Access National Security News HERE.

Access Korean News HERE.

National Security News Content:

1. Untangling the Gordian Knot that is Irregular Warfare
2. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 8, 2023
3. Exposing the Chinese Spy Balloon Fleet
4. In Its Push for an Intelligence Edge, China’s Military Turned to Balloons
5. Extended Deterrence, and Adjusting for the Multipolar Environment: The Way Forward
6.  Out of Alignment - What the War in Ukraine Has Revealed About Non-Western Powers
7. How a band of Ukraine civilians helped seal Russia's biggest defeat
8. Ukraine Can Achieve a Strategic Win over Russia. The West Must Step Up
9.  What Russia Got Wrong
10. China's Spy Balloon Proves the U.S. Homeland Is Vulnerable
11. New Futures Command chief shifts main effort to designing Army of 2040
12. The Somme in the Sky: Lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian Air War
13. Why it’s time to control the donkey trade
14. SpaceX didn't intend that Starlink be 'weaponized' by Ukraine: Shotwell

Korean News Content:

1. Kim Jong Un puts daughter front and center at lavish military banquet
2. North displays enough ICBM launchers to defeat U.S. missile defense
3. North Korea holds military parade to celebrate Korean People's Army
4. S. Korean team rescues 5 survivors in quake-hit Turkey
5. Panel points to major holes in South's cyber security
6. Shinzo Abe Book Criticizes Trump as Weak on North Korea
7. Kim Jong Un Stirs Up Loyalty of KPA Officers Ahead of Military Parade
8. Extended Deterrence, and Adjusting for the Multipolar Environment: The Way Forward
9. America Needs to Reassure Japan and South Korea
10. North Korea displays 'solid-fuel ICBM' at military parade
11. [PHOTOS] North Korea's army anniversary military parade
12. Korea at a crossroads on the 40th anniversary of Tokyo Declaration
13. Korean War POW who sued Kim Jong-un dies at 89
14. N. Korean military calls for efforts to prevent incidents between civilians and soldiers
 

Recovering from Urban Disasters, Post Six (Post 14 of 14)

Russell W. Glenn

The fourteenth of a series of blog posts on Urban Disasters: Readiness, Response, and Recovery by Russ Glenn.

European Emergency Response Coordination Centre (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

This, the final of our fourteen posts, wraps up with four additional key points to complement those presented earlier. The total includes four posts each on readying for and responding to urban disasters with the remaining six addressing recovery therefrom.

Breaking with tradition (if tradition exists after only two or three months of precedence), the list of key points appears at the end rather than beginning of this post. That list includes all from previous posts and three additional from this.

Key Point #31: The inevitable doesn’t have to be: Avoiding what history tells us are seemingly inevitable post-disaster problems.

Over 700 people died during Chicago’s 1995 heat disaster. Reading Eric Klineberg’s Heat Wave reinforces our key points #1 and #2 (“Preparation for any urban disaster helps to prepare an urban area for catastrophes regardless of cause or type” and “Urban disasters are more alike than different,” respectively). The similarities between that disaster, NYC’s 1896 heat wave, and other disasters are both numerous and various. The brutal statistics generally offer few surprises; those who died were disproportionately poor and elderly. They also overwhelmingly lived alone. Urban governments or communities that keep track of where its members live, work, or go to school add to readiness. Accounting for residents when disaster strikes should be far quicker in such cases, a boon to first responders and to families awaiting news regarding loved ones. As we have previously recognized, that readiness is magnified when authorities also keep a metaphorical finger on the pulse of their citizenry by knowing where those with physical or other challenges reside. Losing power and therefore air conditioning and elevator use is an inconvenience for most. For others it is life-threatening. It is a death sentence in the case of individuals losing the ability to run essential medical equipment once backup batteries or generators are exhausted. Tokyo’s disaster preparedness maps provide crucial information of value to resident and responder alike: locations of nearby open areas that might provide refuge or sites particularly vulnerable to fire, tremors, mudslides, and other hazards that should be avoided during and in the aftermath of calamity. Given evolutions in data compilation, artificial intelligence, and other technologies, perhaps the time is at hand when similar maps providing the locations and needs of the most vulnerable are available to appropriate authorities. Allowing collection and storage of such information could be voluntary on the part of those to whom the data refers, satisfying those worried about privacy. Updates would be automatic, fed as they could be by medical center entries, pharmacies, relatives, landlords, the individuals themselves, or others approved by the man or woman involved. Backup would have to be such that the data is accessible in times of power loss. Imagine local police, fire, emergency medical technicians, or others knowing where those needing insulin, breathing assistance, or other help are after a catastrophe. Locations could be verified if the individual wears a location monitor or has a cell phone and, again, opts into such information sharing.

This will cost. The wealthy might fund themselves, but disaster after disaster tells us that—as in 1995 Chicago—many of the most vulnerable will be unable to pay. Politicians will resist just as they do when the issue is funding physical infrastructure improvements whose value may come after their terms in office. All but the exceptional politician will seek to push expensive programs down the road just as real estate developers and private property owners sometimes figure they can make their sales before the next catastrophe strikes and thus hedge on buying insurance or taking other precautionary measures.[1]

Key Point #32: Climate change will influence the value of historical lessons.

