HA/DR Lessons Learned

Abstract

Military Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HA/DR) operations over the past 7 years produced common learned lessons. After action reports, studies, and independent articles from the Indonesian tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the Haitian earthquake in 2010 revealed several commonalities among all the lessons learned. Challenges in communication and interagency coordination were among the greatest of these lessons learned. It is not enough to simply produce these lessons in any military operation, and there is a tendency in the U.S. military to relearn lessons from the past. It is also essential for Joint Force Commanders to apply what is learned from past HA/DR operations and implement improved plans to correct these deficiencies in order to successfully minimize human suffering and loss of life. This paper analyzes U.S. military lessons learned from Operation Unified Assistance (Indonesian tsunami), Operation Unison (Hurricane Katrina), and Operation Unified Response (Haitian earthquake) and provides recommendations to Joint Force Commanders to mitigate the negative outcomes during future HA/DR operations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 04, 2011
Accession Number
ADA546338

Entities

People

  • Mitchell T. Koch

Organizations

  • Naval War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Command And Control
  • Communication Equipment
  • Department Of Defense
  • Disasters
  • Fixed Wing Aircraft
  • Humanitarian Assistance
  • Interagency Coordination
  • Lessons Learned
  • Military Operations
  • Military Personnel
  • Mobile Phones
  • Organizational Structure
  • United States Northern Command
  • United States Southern Command
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.