disaster relief

    Global disaster relief is revolutionized by the capability to deliver disaster relief personnel, supplies, and equipment from space. The Space Force can provide an immediate response to any location on the planet, no matter how remote. The time until outside relief arrives is the critical factor in how many lives are saved.

    The Space Force can respond to any disaster in United States territory upon the command of the president or the secretary of space. Response to all other nations requires the approval and invitation of the host nation.

    Space Force personnel can arrive anywhere in less than an hour and immediately initiate search and rescue operations. Distribution of food, clothing blankets, baby supplies, and other vital items can start within an hour of deployment. One or more military field hospitals (depending on the size and severity of the disaster) can be set up in less than 12 hours. An emergency aristrip can be built in 12 to 72 hours, depending on local conditions and whether or not an existing airfield is being repaired or an airstrip is being created from scratch.

    Because of the high cost of moving heavy items into low earth orbit, large items, such as the field hospital and airstrip, will be transferred to other branches of the military, donated to U.S. states or territorites, or donated to the Peace Crops in foreign nations.

    From Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief by the Military Health System:

Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief

    Humanitarian assistance and disaster response are core DoD capabilities, but they are always conducted in a supporting role to assist other U.S. Government agencies. DoD has the assets and experience to deploy necessary relief personnel and resources to all corners of the globe at a moment’s notice—there is no actor better prepared to respond in times of crisis.

    We have seen the positive impact of DoD’s efforts on the broader U.S. Government response to international disasters in a number of cases:

• In Operation Tomodochi, after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011—U.S. forces were instrumental in delivering food, water, blankets, clothing, and medical supplies to support Japanese civilian and military partners.
• During Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Service Members were on the ground working with the Philippine military to provide essential medical treatment and supplies.
• During the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, Service Members were involved in constructing treatment centers and providing logistical support to stem the spread of infection.
• In the aftermath of the devastating 2015 Nepal earthquake, U.S. military personnel were instrumental in supporting relief efforts with transportation and medical treatment, and where previous training exercises with the Nepalese military significant improved their capacity to respond to the crisis.

    These engagements have provided invaluable hands-on experience for service members that helps improve our future contributions to disaster relief efforts. They demonstrate time and again the value of our partnership-building activities, as partner nations have improved their disaster response capabilities after joining U.S. military in training exercises.

—Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief

    From Military responses to natural disasters: last resort or inevitable trend? by Charles-Antoine Hofmann and Laura Hudson, British Red Cross, October 2009:

Military involvement in natural disasters

    While the involvement of the military in relief operations is not new (think of the 1948-49 Berlin airlift, for example), military engagement in relief activities has grown since the early 1990s. Military resources were used in response to the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh, and after Hurricane Mitch in Central America in 1998. More recently, the US military supported the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the UK military was brought in to help tackle floods in Britain in 2007 and huge numbers of Chinese troops were deployed in the aftermath of the earthquake in Sichuan province in 2008. Following the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, domestic and international military actors mounted the largest humanitarian helicopter airlift ever seen. Regional alliances too are paying growing attention to the role of the military. Initiatives are currently under way in the Asia-Pacific region, largely in reaction to the tsunami. NATO is playing a growing humanitarian role in disaster response, for example in the US Katrina response and the Pakistan relief operation in 2005.

    There are various factors driving the growing interest of the military in responding to disasters: assisting relief efforts can improve the military’s image and provide training opportunities, and may also be a way for the military to diversify their role at a time when armed forces globally are experiencing budget cuts. With an increase in the incidence of natural disasters, national and foreign militaries can be expected to play a bigger role, particularly in large-scale disasters, where the capacity of humanitarian organisations may be stretched.

    Humanitarian actors view these developments with a wary eye. In the US, the NGO consortium InterAction has raised concerns about the newly established US Command for Africa (AFRICOM), whose tasks include supporting humanitarian assistance. Growing interest within the European Union in deploying civil defence and military assets outside EU territory has prompted similar concerns. Critics of the military’s involvement in relief claim that it is inefficient, inappropriate, inadequate and expensive, contrary to humanitarian principles and driven by political imperatives rather than humanitarian need.

Guidelines on civil/military relations in natural disasters

    The Guidelines on the Use of Foreign Military and Civil Defence Assets in Disaster Relief, known as the Oslo Guidelines, state that, whereas the involvement of domestic military forces is often a first resort due to lack of capacity elsewhere, the use of foreign military assets must be a last resort. These guidelines also clearly affirm the primary responsibility of the affected state for providing humanitarian assistance on its territory, and state that foreign military and civil defence assets must complement (rather than supplant) existing relief mechanisms. The final authority over the use of foreign military assets clearly lies with the affected state: for instance, the Indonesian government accepted a good deal of foreign military support, but put a 90-day limit on deployments. The principles of Good Humanitarian Donorship affirm the primary position of civilian organizations in implementing humanitarian action, and require states to ensure that military assistance is in conformity with international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles, and recognizes the leading role of humanitarian organizations.

—Military responses to natural disasters: last resort or inevitable trend? by Charles-Antoine Hofmann and Laura Hudson, British Red Cross, October 2009

table of contents

0. fans of space
1. Space Force
2. response to criticism of Space Force
3. space situational awareness
4. space control
5. protecting satellites
6. space debris
7. navigation warfare
8. surveillance
9. satellite communications
10. environmental monitoring
11. missile warning
12. nuclear detonation detection
13. drones
14. spacelift
15. space academy
16. spaceborne military base
17. asteroid mining
18. disaster relief
19. first contact
20. space warfare
21. spaceborne energy
22. spaceborne food
23. orbital ring
24. moon base
25. colonizing the solar system
26. megastructures
27. T O & E
28. Pence speech
29. history
30. space news