, accessed March 20, 2016.
  8. Core Humanitarian Standard. Group URD, HAP International, People in Aid, and the Sphere Project, 2014. Available at http://www.corehumanitarianstandard.org/files/files/Core%20Humanitarian%20Standard%20-%20English.pdf, accessed March 20, 2016.
  9. http://www.southcom.mil/newsroom/Pages/Continuing-Promise-2015.aspx. Accessed March 20, 2016.
  10. Trends in Development Evaluation Theory, Policies and Practices, USAID, August 17, 2009.
  11. Haims MC et al., “Developing a prototype handbook for monitoring and evaluating Department of Defense humanitarian projects.” RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, 2011.
  12. Brown D, “Six Easy Metrics to Measure an Influence Marketing Campaign”, available at http://dannybrown.me/2014/06/03/six-easy-metrics-to-measure-an-influence-marketing-campaign/, accessed March 20, 2016.
  13. Americas Quarterly, “Sixty Percent of Latin Americans Will Have Internet Access in 2016,” May 8, 2015. Available at http://www.americasquarterly.org/content/sixty-percent-latin-americans-will-have-internet-access-2016, accessed 3/20/2016

Featured Image: During a five-month deployment to Southeast Asia, medical teams and crew return to hospital ship USNS Mercy via one of two utility boats following a day of providing medical care to the Zamboanga region of the Philippines. Photo by MCC Edward Martens.

Capability Analysis, Current Operations

Applying Interagency Concepts from Domestic Disaster Response to Foreign HA/DR

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Naval HA/DR Topic Week

By Robert C. Rasmussen

A Warm Sunny Day

It is a warm and sunny October evening in Cilegon, Indonesia. As the city of 416,000 moves through its afternoon rush, a strong shake is felt.  It stops after two minutes, and then a loud explosion is heard coming from the west, with a large mushroom cloud enveloping the sky. Traffic on National Highway 3 is at a standstill.  People are getting out of their cars trying to determine what has just happened. Some of them, realizing that the explosion has come from the Sunda Strait, abandon their vehicles, and start running south up a hill, as a thirty meter tsunami appears on the horizon heading towards the coast. Those who survive the tsunami are then enveloped in a cloud of burning ash.

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Cilegon, Indonesia. Source: City of Cilegon

Several hours later, local authorities are helpless, and the Indonesian military is completely overwhelmed.  Reinforcements are being flown in from other parts of the country. The low-lying areas of Cilegon are completely destroyed, along with more than 1,500 towns and villages in both Banten and Lampung Provinces. At least five million people are estimated to be dead. The Prime Minister accepts an offer of aid from the Ambassador of the United States. At this point, the close to ten million more people who survived the disaster lack access to food, clean water, or housing.  Furthermore, weather reports are showing that the first storm of the monsoon season will reach the affected area within the next 72 hours. Meanwhile, an Amphibious Ready Group transiting the Malacca Straits receives orders to sail to Cilegon. Its orders also indicate that the ARG Commander is to assume command of the Joint Task Force being formed from U.S. military personnel.

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1888 Lithograph of 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa: Parker & Coward. Source: Wikipedia.

This disaster has happened before. The last major explosion of Krakatoa, a volcanic island situated in the Sunda Strait, occurred in 1883, causing a pyroclastic flow with a 50 km radius, and sent a thirty meter high tsunami across the Sunda Strait in all directions. The noise of the explosion was heard as far away as Alice Springs, Australia, and Mauritius.  Skeletons found laying on pumice were found washing ashore in East Africa for several years afterwards. The official death toll was around thirty-six thousand. The area around Krakatoa has a significantly higher population today, and major eruptions of the mountain have been recorded as occurring between every 100-250 years.[1] It is not uncommon for disasters of a large magnitude to be followed by a subsequent event that exacerbate the conditions for survival, such as monsoon events, like Winter Storm Athena that followed a month after Hurricane Sandy.[2]

Introduction

In the scenario described above it is very likely that the assistance of the United States will be requested by the host nation, and it is very likely that in an archipelagic nation, such as Indonesia, naval forces will be the first to arrive. It is also distinctly possible that a Naval or Marine officer will be appointed as Joint Task Force Commander. The doctrine on how to respond to disasters or provide humanitarian assistance depends on where a Joint Task Force is responding and whether or not it is inside or outside the United States. 

