[War] US/Canada: String Test

[pentaj2 at scranton.edu]

"String test"
Pres. John Williams
United States
PM R. Leon MacIntyre
Canada
April 4, 2013
===========================
<Washington>

 Coffee or other fuels in hand, the usual suspects trooped into the
secure conference room of the White House Situation Room. Ominously,
doors outside could be heard to close and lock.

 For the next 72 hours, the leaders and top officials of both the
United States and Canada would be directly participating in a crisis
management exercise entitled, cryptically, STRING TEST 1.

 The word had come down from POTUS, the "host" of the exercise (and
a participant himself), to "pull no punches", so the workspaces
involved were wired for small cameras and microphones to catch every
word, action, facial expression, and gesture, for the use of the
Exercise Control Team stationed not in Washington or Ottawa, but at
West Point. There would be no relief; no pauses or intermissions in
the exercise. Cots had been set up, the Sit Room had its own
washrooms, and food would be brought down.

 Other innovations were being introduced: Upon an agreement with
the editors involved not to publish until the final evaluations were
released to participants in 6 months, real reporters were being
brought in on the game, to play themselves. (Unfortunately for them,
they were under the same lockdown, though they weren't necessarily in
wired-up spaces. The EXDIR, a Colonel from West Point's wargaming
labs, had been blunt: "If you're in character, you will by God be IN
CHARACTER".) Everyone in senior leadership who could plausibly be
brought in to the exercise was - military, civilian, and all of the
cabinet members in both governments.

 The prep documents were already laid out for the participants at
the White House, the Pentagon, and elsewhere, as with their Canadian
counterparts:

 It was June 2013. Heavy rains, produced by a low pressure front
that was stalled over the Eastern seaboard, had been pounding the
Plains regions for weeks, and rivers throughout the area were nearing
flood stage. At the same time, chatter from Al-Qaeda influenced groups
had been rising to a fever pitch, though no actionable intel had been
able to be drawn from that. On the other side of the front stalled
over the East, the region from Nova Scotia down to DC, as far West as
Philadelphia, was baking in a 100-degree heatwave that had begun 3
days previously, and were pushing electrical systems to their limits.

 As a quick headcount showed everybody stationed at the White
House was here, a comm check with Bob Lawton (the Press Secretary) and
Helen Thomas showed that the media participating from the Press
briefing room were ready, and comms checks from CIA, the Pentagon,
FBI, State, and elsewhere showed that the rest of the US side was
ready, Williams pressed a button, hooking them all up to Exercise
Control at West Point.

 "Control, the US side is ready to go," he stated.

 "Copy Americans, Control confirms the United States as ready for
exercise start," an unidentified voice replied.
---

Many kilometers away in Ottawa, things were shaping up much the same
way. Construction had only recently begun on a Situation Room in the
Central Block so MacIntyre and his staff currently occupied the center
underneath the DND's headquarters, the NDHQ. The CF command was
present, with audio and video links to the RCMP, CSIS and regional
authorities in the exercise area.

"This is Ottawa, we are ready on this end," the PM said over the
speakerphone to Control. Unlike his American counterpart, MacIntyre
was not a military man and had little experience in these types of
affairs. General Newcastle, sitting to his right, had warned the PM
that everyone took these things rather seriously but he still had
trouble not perceiving the whole affairs as an expensive form of
Command & Conquer.

"Control acknowledges both sides ready. It is now 09:29:30. Exercise
will start on the minute," spoke a voice from the phone.

The next 30 seconds, in Washington, anyway, were spent pushing the Pre-
exercise stuff off to a side.

Then, a voice cut in,

"Jim Moran, NWS, along with Thomas Farelli, MSC. Our agencies are
announcing flooding conditions are now in existence for the entirety
of the Des Plaines, Chicago, and Illinois Rivers, reaching a flood
stage of 6 feet for the Des Plaines River, 4 feet for the Chicago
River, and 5 feet for the Illinois River. Flood Warnings are now in
effect for the entire Mississippi River and tributaries north of
Dubuque, Iowa. Army Corps of Engineers reports that flood defenses are
holding, but just barely."

