Anthony J. Masys

High Impact/ Low Frequency extreme events: Enabling Reflection and Resilience in a Hyper-connected World

Abstract Helbing (2013:51) poignantly argues that ‘Globalization and technological revolutions are changing our planet’. Along with the benefits and opportunities associated with worldwide collaboration networks comes ‘pathways along which dangerous and damaging events can spread rapidly and globally’. With our hyper-connected world underpinned by hyper or hybrid-risks, the impact of unexpected events such as floods, earthquakes, financial crisis, and cyber-attacks has revealed the fragility and vulnerabilities that lie within the social/technological/economic/political/ecological interdependent systems. In particular, events that affect critical infrastructure such as damage to electric power, telecommunications, transportation, health care systems, financial markets and water-supply systems can have local, regional and global impact. Taleb (2007) calls these extreme events ‘Black swans’ to describe their inherent quality of surprise. Many of the systemic risks that characterize Natural Hazard triggered Technological disasters (NATECH) often arise from unanticipated consequences of interactions within and between different types of systems. Johnson and Tivnan (2012:65) argue that, ‘…understanding, controlling and predicting extreme behavior [of NATECH] is an important strategic goal to support resilience planning’. In this light, a new paradigm is required to support disaster risk reduction (DRR) embedded in hyper-risks; one that will develop not only anticipatory measures for risk management but also prepare for the unpredictable and the ‘unknown’ by building organisational resilience for hyper-risks in general and NATECH disasters in particular. In this paper we explore the emergency management domain associated with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident to show the hyper-connectivity and hyper-risks that permeated the problem space and thereby show how ‘reflective responses’ underpinned by ‘critical reflective practices’ can be used to support resilience in such a complex disaster.

Disaster management : enabling resilience

Part 1.- 1. Resilience Undefined. A Framework for Interdisciplinary Communication and Application for real World Problems T.G. Koslowski, P.H. Longstaff.- 2. Disaster Management, control and resilience E. Hollnagel.- Part 2. Urban Domain.- 3. Futuristic smart architecture for a rapid disaster response O. Chikumbo et al.- 4. Building in resilience. Long-term considerations in the design and production of residential buildings in Israel M. Sever, Y Garb, D. Pearlmutter.- 5. Urban Resilience & Sustainability. The role of a local resilience forum in England J. Fisher et al.- 6. Wicked Problems Framework. Architectural Lessons from recent urban disasters A. JaYeun Lee.- Part 3. Cyber Domain.- 7. Architectures for Cyber-Security Incident Reporting in Safety-Critical Systems Chris W. Johnson.- 8. The Cyber-ecosystem. Enabling resilience through the Comprehensive Approach A. J. Masys.- Part 4. Organizational/ Social Domain.- 9. Enabling Resilience. An examination of high reliability organizations and safety culture through the lens of Appreciative Inquiry J. Wattie, A.J. Masys.- 10. Unintended Consequences. What lessons can risk-managers learn from the use of armed Remotely Piloted Vehicles for counter-insurgency in Pakistan? S. Bennett.- 11. Extra-fragile in disaster. People with disabilities in a bombarded zone R. Sever.- 12. The application of quality of life metrics R. Potangaroa et al.- 13. Defining and negotiating a shared responsibility for disaster resilience B. Wilson.- Part 5. Socio-ecological Domain.- 14. Wildland Fire Management. Movement towards enabling resiliency? M.R. Czaja.- 15. Case-Study. Vulnerabilities co-evolutionary dynamics in Morelia Michoacan, Mexico L. Aguilar-Armendariz, A.N. Martinez-Garcia.

Critical Infrastructure Vulnerabilities: Embracing a Network Mindset

Critical Infrastructure has become fundamental to the functioning of our society. With the increasing interdependencies within critical infrastructure, the failure or damage of electric power grid, transportation networks, telecommunications, healthcare and water-supply systems would not only cause huge social disruption but also have significant national security implications that can cascade across borders. Developing effective protection, mitigation and recovery measures for critical infrastructures is paramount in the wake of increasing natural and human-initiated hazards, risks and threats. In the past decade, unprecedented technological advancements, rapid institutional changes and trans-boundary dependencies have changed the landscape of infrastructure systems. Critical infrastructure has now evolved into highly interconnected and interdependent networks of socio-technical systems in which different technological layers are interoperating crossing borders within the environmental, social and organizational context that drive their design, operations and development (Masys in Networks and network analysis for defence and security. Springer Publishing, 2014a, b). Understanding the nature of system interdependencies and emerging vulnerabilities can play an essential role in managing and/or reducing the probabilities and consequences of cascading failures in interdependent systems. In this light, the overall objective of this chapter is to address the knowledge gap existing in the dominant risk and disaster management theories by challenging and improving our networked mental model in order to better understand the interdependency-induced vulnerability pertaining to critical infrastructures thereby developing effective protection measures and enabling organizational resilience (Masys in Innovative thinking in risk, crisis and disaster management. Gower Publishing, UK, 2012a, Int J Disaster Prev Manage 21(3):320–335, 2012b). For policy makers, infrastructure owners/operators and researchers as target audience, this chapter will identify emerging challenges to the traditional security thinking in this field and suggest alternative approaches to risk assessment, vulnerability analysis.

