Known Unknowns: Unconventional “Strategic Shocks” in Defense Strategy Development

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KNOWN UNKNOWNS:UNCONVENTIONAL STRATEGIC SHOCKS

IN DEFENSE STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

Nathan Freier

November 2008

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The views expressed in this report are those of the authorand do not necessarily reect the ofcial policy or position of theDepartment of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S.Government. This report is cleared for public release; distributionis unlimited.

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Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should beforwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army WarCollege, 122 Forbes Ave, Carlisle, PA 17013-5244.

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The author would like to thank the following individualsand organizations for their signicant contributions to this work.First, I am grateful to my colleagues at the Center for Strategic andInternational Studies, particularly Sam Brannen, Kathleen Hicks,Clark Murdock, and Christine Wormuth. Our interaction over thesummer was decisive in clarifying my thoughts. Next, I would liketo thank Mr. D. Burgess Laird of the Institute for Defense Analysisfor encouraging me to write this monograph in the rst place andproviding important advice at the front end of the project. I am alsograteful to Dr. Phil Williams both of the University of Pittsburghand the U.S. Army War Colleges Strategic Studies Institute. Dr.Williams advice and precision editing were instrumental in theprojects completion. I am further grateful for the contributionsof Dr. Carl van Dyke of the National Intelligence Council. Hisinput was instrumental in strengthening my nal arguments.As always, I am also beholden to the other authors cited in thiswork. And, nally, this monograph would not have been possiblewithout support from the U.S. Army War Colleges Peacekeepingand Stability Operations Institute. Their provision of a hospitablevenue for research and writing made this work and future likeworks possible.

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ISBN 1-58487-368-X


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FOREWORD

This timely PKSOI Paper on unconventionalstrategic shock provides the defense policy team a clearwarning against excessive adherence to past defenseand national security convention. Including the insightsof a number of noted scholars on the subjects of wildcards and strategic surprise, the author, NathanFreier, argues that future disruptive, unconventionalshocks are inevitable. Through strategic impact andpotential for disruption and violence, defense-relevantunconventional shocks, in spite of their nonmilitarycharacter, will demand the focused attention of defenseleadership, as well as the decisive employment ofdefense capabilities in response. As a consequence, Mr.Freier makes a solid case for continued commitmentby the Department of Defense to prudent strategic

hedging against their potential occurrence. The Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Instituteand the Strategic Studies Institute are pleased to offerthis insightful monograph as a contribution to thedebate on this important national security issue.

JOHN A. KARDOSColonel, U.S. ArmyDirectorPeacekeeping and StabilityOperations Institute

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.DirectorStrategic Studies Institute


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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

NATHAN FREIER is a Visiting Professor of Strategy, Policy,and Risk Assessment at the U.S. Armys Peacekeeping andStability Operations Institute and a Senior Fellow in theInternational Security Program at the Center for Strategicand International Studies (CSIS). Mr. Freier joined CSIS inApril 2008 after retiring from the U.S. Army after 20 yearsas a lieutenant colonel. His last military assignment wasas Director of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Army

War Colleges Strategic Studies Institute. Prior to that, heserved in the Ofce of the Deputy Assistant Secretary ofDefense for Strategy, where his principal responsibilitiesincluded development of the 2005 National DefenseStrategy. Previously, he was an Army fellow/visitingscholar at the University of Marylands Center forInternational and Security Studies and a strategist withthe Strategy, Plans, Concepts, and Doctrine Directorate,

Department of the Army Staff in Washington, DC. Mr.Freier twice deployed to Iraq as a strategist while assignedto the Army War College. From January to July 2005, heserved in the Strategy, Plans, and Assessments Directorateof Headquarters, Multi-National ForceIraq, and fromMay to August 2007, he served as a special assistantto the Commander, Multi-National CorpsIraq, in theCommanders Initiatives Group. In his current capacity,

he continues to provide expert advice to a number ofkey actors in the security and defense policymaking andanalysis communities. Among his research interests andareas of expertise are U.S. grand strategy; national security,defense, and military strategy and policy development;irregular, catastrophic, and hybrid security challengesand conicts; strategic net and risk assessment; terrorism;and the Iraq War. Mr. Freier holds masters degrees in

International Relations from Troy State University andPolitics from The Catholic University of America.


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SUMMARY

The current defense team confronted a game-changing strategic shock in its rst 8 months inofce. The next team would be well-advised to expectthe same. Defense-relevant strategic shocks joltconvention to such an extent that they force sudden,unanticipated change in the Department of Defenses(DoD) perceptions about threat, vulnerability, andstrategic response. Their unanticipated onset forces theentire defense enterprise to reorient and restructureinstitutions, employ capabilities in unexpected ways,and confront challenges that are fundamentallydifferent than those routinely considered in defensecalculations.

The likeliest and most dangerous future shockswill be unconventional. They will not emerge from

thunderbolt advances in an opponents militarycapabilities. Rather, they will manifest themselves inways far outside established defense convention. Mostwill be nonmilitary in origin and character, and not,by denition, defense-specic events conducive to theconventional employment of the DoD enterprise.