Further floods were noted for the US, up and down the Mississippi
River watershed, of varying intensities. Essentially, every tributary
of the Mississippi was either flooding, or near flood stage. The
river, itself, wasn't flooding. At least, not yet. Most of Minnesota,
Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and northern Missouri was facing flooding.
Fortunately, flooding was only on the horizon south of Dubuque - so
far.

"In Canada: The Pic River, White River, Pigeon River, Michipicoten
River, Brule River, and Kaministiquia River are all within 12 hours of
flooding. Ontario Hydro is considering whether to shut down the dams
on those rivers to protect the generating equipment and the personnel."

With that, Piper spoke up. "Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and
Missouri have called out the National Guard on state duty for flood
defense."

Secretary Nulty at DHS looked up at an aide handed him a sheaf of
papers. He looked them over, then looked up. "Mr. President, all of
the effected states want federal disaster declarations."

"To be expected," Williams replied. "They're approved, instantly. If
FEMA isn't moving right now, there's something so very, very wrong."
Pulling over the sheaf that Nulty nudged in his direction, he signed
and dated each declaration, after reviewing it to make sure everything
looked right. Anne Hopkins, the FEMA director who had been plucked
from service with Hawaii Civil Defense, spoke up over the
phone. "We're moving regional assets, as of 30 minutes ago, to
Chicago, St. Louis, Dubuque, and Minneapolis as hubs, under movement
in anticipation of possible callup. These declarations being said
callup, regional operations centers will move from watch status to
full alert within 15 minutes. Secretary Abbot, what's the status of
the Navy recruits at Great Lakes?"

"Currently, they're continuing training as scheduled, but permanent
party forces are preparing for possible training halts and assignment
of all able-bodied personnel to flood defense work," Abbot
replied. "Do you think you'll need the personnel?"

"It never hurts to know where they are."

"If you need them, I'll chop them to FEMA OPCON upon request. Posse
Comitatus restrictions will, of course, remain in effect."
---

Emergency management in Canada fell under the jurisdiction of the
Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, whose Minister,
Eric Lancaster, would be the primary mover and shaker for the
exercise.

"Sir, we need to begin mobilizing the military to assist in control
and evacuation of the affected areas at once," Lancaster advised the
PM as the initial reports began to flow in. "The RCMP doesn't have the
manpower to handle this themselves, and the Ontario Emergency
Management Offices and civil emergency services will be kneecapped if
power has to be cut to our hydroelectric grid. The 2nd Mechanized
Brigade can be deployed out of Petawawa along with the 2nd Field
Medical Group to handle injuries."

"Done," said MacIntyre. The relevant paperwork would be along in a few
moments for him to sign. "I take it we're putting this under the
control of the Central Area Command?"

"The CF has the most manpower to handle a disaster of this scale,"
replied Lancaster. "The command and control apparatus is also capable
of functioning independent of local support. The RCMP and OPP can't do
that. This is the precise reason we have the Emergency Measures Act
and has been the primary strategy of the MPS."

MacIntyre nodded. Soldiers walking down the street was not something
Canadians had seen since Black October forty years ago, not a
particularly pleasant national memory, but this was an emergency
during a large scale natural disaster. And the military forces would
be deployed for disaster relief; only MP units would be armed, with
most crowed control still being handled by the RCMP and Ontario
Provincial Police through the local EMO.

"Okay, fine."
---
"Control announces: It is now 10:00:15, 4 June 2013. CF personnel will
arrive in 12 hours, and be operational in 18. Methods of transport are
road for heavy equipment and air for personnel." a voice said. "FEMA
assets, moving by air, will arrive at Chicago, St. Louis, and
Minneapolis in 12 hours, and be operational in 14. National Guard
assets are fully deployed under state command in Minnesota, Iowa,
Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri. Evacuations have been ordered by
local authorities in most cities in the flood region; Evacuees are
heading primarily to Chicago, Minneapolis, Cedar Rapids, Springfield
Illinois, Des Moines, and Milwaukee. Roads are jammed full. All
revenue flights into the evacuated areas have been canceled. Airline
flights are being scheduled to end throughout the evacuation area
within 12 hours, and flights are packed. Hydroelectric dams throughout
the region are being taken offline in sequence as grid operators
balance the load. Weather forecasts don't show the rain letting up
over the next 72 hours."
---

"The deployment is going well," commented Lancaster as he looked down
at the large table LCD map. "The Ontario EMO is keeping the Army and
local police well-coordinated. The shutdown of the hydroelectric grid
will cause problems but nothing we can't handle."

