CRE Adaptive Modeling Laboratory - NEXT STEP

“All incidents start locally and end locally” perfectly summarizes why it is important to focus on developing local agency. Large magnitude incidents affect intricate complex social, economic and political systems. Through these interactions the incident itself adapts as resources are applied, with the emergence of positive and negative feedback loops.

The harder you poke the complex network, the harder it pokes back.

It is therefore important to organize local relationships and develop local agency to act. In the end, there is no substitute for local integration because no one else is lives within and navigates through the tapestry of local complexities. “Agency” is an organization established to provide a service, typically by organizing transactions between other parties. Through an accumulation of local activities, large scale changes can be accomplished, while minimizing negative feedback loops.

CBRN Adaptive Modeling Laboratory ‐ COL James Rollins, (425)919‐5153 1

We deal with uncertainty by making assumptions. We don’t know the truth, so we decide what that truth could look like and move on. No one would argue that assumptions are bad, per se, but all recognize the dangers that assumptions present. Assumptions can be poorly made, too broad, not well thought out and certainly difficult to control. But the most dangerous assumption of all, are the ones that are not shared by all stakeholders.

The meme presented in the slide is a broadly shared comic that has been around for decades. It started in the industrial design community, poking fun at the mismatch between design requirements and what actually got produced.

Our response community suffers from assumptions made at one end of the enterprise –that are not coordinated with the front end of the enterprise. The adaptive modeling laboratory intends to fix that.


The purpose of this briefing is to orient you as a stakeholder to our method to better understand the problem, to recommend a way forward and to enlist your support. We will outline a program of action that will result in a usable analysis regarding the usability of the CBRN Enterprise at the local level. We will define the “Adaptive Model” concept and show you why we think it is the best way forward for understanding how the enterprise will react to the event, and more importantly, how the incident will react to the enterprise.


The “Adaptive Model Concept” is meant to emulate the complexity of an incident. Provided with an incident, consequences are overlaid in terms of their effect on communications, transportation and the population. The modeled system reacts to consequences and the application of resources, providing feedback to decision makes.

Population is replicated using agent modeling. An agent model, simply put, is a robot that follow behavioral rules for movement, consumption and affiliation. For example, a population agent could be a “person” that needs 1 pound of food and 1 liter of water per day to subsist. When brought into proximity with a resource, the agent would consume or load that resource. The agent can walk or use a means of conveyance to move around.

Response organizations or entities are also agents. These agents may have a specific capability, such as the ability to provide emergency medical care. This is a more complicated agent, that has adaptive capacities of its own such as treatment capacity, medical supplies, people, food and water.

The idea of the adaptive model is to apply these adaptive capacities incrementally to see their affect. Positive and negative feedback is gathered and analyzed by the Unified Coordination Group. As the population migrates to different locations seeking help, decision‐makers within the Unified Coordination Group can see where resources are needed.


As we stated in the last slide, this method is dependent on an effective collaborative group, with the main focus remaining on the needs of local agents. The method for evaluating the situation will be to deconstruct, or find elemental sources of influence and adaptive capacities within the community, the state and the federal government. The collaborative group must agree that the model adequately performs estimation ahead of any planning activities, as it will be the arbiter between parties.

The problem solving method will rely on the earlier defined action‐research model to test adaptive plans. As the situation develops, the unified command enters into dialogue with each other and develops an action plan. The plan is entered into the model and the model is played forward in time.

Resources are applied with respect to reasonable lead times and in context to potential constraints and other emergent problems. With each increment of time, the system will react and provide positive and negative feedback to feed the discussion as well as provide intended outcomes. Participants then adapt the plan by making adjustments and playing forward again providing more feedback and compounding outcomes..

News reports and social media feedback is also generated via Simulation Deck in order to help decision‐makers keep in tune with emerging political and social trends.


The laboratory structure supports an interagency systems model that characterizes the coordination environment. The entire model is driven by the simulation which provides data to inform the situation. The amount of fidelity regarding the situation diminishes as one steps back through echelons. Efforts by lower echelons to improve situation fidelity in higher echelons flow upwards through reports, requests and common operating pictures.

Each agency would go through a fairly standard planning routine where the situation and effects of current operations are assessed, future resources and activities are prioritized, resources are coordinated and resources are applied to the situation.

A demand signal (indicated by the yellow arrows) is created by local jurisdiction and travels all the way to the federal level, depending on what is needed. Resources (indicated by the green arrows) flow down towards the local jurisdiction.


The collaboration concept is designed to facilitate the operational cycles of each echelon, in a manner which supports the lower echelon’s demand signal. The laboratory will require an EOC or similar space that has room for at least 5 break‐out spaces. Each group will prioritize and assign available resources based on requirement generated from the operational cycle of local incident command.


The build up of communications, coordination and control lines in the response enterprise will be incremental over the first 72 hours of the response. The model indicates how communication, coordination and control will build out during the laboratory. The local response will be built first, followed closely by local and state emergency management functions. On the heels of the local response will be the state apparatus and national guard and then the federal parts of the enterprise.


We do not want to reinvent the wheel. We have evaluated the inventory of simulations and models that are available for use. We are determining a way for them to fit together in a manner the exploits their best functionality.

The Stakeholder Group will serve as advisors to help us determine what resources we are accounting for, how these resources are requested, how they move and what they need when they arrive. The Group will also provide validation of the model, once assembled, in terms of its adequacy towards providing usable estimates.

We will conduct the laboratory over 3‐days, running through an improvised nuclear device detonation in Washington D.C. The result of the laboratory will be findings put forth by the group that identify gaps and redundancies in the capabilities of the CBRN Enterprise.

The NGB/NORTHCOM team will then synthesize the results into recommendations that will be socialized among participating agencies. The final results will then be made available for use in analysis of future doctrine and force structure.


On behalf of Mr. Henry Reyes of National Guard Bureau and Mr. Steve Cichocki of USNORTHCOM, THANK YOU. We appreciate your time and hope you will faithfully consider our request for your participation in this endeavor.



As we stated in the last slide, this method is dependent on an effective collaborative group, with the main focus remaining on the needs of local agents. The method for evaluating the situation will be to deconstruct, or find elemental sources of influence and adaptive capacities within the community, the state and the federal government. The collaborative group must agree that the model adequately performs estimation ahead of any planning activities, as it will be the arbiter between parties.

As the situation develops, the unified command enters into dialogue with each other and develops an action plan. The plan is entered into the model and the model is played forward in time. Resources are applied with respect to reasonable lead times and in context to potential constraints and other emergent problems. With each increment of time, the system will react and provide positive and negative feedback to feed the discussion as well as provide intended outcomes. Participants then adapt the plan by making adjustments and playing forward again providing more feedback and compounding outcomes..


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CRE Adaptive Modeling Laboratory - NEXT STEP