They will rise from an analytical no mans landseparating well-considered, stock and trade defensecontingencies and pure defense speculation. Theirorigin is most likely to be in irregular, catastrophic, andhybrid threats of purpose (emerging from hostiledesign) or threats of context (emerging in the absenceof hostile purpose or design). Of the two, the latter isboth the least understood and the most dangerous.

Thoughtful evaluation of defense-relevant strategic

shocks and their deliberate integration into DoDstrategy and planning is a key check against excessiveconvention. Further, it underwrites DoD relevance


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and resilience. Prior anticipation of September 11,2001 (9/11) or the Iraq insurgency, for example, might

have limited the scope and impact of the shock. Inboth instances, wrenching periods of post-event self-examination did help solve our current or last problem.They may not have been as effective in solving our nextone.

DoD is now doing valuable work on strategicshocks. This work must endure and mature throughthe upcoming political transition. The next defenseteam should scan the myriad waypoints and end pointsalong dangerous trend lines, as well as the prospect forsudden, discontinuous breaks in trends altogether toidentify the next shock or shocks. Doing so is a prudenthedge against an uncertain and dangerous future.


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KNOWN UNKNOWNS:1

UNCONVENTIONAL STRATEGIC SHOCKS

IN DEFENSE STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

INTRODUCTION: THE FAILURE OFIMAGINATION2

A thoughtful senior policy ofcial has opined that mostpotentially devastating threats to U.S. interests startbeing evaluated as unlikely.

Jack Davis3

Defense analysis and strategy are inherentlyreactive. Historically, defense strategy developmentand planning have demonstrated three critical aws.For too long, they have been overly reactive. Corporately,they have lacked sufcient imagination. And, as a result,

both have been vulnerable to surprise.Recent history indicates that defense strategy and

planning fail to be sufciently predictive. When theydo venture into prediction, it often comes as linearextrapolation of contemporary challenges, adheringtoo closely to current convention. These are artifacts ofdefense conservatism, nite resources, and Bureaucracy

101.Senior defense and military leadership naturally erron the side of what is known and practiced at the expenseof preparing for what is less well-known but perhapsmore dangerous. There is an inherent predilectionagainst anything that smacks of speculation. Thistrend is natural and narrowly reasonable. Cautioussenior leaders see too much at stake in the near-term

to countenance instituting disruptive institutionalchange that is predicated on predictive analysis. Intheir view, there are enough compelling challenges in


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the Department of Defenses (DoD) in-box to consumethe focus of senior leaders and strategists. Yet, in the

contemporary environment, focusing exclusively onthe known, practiced, and narrowly reasonable isalso nave. At this juncture, engaging in some soundspeculation is increasingly prudent.

Like the attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), thesubsequent War on Terrorism (WoT), and the Iraqinsurgency,the next defense-relevant challenge is likelyto be a strategically dislocating surprise.4 Withoutcontinued and more sophisticated horizon scanning,there is near-certainty that the next compelling defense-relevant challenge will be a strategic shock.5 Thecurrent administration confronted a game-changingstrategic shock inside its rst 8 months in ofce. Thenext administration would be well-advised to expectthe same during the course of its rst term.6

Strategic shocks jolt convention to such an extentthat they force affected institutions to fundamentallyreorient strategy, strategic investments, and missions.DoDs post-9/11 adjustment to counterterrorism (CT)and counterinsurgency (COIN) illustrates this point.Some of DoDs reorientation on CT and COIN wasprudent and necessary, but also, at the same time,late and reactive. Without comprehensive net and riskassessment of future shocks, any defense adjustmentbased on yesterdays experience but nonethelessintended for tomorrows unconventional demandscould prove far off the mark downstream.

Senior defense leaders and strategists have keyquestions to answer on the subject of strategic shocks.This monograph examines the role of the strategic

shock in contemporary defense strategy development.It targets the incoming senior defense team, seekingto encourage them to institutionalize defense-relevant


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shocks in long-range defense strategy and planningefforts. It attempts to begin answering four important

questions on the subject: (1) What are strategic shocks?(2) What obstacles militate against their routineemployment in DoD strategy development? (3)Why are strategic shocks important to strategy andplanning? And, nally, (4) What kinds of shocks wouldprofoundly impact future DoD decisionmaking?

Meaningful consideration of shocks in strategydevelopment and planning would better posture DoDfor an unconventional future. The contemporaryenvironment is inherently complex. It will remainso. The likeliest and most dangerous securitychallenges emerging from it will be unconventional.Unconventional, from a DoD perspective, connotesnational security conditions and contingencies that aredefense-relevant but not necessarily defense-specic.