"I think that would defy the purpose of the exercise," commented
MacIntyre. "Video games are interesting because they are hard. You
know the Americans are planning something."

"Quite true," nodded Lancaster. "This exercise is very important. It's
the first major test of our joint disaster and defence response
ability for the entire North American continent, mines Mexico. Us, the
DHS, NDHQ and the Pentagon are going to spend the next two years
pouring over the after-action analysis. So yes, there are going to be
some curve balls thrown at us."

"Fine then," nodded MacIntyre. "Have the RCMP put the ERT on standby."

"If we activate a special tactical unit before there's a tactical
situation it might be construed as cheating," cautioned Lancaster.
This was supposed to be 'real.'

"And when better for criminals, or perhaps terrorists, to try
something than during a natural disaster with everyone preoccupied by
the evacuation? What if gun runners decide now is the perfect time to
smuggle guns across the Windsor-Detroit border, or the Hell's Angels
decide to rob a bank or some other such thing? Isn't this the PRIME
opportunity for violence and looting? And maybe even terrorism, but we
won't mention that part. I mean Christ, we have an entire front line
Army brigade deployed, why not be that much more cautious?"

"I'll call the RCMP."

An audio message came through from the RCMP watch officer handling
communications. "Acknowledged; however, ERT is what the Americans
might call a SWAT unit, not a riot control unit. The tactical troops
for A and O divisions are, unfortunately, already engaged providing
manpower to evacuation efforts."

Meanwhile, in Washington, things were generally quieter. Indeed, it
was sort of a waiting game for them - things were mobilized and
moving, but no news was coming in. Hence why POTUS was reading, SECDEF
was playing a Nintendo DS, the AG was nervously chewing nictoine gum
and craving a cigarette, and so forth.

"Control to all players: It is now 1500 EDT, 4 June 2013.
Hydroelectric dams along previously-noted flooding rivers are now
completely shut down. Demand is at 90% of current generating capacity,
and generating companies warn that rolling blackouts may need to be
imposed.

"The Missouri River from Sioux City and Omaha is approaching flood
stage, and is expected to reach it in 8 hours. The Missouri River from
Omaha to St Joseph is expected to reach flood stage in 12 hours..."

Onward Control went. Essentially, the Missouri River from Sioux City,
Iowa until it met the Mississippi was going to be flooding, soon.

In Canada, the situation sucked only slightly less. The Trans-Canada
Highway route passed through flood zone - and was itself flooded.

Three of the dams on the Michipicoten River were not merely shut down,
but according to Ontario Hydro engineers working from photographs
provided by CF air assets, were nearing breach.

Additionally, people had started to die. 50 had died in Missouri when
the bus they were evacuating in took a turn too fast for the
conditions and skidded through a guardrail and over a cliff. Up to 20
had been reported swept away by floodwaters in the US, including 10
children. In Canada, more densely populated by rivers, at least 50 had
died from the flooding - people misjudged whether their cars could
make it through, or didn't evacuate when it was called for, or had
simply been unlucky. The death toll there included 7 children.

In Washington, this was listened to with a curious calm. They'd gotten
lucky so far.

"Okay, just on an off-chance, I'm going to ask the Governors to call
up the Guard in the Lower 48 and Alaska on state duty - send them to
the flood areas under mutual aid. Mr. Prime Minister, if you need any
assistance, upon your authorization, I'm going to ask the Governors of
the New England states, except for New York, to send their Guard units
to Ontario to assist. They'll be chopped to Canadian Forces command,"
Williams spoke into the audio link.

At that point, Piper finished writing on a piece of paper and handed
it over to the Secretary of Homeland Security, who scribbled on it and
then passed it to POTUS. POTUS glanced at it, then spoke up again.

"That said, here are the initial taskings for the Guard upon callup by
the Governors.

"California, Oregon, Washington State, and Alaska will act as a
strategic reserve. Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada will be sent to support
Iowa and Kansas. Montana will backstop Minnesota. Illinois and
Wisconsin will be supported by Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and
Pennsylvania. Missouri will be supported by Florida, Alabama, Texas,
Delaware, West Virginia. Canada will be supported by the New England
States minus New York, which will stay back in case of threats to the
power grid. All unallocated Guard forces in the Lower 48, including
DC, will be under NORTHCOM C2 for support to any or all of the above.