Notwithstanding our Key Points #9 (“Look backward to look forward”) and #28 (“History has valuable lessons for those who read it”), individuals responsible for megacity disaster preparedness (to include residents) need to recognize that history is a helpful but at times increasingly poor reference when looking forward, whether planning or considering what the character of response or recovery might be. Brooklyn had over five thousand buildings identified as being in flood zones in 2013. Thirty years before only twenty-six were thought to be at risk. Hurricane Sandy’s 2012 waters inundated areas in both Brooklyn and neighboring Queens that were twice the size of floodplains identified at the time of the storm’s visit. Climate change and accompanying sea level rise are rendering previous assumptions and calculations moot. Private parties and public authorities both need to reconsider their flood zone designations, building standards, and other matters built on previous climate and weather histories. Only the foolish turn a blind eye to climate change and its consequences (or, again, those hoping to push needed expenditures down the road).

Key Point #33: Be equitable in rendering recovery assistance…or at least appear to be.

It seems ironic in retrospect, but those in some London communities felt the Germans were discriminating in their bombing during WWII. Initial evidence supported the claims as the earlier-hit neighborhoods were disproportionately occupied by those with lesser incomes. It’s always fortunate when the enemy comes to one’s aid. Author Philip Ziegler concluded that “it was the Germans who saved the situation, however, by extending their bombing to other parts of London.”[2]

The enemy will not always be so accommodating. More often than not, there is no such foe when an urban area suffers disaster. Yet the consequences of urban catastrophes will continue be disproportionately felt by the disadvantaged. Our opening case to this post, that of Chicago’s 1995 heat wave, provides one such example. The tuberculosis that visited London during WWII was, as we also previously noted, unkinder to the poor than those better able to afford housing and care to keep it at bay.[3] There will ever be individuals wanting to make political capital out of urban disasters. Factual or otherwise, they will claim that some parties are benefiting more than others during recovery whether that is true or fabrication. Equity is desirable, albeit an equity based on need. Stability may depend on it…or perceptions of such fairness. Disasters have historically demonstrated they can be sparks that ignite the tinder of unrest. That tinder can be legitimate or created to serve self-interest. Those providing assistance—governments included—should keep the dangers of actual or perceived favoritism in mind as recovery progresses…or fails to do so for some.

Key Point #34: Recovery never stands alone. It is part of an urban area’s continuing evolution.

Josef W. Konvitz observes, “vital cities are never finished.”[4] He is correct. Cities do not stop progressing, decaying, adapting, or otherwise changing because crisis pays a visit. Recovery is part of that evolution. London in 1666 and 1923 Tokyo are among the examples telling us that recovery will be a matter de factocompromise. Some will want to recreate from a blank slate, rebuilding in the mold of their vision. Others will have few ambitions other than recreating some form of shelter, commercial enterprise, and a life hopefully no worse than that before. Regardless of the aspirations at work, wise disaster planning, insightful decisions during response, and informed recovery can shape an urban area’s evolution for the better.

As promised, our complete list of key points from the fourteen posts:

Key Point #1: Preparation for any urban disaster helps to prepare an urban area for catastrophes regardless of cause or type.

Key Point #2:  Urban disasters are more alike than different.

Key Point #3: Rehearsing/exercising plans—even in so simple a form as talking through challenges—is essential.

Key Point #4: Plans must be executable.

Key Point #5: No plan will survive contact with the disaster.

Key Point #6: Information is the currency of success

Key Point #7: Urban residents are key to successful disaster response. It follows that they are key to successful disaster preparation.

Key Point #8: The plagues of bureaucracy, poor delineation of responsibilities, and criminality are remoras on any disaster…except the relationship isn’t symbiotic.

Key Point #9: Look backward to look forward.

Key Point #10: Maintaining or improving post-disaster social infrastructure will often be harder than doing so for an urban area’s physical infrastructure.

Key Point #11: Plan for the end, then the now.

Key Point #12: What happens in urban areas doesn’t stay in urban areas…Las Vegas included.

Key Point #13: Not all is what it seems in a city.

Supporting Key Point #13A: Don’t trust appearances.

Key Point #14: Expect the unexpected.

Key Point #15: Common sense sometimes isn’t common.

Key Point #16: Command, leadership, and management are fundamental to disaster response success.

Key Point #17: Getting the response structure right is vital.

Key Point #18: Leadership is important, but who should lead when?

Key Point #19: Effective communications are essential to effective leadership.

Key Point #20: Data counts

Key Point #21: The hurt is different in an urban disaster

Key Point #22: Urban underground locations can be a boon or deathtrap.

Key Point #23: Transition to recovery began yesterday.

Key Point #24: As with targeting during urban combat and judgments when responding, it is important to consider both the short and longer-term implications of decisions and actions throughout urban disaster recovery.