Unconventional security challenges lie substantiallyoutside the realm of traditional warghting. Theyare routinely nonmilitaryin origin and character.7Yet,nonmilitary, in this context, does not necessarily meannonviolent, nonstate, or disordered and unorganized.8

This monograph argues that thoughtful evaluationof the most plausible defense-relevant shocks and theirdeliberate integration into DoD strategy and planningprovides senior defense ofcials with key checks onexcessive convention. Further, the institutionalizationof deliberate net and risk assessment of defense-relevantshocks, reasoned judgments about their origins, andpreliminary analysis of the most appropriate responsesto them promises to routinize prudent hedging inDoD strategy and planning. Finally, serial assessment

of potential shocks underwrites DoD relevance andresilience in an increasingly unconventional strategicenvironment. The most recent National Defense


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Strategy (NDS) captures this idea when it observes:The [Department of Defense] should also develop

the military capability and capacity to hedge againstuncertainty, and the institutional agility and exibilityto plan early and respond effectively alongsideinterdepartmental, nongovernmental and internationalpartners.9

The Department of Defense is doing valuable workon strategic shocks. That work must endure and maturethrough the upcoming political transition. DoD hasinitiated an embryonic effort on strategic trends andshocks.10 In a critical period of political transition, itmight lose momentum with the inevitable change indefense leadership. This would be unfortunate. Thenew Secretary of Defense and his or her team mustcontinue to build on the work done thus far. Carefulexamination of the most plausible and disruptive

strategic shocks should be routine in all future defensestrategy, planning, and decisionmaking.

KNOWN UNKNOWNS: PREDICTABLE BUTUNPREDICTED STRATEGIC SHOCKS11

(T)here are some risks to national security which . . .can be conceived, but not predicted or fully anticipated.

Because they cannot be anticipated, such events arevery difcult to plan for effectively. At least two reasonsapply. First, by their very nature, these events alter theinternational system by their reversal of signicanttrends, thereby undermining the facts upon whichfuture planning is built. Second, many of these eventsfall outside the scope of traditional or permitted defenseplanning.

Sam J. Tangredi12


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Strategic shocks change the nature of the gameitself.To Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, strategic

shocks (or strategic surprises in their lexicon) aregame changing events.13Their occurrence suddenlydiscredits many or all preexisting assumptions aboutthe environment and those conventions that governeffective navigation through it. Schwartz and Randallconclude:

Strategic surprises . . . are those . . . events that, if they

occur, would make a big difference to the future, forcedecisionmakers to challenge their own assumptions ofhow the world works, and require hard choices today.14

Schwartz and Randall distinguish strategic shocksor surprises from other contingencies. They arguethat they (1) have an important impact on . . . [the]country; (2) stretch conventional wisdom in ways that

make it difcult to convince others that the surprise iseven possible; and, nally, (3) are so complex that it ishard to imagine what can be done in response.15

Employing the term wild card, John L. Petersondenes strategic shocks as those events that have adirect effect on the human condition; have broad,important and sometimes fundamental implications;

and nally, rise and mature so fast that there is notenough warning to allow the rest of the system toadjust.16Thus, game-changing strategic shocks catchnational security institutions like DoD by surprise bythe speed of their onset, as well as by the breath anddepth of their impact. Strategic shocks suddenly andirrevocably change the rules of the game, as well as thecontours and composition of playing surface itself.

In a defense context, strategic shocks manifestthemselves as sudden surprises to DoDs collectiveconsciousness. They pose grave risksperhaps evenlasting and irreversible harmto one or more core


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security interests. Defense-relevant shocks forcesudden, unanticipated change in DoDs perceptions

about threat, vulnerability, and strategic response. Theirunexpected onset forces the whole defense enterpriseto rapidly reorient and restructure institutions andemploy institutional and operational capabilities infundamentally different ways, against fundamentallydifferent challenges.

Some of the most plausible defense-relevant stra-tegic shocks remain low probability events. Nonethe-less, their impact is so fundamental and consequentialthat hedging against them is a critical activity for theentire defense enterprise. Again, the post-9/11 periodis a clinic in this regard. Defense-relevant strategic shocks present seniorleaders and strategists with complex conceptualchallenges.Defense-relevant strategic shocks are thun-

derbolt events. Absent prior consideration, strategicshocks catch senior defense leaders and strategists at-footed. They are so strategically dislocating that theycause sudden defense adaptation to new, unfamiliarrule sets or the absence of rules altogether. Defenseleaders and strategists are forced by circumstances tomake snap judgments on the future efcacy of standingdefense paradigmsall under the pressure of time andrapidly changing circumstances. As a consequence,responses to them are vulnerable to having hope andchance versus prudent risk-informed planning as theirfoundations.

