Well-trained operators and tactical leaders are necessary components of any security strategy, but they are not enough. Historians speak of the German “genius” for war, evident from the mid-19^th century until the mid-20^th, but despite their consistently top-notch tactical prowess, Germany’s last victorious war began and ended in 1870. Without well-educated, rational, prepared leaders in the top echelon, tactical prowess is no guarantee of success.

Generals do not, generally, carry a rifle; and if they need one, it’s a sign of impending disaster.

This applies with equal force in the world of distributed security. DSI encourages local enterprises and institutions to take responsibility for their own security, rather than depending on the increasingly untimely and uncertain response of police agencies who have no statutory responsibility to provide direct protection to anyone – or on contracted and usually underpaid security guards who provide what we call “security theater” by a visible, uniformed presence that usually evaporates rapidly when serious violent threats appear.

Training volunteers from within your organization to SWAT-level competency as operators and small team leaders is what DSI does in its Tier 4, 3, and 2 programs. But if your enterprise, institution, or community does not have the infrastructure of higher echelon leadership, prior planning, coordination with outside entities, recruiting and provisioning, ongoing training, validation exercises, the right balance between policy, procedure and initiative, and solid decision making in a crisis, then the best individual and small team operators may, like the storied Germans, win a fight but lose the war. 

Tier 1 training for organization leadership gives you the tools to provides that infrastructure.