For Domestic Disaster Response/Humanitarian Assistance missions there is a set framework in the form of the Incident Command System (ICS), the National Incident Management System (NIMS), Multiagency Coordination System (MACS), and National Response Framework (NRF). These include a common operating language and procedures that allow for integration of responding agencies and unity of effort.[3] The major proponent of doctrine for domestic response within the Department of Defense is U.S. Northern Command.[4] The military forces that most commonly exercise these missions are within state military forces such as the Army & Air National Guard, as well as State Defense Forces[5] and Naval Militias in those states that have such organizations.[6]

When it comes to Foreign Disaster Response and Humanitarian Assistance, there is no common operating language, procedures, and organizational structures.  Instead, the doctrine that is put forward for foreign response displays the common organizational structures needed for integration – namely where a commander should deploy Liaison Officers. However, this doctrine does not integrate common operating language and procedures to better facilitate the mission. Meanwhile, other agencies of the Federal Government, especially U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, not only utilize ICS and MACS in their response doctrine, but teach that doctrine to host nation response forces.[7]

Current Doctrine on Defense Support to Civil Authorities

During a domestic disaster response/humanitarian assistance operation, utilized doctrine focuses on Defense Support to Civil Authorities (DSCA) that is largely controlled by U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM).  The design of the DSCA mission is largely built around supporting the United States’ federalist system. The most important laws relating to this doctrine are the Stafford Act of 1988, the Insurrection Act of 1807, and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1869. 

The concept here is that all disasters are local disasters first. Under the Stafford Act and other supporting state legislation, when local governments are responding to a disaster and their resources become overwhelmed, they must first request assistance from surrounding counties under Emergency Mutual Assistance Compacts (EMAC).  If those resources become overwhelmed, a County Executive may request the Governor to declare a State of Emergency, which then allows the Governor to allocate funding and deploy resources to support the affected area. In turn, if a state’s resources become overwhelmed, then the Governor will request EMAC resources from other states. If those resources become overwhelmed, a Governor may request the President to declare a Federal State of Emergency, which allows federal resources to be allocated to the response. During a State of Emergency declared by a Governor, State Military Forces may be utilized in the response – during a Federal State of Emergency, National Guard forces operating under Title 32 USC (Militia of the United States) orders may be utilized.[8]

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TF Blackheart Team 5 (Joint NY ARNG/NY State Guard Platoon) at the end of Operation Hurricane Sandy Phase IV, 16 December 2012). Photo taken at FOB Floyd (Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, NY), Source: Author.

Under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1869, there are limits to how the Armed Forces of the United States operating under Title 10 USC may be utilized for domestic response missions. [9]  Title 10 forces cannot be used for direct response or humanitarian assistance, but can be used for various support activities.   For example, during the response to Hurricane Sandy, Marines from the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group conducted an amphibious landing at Breezy Point, Far Rockaway, Queens, and began distributing meals and heater packs.[10] However, they were later withdrawn due to issues with the Posse Comitatus Act.  Around the same time Joint Task Force Sandy (New York Army National Guard 53rd Troop Command) troops began arriving.[11] Meanwhile, the U.S. Army 19th Engineer Battalion’s Headquarters Company and two Engineer Companies deployed from Fort Knox, Kentucky, where they conducted pumping operations to mitigate flooding of twenty-seven stories of subterranean infrastructure across New York City, and the 249th Engineer Battalion provided prime power services, along with general support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ New York District.[12] 

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A Regular Army soldier from the 249th Engineer Battalion (Prime Power), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, turns on a generator in Lakehurst, NJ, after Hurricane Sandy. Source: U.S. Army.
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Marines from the 26th MEU conduct an amphibious landing in the Breezy Point neighborhood of Far Rockaway, Queens, NY. Source: Department of Defense.

The provisions of the Insurrection Act of 1807 allow for the exceptions where Title 10 troops may be used for response to a disaster.  In these provisions a disaster would have to lead to law and order to break down.  Since all disasters are local, first Title 32 troops- both in the state of disaster, as well as those called in under EMAC must be unable to enforce order, and then federal troops can be utilized after the President has declared a Federal State of Emergency.[13] A great example of Title 10 troops being deployed to enforce law and order after a natural disaster was when the 82nd Airborne Division was deployed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  This occurred primarily due to the failures of the initial response, and the fact that half of the Louisiana Army National Guard (256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team), was deployed to Iraq at the time.[14]

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Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division conducting Search & Rescue Operations in flooded sections of New Orleans. Source: Department of Defense.

