Fortress America: Irrational Security
A focus on “quick” southern border security could undermine national preparedness
“Fortresses do not usually fail well. When they rely on robustness or complication, positions of strength are only tolerant of stress up to a defined point or of a certain character. For a fortification that fails to adapt, centralization — even of strength — presents a surprising liability.”
-The Fortress Problem
In a recent article, the Washington Post outlined a preliminary plan by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This proposal, intended to find funding for the multi-billion dollar border wall, introduces cuts to the Coast Guard and an 11% reduction to the Transportation Security Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Most concerning, this proposal targets a withdrawal of 361 million dollars from FEMA, a move that could entirely eliminate or greatly reduce funds that have fostered state and local preparedness efforts across the nation — and have done so for over a decade.
The Risk of Fortress Building
Any practitioner of security or military tactics can describe the value of defense-in-depth, a method of layering different types of security in a concentric way. The core tenet of this approach is a proven recognition that an over-reliance on a single security measure increases its risk of failure. Subsequent lines of measures to detect, deter, and defend against incidents adds resiliency to the national security apparatus. Notably, a hyper focus on one type of physical protective measure actually concentrates risk. Its inherent high visibility makes it a symbolic target begging to be defeated, something Customs and Border Protection can readily cite recent examples of.
Constructing a border wall that could cost up to 25 million dollars per mile represents substantial investment in a fixed asset to combat a highly narrow spectrum of threat to the nation: illegal border crossing. This investment is predicated on current but unstable geopolitical dynamics and a uniquely western view of anticipating adversarial behavior. Some argue we project our own patterns of thinking as a substitute for the unknown intentions of our phantom adversaries. That is, we build security to address the threats we feel are likely, and this is drawn from past experience and national dialogue. This is partially the reason that the phrase “We are always fighting our last war” has seemed to persist.
Investing in mega-scale physical barriers is not a new human endeavor or a novel example of flawed planning assumptions. Following the aftermath of World War One, France constructed the Maginot Line, a series of defensive structures and artillery positions along its border with Germany to prevent future aggression and invasion — a potential repeat tactic from the last conflict. As World War Two escalated, Germany invaded France by bypassing the Maginot Line through advancing across Belgium and the Ardennes. The Line’s planning assumptions were based on the last conflict and how its designers assumed the enemy would behave. The scale and fortification of the system lacked adaptability to address new or emergent adversarial tactics.
Does the United States need a border wall? Yes, based on data and the various ranges of remote territory the border covers, a strong argument can be made (that and substantial portions already exist.) Should it be the most prominent security investment and the main subject of executive branch discourse on domestic security? No. Walls are important but are fixed assets. True adaptive security capability lies in the men and women throughout the country working in public safety. These professionals are supported by FEMA funding in high-risk areas to combat a variety of threats and hazards, not just illegal border crossings.
Are We Irrational Actors?
Why the recent narrow focus on the border? The field of behavioral economics suggests that human beings are not truly rational decision makers. Where previous conventional thinking presented humans as rational actors that make decisions by weighing facts and working to obtain the greatest benefit, research has shown that many of us make decisions through fast thinking. This form of fast thinking uses mental shortcuts, known as heuristics, to help a person arrive at an immediate decision. Heuristics are an evolutionary advantage that allows us to subconsciously draw on past experiences to formulate a decision for a new or unexpected problem. Heuristics can be incredibly helpful, like a gut feeling to not walk down a certain dark alley, however they also make us extremely vulnerable to bad decisions that largely discount facts and data.
In looking at risk data, the odds of being killed in a terrorist attack are one in four million. Your odds of dying in a motor vehicle accident are one in nine thousand. Despite these sources of data, there is relatively strong support for the border wall initiative rather than safer cars. Why is this the case?
One of our common and well-studied mental shortcuts is a potential culprit. The availability heuristic is the tendency for a person to estimate the possibility of something happening by how quickly that situation comes to their mind. In this case, the more you are exposed to stories about border security, your mind can more readily recall media images of cartel violence and detained illegal immigrants. The more emotionally charged those images and instances are, your thinking on how often they happen and how severe the problem is increases irrespective of the data.
This can create unwarranted fear and when related stories and images of border events are repeated across the 24/7 news cycle, an availability cascade can be created:
A self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or “repeat something long enough and it will become true.”)
Nobel Prize laureate and behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman has said of our irrationality: “We are blind, but also blind to our blindness.”
Funding as Incentive, Or What a Wall Lacks
Even if President Trump’s post-campaign promise of reimbursement for the wall’s initial outlay of taxpayer dollars come to fruition, it would be imprudent at this point to assume that 361 million dollars would return to FEMA. Funding is like developing a reputation: it is hard won and easily lost.
Why is this potential loss of state and local funding a concern? The Washington Post expands:
Emergency management officials noted that FEMA has for years promoted and refined a national response system that requires local communities to follow the same emergency response strategies. The cuts would undermine that progress, they said, and result in a less sophisticated response to emergencies.
Homeland security funding dispersed to state and locals is a critical incentive to standardize national response and to foster risk and data-based investments in security — both efforts to counter the pitfalls of fast thinking. The homeland security grant programs provide jurisdictions with dollars for specialized equipment, training, and planning to deliver needed support. However, the funds play a far more important role in unifying response and policy across the varied organizations tasked with protecting the American public. Access to these funds requires two important prerequisites: jurisdictions must adopt and sustain the Incident Command System, a framework that standardizes organizational roles and allows mutual aid partners to seamlessly integrate in a disaster; and secondly, that jurisdictions assess their own risk and use it to guide investment in protection, preparedness, response and recovery projects. Previous FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said that “All emergencies are local.” An appropriate addition to that is “and they do not respect jurisdictional boundaries.” FEMA funding to high-risk urban areas has required regional collaboration and multi-jurisdictional response and support planning. This is all happening at the local level not just out of necessity, but because funding is a powerful, proven incentive used by the federal government.
Physical Defence at the cost of the Defenders
As with any fortress, its barrier walls are the first line of defense. History has proven to not entrust your security to such a monolithic and immobile asset. Every wall can be breached and is the same as homeland security: some things, despite best efforts, will just get through. It is the responsibility of the nation to ensure there are sufficiently trained and equipped personnel to counter those outlier threats that make it in. Equally important is that the nation realize we are far more vulnerable to natural disasters and that FEMA-funded capability is not exclusively for terrorism. Walls cannot stop hurricanes. Walls do not open evacuation shelters.
Ensuring our borders are protected and secure should be a national priority, but not at the expense of those in state and local governments that hold the sober honor of being both first responder and the last line of defence-in-depth. Diverting federal dollars away from nation-wide disaster response programs in order to fund a single security asset raises serious questions about our ability to maintain preparation for the multitude of threats and hazards we frequently face and those we cannot see coming.
Homeland security investment between the federal government and state and locals should not be a zero-sum game.