"Civil Reserve Air Fleet will be called up as necessary to evacuate
passengers from any open airport in the flood zone, on either side of
the border.

"Additionally, all active component medical and engineer units
stationed in CONUS will be alerted for possible deployment to the
flood zone, on either side of the border.

"Finally, leaving no stone unturned, the Pentagon has put in calls
both to the Boy Scouts of America's national office in Texas and the
Girl Scouts national office in New York. That should garner us some
degree of help filling sandbags and performing logistics tasks in the
rear."
---

"The National Guard can mobilize and deploy faster than our own
reserves can," commented General Newcastle. "Although I will suggest
we put the call out to all engineering and medical units in BC and
Alberta to start calling up their men and begin deploying to the
area."

"What if those dams break?" asked the PM.

"The Army is evacuating areas that might be directly hit by damn
breaches as fast as we can. All our aid station are being pulled back
to higher ground," commented Lancaster. "At this point we're just
going to have to hope the dams hold until we can move the people away
from the danger zone."

"There's no way we can physically keep the dams from breaching?"

Newcastle shook her head. "It's too dangerous for any of our field
engineering units to get close to them."

With that, a crackle from Washington. Abbot's voice.

"General, what are the hydrodynamic models showing if you just open
the gates fully, let the water flow through? Better a controlled flood
than an uncontrolled breach, I'd imagine."

"Mr. Secretary there are still at least a hundred civilians
unaccounted for in that area," replied Newcastle. "Our S&R teams need
more time to locate them before we can open the flood gates."

Lancaster leaned over and whispered into MacIntyre[s ear. "They're
right. We should open the gates now and avoid structural damage to the
dams. They will breach anyway, this will lessen the damage."

"You heard General Newcastle, there are still people in the area."

"This is the kind of hard choice we have to make in situations like
this, sir," replied the Safety Minister. "We give the search teams
another hour, but after that we have to open the gates."

MacIntyre winced. It was only a game, right? Why did he feel like such
a dick?

"General, you have an hour to find and evacuate the unaccounted
civilians. After that, pull your teams back and open the flood gates."
---
Williams listened to the Canadian conversation over the phone link,
making notes silently.

One hour wouldn't be enough time to properly evacuate those in the
area, he knew.

"Julius, what's the Corps of Engineers reporting in terms of dam
status on our end?" He asked calmly.

"We don't have so many, so there's not the issue; flood control levees
only, and those are stable. Checked with NRC, by the way: Nuclear
reactors in the region are doing fine - the floods aren't going to
effect the coolant systems unless they get a lot worse," Secretary
Abbot replied.

"Still...NRC," Williams directed, checking to make sure they were on
the circuit, "Be conservative. Far better to see a preventative
shutdown and some power issues than to see plant issues."

"Understood, sir," NRC's watchstander replied. "Plant operators have
been advised to react to events accordingly."
---
"Control to all players: It is now 1515 EDT, 4 June 2013.
Hydroelectric Dam Number Four on the Michipicoten River has failed.
Elements of 2nd Canadian Mechanized Battle Group in the vicinity have
drowned in the post-failure surge, totaling 90 personnel. 30 civilians
were reported in the area."
---

"Sir we are out of time," said Lancaster as the report on Dam Four
came in.

"Pull back our men and open the flood gates," said MacIntyre. If that
was the way it had to be, then that was the way it had to be.
---

Williams whispered something to himself, barely audible, before
consulting the maps.

Tapping the touch screen in front of him, he checked the maps at
lightning speed, going deathly silent.

"Tell the Corps to get everybody out of the flood zones, then open the
damns on our side; Whether the river's reached flood stage in that
area or not. Just let the water flow," he said then. "In areas where
the river hasn't flooded, get messages out. If you're able-bodied and
even halfway willing, report to designated areas to be put on flood
defense duty - no matter who the hell you are. Fill sandbags, place
sandbags, get the flood defenses up."

"Yes sir," replied Abbot, who tapped the requisite orders to the
Pentagon into his own console. "We're even asking the correctional
systems for their low-security inmates, just to get manpower."

