Managing Foreign Assistance in a CBRN Emergency

The U.S. Government Response
to Japan’s “Triple Disaster”
By S U Z A N N E B A S A L L A ,W I L L I A M B E R G E R , and
C. SPENCER ABBOT

R

esponding to a major disaster is invariably time-critical, complex, and difficult.
Supporting a foreign government engaged in a disaster response adds an additional
layer of logistical, linguistic, cultural, and organizational challenges. The tsunami
caused by the March 11, 2011, earthquake in Japan killed more than 19,000 people
and destroyed coastal settlements along a massive swath of Japan’s eastern coast. Responding to anatural disaster of such magnitude would prove a monumental task for any country. Japan, throughits extensive community level training and significant investment in disaster preparedness, is as
experienced and capable as any nation in coping with nature’s hazards. However, as the grave situation at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant unfolded in the days following the tsunami, theJapanese government confronted a crisis of unprecedented and daunting complexity.

U.S. Marine Corps (Brennan O’Lowney)

Suzanne Basalla is Senior Advisor to U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos. William Berger is a Principal
Regional Advisor in the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International
Development and headed the Disaster Assistance Response Team in Japan. Commander C. Spencer Abbot,
USN, served at U.S. Embassy Tokyo as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow.

Commanding generals of III Marine
Expeditionary Force and Japan GroundSelf-Defense Force discuss progress of
disaster relief mission at Uranohama Portn d u p res s .ndu.edu

issue 68, 1 st quarter 2013 / JFQ

25

FORUM | Managing Foreign Assistance in a CBRN Emergency
To understand the threats to Japan
posed by the cascading sequence of breakdowns at the plant, and to undertake theactions required to halt the disaster’s progression, the Japanese government had toknit together information, assessments, andcapabilities from a wide array of government
and private sector actors, many of whom do
not normally work together. To support Japanin its efforts to respond to the complex andrapidly unfolding crisis, the U.S. Government
similarly required disparate agencies that do
not often interact to quickly establish a close,collaborative working relationship in the
midst of an emergency.
This first large-scale U.S. response to
a complex disaster including a chemical,
biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN)
element required a number of organizational
adaptations over the course of the crisis. The
U.S. Government has established detailed
procedures for responding to such incidents
under the rubric of Foreign Consequence
Management (FCM). Yet in managing
the situation, U.S. officials engaged in the
response within Japan found that existing guidance was vague and undefinedwith respect to interagency organizational
processes and structures needed to absorb
additional personnel sent forward and to
execute the foreign assistance aspect of
the FCM function. The government of theaffected state has primary responsibility for
responding to CBRN events within its territory. Some indeterminacy exists, however,within the U.S. Government as to the leadagency role during a foreign assistance effort
in response to a CBRN emergency.1 Within
the affected country, responsibility falls to
the Chief of Mission, in this case U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos, to coordinate theactivities of the various agencies involved in
the disaster response. Over time, both theJapanese and the U.S. governments’ organizational mechanisms evolved in response to thecomplex demands of supporting the Japanese
government through its management of thenuclear emergency. The lessons of the crisis
response warrant review and consideration,
as future responses to a natural or manmade
disaster abroad that include a CBRN
aspect—whether an epidemic; an attack witha radiological dispersal device, or “dirtybomb”; or a terrorist attack with a biologicalagent—would also necessitate rapid integration of disparate but vital capabilities fromboth inside and outside government.

26

JFQ / issue 68, 1 st quarter 2013

The U.S. Government Approach toDisaster Assistance
The U.S. Government possesses awell-developed and proven system for
responding to natural disasters abroad, with
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and its Office of U.S. Foreign
Disaster Assistance (OFDA) playing thelead role. The Foreign Assistance Act of1961 created USAID and delegated disasterassistance authority to the USAID administrator. Yet OFDA’s predecessor office was notcreated until 1964–1965 after clear failures ininteragency coordination during a disaster
response in Macedonia drove congressionalpressure for a more robust coordinative
structure. Consideration was given within
Congress at the time to assigning the leadprovides a standardized approach to managing on-scene activities, with staffing support
concentrated in five central areas: command,
operations, planning, logistics, and finance/
administration.4 The ICS organizational
structure is not unlike the staffing model
used by the U.S. military and is designed tobe put in place rapidly when required, as wellas to integrate a broad spectrum of outside
agencies and organizations. The Departmentof Homeland Security has incorporated the
ICS construct under NIMS as the foundational structure used in its National Response
Framework (NRF), the primary document
guiding U.S. domestic disaster response planning and execution. The NRF seeks to provide“scalable, flexible, and adaptable coordinating
structures” for use in responses ranging from