Critical Infrastructure and Vulnerability: A Relational Analysis Through Actor Network Theory

Threats to national security, such as that against critical infrastructures not only stem from man-made acts but also from natural hazards. Hurricane Katrina (2005), Blackout Canada-US (2003), Fukushima (2011), Hurricane Sandy (2012), and Alberta floods (2013) are examples that highlight the vulnerability of critical infrastructures to natural hazards and the crippling effect that failures can have on the social and economic well-being of a community and a nation. Focusing on the initiating event that precipitated the critical infrastructure failure does not capture the root vulnerabilities or ‘resident pathogens’ that are ‘hard-wired’ into the greater networked system. Through the complexity/systems lens of Actor Network Theory (ANT), this chapter explores how key ‘actors’ within a network can align other actors creating ‘unseen’ vulnerabilities.

Dealing with Complexity: Thinking About Networks and the Comprehensive Approach

Within the ‘hyper-connected world’ Helbing [9: 51], networked risks emerge that challenge our understanding and management of the defence, security and safety domain. In this ‘hyper-connected world’ with interconnected social/technical/political/economic systems, shocks to regional, national and global systems stemming from natural hazards, acts of armed violence, terrorism and transnational crime have significant defence and security implications. Helbing [9: 53] argues that ‘…Individual risks may rightly have been viewed as small, but the risk to the system as a whole was vast.’’ Risk assessments thereby require appreciation for the externalities and non-linear cause-effect relationships that reside within the problem space. In light of this, we are moving from crisis management to complexity management. This chapter describes the relevance of the comprehensive approach to the defence, security and safety domain within the paradigm of network thinking

Disrupting Terrorist and Criminal Networks: Crime Script Analysis Through DODAF Applications

The complexity of the current threat landscape associated with terrorism and criminal networks continues to be a top national and global security agenda item. With heightened awareness and concern regarding the proliferation and expansion of ISIL and connections to homegrown violent extremism, understanding the network structure and functional perspectives is a key enabler to supporting counter terrorism disruption strategies. Challenges associated with understanding these ‘dark networks’ stems both from contextualizing the information (plagued by uncertainty and ambiguity) and from the multiplex nature of the actors whereby they can share more than one type of relation. In this exploratory work, Counter-Terrorism Architectural Frameworks (CTAF) is introduced as an application of the Department of Defense Architectural Frameworks (DODAF) to support ‘opening the blackbox’ of terrorist activities to identify terrorist network vulnerabilities and to develop disruption strategies. The multiple views afforded by the application of DODAF provides a more comprehensive picture to support decision making and can highlight the complex organizational dynamics that are not readily observable through Social Network Analysis (SNA) alone. In this chapter the methodology is explained and applied to an analysis of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist network (Subrahmanian et al. in Computational analysis of terrorist groups: Lashkar-e-Taiba. Springer, Berlin, 2013) and the Noordin Top terrorist network (Roberts and Everton in J Soc Struct 12(2), 2011).

Asia-Pacific Security Challenges

From the refugee crisis to economic slowdowns in emerging markets, from ever-rising numbers of terrorist and cyberattacks to water shortages and famines, global risks continue to dominate the headlines. The Asia-Pacific region in particular has the highest number of total occurrences, fatalities and effects of natural disaster events (flood and cyclone) and is no stranger to mega-disasters such as the likes of Super Typhoon Haiyan and Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. According to the World Economic Forum ‘The world is insufficiently prepared for an increasingly complex risk environment’ (WEF, Global Risks 2015 10th edn: insight report, 2015). The threats to human security that we face today are multiple, complex and interrelated and often mutually reinforcing. As such, ‘Global risks cannot be seen in isolation’ (WEF, Global Risks 2015 10th edn: insight report, 2015). The hyperconnected world we live in is underpinned by hyper or hybrid-risks, whereby ‘...the fragility and vulnerabilities lie within the social/technological/economic/political/ ecological interdependent systems’ (Masys AJ, Ray-Bennett N, Shiroshita H, Jackson P, Procedia Econ Financ 18:772–779, 2014). It is through these underlying networks that Helbing (Nature 497:51–59, 2013) argues that we have ‘... created pathways along which dangerous and damaging events can spread rapidly and globally’ and thereby has increased systemic risks. The Asia-Pacific region faces many human security challenges associated with meeting food, water, and energy requirements in scenarios that stress the human security ‘ecosystem’. A Chatham House report ‘Preparing for High Impact, Low Probability Events’, found that governments and businesses remain unprepared for such events (Lee B, Preston F, Green G, Preparing for high-impact, low – probability events: lessons from Eyjafjallajokull. A Chatham House Report, London, 2012). This chapter presents the Asia-Pacific Security landscape as a complex ‘ecosystem’ that requires concepts, tools and perspectives from complexity theory, systems thinking and network science to support regional and global security risk management. The key is to embrace a strategic visioning and actioning that examines the interdependencies and interconnectivity across various ‘actors’ in the security ecosystem and how black swan events can stress the system. This is examined through A.J. Masys (*) University of Leicester, Leicester, UK e-mail: anthony.masys@gmail.com

