Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
Introduction Summit on Resilience: Securing Our Future Through Public-Private Partnerships In May 2010, the White House released the National Security Strategy. One key component of it reads: Improve Resilience Through Increased Public-Private Partnerships: When incidents occur, we must show resilience by maintaining critical operations and functions, returning to our normal life, and learning from disasters so that their lessons can be translated into pragmatic changes when necessary. The private sector, which owns and operates most of the nation's critical infrastructure, plays a vital role in preparing for and recovering from disasters. We must, therefore, strengthen public-private partnerships by developing incentives for government and the private sector to design structures and systems that can withstand disruptions and mitigate associated consequences, ensure redundant systems where necessary to maintain the ability to operate, decentralize critical operations to reduce our vulnerability to single points of disruption, develop and test continuity plans to ensure the ability to restore critical capabilities, and invest in improvements and maintenance of existing infrastructure. (Page 19, National Security Strategy, May 2010) This simple paragraph has been an integral part of multiple discussions on how best to secure the country since September 11, 2001. And yet, most do not grasp its potential reality. One possible explanation is that little is known about the definition of resilience, and the capacity and capability of both the public and private sector to build partnerships. One plausible explanation is that the public sector tends to be quite wary of the private sector, and the same can be said regarding the private sector's attitude toward the public sector. There is a conflict of cultures. To illustrate the complexities of the discussion around the topic of resilience, the strategy notes that, "When incidents occur, we must show resilience by maintaining critical operations and functions, returning to our normal life, and learning from disasters so that their lessons can be translated into pragmatic changes when necessary." If this component of the strategy is to be successful, there is a series of questions that has been around for a number of years and yet, no clear answers have been offered. Such questions include: When and why do the public and private sectors need to be in partnership? One way to approach this question is to look at a specific context for potential partnership. Neither sector gives sustained attention to catastrophe or to its codependency in case of catastrophe or near catastrophe (e.g., Three Mile Island, Deepwater Horizon, the 1965 Northeast Blackout). Instead, in the face of catastrophe, there is often a tendency toward mutual finger-pointing. Considering these and other examples, what can we learn about the key tensions separating the sectors and the core needs binding the sectors? How can effective proactive collaboration be crafted to prevent and mitigate crises? 4