U.S. officials engaged in the response within Japan found thatexisting guidance was vague and undefined with respect tointeragency organizational processes and structuresrole to the Department of Defense (DOD);
however, by assigning the role of lead Federal
agency in an international disaster response
to USAID and OFDA, the United States has
maintained a primarily civilian face for its
disaster assistance efforts and has provided
a mechanism for coordination of DOD andother governmental and nongovernmental
actors involved in disaster relief.2 Given thewide array of actors involved in a disaster
response—a number that only continues togrow in present day emergencies—effective
disaster relief coordination poses a constantchallenge for OFDA and for the humanitarianrelief community, especially when significant
numbers of military or other Federal Government personnel are involved.
OFDA drew on the very successful“incident management system” concept developed by the U.S. Forest Service to create its
Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART)
model, through which OFDA organizes
responses to the most serious disasters abroad.
Domestically, the Department of Homeland
Security’s National Incident Management
System (NIMS) provides a well-understoodorganizational structure that readily incorporates contributions from external actors, istailored in size to the situation at hand, andcan be replicated at the local, state, or national
level.3 A key mechanism within NIMS is the
Incident Command System (ICS), whichthose at the local level “to large-scale terrorist
attacks or catastrophic natural disasters.”5
The DART team model used by OFDA
represents a similar organizational logic
distilled over time through lessons learned
during DART-led responses to many disasters
abroad. The organizational commonality
between the U.S. systems for domestic andinternational disaster response has proved
useful, as several recent major disasters
have led the U.S Government to draw on
significant domestic disaster response capacity to augment response efforts overseas. For
example, Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate
traveled with USAID Administrator Rajiv
Shah to Port-au-Prince soon after the January2010 earthquake in Haiti, and FEMA personnel were deployed to the U.S. Embassy in Portau-Prince to work alongside colleagues fromOFDA who led the response under a DART
structure. The DART also coordinated theactivities of several Department of Health andHuman Services Disaster Medical AssistanceTeams that were deployed to Haiti, but primarily focuses on domestic disaster response.6
DARTs are often led by OFDA regional
advisors who live and work in their areas of
responsibility, and are thus familiar with thegeography, governments, and issues that affectdisaster responses in those regions. Richard
Stuart Olson, in studying the OFDA DARTnd upres s . ndu. edu

BASALLA, BERGER, and ABBOT
system, noted that “One of the singular advantages of deploying a DART is that it automatically clarifies who is in charge, which avoids theusual problem of leadership and reporting confusion when multiple [U.S.] agencies go into
the field. This clarity even extends to the U.S.
military when [it is] involved in a response.”7
Substantial progress has been made over the
past decade in clarifying and systematizing
coordination between USAID and DOD in
particular. USAID development advisors andOFDA humanitarian assistance advisors havebeen stationed in each of the DOD geographic
combatant commands, and an Office of Military Affairs (now the Office of Civilian-Military Cooperation) was created within USAID
in 2005. While occurring in very different contexts, both the 2010 U.S. disaster response in
Haiti and the 2011 response in Japan involved
substantial numbers of military personnel,
placing a premium on both interagency andmultinational coordination.

