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. In the past five years alone, we endured a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic, unprecedented incidents of civil unrest, cyber-attacks, violent weather, devastating wildfires, humanitarian missions, and nation-state conflict. 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 de jour – our nation’s emergency managers – possess a similar skill set and operate akin to international diplomats, but are drastically under-resourced to fulfill their mission. We offer the following assessment and examples 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 to meet their mission accordingly.
Whether international or domestic, 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 international and domestic disaster 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, city 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 be able to 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 to the Department of State – 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. Compounding the issue further, 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. And as if that doesn’t bury their mission far enough down, the role of the emergency manager is often delegated as “other duties as assigned.” Which means in these examples – emergency managers lack the authority and autonomy of their international counterparts but are still responsible for very similar missions. Except domestically, the emergency management mission directly interfaces with our families, friends, coworkers, and communities, every single day.
What the public may not know is that disaster management is a long-term effort. Even after the response ends, each disaster involves long-term recovery, economic development, insurance intricacies, and hazard mitigation – that impact how we rebuild and how people heal. The disaster diplomats’ sophisticated level of public administration, and vast range of specialties across what has become a borderless crisis environment, ensures affected communities bend, rather than break. The safety and security of the homeland in the face of complex disasters, and our resolve to build a more resilient future, is reliant on leveraging their skills across communities, organizations, and the whole-of-government.
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. So why aren’t the American people advocating for domestic disaster diplomacy?
Let’s take a closer look at the disaster diplomat enterprise, to justify such a request.
For many, the beginning of COVID-19 felt like trying to hug a ghost. Overnight, our entire world deteriorated across every conceivable metric and industry. Given the scope and pace of COVID 19, communities needed a group of public administration practitioners versed in establishing a response framework to manage the chaos. Accordingly, our disaster diplomats rose to the occasion, building a foundation through the National Incident Management System to connect public health, education, housing, commerce, communications, transportation, faith groups, and other stakeholders, to strengthen ties, build trust, and promote cooperation. Simplifying complexity is part of the domestic and international diplomacy tradecraft, and by doing so during COVID-19, emergency managers brought a sense of structure and normalcy that inarguably benefited our collective response to a once-in-a-generation global pandemic.
By July 2024, America’s disaster diplomats have already been thrust into the role they’re most accustomed to, coordinating multi-agency response and recovery efforts to extreme weather events. The deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma, the devastating Derecho in Houston and Harris County, Texas, record-breaking heat in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, and the first category 5 hurricane to occur early in Hurricane season, serve to remind us that the new normal of permacrisis is already here. Through each operation, disaster diplomats have leveraged relationships, collaborating with hundreds of public and private sector organizations to share critical information. They’ve also coordinated the deployment of assets for search and rescue missions, operated mass care shelters and family assistance centers, and conducted damage assessments so that we can rebuild. And when each response concludes, these disaster diplomats continue their leadership by seeking, advocating for, and administering billions of post-disaster recovery dollars and hazard mitigation grants to foster community resilience.
Twice within the last three years, the State Department has operated a humanitarian mission on domestic soil. The evacuation of more than 74,000 Afghans during Operation Allies Welcome in 2021, and the release of 200 political prisoners from Nicaragua in 2023 provided opportunities for disaster diplomats to do what they do best – bring people together to help those most in need. Our domestic disaster diplomats supported large federal agencies and their international counterparts as they navigated securing acute and short-term healthcare, vaccines, customs and background checks, legal resources for asylees and parolees, shelter and sustenance, media interest, Congressional oversight, and an array of other complex considerations.
From local concerts and conventions to Super Bowls and the Olympics, special event planning is one of the most intricate and orchestrated roles that disaster diplomats play. And like their international counterparts, much of this work occurs outside of the public-eye. For example, with 2024 being an election year, teams led by disaster diplomats near Washington, DC, have been busy preparing for the 2025 Presidential Inauguration, coordinating the consequence management aspects of the ceremonies. For over a year, they have planned, collaborated, trained, and conducted exercises with local, state, and federal officials, dozens of law enforcement entities, and leadership of both political parties to ensure America’s time-honored tradition of an inauguration is conducted with the public’s safety in-mind. On Inauguration Day, disaster diplomats will host hundreds of partners in their emergency operations centers to monitor the event and be ready to respond if an incident occurs. Internationally, these efforts are most closely aligned with hosting NATO Summits and G7.
The realities of today are such that as the changing climate influences the severity and frequency of natural disasters, technology advancements continue to 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.