Key Point #25: Recovery is a system comprised of sub-systems interacting with other systems

Key Point #26: There is always a need for centralized and effective anti-corruption oversight.

Key Point #27: Some problems will be unavoidable even with excellent planning and a brilliant disaster response. Identifying them pre-event when possible opens the way to finding solutions or mitigating negative impacts.

Key Point #28: History has valuable lessons for those who read it. No, really.

Key Point #29: Monitor progress…or lack of it…both in the interest of current disaster recovery effectiveness and that during others to come.

Key Point #30a: Residents must be part of successful urban disaster recovery.

Key Point #30b: That is not to say the physical infrastructure can be overlooked.             

Key Point #31: The inevitable doesn’t have to be: Avoiding what history tells us are seemingly inevitable post-disaster problems.

Key Point #32: Climate change will influence the value of historical lessons.

Key Point #33: Be equitable in rendering recovery assistance…or at least appear to be.

Key Point #34: Recovery never stands alone. It is part of an urban area’s continuing evolution.

Endnotes

[1] Jeff Goodell is among those who recognize this “push it down the road” phenomenon. See his The Water will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2017, p. 103.

[2] Philip Ziegler, London at War, 1939-1945, New York: Knopf, 1995, pp. 167-68.

[3] Ziegler, London at War, p. 260.

[4] Josef W. Konvitz, The Urban Millennium: The City-Building Process from the Early Middle Ages to the Present, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985, p. 195.

The previous installation of this series “Responding to Urban Disasters, Post Five (Post 13 of 14),” appeared on 07 February 2023.

This completes the “Urban Disasters” series based on research for Dr, Glenn’s recently released book Come Hell or High Fever: Readying the World's Megacities for Disaster published by the Australian National University Press.

Access National Security News HERE.

Access Korean News HERE.

National Security News Content:

1. Chinese balloon part of vast aerial surveillance program, U.S. says
2. Expert reveals biggest under-the-radar takeaway from Chinese spy flight crisis
3. China’s Balloon Could Be America’s Awakening
4. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 7, 2023
5. ‘We killed three Russians’: the secretive Ukrainian special forces taking the fight across the border
6. China has more ICBM launchers than US, senior general tells lawmakers
7. Voice of America needs a reboot
8. U.S.-China trade hit record in 2022 despite tensions
9. 13 thoughts China’s balloon (probably) had while floating over America
10.  "99 PLA Balloons" --An Update To A Cold War Classic by Peter W. Singer
11. Chinese Spy Balloon Spotlights CCP's Brazen Plot Against US
12. SASC chair to focus on reimagining how the military fights
13. Pentagon Breaks Through With Networked War....Drones, Ships, Stealth Jets & Tanks Will Attack Together
14. Why It Took So Damn Long To Shoot Down the Chinese Spy Balloon
15. US military not ready to deploy missiles to Japan, country’s defense ministry says
16. China’s Belt and Road objectives are shifting
17. China Hasn’t Given Up on the Belt and Road
18. Power in Asia: six surprising facts
19. Is Biden's Pentagon a warfighting organization? Amid China threat, you have to wonder
20. America’s Return to the Philippines Makes Sense
21. Alone and unafraid: How to prepare to fight and win the next war
22. What Tanks in Ukraine Tell Us About America in the Pacific
 

Korean News Content:

1. N. Korean leader visits barracks with his daughter to mark army founding anniv.
2. Yoon says previous administration relied on 'fake peace'
3. S. Korea, U.S., Japan to hold vice ministerial meeting in Washington next week
4. Voice of America needs a reboot
5. N. Korean leader sends condolences to Syria over quake
6. S. Korean team arrives in quake-stricken Turkey to help search, rescue operations
7. North Korea gives clearest sign yet that tweenager is heir apparent
8. Invincible Korean People's Army
9. Understanding Kim Jong Un’s Economic Policymaking: Foreign Trade Narrative
10. The possibly dangerous direction of North Korean economic policy
11. N. Korea establishes ‘Missile General Bureau’
12. South Korea’s leader calls for unified national security by military, police, government
13. Do Ukraine, Taiwan and South Korea All Need Nuclear Weapons?
14. Kim Jong Un puts daughter front and center at lavish military banquet
15. North Korean leader Kim brings daughter to visit troops

Access National Security News HERE.

Access Korean News HERE.

National Security News Content:

1. Gen. Glen VanHerck, Commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command and United States Northern Command, Holds an Off-Camera, On-The-Record Briefing on the High-Altitude Surveillance Balloon Recovery Efforts
2. U-2 Spy Planes Snooped On Chinese Surveillance Balloon
3. China’s Balloon May Have Taught Pentagon More Than Beijing Learned From It, General Says
4. Eisenhower, Dulles, and USIA: can the past provide lessons for the present?
5. Defining Public Diplomacy
6. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 6, 2023
7. Kremlin-Linked Group Arranged Payments to European Politicians to Support Russia’s Annexation of Crimea
8. Drone explodes less than 100 miles from Moscow as fear of strikes grows
9. Seen Any Other Spy Balloons Lately?
10. Duo accused of neo-Nazi plot to target Maryland power stations
11. Ukraine Conflict Update - Feb 7, 2023 | SOF News
12. US military failed to detect previous spy balloons from China
13. Chinese grey zone spy balloons over the American heartland
14. Opinion | The frenzy over China’s spy balloon is dangerous and unwarranted
15.  Succeeding in strategic competition is today’s imperative
16. Is the U.S. Over-Militarizing Its China Strategy?
17. Back From the Future: Stop Saying the Military Has an Innovation Problem
18. Alexander Vindman and the Road to World War III
19. Flexible Enmeshment: The Philippines’ New Approach to China-US Competition
20. Israel Raids Hamas Cell Responsible for Restaurant Attack
21. Clipping the wings of Iran and its militias
22. China seizure of Taiwan not ‘imminent,’ says key DoD official

Korean News Content:

1. South Koreans wonder: Will the U.S. still protect us from North Korea?
2. N. Korea calls for 'perfecting' war readiness posture in meeting chaired by leader Kim
3. US will protect security interests of Korea, US: NSC coordinator
4. Kim Jong Un goes missing ahead of military parade
5. N.Korea Stole Billions Worth of Crypto from S.Korea
6. U.S. to continue efforts to free S. Koreans detained by N. Korea: Washington official
7. S. Korea to send 110 rescue workers to quake-hit Turkey, offer $5 mln in aid
8. S. Korea seeks enhanced ties with African nations on key minerals
9. 1st S. Korean state compensation ordered for victim of Vietnam War mass killings
10. North's Kim returns after 40-day absence for military meeting
11. Hanwha signs MOU with Romania for K9 howitzers
12. [INTERVIEW] 'Korea, US can create synergy in space industry': NASA ambassador
13. Possible nuclear armament for South Korea
14. Seoul's nuclear gambit is not in favor of alliance politics
15. North Korea party meeting set to discuss ‘urgent’ food issue
 

Recovering from Urban Disasters, Post Five (Post 13 of 14)

Russell W. Glenn

The thirteenth of a series of blog posts on Urban Disasters: Readiness, Response, and Recovery by Russ Glenn.

An elderly couple searches through the remains of their home after 2011 Japan earthquake and Tsunami.

Source: Direct Relief (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Our key points to date:

Key Point #1: Preparation for any urban disaster helps to prepare an urban area for catastrophes regardless of cause or type.

Key Point #2:  Urban disasters are more alike than different.

Key Point #3: Rehearsing/exercising plans—even in so simple a form as talking through challenges—is essential.

Key Point #4: Plans must be executable.

Key Point #5: No plan will survive contact with the disaster.

Key Point #6: Information is the currency of success

Key Point #7: Urban residents are key to successful disaster response. It follows that they are key to successful disaster preparation.

Key Point #8: The plagues of bureaucracy, poor delineation of responsibilities, and criminality are remoras on any disaster…except the relationship isn’t symbiotic.

Key Point #9: Look backward to look forward.

Key Point #10: Maintaining or improving post-disaster social infrastructure will often be harder than doing so for an urban area’s physical infrastructure.

Key Point #11: Plan for the end, then the now.

Key Point #12: What happens in urban areas doesn’t stay in urban areas…Las Vegas included.

Key Point #13: Not all is what it seems in a city.

Supporting Key Point #13A: Don’t trust appearances.

Key Point #14: Expect the unexpected.

Key Point #15: Common sense sometimes isn’t common.

Key Point #16: Command, leadership, and management are fundamental to disaster response success.

Key Point #17: Getting the response structure right is vital.

Key Point #18: Leadership is important, but who should lead when?

Key Point #19: Effective communications are essential to effective leadership.

Key Point #20: Data counts

Key Point #21: The hurt is different in an urban disaster

Key Point #22: Urban underground locations can be a boon or deathtrap.

Key Point #23: Transition to recovery began yesterday.

Key Point #24: As with targeting during urban combat and judgments when responding, it is important to consider both the short and longer-term implications of decisions and actions throughout urban disaster recovery.

Key Point #25: Recovery is a system comprised of sub-systems interacting with other systems

Key Point #26: There is always a need for centralized and effective anti-corruption oversight.

Key Point #27: Some problems will be unavoidable even with excellent planning and a brilliant disaster response. Identifying them pre-event when possible opens the way to finding solutions or mitigating negative impacts.

Key Point #28: History has valuable lessons for those who read it. No, really.

Key Point #29: Monitor progress…or lack of it…both in the interest of current disaster recovery effectiveness and that during others to come.