The Initial Response to Japan’s
Humanitarian Crisis

to include representatives from the NRC in
the original composition of the DART. Thisdecision ensured that U.S. nuclear power
expertise, and reachback to U.S.-based colleagues, was available from the early days of
the unfolding crisis. The ability to rapidly
fund and support interagency colleagues fromrelevant agencies is one of the key advantagesof the DART construct, and the short-notice
deployment of these experts reflects thevalue of close interagency consultation andinformation-sharing in the immediate wakeof a major disaster.
OFDA maintains agreements with
Fairfax County (Virginia) and Los Angeles
County (California) to provide rapidly
deployable Urban Search-and-Rescue (USAR)
teams. On March 13, USAR teams arrived
in Japan aboard a commercial aircraft chartered by OFDA, and the equipment cachearrived via U.S. Air Force C-17s, pursuant toa formal USAID request for DOD support.
With Misawa Air Base providing invaluable
logistics, mapping, and other support, these
USAR teams focused their efforts on theareas of Ofunato and Kamaishi on the heavily
damaged Iwate coast. The DART quickly
U.S. Air Force (Shane A. Cuomo)

The collaborative effort between
Japan and the United States in the wake of

the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake
represents the largest cooperative military
undertaking in the history of the U.S.-Japan
alliance. To confront the crisis, the Japan SelfDefense Forces (JSDF) mobilized more than
100,000 personnel, establishing the first jointtask force in its history and calling up reserve
forces to active duty for the first time. Morethan 24,000 U.S. troops supported Japan’s
disaster response through Operation Tomodachi, working closely with USAID, the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), theU.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and a hostof other U.S. Government agencies. Indeed,
the response to the March 11 “triple disaster”
represented an unprecedented whole-ofgovernment effort by both Japan and theUnited States.
Immediately after receiving reports ofthe massive damage and loss of life caused by
the tsunami, USAID mobilized and deployeda DART to coordinate U.S. assistance to theJapanese government. USAID Administrator
Shah, after assessing reports from the regionin consultation with senior officials fromacross the U.S. Government, made a timely
decision, within 24 hours of the earthquake,

U.S. military and Japanese officials discuss
deployment of water pumping station for
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
during Operation Tomodachin d u p res s .ndu.edu

issue 68, 1 st quarter 2013 / JFQ

27

FORUM | Managing Foreign Assistance in a CBRN Emergency
Because the Japanese governmentorganizes its disaster relief efforts at the prefectural level—roughly analogous to that ofa U.S. state—it does not maintain a national
civilian agency specifically focused on disaster
relief, as FEMA does in the United States. The
JSDF thus plays an especially important rolein large-scale disaster relief within Japan. As
such, the close working relationship and long
history of combined exercises between the
U.S. and Japanese militaries proved extremely
valuable throughout the course of Operation
Tomodachi and in the disaster response more
U.S. Navy (Matthew M. Bradley)assigned a humanitarian assistance advisor
to the military at the headquarters of U.S.
Forces–Japan (USFJ) at Yokota Air Base to
assist with civil-military coordination and thevetting of requests for U.S. military assistancereceived from the Japanese government.
OFDA uses a system called the Mission
Tasking Matrix (MITAM) to receive, assess,validate, and prioritize requests for military
assistance during a disaster. This system
has been successfully used to facilitate civilmilitary coordination in numerous disaster
response efforts, and the MITAM system isMarine Corps CBRN specialists remove
radioactive contamination from Army generator
during Operation Tomodachi

thoroughly briefed to U.S. military participants in the Joint Humanitarian Operations
Course taught by OFDA personnel. During
the Operation Tomodachi relief effort, USFJ
successfully used a related process named the
Joint Requirements Review Board to assessrequests brought forward by the MITAM
system and to determine whether thoserequests could be supported based on the
joint task force commander’s priorities andthe resources available. USFJ also positioned
Bilateral Crisis Action Teams with theJapanese government at the Japanese jointtask force headquarters in Sendai and at the
Ministry of Defense headquarters in Ichigaya,
where the USFJ deputy was stationed. USFJ
also hosted a JSDF general officer and numerous other JSDF officers at USFJ headquarters
at Yokota Air Base.