"Good. How're we doing on refugees, FEMA?"

"Good. We're browbeating hotels into giving up excess capacity where
need be, we've got shelter points set up in stadiums, and people are
going to friends and relatives where they can," Anne Hopkins noted.

Nulty spoke up. "I'm pulling every Homeland Security agent in the area
off their duties and onto flood defense work and relief ops. Fuck drug
smugglers - we need the manpower on this."

Lucas Maxwell, the FBI Director, was next, "I've got agents and civil
service personnel in all the relevant field offices evacuating their
families now - but easily 2/3 have asked to be allowed to stay and
help relief efforts."

"Good. Approved, in both cases. ALL Federal and state assets in the
area tasked by their agencies to assist are under FEMA OPCON, period.
Governors don't like that, they may take it up with -me-, on national
TV, once we're done. In that area, there -are- no agencies, just one
mass of people working to hold back the rivers," Williams stated
simply.

Nods of acknowledgement from around the table.

And now they waited.

Waiting was the hardest part of any crisis, Williams had found.
Sitting there, focused on a situation, unable to productively -do-
anything...It ate at you.
---

He had been indecisive and people had died. MacIntyre quickly realized
that. Though of course no one had said anything, he picked up the
looks exchanged between the CF and Safety Department staff in the
situation room. It was still pretend, no one had really died. But that
was besides the point; what if it was real and real people had died.

"Okay, do we have an estimate on the damage from opening the flood
gates yet?"

Lancaster looked up at the Prime Minister, after looking down at his
own data. "Not yet, sir. We're still pulling everybody back and
letting the water flow where it will; we won't have a good idea of
property damage until tomorrow morning. Hydrological factors. For now,
the best thing we can do is wait." The only thing they could do,
really.
--

Would a private word to his Canadian counterpart be useful? Williams
considered that for a moment. He didn't need a video link or telepathy
to tell him what was going through MacIntyre's mind at the moment;
he'd been there himself. Looking at his SECDEF, the two men shared a
look.

"Remember when it was our first time?" Williams asked in a whisper in
Greek, away from the teleconferencing mic.

"Nai. MacIntyre's going through that, you think?" Piper replied, in
the same language.

"Nai. Except in his case it ain't soldiers, it's civilians."

A nod. "I'm going to prod my Canadian counterpart and General
Newcastle privately, see if we can't surprise her with a long chat
with those who've been there, after this is done."

"Good idea."

Then, back to the table.

A large monitor was set up on a wall, and was displaying a map of the
areas hit by flooding.

Fortunately, Williams noted mentally, they didn't have to consider the
massive job that would be cleanup and recovery. That was beyond the
scope of the exercise.
---
<One hour later, real-time>
"Control to all players. It is now 2000 EDT, 4 June 2013. Rain is
forecast to continue through the night throughout the Plains region,
at rates of between one-quarter and one-half inch per hour."

The flood situation was only getting worse - the entirety of the
Missouri River was now either flooding or beginning to flood. The
extra manpower had come in handy in that situation, allowing for flood
defenses to be built rather stronger than they may have otherwise
been. The Mississippi, north of St. Louis, was expanding into its
natural floodplains; happily, the residents had self-evacuated once
the first warnings went out, local cops were saying. 1993 was, it
seems, not forgotten easily.

In Canada, the situation was similarly grim. Opening the flood gates
on the hydroelectric dams had helped, to an extent, but the breach of
Dam #4 on the Michipicoten River had turned into a complete collapse -
the surrounding area was under at least 7 to 8 feet of water on 3
miles of either side of the river. The other dams were holding, though
just barely in some cases.

Power was out in much of Ontario, as a result of the dam shutdowns. It
was a long, hot, summer evening - fortunately, in Western Ontario, it
was raining "cats and dogs, plus the odd turtle and squirrel", as one
CBC anchor had put it; this rather reduced the attractiveness of
rioting. Eastern Ontario, fortunately, mostly had power, so it was
just sweltering and sticky and wet, but without the blackouts that
would cause normally sane people to riot.
---

The security situation was stable enough, which the PM was grateful
for. That was one small comfort in this deluge of problems. At this
point he felt there was little more he could do; the military and
emergency services would continue to evacuate and maintain order as
best they could.

