DESIGNING RESILIENCE: DIVERSITY IN GOVERNMENT
One of the Tools of CAVEAT is designing resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back. For years our vital and essential services have been planning for resilience. Hospitals have generators; utilities have emergency crews; communities have firefighters and police practice responses to disasters. No finer group of catastrophists can be found outside our military. They are continually working not only to respond to war-like scenarios, but they also plan on inflicting catastrophes on our enemies. They don’t just think about their own operations. In military circles and in FEMA, they use terms like continuity of government. In this regard, America is vastly vulnerable to catastrophes. Parts of Washington, D.C. are only 3 feet above sea level. (Think of the Tidal Basin).
This blog is soliciting ideas for diversifying risks which threaten continuity of our government. To start this discussion, I would like to suggest a few of my own ideas. Washington, D.C. is one of America’s greatest vulnerabilities. Too many eggs are in one basket. What do we do if our capital is obliterated? Maybe we will get lucky and be able to evacuate the people before the tsunami or the meteor strikes. Maybe we won’t. Either way, we need to have a new capital up and running in a few days with whoever is left in our government.
In the dialogue suggesting we make Washington, D.C. a state, the advocates made several interesting points. Since the District of Columbia (D.C.) residents cannot vote, we could by Constitutional Amendment reduce the size of D.C. to a small nonresidential area. Someone suggested that the rest of D.C. could then be given back to Maryland, so all the residents could vote, even without creating another state. As a part of that Constitutional Amendment, we could dedicate a small part of another state or states as other Districts of Columbia.
I move we create a new D.C. in Nebraska, near Lincoln. This would be named Lincoln, W.D.C. and the small-partitioned part of Washington would be known as Washington, E.D.C. (I don’t foresee any other Presidents rising to the level of our two greatest Presidents.) Lincoln, NE, and Washington, MD, would then be just outside of the governing D.C.’s. Now Lincoln, W.D.C. could be especially designed and built as prepared for a catastrophe. The government buildings would be underground structures designed for a wide variety of catastrophes. I suggest we save money by building these structures for the President and Congress and Supreme Court above ground, including tunnels between the structures and then burying them deep under/above ground and then building wind turbines and solar panels above the ground to power the West capital. Now as to the rest of the bureaucracy, they would not be in either D.C.
Right now our government could be wiped out if a catastrophe hit Washington, D.C. Our government should be spread out across the nation. Geographic dispersion should be built-in by relocating each Department to a different state. Further, each Department head office should be 200 meters (660 feet) above sea level. (I will explain why this is advisable in my book, When Antarctica Melts). Now some of these Departments are very large and require many personnel. To diversify risks within a Department, they too can be in several cities. A Department assigned to Ohio could have sub-departments in Canton, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Lexington, KY, and Detroit, MI. Communications within a Department could be on closed architecture computer systems. Indeed, the government should all be on closed architecture/VPN lines and systems.
Some agencies have already taken the first steps towards geographical dispersion for practical reasons apart from minimizing risk. The I.R.S. has offices everywhere. The Census Bureau is also widely dispersed. The Federal Court system is a model of dispersion. Likewise, the Federal Reserve.
I think each Department should be assigned a different part of the country. Maybe California and Texas are big enough to have two, one in the north and one in the south. As much as possible, this is not meant to reward every state. New York and New England should have one department, probably the State Department. The Mid-Atlantic states should have one department, probably the Attorney General’s office. West Virginia already has Social Security, because of Senator Byrd.
This blog should be interesting. Don’t think this is limited to bureaucratic considerations. Please think in terms of other ways our government can be made more resilient through diversification.