28

JFQ / issue 68, 1 st quarter 2013

broadly. Through Operation Tomodachi, theU.S. military delivered approximately 189
tons of food, 87 tons of relief materials, and2 million gallons of potable water to support
Japan’s relief efforts.
After consultations with the Japanese
government, U.S. forces cleared the debriscovered runway at Sendai Airport sufficiently
to allow a C-130 aircraft to land on March 16,
only 5 days after the tsunami. The openingof the airport allowed the Japanese government and relief agencies to fly massive
quantities of supplies into the area. The rapid
opening of the airport was accomplished byhard-working men and women of the U.S.
military and made possible by close communication and cooperation between U.S.
commanders and the JSDF. Communication
is of paramount importance in a post-disaster environment. Military officers on
both sides who could work in both Japaneseand English were especially valuable to thedisaster response effort and in high demand
to facilitate communication and coordination
at all levels, from boots-on-the-ground roles
to policy-level coordination in Tokyo. These
included foreign area officers in various
U.S. commands within Japan, officers withlanguage training stationed at the Embassy,
as well as others, such as officers enrolled inforeign war college and exchange billets with
the JSDF.
A large number of outside augmentees
from a variety of organizations joined permanently stationed USFJ personnel. Augmentation of existing U.S. military capacity in Japan
included the deployment of a joint task force
led by Admiral Patrick Walsh, commander of
the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Admiral Walsh served
during his forward deployment to Japan as
overall joint task force commander at theaugmented headquarters and led what was
designated the Joint Support Force (JSF).
Command of the JSF was then passed to Lieutenant General Burton Field, USAF, the USFJ
commander. The military’s joint task force
construct is a key mechanism through whicha staff can be built or augmented in responseto the needs of a particular situation andrepresents a well-understood and frequently
exercised process that can quickly absorb andchannel the activities of supplementary personnel arriving during a contingency or crisis.
This process was key to enhancing USFJ’s
capacity to cope with the massive demands ofexecuting Operation Tomodachi, coordinatingwith other U.S. agencies, and supporting the
JSDF in their crisis response efforts.

Confronting the Nuclear Emergency
U.S. Embassy Tokyo and civilian U.S.
Government agencies involved in the disaster
response faced similar challenges and theneed for additional staff and resources as theseverity of the crisis became clear. As DART
personnel were arriving to carry out the U.S.
humanitarian response in the days following
the earthquake and tsunami, the situation
at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
became a prime focus of U.S. officials as they
sought to support the Japanese governmentand safeguard the well-being of the large
community of American citizens living andworking in Japan.
The NRC personnel who initiallydeployed with the DART team were soonnd upres s . ndu. edu

BASALLA, BERGER, and ABBOT
augmented by senior NRC management andadditional NRC staff. The NRC team set its
base of operations within the Embassy andworked closely with senior Embassy staff,
USFJ, and officials from other agencies whoarrived to assist the response effort. The
DOE augmented the Energy Attaché’s officein the Embassy with officials from the DOE
National Nuclear Security Administrationand other DOE personnel to advise on the
response to radiological contamination,
the status of the accident as it progressed,
and subsequent stabilization and cleanup
activities. DOE soon partnered with U.S.
Pacific Command (USPACOM) and USFJ toundertake airborne measurements of grounddeposition of radioactive elements and shared
the results of those assessments with theJapanese government. This capacity was latertransferred to the Japanese government, andthe measuring equipment was then flown on
aircraft operated by the JSDF.
One of the most critical challenges facedby Ambassador Roos and Embassy staff wascommunicating with the substantial community of U.S. citizens in Japan regarding
the rapidly evolving emergency at the nuclear
plant. Ultimately, social media proved anespecially useful tool for engaging with thecommunity of U.S. citizens in Japan, and theEmbassy Public Affairs staff used Twitter,YouTube, and Facebook to provide updates on
the situation and to distribute information on
response measures, such as recommendations
on protective measures including evacuation
zones around the plant.
One of the core challenges in managing a CBRN emergency is to understand andacknowledge the uncertainty and fear thatarises among potentially affected citizens andto address public concerns through timely
and transparent communication. A risk
communication expert from the Centers for
Disease Control, along with subject matter
experts from multiple agencies, engaged
directly with the community of U.S. citizens
in several forums to answer questions andhelp explain the practical effects of some of
the complex technical issues associated withthe crisis. Visiting experts from the Food andDrug Administration helped assess the effectsof the radiological release on the food chain, aradiation oncologist from the National Cancer
Institute provided expert views on potential
health effects on the population, and officials
from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration drew lessons learned fromn d u p res s .ndu.edu