Taking some exception with Tangredis observationabove, they are at once both predictable (and oftenpredicted) but also un- or inadequately anticipated and

accounted for.17According to a 2007 Naval Postgrad-uate School (NPS) report, In hindsight, it is clear thatmost shocks are the product of long-term trends, and are


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less disruptive when we have anticipated and respond-ed to [the underlying trends].18In this regard, strate-

gic shocks are less failures in prediction and insteadkey failures by the strategy and policy community tothoughtfully account for them adequately in strategicplanning. Shocks do, as Tangredi suggests, undermineprevailing strategy and planning assumptions.19And thus, they also often lie outside traditionalor permitted areas of defense inquiry. As a result,they so jar prevailing defense wisdom that they forcefundamental changes to some or all long-standingdefense priorities. The NPS report observes similarly,Shocks are disruptive by their very nature and . . . canchange how we think about security and the role of themilitary.20Thus, strategic shocks force defense leadersinto uncharted operating space. Witness, for example,

the unplanned renaissance of CT, COIN, and stabilityoperations within the DoD repertoire.

Shock and surprise are not necessarily syn-onymous. Surprise is only half of the equation withrespect to defense-relevant shocks. They are distinctfrom other unexpected strategic contingency events inthat they are unanticipated and inadequately accountedfor to such an extent that their occurrence triggersfundamental strategic and institutional disruptionacross the defense enterprise. There is no scienticbreak point between strategic shock and strategicsurprise. The boundary separating the two is a functionof an events strategic impact, the extent of disruption itcauses, and the degree to which the defense enterpriseanticipated its occurrence in strategy development and

planning. High impact contingency events that promisefundamental disruption and occur without the benetof adequate policy-level anticipation are more likelythan not to be strategic shocks (see Figure 1).


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Figure 1. Defense-Relevant Strategic Shock VersusStrategic Surprise.

Saddam Husseins 1990 invasion of Kuwait wasa strategic surprise. It was not a strategic shock. Boththe challenge from Iraqs military and the Americanresponse to large-scale conventional cross-borderincursion were well-considered in both theory andpractice. There was no need for a fundamentalreorientation of defense strategy and defense prioritiesin response.

On the other hand, 9/11-like attacks were notnecessarily unpredicted, but they were nonethelessshocking to the national security establishment.Against a wide universe of compelling defense-relevantchallenges, 9/11-like events and the likeliest Americanresponse to them were both inadequately considered

and undervalued in defense planning. Thus, when theybecame reality, they proved to be disruptive shocks tothe collective defense consciousness. The surprising


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speed and breadth of change in U.S. perceptionsabout the threat from terrorism forced an institutional

revolution on DoD without the benet of detailedforethought.

In 1962, Thomas Schelling captured the essence ofthe defense-relevant strategic shock, in the forewordto Roberta Wohlstetters classic book Pearl Harbor:Warning and Decision,when he observed on the PearlHarbor attacks:

The results, at Pearl Harbor, were sudden, concentrated,and dramatic. The failure, however, was cumulative,widespread, and rather drearily familiar . . . (S)urpriseis everything involved in a governments . . . failure toanticipate effectively.21

There are two routes to defense-relevant shock.Strategic shocks will arrive via one of two distinct paths.

The rst is rapid, unanticipated arrival at the naturalend of a well-recognized and perilous trend line; or, asa corollary, earlier than expected arrival at a dangerouswaypoint along that same trend line.22 Both indicatesome substantial and largely unforeseen escalationof recognized hazards. Alternatively, they may arrivevia less predictable, discontinuous breaks from trends

altogether.

23

These are the rarer Black Swans.

24

9/11might be considered the former. And, although thesubject of some debate about its predictability, thesudden collapse of the Soviet Union might fall in thelatter category.

This view is consistent with DoDs currentperspective on strategic shocks. DoD policymakersdene shocks as sudden arrival of exigent conditions

that [punctuate] the evolution of a trendadiscontinuity that either rapidly accelerates [thetrends] pace or signicantly changes its trajectory.25


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The rst of these discontinuities implies unanticipatedarrival at a way- or endpoint on a recognized trend line.

The second reects sudden onset of the rarer BlackSwan. On the subject of strategic trends, the mostrecent defense strategy observes:

Increasingly, the Department will have to plan for afuture security environment shaped by the interaction ofpowerful strategic trends. These trends suggest a rangeof plausible futures, some presenting major challengesand security risks.26

Shocks emerge from strategic planning territory thatHugh Courtney describes as Level 3 and Level 4uncertainty. Courtneys upper two levels of uncertaintyare also consistent with the discussion above. Accord-ing to Courtney, Level 3 uncertainty is territorywhere (o)ne can identify the range of possible future

outcomes, but no obvious point forecast emerges.27This range of outcomes is akin to the end- and/or waypoints on known and dangerous trend lines. Level 4uncertainty represents decisionmaking territory wherea limitless range of possible future outcomes exists.28This is the territory of the Black Swandiscontin-uous breaks in trend lines altogether.

Unconventional, defense-relevant shocks lie inthe conceptual territory between the well-consideredand the purely speculative. In defense strategy andplanning, meaningful consideration of shocks is un-covered, informally-covered, or inadequately-cover-ed ground. Indeed, in spite of nascent work withinthe Ofce of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), shockslargely lay in an analytical no mans land separating

conventional contingency events from highly incredibleor speculative ones. The uncovered ground in betweenbecomes fertile soil for the next shock.