In Washington, things were quiet. Random chatter kept things going at
a low buzz, as data streamed in. POTUS looked over the screens.

"This can't possibly be all."

"No shit, boss."
---
<3 hours later, realtime>

"Control to all players: It is now 2300 EDT, 4 June 2013."

Further dams in Ontario (2 on the Kaministiquia River, and one on the
Brule river) were breaching, as the duration and volume of water
simply wore down the defenses. Fortunately, the areas had been
evacuated, but the water wasn't stopping.

Similarly, in the US, more and more of the Mississippi River was
flooding. Where defenses could be built, they were being built - but
where time had run out, the building was stopped and the areas were
evacuated. The phrase of the day was "acceptable losses".

And then, as if Biblical-scale flooding wasn't enough (Secretary
Abbot, with his typical humor, had noted "We have boats handy, but do
we have two of every kind of animal?"), there came yet more fun news.

"Control to all players: Explosions have been reported at the Niagara
electricity transmission interconnection point. Cascade failures have
struck the Quebec, Ontario, New England, Great Lakes, and Pennsylvania-
New Jersey-Maryland grids, causing failures throughout the grid areas,
- Hide quoted text -
including the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Toronto, Boston,
Ottawa, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Windsor, Thunder Bay,
Montreal, Quebec City..." And on the list went. Power flickered in
Ottawa and Washington, as the power supplies switched to generators.
---

"This is it," said Newcastle. Of course there would be a terrorist
incident. The worst possible event at the worst possible time. "We
should dispatch JTF-2 at once."

"Isn't that cheating?" asked MacIntyre. Of course he suspected the
same thing, but he wanted to stay within the rules of the game.

"Power interconnectors don;t just explode like that, sir," said
Newcastle. "Only direct sabotage could cause one to blow up. We need
to send in a military unit to secure the area before any repair crews
and begin their work."

"Fine, do it," said the PM. Who was he to question the military?
---

"Oh, thank God for rain. Creating Biblical hell, but nobody's likely
to riot in the rain," mused Williams. "We hope."

"Sometimes I begin to reconsider if relying on the Canadians was a
good idea," mused Dan Porbansky, the Secretary of Energy. A withering
glance and a mouthed 'Microphone!' from POTUS.

"Distributed generation would be a good thing," noted Paul Moskowitz,
the head of the NRC, over the comm links.

"Yeah, but where the hell could we place generating capacity in the
grid area that wouldn't rile up NIMBYs?" Williams noted. "Anyhow...NY
Guard had better be moving its ass to the border now. FBI has
jurisdiction, but is ordered to cooperate with FERC; what's the
likelihood it's not terrorism?"

"Slim, but possible," noted SECEN.

"How?"

"Squirrels. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen," the
Secretary of Energy noted. "Saw it a few times when I worked at the
interconnection station near Seattle. But it's not entirely likely. Or
the usual operator or computer error."
---

"Quick response team is entering the are via Black Hawk now," reported
Newcastle. "If this was terrorism they've likely run by now, but
there's no sense in sending a repair crew to their deaths. It won't
take them long to secure the area."

Would it really be this bad? Katrina and 9/11, any sort of natural
disaster or terrorist attack, were something that always happened to
the Americans. In twenty years there hadn't been a flood, fire or
blizzard that had killed more than twenty people in Canada, and the
last terrorist incident was over forty years ago. Would they be
prepared when the real thing came?

Another update from Control, then.

"It is now 2350 EDT, 5 June 2013"

"Surface to Air Missiles have been fired from the Kanesatake Mohawk
reservation, Quebec, at aircraft flying into Trudeau International
Airport in Montreal. One Air Canada aircraft flying from London has
been hit on starboard wing while in traffic pattern, and is currently
attempting an emergency landing."
---

"What?" exclaimed MacIntyre, his face contorting into a look of both
confusion and indignation. "Where the Hell do you get a SAM here?"

"The same place you get any weapon brought into Canada," said
Lancaster dryly. "Detroit."

"We obviously need to send a response team to Kanestake," said
Newcastle. "JTF-2 is busy with the power station, a CSOR company can
be there in under half an hour."

"Well obviously," retorted the PM sardonically. "Send the CSOR unit."

