For centuries, America has prioritized international diplomacy, because as a young nation, our continued existence depended on it. It is time we recognize what has now become axiomatic: the evolving nature of domestic crises jeopardize our national security, global standing, and our collective futures.
The wicked problems facing the United States are manifold, global, and growing. We are experiencing devastating and recurrent crises with increased frequency, severity, complexity, and cost. With COVID-19, mass migration, and humanitarian missions like Operations Allies Welcome and the Nicaraguan political prisoner release, these global crises have shrunk the far-reaching world to what is now as close as an outstretched hand.
Coincidentally, those charged with anticipating, responding to, and mitigating the domestic polycrisis – our nation’s emergency managers – possess a skill set and operate akin to international diplomats, but are drastically under resourced to fulfill their mission. We offer the following assessment to correlate the work of emergency managers to the international diplomatic enterprise. And in doing so, assert that America’s emergency managers should be seen as Disaster Diplomats, and prioritized, empowered, and resourced accordingly.
Diplomacy is a method of influencing policies, decisions, and behavior through negotiations, collaboration, and relationship-building. Internationally, diplomats nurture long-term public and private sector relationships across all political spectrums to effectuate policy changes, often concurrent to conflict and chaos, on behalf of the United States. In a similar fashion, domestically, disaster diplomats broker capacity-building and community resilience by strengthening ties, earning trust, and promoting lasting cooperation across layers of government bureaucracy and jurisdictional boundary lines. They work to ensure our emergency response and recovery efforts are seamless and implemented in the spirit of building resilient communities and people.
Both diplomats are adept at applying tools and relationships effectively to bring the government to bear on any complex event in the interest of the public. Simply put they are masters at influencing outcomes without controlling the chess board nor the pieces. They leverage private sector and nongovernmental partners, enact emergency authorities, scale response operations, manage billions of post-disaster recovery dollars with strict requirements and regulations, and execute public administration under pressure. Additionally, both diplomats help to implement evacuations under duress, negotiate intergovernmental agreements to expedite aid and assistance, administer billions of dollars in grants and relief aid, and represent the policy priorities of their respective administrations (i.e., town manager, mayor, governor, or president). However, the degree to which we as a nation prioritize, resource, and empower our emergency managers, in contrast to international diplomats, is wildly disparate, and arguably negligent given the country’s state of domestic permacrisis. It begs the question: would America’s communities better withstand chronic stressors and acute shocks, if we invested in disaster diplomats like we do their international counterparts?
Proof is found in numbers. For example, the Secretary of State is considered the highest-ranking member of the president’s Cabinet (second to the Vice President) and is fourth in line to the presidency. They also oversee a budget of more than $63.1B and a staff of nearly 77,000. In contrast, the Federal Emergency Management Agency – the disaster diplomat’s equivalent federal agency – is only one of more than a dozen components within the Department of Homeland Security, is led by a non-member of the Cabinet, and has a budget of $25.5B and 20,000 employees.
These disparities are further replicated at the state level, where only a handful of emergency managers serve on the governor’s cabinet, and all lead understaffed and underfunded agencies relative to the number of emergencies they face. And at the city or county level, emergency managers are often an office of one placed under the purview of the fire department or law enforcement, delegated as “other duties as assigned.” Each of these emergency managers lack the authority and autonomy of their international counterparts but are responsible for very similar missions.
Except domestically, the emergency management mission directly interfaces with our families, friends, coworkers, and communities, every single day.
However, disaster diplomats are experiencing significant burnout given the relentless pace of incidents, coupled with the lack of staffing and insufficient funding. Our country and our communities are dependent on our disaster diplomats to manage chaos and nurture long-term resilience on their behalf, and it’s time we begin to recognize the necessity of resourcing and funding emergency management.
The reality is such that as the changing climate influences the severity and frequency of natural disasters, technology advancements expose our cybersecurity risks, and as global war conflicts pose threats to the Homeland, America has never needed emergency managers more. But in the absence of adequate funding and prioritization of our disaster diplomat enterprise at the local, state, and federal levels, the safety and security of our communities is in jeopardy. If we don’t respond accordingly, our surest bet for a resilient future will be lost.
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