Threat vs Action Overview
Threats to security impact everyone. Vigilant Eagle reports are supplied based upon the below systemic view of how threats impact people and prod them into taking some level of action. V.E. reports are intended to increase individual awareness and understanding of threats in the hope that that understanding increases the degree and effectiveness of individual response actions.
Figure 1 describes the security action spaces each individual faces. There are three action spaces: community, State and National.
Security behavioral responses control how a person will act or not act within the three action spaces.
Security behavioral Rule #1:
A person will not take action in any of the action spaces until the pain of the threat along with the person’s belief that he/she can influence the threat to be lowered combine to creat sufficient motivation to cause an individual to weather the penalties of taking action.
What are the penalties? They are time, money, criticism, individual effort, personnel health, and not doing other more enjoyable activities.
Figure 2 shows the typical near-, mid-, and far-horizon threats that impact people. Near-horizon threats, such as quality of education for one’s children, often predominate a person’s daily life. Mid-horizon threats such as hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes are cyclic and not routine or daily confrontations. Far-horizon threats such as the likelihood of a war are even more obvious or likely to occur.
Security behavioral Rule #2:
Near-horizon threats are typically acted upon before far off, less likely threats.
However, a person can be simultaneously impacted by multiple horizon threats. For example, a married working mother with two children in grade school who is a National Guard soldier could be called up to serve in an overseas war. Immediately, the family would have a loss in income, the soldier would be subjected to a higher likelihood of disease, be at risk of being killed or injured while the government follows an ineffective war strategy that the woman assesses as drawing out the war leading to her return time after time to the combat zone.
Security behavioral Rule #3:
Combinations of horizon threats generate significant motivation to act.
Figure 3 shows a typical staircase of actions that require rising levels of effort by an individual. The least amount of action is complaining that things are all screwed up. There are also individual actions that can lesson threats such as voting or donating money to causes. Group actions tend to have more impact than individual actions. For example, one individual speaking before the County Board of Supervisors has less impact than a representative of 150 voters who are recommending the Board take a desired action. The greatest amount of action occurs when a man or woman steps forward to be a leader and attempts to craft and implement a solution that removes a threat to the community, State, or Nation.
