Smarter Way to Plan for Deployment of Forces for Humanitarian Operations

摘要

The U.S. Department of Defense has recently responded to a large number of humanitarian assistance/disaster response (HA/DR) operations. Because of the nature of HA/DR events, response agencies have an extremely limited amount of time to prepare crisis action plans for them. As such, a difficult balancing act emerges for the commander who is supporting the operation. Current methods of deploying DoD forces for HA/DR operations are the Time- Phased Force and Deployment Data (TPFDD) method and the Request for Forces (RFF) method. An objective analysis of current planning documents in support of HA/DR operations as well as lessons learned from recent HA/DR operations (Operation Unified Assistance to tsunami victims in 2005 and the DoD response to Hurricanes Rita and Katrina) illustrates that neither the TPFDD method nor the RFF method is the perfect solution to deployment planning for these operations. This paper outlines a smarter way of planning for the deployment of forces in HA/DR operations. Given the lessons garnered from previous HA/DR operations and the inherently limited time available to plan and execute these operations, all supporting HA/DR plans should include an initial deployment framework to expedite the complex processes of correctly and efficiently sourcing and deploying DoD forces. This framework would allow operational commanders to use the flexibility of the RFF method and the robustness, in- transit visibility, and structure of the TPFDD method to greatly reduce the time necessary to execute deployment of DoD forces in support of HA/DR operations. In these crisis events, any increase in the effectiveness of the response by DoD forces ultimately saves innocent lives.