Complexity and Security: New Ways of Thinking and Seeing

From the refugee crisis to economic slowdowns in emerging markets, from ever-rising numbers of terrorist and cyberattacks to water shortages and famines, global risks continue to dominate the headlines. The Asia-Pacific region in particular has the highest number of total occurrences, fatalities and effects of natural disaster events (flood and cyclone) and is no stranger to mega-disasters such as the likes of Super Typhoon Haiyan and Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. According to the World Economic Forum ‘The world is insufficiently prepared for an increasingly complex risk environment’ (WEF, Global Risks 2015 10th edn: insight report, 2015). The threats to human security that we face today are multiple, complex and interrelated and often mutually reinforcing. As such, ‘Global risks cannot be seen in isolation’ (WEF, Global Risks 2015 10th edn: insight report, 2015). The hyper-connected world we live in is underpinned by hyper or hybrid-risks, whereby ‘…the fragility and vulnerabilities lie within the social/technological/economic/political/ecological interdependent systems’ (Masys AJ, Ray-Bennett N, Shiroshita H, Jackson P, Procedia Econ Financ 18:772–779, 2014). It is through these underlying networks that Helbing (Nature 497:51–59, 2013) argues that we have ‘… created pathways along which dangerous and damaging events can spread rapidly and globally’ and thereby has increased systemic risks.

Manufactured Risk, Complexity and Non-traditional Security: From World Risk Society to a Networked Risk Model

Within the context of non-traditional security, this chapter reflects upon Beck’s (1992, 2009) claim that we inhabit a Risk Society. With the advent of global climate change, extreme weather, transnational crime, NATECH’s (natural disaster triggered technological disasters), and terrorism, Beck’s notion of ‘manufactured risks’ resonates with the non-traditional security domain that includes: economic security, energy security, environmental security, health security and food security. This is all about complexity framing. Beck (1992) risk discourse regarding manufactured risks and effects that are both temporally and spatially displaced resonates with the complexity notion of nonlinearity. Hence the inherent interdependencies and interconnectivity that characterizes the risk space leads to a network model. The notion of hyper-risks (Helbing 2013; Masys et al. 2014) captures well the interconnectivity and complexity of the security threats. The complexity lens thereby becomes prominent in examining security. A networked risk model emerges as a construct that links Becks risk discourse to non-traditional security challenges.

Supporting Intelligence Analysis Through Visual Thinking

Today’s threat landscape is characterized by uncertainty and complexity stemming from the interconnectivity and interdependence of the hyper-connected world (Masys et al. in Procedia Econ Finance 18:772–779, 2014). Threats stemming from terrorism and transnational crime are more diverse and interconnected thereby calling upon an expansion of the analytic envelope and vocabulary of intelligence. This complex problem space is value-laden, open-ended, multidimensional, ambiguous and unstable and can be labeled as ‘wicked and messy’. Events such as 9/11 highlight “surprising events” that reflect an organizations inability to recognize evidence of new vulnerabilities or the existence of ineffective countermeasures (Woods in Resilience engineering: concepts and precepts, 2006). This necessitates the requirement to readjust to their existence and thereby the need to consider the extremes (Taleb in The Black Swan: the impact of the highly improbable, 2007), to challenge dominant mindsets and explore the space of possibilities. In Limits of Intelligence Analysis, Heuer (Orbis 49(1):75–94, 2005) argues how limitations in perception, perspective, and resistance to change, as well as understanding and communicating uncertainty all contribute the complexity of intelligence analysis. To support this, Richards (The art and science of intelligence analysis, 2010) argues that key components that support intelligence analysis include: critical thinking, creativity, powers of judgment, and communication. Addressing the unique challenges associated with transnational threats as terrorism and organized crime requires creative and collaborative efforts among key intelligence and security stakeholders that facilitate questioning judgments and underlying assumptions, and employing critical and creative thinking in order to explore the possibility space. This chapter explores the application of ‘visual thinking’ to support the complexity and challenges associated with intelligence analysis.