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On one side of the no mans land is the well-practicedtrade of DoD. It is territory occupied by conventional

military competition and now kinetic CT and COIN.Until 9/11, DoD over-subscribed to the rst. Since theIraq War, it hazards over-optimizing for the second.

On the other side of the divide is an incredibleor highly speculative extreme that pushes at the far-boundary of defense rationality. Up to a reasonablepoint, some of this area might still be the target ofprudent hedging. However, beyond the point ofreason, it becomes a resource consuming distraction. Incontemporary defense parlance, this area is exempliedin what the author might call the extreme disruptivechallenge where the U.S. military might nd itselfsuddenly powerless against the technical advancesof a capable state opponent with little or no strategicwarning.29Figure 2 provides a graphic representation

of the two extremes and the analytical no mans landbetween.

Figure 2. No Mans LandThe Gap.


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9/11 rose from the middle of no mans land.Anillustration is in order here. Prior to 9/11, terrorism was

plainly on the defense and national security agenda.There was a clear trend line of increasing terroristviolence and lethalitye.g., 1993 World Trade Centerbombings, 1998 East African bombings, the USS Cole.Run-of-the-mill terrorism was deemed nettlesomebut strategically inconsequential. It was white noiseperpetrated by what some thought to be an unimportantand largely discredited extremist constituency. At thefar end of the same spectrum, defense and nationalsecurity strategists considered nuclear terrorism to becatastrophic, unthinkable, and thus worthy of somedefense focus.

There was little meaningful defense considerationof the severity and consequences of terrorism lyingon the strategic ground in between. However, in

hindsight, one can see that 9/11 marked the U.S.arrival at a natural, dangerous, and underappreciatedwaypoint on an already recognized trend line. It was athunderbolt from the middle of the analytical no mansland separating the conventional from the extreme.

The gap between the conventional and well-considered and the incredible or highly speculativeshould be a priority in future defense analysis.Detailed net and risk assessment between the twoextremes is increasingly important to defense strategyand planning. This territory skirts the inside edgesof well-considered, defense-relevant, and defense-specic conditions and truly incredible or extremeones. Admittedly, the boundary demarking the latteris highly subjective. Nonetheless, this middle area

has long been undervalued in mainstream defenseplanning. Here a caution from Thomas Schelling isappropriate. He observes:


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The danger is not that we shall read the signals andindicators with too little skill, the danger is in a povertyof expectationsa routine obsession with a few dangersthat may be familiar rather than likely.30

The gap in the middle is that unconventional

ground where irregular, catastrophic, and hybridthreats of purpose and threats of context riseand mix in complex combinations to challenge core

interests.31

Purposeful threats are defense-specic ordefense-relevant security challenges originating in thehostile designs of a consequential opponent. Threatsof context are defense-relevant security challengesemerging slowly or suddenly from circumstancesendemic to the strategic environment itself; all in theabsence of hostile design vis--vis the United States.32

This middle gapwhere threats of purpose and

context rise and combineis the likeliest sourceof strategic shock for the nation and its defenseestablishment. Increased focus here may catch thenext disruptive surprise early. Thus, it is increasinglyimportant for senior leaders and strategists to examineall plausible waypoints and endpoints along the fulllength of unfavorable trend lines, as well as credible,

discontinuous breaks in the trend lines themselves. Bothshould be done with a view toward hedging againstunforeseen shock. Hugh Courtney is instructive in thisregard. He observes:

Scenarios that describe the extreme points in the range ofpossible outcomes are often relatively easy to develop,but those in between deliver the most information for

current strategic decisions and they are the hardest todetermine.33


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The most compelling future defense-relevant shocksare likely to be unconventional. Future Secretaries of

Defense should recognize that the next defense-relevantshock will likely emerge as a signicant surprise to theinnately conservative and traditionally-focused DoDestablishment. It will be strategically dislocating. It iscertain to fall substantially outside established defenseconvention. And, if left unaccounted for in DoDstrategy development and planning, it will vex seniorleaders and strategists.

Indeed, the odds are very high against any of thechallenges routinely at the top of the traditional defenseagenda triggering the next watershed inside DoD.Here it might be valuable to recognize that currentdefense convention itself may be less a reection ofstrategic reality than commonly appreciated.34 In thisregard, the next exigent challenge for DoD is not likely

to emerge from deliberate, cross border attack by anaggressive state. Nor, is it likely to arrive via suddenmissile attack on an American or allied population.Finally, neither will it likely come from an organizedinsurgency against a friendly government. These areall now the stock and trade of defense convention,yet probably fail to adequately represent the likeliestdefense-specic and defense-relevant realities. Figure3 below suggests that the contemporary defense realitymay already straddle the far extreme of current defenseconvention, as well as signicant uncovered ground inthe gap.


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Figure 3. Current Reality May Defy CurrentConvention.