Determining what works, and what does not, informs not only ongoing urban disaster recovery. It also provides lessons for future such undertakings. Corruption provides an example. US funding for many projects in 2003+ Iraq was squandered due to inappropriate measures of supposed progress (the number of dollars spent being a prime example, a metric of “effort” rather than “effect,” the latter actually reflecting what bang for the buck the coalition was achieving). Tens—likely hundreds—of millions of dollars went to little effect other than building mansions and otherwise benefiting crooked contractors, politicians, and others. Studies were done; lessons identified…only for some of the same mistakes to be made in Afghanistan. Want a very specific urban example of a poor measure of success? Eric Klinenberg, introduced in our second post, reported on a metric taking effect at the time of Chicago’s 1995 heat wave: “Public programs were beginning to measure their effectiveness according to the number of employees they had cut from the roles rather than the number of people they had lifted out of poverty or distress.”[1]

Appropriate metrics are key. So is designing related procedures for data collection. An example from Iraq provides a stumble in this regard. US authorities in Baghdad assumed all coalition members would easily adopt the lead nation’s accounting procedures. Untrue. The British were among more senior coalition partners working with the United States. They assumed responsibility for oversight of operations in much of southeastern Iraq. The United Kingdom’s representatives in Basra were taken aback when the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) directed common accounting measures under the assumption that all partners could easily comply. Hilary Synnott, the senior British diplomat identified in an earlier post, recalled,

I observed that we British unfortunately had no experience of American accounting procedures, and hence we were unfamiliar with the various regulations and acronyms to which Sherri had referred. Indeed, most of us had no experience with accounting procedures of any kind; therefore, it might prove difficult for us to conform to the Office of Management and Budget’s wishes.[2]

No familiarity with accounting procedures—and certainly not those dictated by CPA staff in Baghdad—obviously meant there was little if any ability to provide requested metrics data. Other ill-advised policies reflected additional ignorance of conditions on the ground, further hindering progress. Those working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) were not allowed to visit project sites in military vehicles, the “logic” being that doing so would reveal that a government other than that of Iraq was providing funding and that it might thereby expose personnel associated with the project to insurgent attack. (It was widely known amongst the population that it was the coalition and not Iraqi government that was the source of money.) Yet USAID representatives lacked sufficient vehicles to visit sites on their own, as did the State Department for whom USAID did most of its work. Further hamstringing USAID project management efforts: restrictions precluded their personnel from riding in security contractor vehicles. The obvious result: money went to contractors for projects on sites the contracting agency (USAID) could not inspect. Unmonitored projects provided ample opportunity for false reporting and collection of next-phase funds based on those reports. Fortunate coincidence and innovative minds sometimes, but too rarely, managed to overcome these regulatory conundrums. One Irish contractor working for USAID found a US Army unit not too far from one of his project sites. The unit had unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and agreed to fly them over the location to check on progress.[3]

Key Point #30a: Residents must be part of successful urban disaster recovery.

Recall Key Point #7 (“Urban residents are key to successful disaster response. It follows that they are key to successful disaster preparation.”)? Key Point #30 merely follows its logic: Soliciting and incorporating appropriate local perspectives is as important during disaster recovery as it was for preparation and response. Urban populations; their governments; the economic, political, and other relationships between residents; and interactions with others beyond the urban area are all part of a city’s social infrastructure. It is essential to incorporate these and other elements of social systems during disaster recovery.

Comparing Japan’s responses to the 1933 Sanriku tsunami and 2011 Great Northern Japan earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor failure disasters serves as a reminder: Getting it right in the past is no guarantee of doing so in the future. As author Izumi Kuroishi summarized the comparison,

the post-1933 project made revitalizing housing (to improve people’s living conditions) the first goal; it also recognized small port areas to be as important as large port areas in protecting local industrial and social systems, encouraged local self-reliance and subjective engagement to the recovery planning, respected the habitual and social way of life in the area, and prepared escape roads rather than constructing protection walls. The 2010s plan, in contrast, created a ministry centered top-down system, consolidated many small fishing ports into a few large ports, constructed industrial sites to improve the area’s economic condition, connected the area to major cities, urbanized and modernized the lifestyle in the target areas, and constructed tall and extensive protection walls rather than escape roads.[4]

Maybe logical from Tokyo’s perspective, the changes made in response to the 2011 event seem heavy-handed and uncaring of local communities’ desire to perpetuate their pre-disaster lifestyles to the extent practicable. Another issue to keep in mind when working with urban residents: Key Point #4 tells us plans must be executable. Part of that is that they must be understandable by any who will employ them. Urban residents need to participate in planning and be aware of the final product as it affects them. Author Peter Larkham referred to the case of the English town of Bedford when writing of post-WWII recovery plans. The 1952 plan was well thought out, so good that its reviewers thought it an example for others to follow. However, its supporting maps “appear to be rather too complicated for lay-people to understand.”[5] Plans written in organization-speak are difficult for those unfamiliar to comprehend. Worse, the lack of clarity can undermine relationships between parties that must work together to execute the plans, leading to reduced effectiveness if not failure.

