ADF Forward CBRN Medical Capabilities – Preparing for Black Swans

Black Swans – for example Chemical, Biological,Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) attacks, Weapon ofMass Destruction events, natural disasters or majorepidemics – are high consequence crises that havehistorically been thought to occur rarely and arelargely unpredictable. In contrast, Black Swans arehappening now, are occurring frequently, and aredisproportionately potent agents of systemic change.Taleb asserted that individual Black Swan eventsmay not always be amenable to warning, prognosisor prediction prior to an event. However, the riseof complexity science and recent changes in theapproach to modelling and simulation offer methodsto significantly improve understanding of thenature and behaviour of adaptive socio-technicalsystems, the identification of system states capableof generating Black Swans in feasible contexts, andthe factors that promote systems preparedness,resilience, responsiveness and which support soundoperational decision making. Hybrid modellingapproaches utilising large scale agent based systems,coupled with rapidly decreasing costs of highperformance computing, are supporting initiatives tounderstand critical system performance, but moreimportantly investigating performance of novel andad-hoc configurations of multiple responses systemsoperating together in crises – such as understandingjoint civilian and military responses to various BlackSwans.Within the ADF CBRN medical response capability,particularly forward (hot zone) medical response,resides wholly within Special Operations Command,and is tightly integrated into components of thenational response framework for incidents ofnational concern. The development, delivery andongoing sustainment of a highly specialised CBRNmedical capability has presented unique anddifficult challenges, some of which will be touchedon in this presentation.Current research initiatives at the Faculty of Medicineat the University of New South Wales in support ofunderstanding epidemic, CBRN and all hazardsemergency response systems, appreciating andexploring the effectiveness of major disaster policyand health systems, the work of the NHMRC Centerfor Research Excellence for Integrated Systems forEpidemic Response, and investigating the efficiencyof Whole of Government responses to healthemergencies (including the involvement of militaryand other organisations) will also be outlined