Description of the U.S. Resilience Summit 2008

2008 U.S. Resilience Summit

Rapid Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Management
Associated with
Large-scale Social Crisis and Global Change

October 23, 2008
Cosmos Club
Washington, DC National Capital Region

For several decades, top U.S. and international scientists have been tracking global trends indicating potential challenges emerging in the early to mid-21st Century to the sustainable security of the United States and its broader community of nations. From the earliest models focusing on these issues, such as econometric models and world simulations stemming from Forrester's work at MIT, the implications for the health and well-being of U.S. citizens and the populous of other nations, looked potentially dire in the 2030 to 2040 time frame. Models indicated probable systems crashes in the U.S. and around the world, during the first half of the 21st Century, with massive human die-offs in the United States and around the world following collapses in biodiversity – if key trends were not reversed. Unfortunately, the trends of the past 30 years have validated, rather than disproved, many of the threats and vulnerabilities associated with emerging large-scale social crises linked to systemic global changes in these models and simulations.

Projections from the World3 model and other global change simulations in the late 20th Century, which considered most known global physical inputs, such as exponential population expansion, rapid increase in use of hydrocarbon fuels and other non-renewable resources and over-filling environmental sinks, (only one of which is carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – leading to now well-recognized human-induced climate change), indicated the impact of these global changes would begin to be obvious to citizens as well as political leaders in the first decade of the 21st Century. It was projected in the 1970s that irrefutable evidence of the risks and vulnerabilities associated with global changes would show up in the early 21st Century as increases in severe storms, massive food shortages, climate change, and concerns over the environmental consequences and availability of economically viable “fossil fuels.” The rapid increase in financial claims challenging the economic viability of the insurance industry and other businesses are only one of many data sources. However, the insurance industry's negative economic forecasts since the early 21st Century, now seems to be penetrating the reticence of business and governmental leaders to face questions of the viability of U.S. institutions in light of the increased probability of large-scale adverse events.

For those who debate honestly whether human activities are to blame for rapid global changes, and whether ecological carrying capacities are being over-extended, one thing is certain -- the increasing probability and severity of natural disasters, human-induced events, and other catastrophic events potentially impacting the sustainable security of the United States and its communities of allied nations can no longer be ignored. The risks and vulnerabilities stemming from adverse events leading to social crises (such as September 11, 2001, the anthrax attacks by rogue members of the U.S. bioweapons industry, the Indian Ocean Basin tsunami, the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the increasing threat of a pandemic, and the current and emerging international food and water crises) are accelerating at a rate that now requires new systems. These new systems acknowledge and address these factors amongst other strategic threats to the United States and its allies. Even with the evidence of global changes, the National Security Council and many U.S. agencies have yet to implement innovations sufficient to face the increasing frequency and severity of complex disasters, emerging social crises and global changes that threaten systems essential to the stability of the U.S. and the broader community of nations.

The U.S. Resilience Summit 2008, focusing on Rapid Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Management, will bring together (under Chatham House rules) top U.S. and world leaders in emerging rapid response systems, capable of addressing large-scale systems discontinuities associated with social crisis and global change, which could threaten the sustainable security of the United States and its allies. On October 23, 2008, these leaders will convene at the Cosmos Club in Washington D.C. to review new systems capabilities resonant with the U.S. Defense Department's and other next generation strategic security management paradigms, such as Agility, Focus, and Convergence, augmenting the limitations of older, less responsive, command and control systems. In addition, the DODs’ and other U.S. agencies’ new doctrines regarding the prevention and management of large-scale social crises (including war, but primarily focusing on complex operations other than war), impacting rapid humanitarian assistance and disaster management, will be discussed and critiqued. Members of both U.S. Presidential candidates’ (McCain and Obama) transition teams addressing issues of national security, humanitarian assistance, and disaster management are being invited to the Summit, along with key thought leaders building and testing new Agility, Focus, and Convergence systems pertinent to an experimental multi-agency unit proposed to be headed up by a small team at the National Security Council.

Thinking back from a hypothetical event occurring on March 9th, 2009, the Summit participants will identify mission critical gaps and planning objectives. They will be exposed to attributes of an Agility, Focus, and Convergence system engaging rapid humanitarian assistance and disaster management intelligent social networks with the capability of organizing 10,000 key experts in a non-hierarchical, non-controlled system addressing mission critical gaps in crises potentially threatening the interests of the United States and the broader community of nations. Starting the week of September 22, 2008, catalytic seed articles will be posted on the DKMS (Disaster Knowledge Management System) to enable discourse leading up to the Summit. During November and December 2008, the President-elect's transition team will be invited to review the recommendations of the October 2008 U.S. Resilience Summit before the Summit Report is released in late January during a public event in Washington D.C.

The question now is not if actions can be made, or should be made, by the U.S. to become less impacted by current and emerging global changes. The focus now is on the specific tools and methodologies that enable the U.S. and allied nations to immediately engage and test nascent Agility, Focus, and Convergence systems during exercises and emergent real world events, in order to grow resilient network capabilities sufficient to anticipate, prevent, and manage emergent risks and vulnerabilities threatening U.S. interests at home and abroad.

It is time to increase the resilience of U.S. institutions, the American public, and their communities. Not only for the health and well-being of Americans, and their communities and institutions, but also in a way that reduces risks and vulnerabilities for people and their communities around the world. The international community can benefit from the leadership of the United States on issues of sustainability and resilience. Given that other nations and their publics will share responsibility in addressing emerging global changes and associated social crises, the architectures of these systems will greatly benefit from emerging open source approaches that will be made available to vulnerable communities worldwide through U.S. and international institutions.

Operational systems enabling key U.S. decision-makers to competently address large-scale social crises and global change will immediately benefit the next U.S. Presidential Administration, independent of political party affiliation. Demonstrating awareness of and competence in systems that address the potential threats associated with global change and large-scale social crises will require bipartisan collaboration. The next Administration, by engaging these new FAC systems at the National Security Council (with appropriate links to A teams in the White House and key agencies and institutions throughout American society as well as associated institutions). Through emerging FAC-based systems, rapid humanitarian assistance and disaster management capabilities (that have emerged during the past decade) can, through collaborative initiatives, reach a level of operational importance during 2009. Key thought leaders and operational experts from around the United States and around the world are being engaged through the Resilience Summits in 2008 and 2009 to coalesce and expand these capabilities.

In engaging new tools and methodologies improving resilience, the next U.S. President's Administration can demonstrate its early and aggressive position of leadership on national security issues, including some of the large-scale complex, and sometimes seemingly intractable, problems now worrying the American public and humanity worldwide regarding potential social crises and global change. The success of the new Administration will depend upon adopting new approaches that the American public and U.S. allies perceive as competently addressing emerging social crises and global change threatening the security of the United States and the world community. The October 2008 Resilience Summit will provide mechanisms for optimizing the adoption of viable initiatives at the White House and the National Security Council level regarding the effective application of next generation tools and methodologies enabling the prevention and management of large-scale social crises and global change issues.

For more information, contact Dr. Michael McDonald at: Michael.D.McDonald@mac.com