In order to facilitate the integration of military forces at all levels, the common operating language of ICS, MACS, and NRF, are taught to National Guard troops, and troops assigned to U.S. Northern Command.  Incident Command System is organization at the tactical and operational level that allows for personnel from multiple agencies to integrate into mission-specific organizations to facilitate unity of effort- led by an Incident Commander.  For example, during the response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, an ICS organization was created utilizing all agencies of the U.S. Government and the Incident Commander was Admiral Thad Allen, USCG (Ret).[15] 

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ICS Organization Chart. Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Multiagency Coordination System (MACS) is the policy working group of the response. Such a group is facilitated by an Emergency Operations Center, and consists of policymakers with the ability to make strategic decisions.  Their mission is to implement policies that assist the ICS organization responding to the disaster to better accomplish their mission. Conversely the National Response Framework (NRF) is a document that establishes agency responsibilities and roles in a variety of disaster responses.[16]  

Current Doctrine for Foreign Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Response            

The doctrine for Foreign Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Response is similar to the doctrine for Defense Support to Civil Authorities, but there is no common operating language or framework. The doctrine first looks at how a host nation requests assistance and how a mission is assigned to military forces in an area.  When a disaster occurs, the host nation government requests assistance from the United States through the Ambassador. The Ambassador, through the Department of State, provides that request to the President, who approves or denies it. From that point the lead agency for coordination is the U.S. Agency for International Development through its Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, which is similar to the role FEMA plays in domestic response. 

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Members of USAID’s Disaster Assistance Response Team loading aid boxes onto a U.S. Navy Seahawk Helicopter at Tacloban Airport on 17 November 2013. Source: U.S. Agency for International Development.

From this point it is determined if defense support will be needed for the mission- if so it is requested through the Department of Defense, who in turn tasks the mission to the appropriate Geographic Combatant Command.  In turn, the Geographic Combatant Commander will appoint a JTF Commander, who will provide resources.  Once the Joint Task Force arrives on site, it must integrate with other agencies of the U.S. Government, host nation forces, and any International/NGO forces.  How that integration occurs is completely up to ad-hocracy, coming up with an organizational structure on the fly.[17] 

The doctrine primarily focuses on where to deploy Liaison Officers.  It recommends deployment to a series of coordination centers for: the host nation Government, the U.S. Embassy, UN Country Team/Mission Headquarters, Information Centers, Intelligence Centers, and the list goes on.  Most importantly, the focus is that the U.S. Government Joint/Interagency Task Force responding to this disaster has to respond immediately, but go through the entire process of integration and develop a common operating language simultaneously. 

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Marines in Manila, Philippines, loading pallets of USAID relief boxes onto a KC-130 to be delivered to victims of Super Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban on 15 November 2013. Source: U.S. Agency for International Development.

Recommendations for ICS Doctrine in Foreign Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Response

ICS doctrine should be adapted to Foreign Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Response, in order to help increase the efficiency of U.S. Armed Services response to foreign disasters.  ICS is already being utilized by civilian U.S. Government agencies for their response doctrine, especially the USAID, which is the federal coordinating agency for foreign disaster response. The federalist system of disaster response currently utilized in statutes and doctrine is similar to foreign response. The United States is after all a supranational organization of fifty sovereign states (who have given up little chunks of their sovereignty).  Each state has its own government structure and security forces (including military forces) that operate under the orders of a Governor, and the United States Government cannot intervene without the request of that Governor (except for limited circumstances). Such a system can be in place for international response.

A basic ICS education should be taught to all service members who may be deployed on a foreign HA/DR mission. This is a very simple syllabus, and could be taught over short periods of time, and would include curriculum already available through the FEMA Independent Study Program. The various centers where LNOs can be deployed can simply be defined as Emergency Operations Centers, and JTF Commanders can integrate at a minimum with other U.S. Government Agencies in an ICS Organizational HQ. The Ambassador, USAID Response Team, and Global Combatant Command Response Team can serve as a MAC Group for U.S. Government Response, and integrate with the Host Nation’s policymaking group. A Joint Interagency Task Force at the Global Combatant Command can serve as a reach back center for the MAC Group, and in turn reach back to National Command Authority in Washington. 

In order to facilitate an integrated doctrine for both Defense Support to Civil Authorities and foreign HA/DR, it would be important to centralize proponency for that doctrine. The best place to do so would be within the Political-Military Affairs Branch of the J-5 Directorate (Strategic Plans & Policy) of the Joint Staff. At a minimum, integrating this common operating language and structure into the doctrine for Foreign HA/DR will allow U.S. Military Forces to integrate with other U.S. Government agencies.  Domestic and foreign disaster assistance should utilize doctrine that is built around integrating military forces into a whole of government response, whether or not they are forces from the National Guard under state control integrating with state and federal agencies or federal troops integrating with host nation response agencies during a disaster.

