Responding to Catastrophes: U.S. Innovation in a Vulnerable World

Humanitarian crises pose an urgent challenge to policymakers. Some in the policy community
may dismiss humanitarian response as—at best—an addendum to more traditional security
concerns, yet the potential effects of these crises are daunting. The prospect of a terrorist attack
in New York being closely followed by a hurricane in Houston and an earthquake in Los Angeles,
for example, is far from unreasonable, and it is frightening to consider the consequences such a
scenario would have on the U.S. government both at home and abroad. It is essential that decisionmakers
in the United States begin to grapple as seriously with crisis management as they would
with other security issues, which will require greater U.S. engagement on international catastrophe
response.
As a world leader, the United States has a serious interest in the effective management of
humanitarian crises. Strong crisis management supports larger U.S. goals for global security, and
in cases where the United States takes a visible leadership role, it can significantly bolster American
prestige.1 In addition, effective humanitarian response is consistent with American values and
provides the United States with an opportunity to balance realpolitik with international goodwill.
Despite these opportunities, the United States often fails to coordinate crisis management effectively
with international counterparts. This tendency is at least partially driven by a perception
that international response mechanisms are burdened by chronic failures, as well as an occasional
ignorance of the architecture of global crisis management among U.S. nongovernment response
groups.
Yet the global humanitarian community offers enormous resources to international emergencies,
and a greater integration of U.S. and international efforts could significantly improve international
crisis management. The United States has neither the will nor the capacity to manage
every humanitarian crisis around the world, and the best strategy for enhancing American disaster
risk management is to improve the existing global structures, as well as adjust U.S. involvement in
those structures.
The extraordinary current of innovation in American life offers initial solutions to some of the
more intractable problems in crisis response. By looking to nontraditional humanitarian partners,
such as the private sector and the military, the United States would be well positioned to lead reforms
in global crisis management. New partnerships could significantly improve services for the
vulnerable and support wider U.S. objectives by boosting American prestige.