"Control to all players:" Control spoke evenly. "Alert company of CSOR
has been deployed to Kanestake. Cordon and Search operation in
progress. Company commander reports that reserve inhabitants are
throwing stones and other debris at CF personnel."

2 hours later, the SAMs had been found, the hit aircraft had made a
nerve-wracking landing at Montreal-Trudeau, but the shooters had not
been found.

The rest of the weekend was spent in mop-up, with a share of false
alarms and overhyped incidents for each side to keep the adrenaline
going.

On Sunday morning, bleary-eyed crews in Ottawa and Washington received
a welcome phrase from West Point:

"Control to all players: End of exercise. End of exercise. Good play,
everybody. We're downloading the tapes now."
---

The Northern side had certainly bore the full brunt of the simulation.
Rapidly failing damns and two separate terrorist attacks, one with
heavy military weapons, had stretched the CF and civil security forces
well beyond their breaking point. Some blame was, wordlessly of
course, laid before the PM for taking so long to allow the damns to be
flooded. The military, CSIS and RCMP all had to work on integration,
coordination as well as deployment of forces in a more rapid manner.
The response to the terrorist attacks had been deemed satisfactory by
the NDHQ, who privately dismissed the entire thing as too unrealistic
to garner criticism of their response.

Williams listened to the Canadian commentary silently, then spoke up.

"Okay, I think you all missed the point," he comments simply.

"Yes, this was...far-fetched. It felt like an ep of 24 sometimes. You
had more thrown at you than would likely happen at once, yes, and I
think Control clubbed you for being new, sometimes. But at the same
time, you bore the brunt because, reality is, you're in a uniquely
sucking position climate-wise: We get floods practically every summer,
and seeing 50 or more die to nature is not common, but not out of the
institutional memory for most of our hospitals; Canada has had very
few mass-casaulty events in the last 20-30 years, and hasn't dealt
with active security threats like Control posited since, really, the
FLQ - which was 43 years ago. You're out of practice.

"For what it's worth: We got lucky only in that there's been a massive
drought these last few years in the Southeast. Otherwise, a normal
summer, we'd have seen flooding throughout most of the South, too.

"Where I see you need to work: Coordination and mobilization. For
various reasons; financial, constitutional, strategic, et cetera, you
rely on the regular forces, backed up heavily by a proportionally tiny
reserve force, to handle -anything- the local cops and the RCMP can't
handle.

"Okay, that's the nature of the Canadian system; All well and good,
but I sensed a problem: It's been years since you've actually stress-
tested the system you have. How long has it been since the CF held a
full-scale mobilization exercise, General Newcastle? Our defense
attache in Ottawa said it was something like '88, '89, connected with
REFORGER. That right?"

"Moving on: I see issues in our response, too. The National Guard does
good work - they were a strategic multiplier just because it meant
every state had people on the ground, controlled locally, who could
seamlessly integrate with federal assets when it became necessary. But
Control was sneaky, my notes say. We got static from the State
Adjutants General, static that the Pentagon pushed through with
willpower alone - not surprising, they're often...politically
selected, with no reference to training, experience, or competence
beyond what we force. It'll take a real disaster, I sense, before one
can clean that out.

"Finally: Overall...I'm going to give my side a B-. Low because,
frankly, there was a lag time in response I really didn't like. C'mon,
folks. This was an *exercise*. You can do better, dammit. Domestic
agencies especially need to work on their exercises.

"Around here, we have to give Ottawa a C-. You passed, but:

"Mr. Prime Minister, I'm not going to pull any punches. In a disaster,
in a crisis, you can't save everybody. You -must- triage. You -must-
be able, psychologically, to accept losses. You don't have the
experience, so there's no blame upon you for hesitating. Better you
did it *here* than in a real situation. But...Yes, it's hard. It's
never easy. But you have to be...Well, almost heartless, ruthless. You
have to -let people die- to make a response work. Otherwise, you -will-
 lose everybody.

"Now, Ottawa, your reviews?"
---

"We don't really have much more to add," said General Newcastle. The
CF senior staff agreed with the American counterparts about
coordination and mobility being the weakness of the military, an issue
that would have to be addressed.

"Okay then. Thanks for the exercise. Control, Washington signing off."
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Actions:
1. Exercise conducted by US and Canada.