The power grid incorporates a number of protection elements such as distance relays that detect faults and prevent the propagation of failure effects from influencing the rest of system. However, the decision of these protection elements is only influenced by local information in the form of bus voltage/current (V-I) samples. Due to lack of system wide perspective, erroneous settings, and latent failure modes, protection devices often mis-operate and cause cascading effects that ultimately lead to blackouts.