While attention given to immediate disaster response efforts tends to focus on the human dimension, media coverage regarding recovery efforts instead leans toward highlighting physical infrastructure repairs and improvements. Social infrastructure initiatives merit attention no less than that given roads, bridges, water supply, and other physical components. Moving community members to housing distant from that destroyed may dramatically increase the time needed to get to work. It may also disrupt ties vital to community mending. Preexisting social ties can serve as a magnet that reunites communities fractured by misfortune. Vietnamese Americans displaced by Hurricane Katrina reformed around their Mary Queen of Vietnam Church on return to New Orleans, pieces reuniting like an explosion shown in reverse.[6] Here again, recognition that urban areas are systems, and highly complex ones at that, should tell us that focusing on the separate components of those systems alone without recognition of their inter-workings is like trying to construct a house from random parts of separate structures. The result may be a building, but one far from the home that once was. Getting residents back into houses quickly without thought to their once-community—locating them randomly and remotely from longstanding religious, commercial, club, school, neighborhood, and other social links—returns people but fails to reconstruct communities.

Maintaining community ties to the extent feasible can also help rebuild those physical structures thanks to social linkages. Recovery might be hastened further yet when members are not displaced too far from their original properties and those properties have debris of potential restoration value. Defaulting to bulldozing housing into unusable rubble means families cannot take materials from their previous residences to rebuild. Allowed to rebuild on their own, they are more likely to provide a structure meeting their needs than if they are forcibly allotted shelter provided by government authorities.[7]

As with renters needing protection from landlords who capitalize on disaster to oust those poorer, tenants wanting to quickly restore their previous abodes to a reasonable form of shelter might need authorities to step in if overzealous owners seek to clear their properties without thought given to those once living there. Urban disasters unfortunately are often used by real estate speculators, politicians, and others as opportunities to seize lucrative properties. Landlord-politician ties in Karachi are notorious in this regard.

Key Point #30b: That is not to say the physical infrastructure can be overlooked.

Urban disasters are going to damage and destroy physical infrastructure. That is unavoidable. The extent of that damage is often worsened by mankind’s negligence (allowing garbage to be thrown in drainage channels, building on wetlands that moderate the worst effects of tidal surges, or destroying natural weather mitigators such as NYC’s oyster beds via over-farming or water pollution, for example). It is estimated that storm surges in New Orleans once ranging from ten to twelve feet have increased to between eighteen and twenty feet due to the destruction of marshes and other tidal lands near the city.[8] Hurricane Sandy’s abuse of NYC was worsened because of the city’s negligence in preserving those oyster beds and its tidal wetlands.

Savvier urban leaders and caring organizations are acting. Those oyster beds in New York once represented half of the world’s oysters by some biologists’ estimates. Manhattan was encircled; others lined the shores of Brooklyn and Queens. The Billion Oyster Project is a nonprofit group that seeks to return that number to NYC’s harbor by 2035. In addition to their storm-mitigating benefits, adult oysters can filter some fifty gallons of water daily.[9]

Decentralizing select infrastructure offers another way of potentially reducing the worst of a disaster’s effects. Relying on large nodes—power plants, distribution stations, or water supply facilities might be among them—offers economies of scale. It is generally less expensive to build and maintain a few of these bigger facilities than many smaller ones, and likewise easier to maintain them. In times of rising sea levels, stronger storms, and other of climate change’s effects, examples of past devastation bode ill for any urban area casual about reviewing the vulnerability of existing resources, some of which might be in what were once safe areas but are now flood vulnerable. Urban building and pollution combined with high temperatures related to climate change are sometimes the culprits; these together have already done much to exacerbate Miami’s soon-to-be-legendary flooding challenges.[10]

Again and again a lesson presents itself: a systems approach to urban disaster preparations, response, and recovery is essential to success. That means looking at social and physical infrastructure not as separate entities but rather as inextricably intertwined components of city ecosystems. Disaster readiness should be a collective effort. Just short of three-quarters of Dhaka’s slums benefit from services provided by nongovernmental organizations. Those organizations are an invaluable asset.[11] Such other-than-formal-authorities can be overlooked during plans and operations to assist response and recovery. Their offerings can instead be even more beneficial when orchestrated with government assets in every phase when confronting urban disasters.

Endnotes

[1] Eric Klinenberg, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002, p. 141.

[2] Hilary Synnott, Bad Days in Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain’s Man in Southern Iraq, London: I.B. Tauris, 2008, p. 221.

[3] Russell W. Glenn, et. al, Evaluation of USAID’s Community Stabilization Program (CSP) in Iraq: Effectiveness of the CSP Model as a Non-lethal Tool for Counterinsurgency, Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development, 2009, pp. 16–17, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACN461.pdf (accessed October 6, 2022).

[4] Izumi Kuroishi, “Social Resilience in Disaster Recovery Planning for Fishing Port Cities: A Comparative Study of Prewar and Twenty-First-Century Tsunami Recovery Planning in the Northern Part of Japan,” Journal of Urban History 47, 2021, pp. 332 and 349.

[5] Peter J. Larkham, “British Urban Reconstruction after the Second World War: the Rise of Planning and the Issue of ‘Non-planning,’” Journal of Architectural and Town-Planning Theory 54, 2020: p. 23.

[6] Wei Li, et. al., “Katrina and Migration: Evacuation and Return by African Americans and Vietnamese Americans in an Eastern New Orleans Suburb,” The Professional Geographer, 2010, p. 116.

