Militarizing Disaster Relief

Austin Bay on using the military for disaster relief:

LTG Honore has made a clever argument: Katrina struck like a very well-planned enemy attack. The storm knocked out communications, cut transportation routes, then surged in with a “rear attack” (breaking the levees after everyone thought the storm had by-passed New Orleans). This is an analogy that has some element of truth, and one that to a degree exculpates some of the decisions (or non-decisions) made at the local, state, and federal levels. Despite General Honore’s sound points about the storm’s surprise effects, I believe Governor Blanco proved to be an incompetent leader in the crisis. Why fiddle with the federal system because of a single state’s incompetence? Simplifying or stream-lining bureaucratic procedures in order to access useful DOD assets should interest all of us– we’ve already paid for the assets. Putting DOD in charge is another issue.

I'm inclined to agree with Austin, though Thomas Barnett makes a good argument:

Today, the military-market nexus is all about business continuity, whether we're talking local disasters, terrorist strikes or threats to the global economy. It's all about keeping business up and running. The warrior culture protects the merchant culture and the merchant culture funds the warrior culture, and the only standard that matters increasingly in our interconnected world is, "Can you keep the net up and running?" Whatever that net is...

Globalization needs more than just a bodyguard against bad actors bent on "direct action." It needs a system of System Administrators, and the military's got a big role to play in all this. Baghdad showed this. New Orleans showed this. Many other events in coming years will show this.
This ain't your daddy's military.
Then again, it ain't your daddy's global economy either.