Conclusion

Both domestic and foreign Disaster Response/Humanitarian Assistance missions are essentially the same mission, but simply occur in different spaces. Both missions should have the same doctrine, in order to help U.S. military forces integrate with other response forces quickly in order to more efficiently respond to disasters. Integrating the ICS, MACS, and NRF doctrine from FEMA into the training for active duty forces that may perform HA/DR abroad will help achieve the goals of that mission. 

Robert C. Rasmussen is a Second Lieutenant in the New York State Guard, and currently serves as the Aide-de-Camp to the Commanding General of the New York State Guard.  He holds a MA in International Relations and a CAS in Security Studies from Syracuse University, and BA in International Relations & Geography from SUNY Geneseo. He served on State Active Duty in support of Operation Hurricane Sandy from November 2012-January 2013.  His views are his own and do not reflect those of the New York State Division of Military & Naval Affairs.

[1] Dunk, Marcus,  “Will Krakatoa Rock the World Again?  Last Time It Killed Thousands and Changed the Weather for Five Years, Now It Could Be Even More Deadlier…”  Daily Mail Online,  31 July 2009, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1203028/Will-Krakatoa-rock-world-Last-time-killed-thousands-changed-weather-years-deadlier.html.

[2] Author participated in disaster relief operations attached to Task Force Blackheart (642nd Aviation Support Battalion, NY ARNG) and Team Sandy (Joint Task Force Empire Shield) from 19 November 2012-22 January 2013.

[3] Federal Emergency Management Agency, “National Incident Management System,” https://www.fema.gov/national-incident-management-system. 

[4] Department of Defense, “Joint Publication 3-28: Defense Support to Civil Authorities,” http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp3_28.pdf, 31 July 2013.

[5] Department of Defense Inspector General, “Evaluation of Department of Defense Interaction with State Defense Forces,” 30 April 2014, http://www.dodig.mil/pubs/documents/DODIG-2014-065.pdf. 

[6] McNeil, Deano, “Naval Militia: an Overlooked Domestic Emergency Response Option,” In Homeland Security, 30 April 2015, http://inhomelandsecurity.com/naval-militia-an-overlooked-domestic-emergency-response-option/. 

[7] U.S. Agency for International Development, “Disaster Risk Reduction- East Asia & the Pacific,” 30 September 2012, https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/eastasia_drr_fs01_09-30-2012.pdf. 

[8] Federal Emergency Management Agency, “IS-700: Introduction to the National Incident Management System,”  31 October 2013, https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-702.a. 

[9] National Guard Association of the United States, “NGAUS Fact Sheet: Understanding the Guard’s Duty Status,” http://www.ngaus.org/sites/default/files/Guard%20Statues.pdf.

[10] II Marine Expeditionary Force, “Marines Land at Breezy Point,” 9 November 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZhZFRRgtWg.

[11] Author served with the New York State Guard Element of Headquarters, Joint Task Force Sandy from 3-19 November 2012.

[12] U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New York District, “Army Corps Responds to Hurricane Sandy,” New York District Times, January 2013, http://www.nan.usace.army.mil/Portals/37/docs/nydistricttimes/2013/New%20York%20District%20Times%20Hurricane%20Sandy%20Edition.pdf. 

[13] Brinkerhoff, John, “Understanding the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act,” Defense Technical Information Center, 2008, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a494995.pdf. 

[14] Department of the Army, “The Army Responds to Hurricane Katrina,” 10 September 2010,  http://www.army.mil/article/45029/The_Army_response_to_Hurricane_Katrina/. 

[15] Marine Log, “Thad Allen Named National Incident Commander for Deepwater Horizon Spill,” 1 May 2010,  http://www.marinelog.com/DOCS/NEWSMMIX/2010may00010.html.

[16] Federal Emergency Management Agency, “IS-701: NIMS Multiagency Coordination System,”  12 October 2010, https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-701.a. 

[17] Department of Defense, “Joint Publication 3-29: Foreign Humanitarian Assistance,” 3 January 2014, http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp3_29.pdf. 

Featured Image: Soldiers assist residents displaced by Hurricane Sandy in Hoboken, N.J., Oct. 31, 2012. The soldiers are assigned to the New Jersey National Guard. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Joseph Davis.

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.