[7] Accion Contra El Hambre, “Urban Disaster Lessons Learnt,” undated, p. 21, https://silo.tips/download/urban-disaster-lessons-learnt (accessed May 24, 2022).

[9] Lexington, “See life,” The Economist 444, September 3, 2022: p. 26.

[10] Mario Alejandro Ariza, Disposable City: Miami’s Future on the Shores of Combat Catastrophe, New York: Bold Type Books, p. 54.

[11] Nazrul Islam, AQM Mahbub, and Nurul Islam Nazem, “Urban slums of Bangladesh,” The Daily Star, June 20, 2009, https://www.thedailystar.net/news-detail-93293 (accessed August 25, 2019).

The previous installation of this series “Responding to Urban Disasters, Post Four (Post 12 of 14),” appeared on 05 February 2023.

Access National Security News HERE.

Access Korean News HERE.

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1. Balloon Incident Reveals More Than Spying as Competition With China Intensifies

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14. Special Operations News Update - February 6, 2023 | SOF New​s​

15. How Russia Decides to Go Nuclear

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17. Why did China send a balloon?

18. The Evolution of the Special Forces (SF) Operational Detachment-Alpha (ODA)

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21. Shaping in Strategic Competition: How to Win Friends and Influence People with Military Power

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Access National Security News HERE.

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1. Statement From Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (CHinese Balloon shootdown)
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Recovering from Urban Disasters, Post Four (Post 12 of 14)

Russell W. Glenn

The twelfth of a series of blog posts on Urban Disasters: Readiness, Response, and Recovery by Russ Glenn.

Iraqi and US Patrols Assess Community Concerns in Al Ghazaliyah, Baghdad, March 2006.

Source: US National Archives; Public Domain, NARA & DVIDS Public Domain Archive.

We’re on final approach here. This and two more posts will wrap up our discussions…at least for now. Hopefully some of you will find the greater detail, broader coverage, and additional insights and proposals found in my soon to be released Come Hell or High Fever: Readying the World’s Megacities for Disaster of value, or if not of value, than of interest. As I make clear in its opening pages, the book’s focus is on megacities. Those of you who partake of the book will find I define “megacity” somewhat differently than is the norm. Yet the material in Come Hell or High Fever applies to all urban areas…and to some extent rural environments as well, as have several of our key points thus far and others yet to come.

As is our habit, here is the rollup of key points noted through our first eleven posts:

Key Point #1: Preparation for any urban disaster helps to prepare an urban area for catastrophes regardless of cause or type.

Key Point #2:  Urban disasters are more alike than different.

Key Point #3: Rehearsing/exercising plans—even in so simple a form as talking through challenges—is essential.

Key Point #4: Plans must be executable.

Key Point #5: No plan will survive contact with the disaster.

Key Point #6: Information is the currency of success

Key Point #7: Urban residents are key to successful disaster response. It follows that they are key to successful disaster preparation.

Key Point #8: The plagues of bureaucracy, poor delineation of responsibilities, and criminality are remoras on any disaster…except the relationship isn’t symbiotic.

Key Point #9: Look backward to look forward.

Key Point #10: Maintaining or improving post-disaster social infrastructure will often be harder than doing so for an urban area’s physical infrastructure.

Key Point #11: Plan for the end, then the now.

Key Point #12: What happens in urban areas doesn’t stay in urban areas…Las Vegas included.

Key Point #13: Not all is what it seems in a city.

Supporting Key Point #13A: Don’t trust appearances.

Key Point #14: Expect the unexpected.

Key Point #15: Common sense sometimes isn’t common.

Key Point #16: Command, leadership, and management are fundamental to disaster response success.

Key Point #17: Getting the response structure right is vital.

Key Point #18: Leadership is important, but who should lead when?

Key Point #19: Effective communications are essential to effective leadership.

Key Point #20: Data counts

Key Point #21: The hurt is different in an urban disaster

Key Point #22: Urban underground locations can be a boon or deathtrap.

Key Point #23: Transition to recovery began yesterday.

Key Point #24: As with targeting during urban combat and judgments when responding, it is important to consider both the short and longer-term implications of decisions and actions throughout urban disaster recovery.

Key Point #25: Recovery is a system comprised of sub-systems interacting with other systems

Key Point #26: There is always a need for centralized and effective anti-corruption oversight.

Key Point #27: Some problems will be unavoidable even with excellent planning and a brilliant disaster response. Identifying them pre-event when possible opens the way to finding solutions or mitigating negative impacts.

Key Point #28: History has valuable lessons for those who read it. No, really.

This key point is close kin to our #9 (Look backward to look forward). It is worth reminding ourselves of the past’s value, however, as mankind has sometimes been a tad remiss in accepting history’s offerings when it comes to managing post-catastrophe recoveries. Three examples of the same mistake lend credence to that claim. The examples are ones with direct application when dealing with urban governments, police, and fire personnel among others. Though military in nature, the insights are also applicable to NGOs and other organizations operating in urban environments.