In this respect, the next compelling defense-relevant threat is likely to appear by purpose anddesign or accident at the intersection of war of some

description,35

low politics, and chronic instability. It willfall in between the conventional decision and operatingspace of competing U.S. Government (USG) agencies.It will not lend itself to simple resolution through thetraditional application of U.S. instruments of power intheir classical combinations. As in the case of both 9/11and the Iraq insurgency, the next consequential shockfor DoD is certain to be unconventional and defense-relevant, not traditional and defense-specic.36

Among the most challenging defense-relevantshocks will be those arising in the absence of hostilestrategic design.37 Defense leaders and strategistsshould be acutely aware that both hostile purposeand strategic context are combining to undermine andthreaten core interests. As senior leaders and strategists

weigh the hazards of both, they should recognize thatlooking for the next shock solely in the hostile designs ofadversaries is grossly inadequate. Indeed, the strategicenvironment itself may be the next worst U.S. enemy.


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Even shocks born of hostile purpose will lookdifferent than current convention allows. Indeed, future

purposeful shocks are likeliest to come when state andnonstate competitors learn to effectively circumventtraditional U.S. military overmatch, employing non-military means as war. They will leverage politics,economics, hostile social action, and discriminatingnonmilitary violence in innovative combinations. Asa result, traditional U.S. military advantages will besidelined not by breakthrough military technology orconcepts,

but by the simple absence of a legitimate

casusbelli. These circumstances should be less shocking,as there is still some latent convention to the prospectof purposeful opponents leveraging nonmilitaryinnovation as war. Nonetheless, the current defensestrategy does recognize the potential for shock in thisregard when it observes:

In some instances, we may not learn that a conict isunderway until it is well-advanced and our optionsare limited. We must develop better intelligencecapabilities to detect, recognize, and analyze new formsof warfare.38

The most challenging defense-relevant shocks

might emerge from adverse conditions endemic tothe environment itself. This is made more certain bythe unguided forces of globalization, toxic populism,identity politics, underdevelopment, human/naturaldisaster, and disease. In the end, shocks emerging fromcontextual threats might challenge core U.S. interestsmore fundamentally than any number of prospectivepurposeful shocks. This is especially true given the

degree to which threats of context remain unconsideredor, at a minimum, undervalued in contemporary de-fense planning and decisionmaking. In the main,


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threats of context are difcult for the defense establish-ment to anticipate and combat precisely because:

There is no single engine or design behind theiroccurrence;

They are more out of the proximate control of theUnited States and its most capable internationalpartners;

They are much harder to predict and/or track;and nally,

They are in- or undervulnerable to traditionalinstruments of U.S. power applied in predictablecombinations.

Threats of context might include but are not limitedto contagious un- and under-governance; civil violence;the swift catastrophic onset of consequential natural,environmental, and/or human disaster; a rapidly

expanding and uncontrolled transregional epidemic;and the sudden crippling instability or collapse ofa large and important state. Indeed, pushing at theboundaries of current convention, it would be prudentto add catastrophic dislocation inside the United Statesor homegrown domestic civil disorder and/or violenceto this category as well. The 2008 NDS observessimilarly:

Over the next 20 years physical pressurespopulation,resource, energy, climatic, and environmentalcouldcombine with rapid social, cultural, technological, andgeopolitical change to create greater uncertainty.39

Most of these contextual threats are triggers orcatalysts. They are the origin of shocks. The extent of

the shock is determined by the degree to which any oneof these threats is unanticipated or unaccounted for bythe strategy and policy community and, as a result,


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forces revolutionary change on the defense or nationalsecurity status quo. For example, disruptive civil

violence, natural disasters, and epidemics are expectedon the near- to mid-term strategic horizon. They willoccur around the world. The defense-relevant shockcomes when one of these occurs or two or more of thesecombine in ways that force DoD to fundamentallyreorient strategy, capabilities, investments, and con-cepts in response.

By way of example, realist calculation indicatesthat epidemics and widespread civil violence mightbe tolerable in some parts of the world. Shock wouldresult if these occurred inside the United States orinside a key strategic partner to such an extent that theyforced DoD to radically re-role for domestic security,population control, consequence management, andstabilization. Likewise, failure of any state is tragic, but

not always compelling strategically. However, failureof one or more nuclear states and subsequent nuclearuse by competing parties in an intrastate war or nuclearuse externally against the United States or a key U.S.ally might force DoD to fundamentally retool forstabilization in a dirty environment, and, at the sametime, increase its capacity for the armed restoration ofresponsible control over third party nuclear arsenals.40

TRAPPED BY CONVENTION: SEEINGTHE FUTURE WE WANT?

