The U.S. Emergency Management Impacts from an “America First” Agenda

Once again, it’s time to worry about Global Biological Threats and Hazards

Photo by Iván Díaz on Unsplash

U.S. National Security and/or Homeland Security can be thought of as protective and preventative missions for the totality of U.S. disaster resilience or readiness. That’s a fancy way of saying that if you interdict and disrupt a threat early enough along its pathway to a disaster impacting humans (or “left of boom” as described in both military terms and Emergency Management), you can avoid or mitigate the adverse impacts from the potential hazards. In other words, on a global scale, if you solve the problem offshore (or off-island, for our U.S. territories), it’s better than having to respond to it in our homeland. Effective National and Homeland Security can avoid the need for domestic Emergency Management missions. That’s a lot of what we and other ‘superpowers’ do militarily around the world, and it is also what we have been doing for decades from a humanitarian relief perspective.

Here are just two CBRNE examples (the ‘B’ for biological) of where we humans will now generate a high impact risk, from the recent policy changes at the U.S. Federal level:

• Smallpox — was officially eradicated everywhere, through the work of many groups including the World…