fisheries management during the Deepwater
Horizon oil spill crisis to help inform officials
engaged in managing the crisis in Japan.
The U.S. Civilian Response Corps deployedpersonnel to Embassy Tokyo via the USAID
Office of Civilian Response to augment civilian capacity in support of the response effort.
Ultimately, some 145 additional personnel arrived at U.S. Embassy Tokyo to augment
the 270 direct-hire personnel normally stationed there. This number does not include
the many U.S. military augmentees who wereassigned to USFJ headquarters in Yokota andother locations throughout Japan and theJapanese government inquiries regarding
potential U.S. assistance. A government in
the throes of managing such a complex crisis
has limited capacity for addressing requests
for information and other inquiries amid themany other activities involved in managing
the crisis. Recognizing the large number of
information channels between the U.S. andJapanese governments, the Japanese government, in consultation with U.S. officials,
established an effective mechanism forcentralizing intergovernmental dialogue
under the oversight of Goshi Hosono, thenspecial advisor to Prime Minister Naotosocial media proved an especially useful tool for engaging withthe community of U.S. citizens in Japan
numerous U.S. officials who visited Japan for
shorter periods for meetings with Japanese
officials and Embassy colleagues. Thus, theU.S. Ambassador and U.S. officials supporting the Japanese government faced two key
challenges: to structure and facilitate dialogue
with the Japanese government through thecourse of the disaster response, and to effectively organize and manage the additional
U.S. civilian personnel arriving in support of
the response effort.

Structuring Bilateral Dialogue
A broad array of information channels,
often directly from offices in Washington,
DC, to Japanese counterparts and vice versa,
presented a challenge to those on the groundin Japan seeking to grasp the breadth of U.S.
Government activities associated with theunfolding crisis. In contrast to the longstanding communication paths between USFJ andthe Ministry of Defense/JSDF, the ad hoc
dialogues between the many other U.S. agencies involved and relevant Japanese ministries
reflected the intensity and risk presented by
the crisis, the sheer number of agencies andactors involved within both governments, andthe dauntingly complex nature of the challenges being faced. The Japanese and U.S. governments both grappled with the herculean
task of managing information flows between
agencies and offices inside and outside of government, many of whom do not often interact
under normal circumstances.8
The conversations occurring between
U.S. and Japanese government agencies
frequently involved U.S. requests for information on the evolving situation and theKan, and later designated the minister incharge of managing the nuclear crisis. Thismechanism, formally known as the Joint
Crisis Management Coordination Group,
but generally referred to by U.S. officials
as the “Hosono Process,” structured andenhanced communication between the two
governments on issues related to the crisis,
particularly regarding U.S. support to theJapanese government. Furthermore, thefocused dialogue at the Hosono Process
meetings spurred interagency coordination on both sides. On the U.S. side, a needbecame increasingly apparent as the crisis
continued into April for an interagency organization internal to the Embassy, specificallyfocused on supporting U.S. engagement in
the Hosono Process, and capable of absorbing and integrating the efforts of additional
personnel sent to the Embassy from various
agencies in response to the crisis.
The DART served this role in partthrough the end of April, as the NRC representatives were themselves members of the
DART, and the DART coordinated closelywith the Embassy’s Emergency Action Committee, the Joint Support Force, and otherorganizations involved in supporting theJapanese government. The DART concept isa well-honed method for deploying civilian
capacity to a foreign country to assist local
crisis-affected citizens, typically basing operations in the U.S. Embassy, and coordinating
U.S. Government relief efforts with the hostcountry government under the authority of
the U.S. Chief of Mission. Yet while the military joint task force construct serves to organize and manage personnel and resources inissue 68, 1 st quarter 2013 / JFQ

29

U.S. Marine Corps (Vernon T. Meekins)