There is a tendency in our planning to confuse theunfamiliar with the improbable. The contingency wehave not considered seriously looks strange; what looksstrange is thought improbable; what is improbable need

not be considered seriouslyThomas Schelling41


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Defense strategy and planning are trapped byexcessive convention. DoD has begun to explore

strategic shocks in a more thoughtful way. In the past,however, meaningful consideration of strategic shockswas never welcome in mainstream defense strategy andpolicy development. The past might be prologue in thisregard. Until quite recently, meaningful examinationof shocks was relegated to the niche worlds of defensefutures, concept development, and net assessment.These defense-specic communities, however, limitedconsideration of shocks to examination of linearor discontinuous changes in the quality of knownmilitarythreats.42Until the predictable shock of 9/11,mainstream defense strategists rarely ventured intothe territory of unconventional strategic shocks inother than a cursory and speculative manner. In thewords of the 9/11 Commission, Imagination is not a

gift usually associated with bureaucracies.43

In general, rigorously analyzed strategic shockswere never injected thoughtfully into importantpieces of high-level defense guidancee.g., successiveNational Military Strategies, Quadrennial DefenseReviews, and biennial Defense Planning Guidance.When strategic shocks or wild cards were mentionedin these, they were often described in overly broadterms and were most often captured in throw awaylanguage like that from the 1997 National MilitaryStrategy (NMS):

We can never know with certainty where or when thenext conict will occur, who our next adversary will be,how an enemy will ght, who will join us in a coalition,or precisely what demands will be placed on U.S. forces.

A number of wild card threats could emerge. . . . Suchthreats range from the emergence of new technologies. . . to the loss of key allies or alliances and the unexpectedoverthrow of friendly regimes.44


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Thus, to date, successive Secretaries of Defensehave been disinclined to account for shocks in their

strategic calculations. There is a predictable andnatural sensitivity within the defense establishmentagainst veering too far in the direction of speculation.Likewise, innate military conservatism has consistentlyforced senior leaders and strategists into the sanctuaryof convention. Powerful motivations militate againstgambling nite resources or targeting DoD strategytoward worldviews deviating dramatically from es-tablished defense norms. Francis Fukuyama suggeststhis is the product of behaviors bred inside the nationalsecurity bureaucracy. He observes:

Those who deal professionally with global politics,foreign policy, and national security affairs haveparticular biases when it comes to thinking about thefuture. Their biases generate a perceptual incentive

structure that throws off their general capacity foraccurate prediction.45

Summarizing the arguments presented in hisrecent edited volume on strategic shocks and wildcards, Fukuyama concludes that failures of cognition,resources, and institutional weaknesses all contributeto the widespread tendency to leave strategic shocksout of deliberate strategic planning.46On the issue ofhuman cognition, he decries the dangers resident inshared mental models that result in group think. Heobserves more generally, (L)eaders have a hard timediscounting the present value of events that will takeplace in the future.47

With respect to resources, he argues, Even if

individuals . . . are cognitively prepared for a futurecontingency, they often do not have the right incentivesto hedge against it properly. He continues, Hedging


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is costly, and no organization can possibly hedgeagainst all possible contingencies.48 Finally, on the

issue of institutions, Fukuyama suggests, Hedgingagainst future risks . . . also requires collective action,specically a sharing of decisionmaking authorityand a pooling of resources across organizational andinternational boundaries.49The implication is that thecapacity for shared responsibility and collective actionare rare qualities inside the U.S. national security anddefense establishments.

DoDs prevailing, pre-9/11 mental model biasedit in the direction of excessive convention.All of theaforementioned were evidenced in the behaviorsof pre-9/11 DoD. The mental model operative inDoD prior to 9/11 rested on the 60 (plus)-year-oldtheology of industrial and information-age militaryconict. The role of DoD was to ght and win wars.

Wars by denition were limited to the formal clashof arms between the United States and hostile statecompetitors. Defense strategy and planning weredriven by linear extrapolations of existing or perceivedsources of future military conictresurgent Russia,rising China, recalcitrant Iraq, miscalculating NorthKorea. There would be future security challenges. Theonly difference between the Cold War and the post-Cold War epoch was quantitycumulatively moreconsequential challengers; and qualitya universe ofthreats that were dangerous but not so existentially.

In this mental frame, the only threats of consequencewere states; specically, state militaries. Among these,the sources of strategic shock were thought to be thosethat might have the potential for sudden unanticipated

acquisition and employment of new, more threatening(disruptive) military capabilities or designs. Therewould, for example, be an immediate regional challenge


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from a small universe of second-rate military powersprone to miscalculation. And, on the mid- to long-

term horizon, emergence of near-peer or peer militarycompetitor was accepted as gospel.

The fear was that one or more of these statecompetitors would acquire revolutionary technologyand undertake associated military innovationthat would fundamentally alter long-establishedconcepts of warfare and undermine traditional U.S.dominance.50The likeliest future candidates at the highend of this category were a more activist and bellicoseChina or, more distantly, a reenergized and newlycapable Russian Federation.51

Issues having little to do with organized militarycompetition between states were considered boutique,speculative, and distracting from the real business ofdefense planning and traditional warghting. This

narrative stuck in the U.S. defense community preciselybecause it conformed to mental models shared by mostinside DoD. 9/11 and subsequent experience in Iraq,Afghanistan, and the wider war on terrorism (WoT)changed all prevailing mental models. However,the extent to which it did so in a durable way is anopen question. The defense and military bias in favorof convention is likely more deeply entrenched thanoutside observers appreciate.

