The horrific events of September 11, 2001, sent shock waves throughout the nation. While it has frequently been declared that the world changed dramatically on that day, the truth of the matter is that little in the world actually changed. The underlying conditions and issues that led to the terrorist attacks on the American homeland existed long before September 11, and it is quite likely that these same conditions and problems will continue into the foreseeable future.
So if the world did not change, what did change on September 11? The most dramatic change was the way in which the average American viewed the world. In addition to the terrible loss of life, America had to face the stunning realization that we were vulnerable to attack by an enemy who was armed with little more than the desire to kill. In their hightech world of smart bombs and guided missiles, Americans were stunned that people armed with nothing more than box-cutters could have caused such devastation.
As America searches for ways to bolster its homeland security infrastructure, planning has become an essential element of our comprehensive readiness strategy. By engaging broad and diverse groups of planners/responders in the planning process, we tap into their unique knowledge and skills. The planning process builds coalitions, establishes common terminology, standardizes operating procedures, and provides a venue for brokering mutual-aid agreements.
Planning for planning's sake, however, can be an exhaustive exercise that produces little in the way of quantifiable results. The planning process must culminate in a final, tangible product, an emergency plan that can be tested and validated. By validating an emergency plan through a combination of tabletop and functional exercises, leaders can test the decision-making abilities of field commanders, as well as identify training and logistic shortfalls. Validated emergency plans can then become the foundations of unit-level training and can ultimately lead to the development of tools that quantifiably assess readiness levels................