FORUM | Managing Foreign Assistance in a CBRN Emergency

Members of USAID and Fairfax County Urban
Search and Rescue team meet in Ofunato,
Japan, after earthquake and tsunami

support of a military contingency operation,no analogous coordination mechanism exists
to absorb and structure civilian personnel
sent to a U.S. Embassy to support crisis management in the case of a CBRN emergency
that affects Americans abroad and/or has
domestic impacts.9

Organizing for Interagency
Collaboration
As the humanitarian needs in the region
affected by the tsunami became less acutetoward the latter part of April, the DART
assessed that an appropriate time had beenreached to stand down its humanitarian
response function. Yet because of the ongoingneed for support and bilateral dialogue on
matters relating to the nuclear emergency, a follow-on body was needed to help bring together
the various stakeholders involved in providing
support to the Japanese government in theconsequence management sphere. In cooperation with DART leadership, and in consultation with involved offices in Washington, DC,
Ambassador Roos convened an organizational
mechanism entitled the Bilateral Assistance
Coordination Cell (BACC) to support U.S.

30

JFQ / issue 68, 1 st quarter 2013

engagement in the Hosono Process. The BACC
included representatives from OFDA and all of
the relevant Embassy offices, as well as otherstakeholder organizations such as the NRC,
DOE, Defense Threat Reduction Agency,
USPACOM, and USFJ. The BACC reachedback to parent agencies in Washington as
well as to the private sector through the U.S.
Department of Commerce’s Foreign Commercial Service. NRC also facilitated technicaldialogue with the Institute of Nuclear PowerOperators on behalf of the BACC.
The BACC received requests for assistance from the Japanese government via the
Hosono Process at multiple venues: in higher
level meetings, at action officer–level working
groups chaired by the Japanese Cabinet
Secretariat, and in a radiological monitoring
subworking group hosted by the Japanese
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science, and Technology. Each of these meetings involved representatives from numerous
Japanese and U.S. organizations involved insupporting the crisis response. Assistancerequests were added to a tracking matrix thatwas developed by the DART and managed
bilaterally between the Japanese Cabinet

Secretariat and U.S. Embassy. The BACC
tasking matrix essentially applied to bilateral coordination of nuclear-related foreignassistance the proven MITAM system usedby the DART for civil-military coordination,
providing a single tool for listing all requests
for U.S. assistance, tracking progress toward
their accomplishment, and recording the U.S.
and Japanese personnel responsible for vetting
and responding to the requests.
Using the shared matrix, members of the
BACC team were able to interact effectively
with Japanese counterparts in a working-levelsupport group that was established to informand implement decisions reached throughthe Hosono Process. Formal requests formaterial assistance were categorized as totheir priority, and requests for informationand technical assistance were included ina separate section. As requests were either
completed or withdrawn, they were moved tothe end of the BACC matrix. The matrix was
exchanged between the U.S. and the Japaneseprior to Hosono Process meetings, with additions and modifications made collaboratively
in advance. This collaborative system proved
extremely useful in enabling timely andnd upres s . ndu. edu

BASALLA, BERGER, and ABBOT
efficient responses to requests for assistanceby the Japanese government, created a single,
streamlined vehicle for communication
between the two governments, and represented a successful adaptation of the proven
DART MITAM system for use in a bilateralcontext to support a host nation in managing
a CBRN emergency abroad.

Lessons from the Response
Numerous lessons arose during thiscomplex disaster response that could help
shape the U.S. and Japanese governments’approaches to future emergencies, especially
any that might involve a CBRN element.
Over the course of the crisis, it became apparent that across both governments, agencies
focused primarily on domestic disaster
response possess limited familiarity andexperience working with agencies focused oninternational disaster response, and vice versa.
In the United States, the National Response
Framework, shaped in part by lessons learned
through the response to Hurricane Katrina in
2005, enables all response partners to collaboratively plan, train, and respond to domestic
disasters and emergencies with a unified
national response. One of the importantlessons identified after the U.S. response to theJanuary 2010 earthquake in Haiti was that an
analogous International Response Framework(IRF) might help domestic and internationally focused U.S. Government agencies better
understand each others’ organizations, capabilities, and procedures.10 Vexing issues suchas donor coordination and staffing augmentation, along with agency roles in responses tocomplex disasters involving a CBRN element
such as radiological events, biological threats,
or epidemics—scenarios that are covered inplanning annexes in the NRF—could thus beaddressed in the international sphere. An IRF
would help provide a better forum for wholeof-government planning, improving conditions for future disaster response efforts.
By working and planning together on
disaster risk reduction and in contingency
planning exercises, organizations can build
familiarity and establish cooperative routinesthat enable a more rapid, coherent response tocomplex disasters. However, no two disasters
are alike, and unforeseen challenges will
always require some degree of adaptation andinnovation by those engaged in the response.
The Japanese government’s initiation of
the Hosono Process represented a usefulmechanism for managing foreign assistancen d u p res s .ndu.edu

