In our CMDR class offered through the University of California Irvine, we have a lot of thought-provoking discussions. A recent one concerned response exercises. One of our students commented that she found it “alarming” that individuals, governments, and agencies seemed rather unprepared for regularly occurring events (e.g. flooding). She then referenced Amanda Ripley’s The Unthinkable: Who Survives WhenDisaster Strikes, and Why. 

In this, the author provides a psychological perspective about how people often fail to properly appreciate the threat of disasters and take action. She then relates the story of a community in the state of Washington which, in the absence of a response plan from state officials, took the initiative to plan and execute an emergency exercise drill. The key takeaway from this was that in the wake of a major disaster, the community could not rely solely on outside first responders, who likely would be tied up elsewhere. Rather, it would need to be self-reliant and have a plan, but also a fundamental awareness that a disaster could really happen. The student concluded that such thinking, while often lacking, was clearly worthwhile. 

In The Unthinkable, one of the most valuable insights concerns a term: “expectation.” To draw a parallel, in athletics, training is done to develop “muscle memory.” As a result, during a game, an athlete does not think of what the body needs to do in a specific situation; as the body is already trained for a certain action, it simply reacts. If such training, is lacking, the athlete’s performance will suffer. In much the same way, in CMDR, if one does not address what might happen and drill on how to react, one cannot expect anything, and therefore is not ready for it. Thus, the benefits of engaging in such exercises to build a sense of expectation and appropriate response are obvious. 

Take, for example, how the Japanese deal with the potential threat of seismic activity. Of course, they endeavor to build structures that are almost “earthquake-proof.” However, and above all, they rigorously train their citizens how to behave should an event occur. In contrast, in my region (northeast Italy), when a tremendous earthquake struck in 1976, there was no such preparation, and a thousand people died.My cousin jumped out of a window when his building started shaking.(Luckily, he was on a ground floor, and only broke his arm.) If he had been trained on how to respond during earthquakes, his reaction could have been different. Rescue teams did not even exist at that time, so locals took on the role of first responders, but without training, means and capabilities. Since then, the region has developed a robust civil protection network with extensive resources, and every year the civil protection authority runs an exercise simulating a natural disaster. In sum, they have learned the lesson and inculcated the populace with how to respond effectively during a disaster. This reflects the sort of thinking and sense of expectation that can make CMDR so much more effective. 

Want to know more about NATO Crisis Management and Disaster Response? Enroll today at the University of California!