Three different military units at three different times fell back on the habitual way of their marking boundaries between ground units: denoting them by distinguishable terrain features. It makes sense under most circumstances. Knowing they must operate twenty-four hours daily and in whatever conditions nature throws at them, specifying unit boundaries along waterways, major roads, extended tree lines, wadis in deserts, and ridgelines in mountainous terrain means soldiers on the ground and those in the air can better identify the delineations in the dark or when conditions otherwise limit visibility as well as in good light. Why is that important? Military doctrine dictates that not only are soldiers from one unit not to cross over into another’s area without coordination (for they might be mistaken for enemy). They are also not to fire weapons across a boundary without that coordination given the chances of mistakenly killing or wounding their comrades in an adjacent organization. That is why well-designed plans never draw a boundary along a river or roadway without specifying exactly where responsibilities change. A good boundary does not go down the middle of a waterway or highway, for then those to its either side don’t know whether to expect a group approaching in the fog are friendlies or otherwise. Better that the delineation is along one side of said waterway or street so that only one unit “owns” it.

And now to those three instances of questionable decisions when marking military boundaries in urban areas. Commanders and their staffs arriving in Los Angeles during and in the aftermath of the 1992 riots to assist local authorities and law-abiding members of the population drew boundaries between military units in the traditional manner. A unit coordinates activities within its own boundaries with their own members (of course) and, depending on the tasks involved, with pilots, artillerymen, and others supporting them from outside those bounds. As explained above, actions outside those limits requires communicating and carefully coordinating activities with the owning unit. It wasn’t the first time an American unit made life more difficult for itself than was necessary. (Nor, surely, has it been only US units). In the aftermath of WWII in Germany, US Third Army failed to recognize the wisdom of the British and French, both of which drew boundaries for their military governments along those of German administrative lines.[1] It wasn’t the last time either. US units initially moving into Baghdad in 2003 after defeating Saddam Hussein’s forces likewise gave primacy to physical over administrative boundaries.

There are times when following the “normal” military boundary-setting procedure makes sense in an urban area. Relying on obvious terrain features does so when the primary task is defeating an enemy and coordinating with civil authorities is of secondary importance. When such is not the case, or when priorities change, an alternative approach is called for. The problem with reliance on obvious terrain features is that the results do not coincide with urban officials’ areas of responsibility (police and fire precincts, for example). That means those military units—and the civil authorities with whom they need to coordinate their activities—multiply their liaison burdens several times over, requiring more people, more equipment, an increased volume of communications, and more distractions from primary concerns. Better: drawing military boundaries that align with those of the primary organization(s) with which they need to coordinate. The military reduces the number of police precincts, county officials, or others with which it must interface. In turn, those fire stations and other entities have fewer organizations calling on their time, no small advantage when the focus should be assisting recovery rather than excess administration. A perfect solution? Hardly. Police, fire, and other local authorities will not always share boundaries even amongst themselves. The outsider unit might be too small or too big to align with only one or a few civil jurisdictions. Imperfect perhaps, but an improvement nevertheless.

As said, other external organizations such as NGOs can benefit from these examples as well. They too need to coordinate with local authorities as well as each other and other relevant parties. While administrative boundaries will generally prove the better choice, picking up on some military habits such as that of ensuring boundaries are drawn such that one organization “owns” a road or other feature will be valuable during post-disaster recovery. This would include, for example, even mundane activities such as picking up garbage until municipal authorities can reassume that responsibility and others that benefit from clear distinction of who is responsible for what where. 

National representatives lending international assistance can also profit common interests of several organizations, including themselves. British diplomat Hilary Synnott provided an example drawing on his early 21^st-century experiences in southeastern Iraq. Writing in his insightful and sometimes humorous Bad Days in Basra, he described how other nations’ coalition augmentations could be more effectively employed if they were to concentrate their resources within areas overseen by a single coalition lead element instead of several. Synnott rightly concluded that had the Japanese representation been working exclusively with the British, the two parties could have better synchronized their resources to meet local needs.[2] Applying the same lesson to large urban areas potentially has considerable value. There is much to be said for cohesion rather than unnecessary fragmentation of available capabilities.

Previous practices can also advise those trying to keep corruption under control or seeking to fund only more productive recovery efforts. Confronted with both the threat of corruption and an absence of local authorities after combat operations in 2003 Iraqi urban areas, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) introduced an additional level of local governance into some government organizations, at least temporarily, to assist in allocating the large amounts of financial support being distributed. This level fit between provincial councils and villages. It was manned by unpaid volunteers who received funds to allocate for local projects. An organization that spent its money well received more. Those performing otherwise benefited from additional consultation.[3]

Endnotes

[1] Nadia Schadlow, War and the Art of Governance: Consolidating Combat Success into Political Victory, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017, p. 69.

[2] Hilary Synnott, Bad Days in Basra: My Turbulent Tine as Britain’s Man in Southern Iraq, London: I.B. Tauris, 2008, p. 122.

[3] Synnott, Bad Days in Basra, p. 89.

The previous installation of this series “Responding to Urban Disasters, Post Three (Post 11 of 14),” appeared on 03 February 2023.

Access National Security News HERE.

Access Korean News HERE.

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