in a complex disaster response, an approachthat may also prove useful in the unfortunate
event of a future complex crisis.
Lastly, because no established organizational structure was readily available foruse in foreign consequence management at
the Embassy level, Embassy Tokyo worked
with DART experts to adapt OFDA bestpractices to the ongoing requirement toprovide support to the Japanese government’s consequence management activities.
The BACC structure and processes were theoutcome of this collaboration and reflected
an adaptation of established DART processes,
such as the MITAM system, and the welldeveloped organizational logic of the Incident
Command System. U.S. Government officials
managing foreign assistance in a future
CBRN emergency might find that a similar
Embassy-based structure could help absorb
and channel arriving personnel capacity,
augmenting staff support for the U.S. Chiefof Mission and enhancing U.S. Government
assistance to the affected state. JFQ

NOTES
See Defense Threat Reduction Agency(DTRA), Foreign Consequence Mangement Legal
Deskbook (Washington, DC: DTRA, January 2007),
available at <www.dtra.mil/documents/business/current/FCMLegalDeskbook.pdf>. This document
states that “unless the President directs otherwise,[the Department of State] has been designated as
the Lead U.S. Federal Agency (LFA) in responding
to requests for [foreign consequence management]
assistance from a foreign government” (1-6). Also
see Department of State, Guidance for Responding
to Radiological and Nuclear Incidents, fact sheet,available at <http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/
health/health_1184.html>. This document states,“the Department of State is not the lead government
agency on radiological or nuclear incidents. . . . At
present, there is no one government agency that has
taken the lead responding to nuclear or radiologicalincidents.”
2
Richard Stuart Olson, The Office of U.S.
Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) of the UnitedStates Agency for International Development(USAID): A Critical Juncture Analysis, 1964–2003:
Final Report (Washington, DC: USAID, February
21, 2005), available at <http://transition.usaid.gov/
our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/publications/ofda_cjanalysis_02_21-2005.
pdf>.
3
Department of Homeland Security, “National
Incident Management System,” available at <www.
fema.gov/emergency/nims/>.
4
Ibid.
1

5
Department of Homeland Security, “National
Reponse Framework,” available at <www.fema.gov/
pdf/emergency/nrf/nrf-core.pdf>.
6
The lessons learned review commissioned by
USAID in the wake of the response to the January2010 earthquake in Haiti notes many of the challenges that the Federal Emergency Management
System and the Department of Health and Human
Services, both organized primarily for domestic
disasters, faced through the course of their response
activities in Haiti. The report also examines therole of the first-ever Office of the Response Coordinator, led by a former Ambassador, in assistingwith interagency and multinational coordinationof relief activities. The report also notes some of
the challenges posed by unclear and undefinedorganizational relationships within the Embassy
during the response. See Independent Review of the
U.S. Government Response to the Haiti Earthquake:
Final Report (Washington, DC: USAID, March
28, 2011), available at <pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/
pdacr222.pdf>.
7
Olson.
8
See Yoichi Funabashi and Kay Kitazawa,“Fukushima in Review: A Complex Disaster, aDisastrous Response,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 68, no. 2 (March/April 2012).
9
See Robert S. Pope, “Interagency Task Forces:
The Right Tools for the Job,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 5, no. 2 (Summer 2011).
10
Independent Review, 86.

issue 68, 1 st quarter 2013 / JFQ

31