Threat Forecast: The next five years

The big HLS talk around Christmas has been the leak of an FOUO (For Official Use Only) report from DHS on the threat environment over the next five years. The AP ran the story, helpfully noting that these sorts of reports are usually distributed to "law enforcement, intelligence officials and the private sector."

This is illustrative of my point about the fire service failing to engage the professional community. If we are the ones who will respond for mitigation purposes, then why are we not included in the discussion about the trends we will face in the future? We talk about what the car companies will introduce in their airbags, crumple zones, and electrical systems over the next several model years and we talk about all the new and shocking ways the construction industry exposes us to danger. We need to be in on these conversations because we are the ones who will be in the thick of things at every one of these incidents, closest to the hazard and with the most pressing responsibilities. The homeland security community neglects the vital first 12 hours of response, before elaborate federal and state plans can come into play and regional and national resources can make the scene. In that interval between disaster and meaningful assistance from the guys with the big budgets (and authority), will our fire departments be able to function?

One common criticism of military strategy is that it focuses too much on "preparing for the last war." Are we preparing for 9/11 (v.2)? Or OKC2.0? Are we preparing at all?

The AP report is worth reading, as is Dr. Walid Phares's analysis. Most of the information is more important for law enforcement and the intel world, but what is salient to the fire service, very briefly, is that we should prepare for:

1. Biowarfare attacks
2. Cyberattacks

What #1 and #2 have in common, for our purposes, is that they pose existential threats to our continuity of operations. These themes will be revisited time and again here and will be taken up in greater detail in the near future.