Earlier and more detailed examination of the gapmight have limited the intensity of the post-9/11 shock.Until 9/11 and subsequent irregular wars in Iraq andAfghanistan, defense strategists were the virtualprisoners of mechanical planning and programmingprocesses from the theater- to the national-strategic

level. These lent themselves easily to the evaluation ofwell-structured adversary military forces and actions.Predictably, they also resulted in the perpetuation


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of Cold War-like defense planning scenarios, stockwar plans, force sizing and planning constructs, and

acquisition strategies that: First, were conceived of according to classically

realist convention and inherited from or deriv-atives of strategic concepts and constructs moreappropriate to the Cold War;

Second, were often mistaken for or masquerad-ing as coherent defense strategy;

Third, failed to account for dangerous forces ofsocial and political insecurity spinning off thedecomposing Cold War order;

Fourth, reected a security environment seniorleaders and strategists were intellectually bestprepared for and also most comfortable with;and,52

Fifth, ultimately proved unresponsive to a

new, more unconventional defense-relevantchallenge set.

Hindsight argues that defense concepts, sizing andshaping constructs, and plans devised in the decadeprior to 9/11 were wholly inappropriate to the environ-ment likeliest to emerge from the shock of the ColdWars collapse.53 For example, neither successiveforce sizing and shaping constructs nor a whole rangeof associated U.S. war plans would have survivedrigorous analysis intact were they measured againstthe serial human, material, and scal demands ofsimultaneous COIN/Security, Stabilization, andReconstruction Operations (SSTRO) campaigns inIraq and Afghanistan, or the persistent and unceasing

demands of a wider WoT. A more thoughtful andunbiased analysis of the near- to long-term nationalsecurity horizon in the wake of the Cold War might


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have resulted in a clearer, more nuanced, and morerealistic view of defense-relevant demands in the 21st

century.However, this more thoughtful and unbiased

analysis also would have required senior defenseleaders and strategists to explore the gap betweenconventional contingencies and extreme or speculativecontingencies in much greater detail. Had this analysisoccurred, it might have identied the increasingU.S. vulnerability to a whole range of consequentialand potentially shocking challenges that were morecomplex and more unconventional than those imaginedby defense leaders and strategists who continued tooperate under a discredited Cold War rule set. Indeed,it may have accounted for the increasing likelihoodof successive post-Cold War shocks to the defenseestablishmente.g., 9/11, the WoT, and the Iraq

insurgencyand the attendant requirement for DoDto either adjust to or be overwhelmed by the demandsof the contemporary environment.

Thoughtful assessments like this also would haveput a number of contemporary (and preferred) defensepriorities and methods at substantial risk. This wouldrun afoul with a range of bureaucratic interests insidethe Pentagon. Traditional core competencies, long-lead weapons programs and investments, concepts ofoperation, and budget share would all have been injeopardy to one extent or another. In some form, theseinherently bureaucratic obstacles remain extant today.

9/11 was important. However, was it importantenough to make DoDs appreciation of unconven-tional shocks irreversible? Without question, 9/11

was a game changer for DoD.54 So, too, was thesudden onset of the insurgency in Iraq. In the wake of9/11, the on-going WoT, and active irregular conicts


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in Iraq and Afghanistan, senior DoD leaders andstrategists increasingly recognize the importance of

defense-relevant shocks. On-going efforts like DoDsstrategic trends and shocks initiative and the StateDepartments Project Horizon are embryonic effortsintended in part to institutionalize the concept ofstrategic shock in routine government planning anddecisionmaking.55

Both efforts are futures oriented and preventive.Both are intended to help dene near-term choicesand decision space. Finally, both seek to shapepriorities, capabilities, and strategic design in waysthat will posture the defense and national securityestablishments to better anticipate, prevent, and, ifprevention fails, respond decisively to sudden strategicshock in the future.

The extent to which the national security estab-

lishment appreciates the potential value associatedwith maturing either or both of these efforts isuncertain. Yet, if the previous 7 years is an indicationof a new more unconventional national security statusquo, both strategic trends and shocks and ProjectHorizon merit continued support and development.The current defense team acknowledges this impera-tive. For example, on the subject of strategic trends andthe prospect for their triggering dislocating shocks, the2008 NDS concludes, How [strategic trends] interactand the nature of the shocks they might generate isuncertain; the fact that they will inuence the futuresecurity environment is not.56


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SEEING THE WHOLE FUTURE:INCORPORATING SHOCKS IN DEFENSE

STRATEGY

Without sophisticated advanced consideration ofunconventional strategic shocks specically, DoDsframe of reference and tool-kit will be inadequate tocontend with the most dangerous and complex futurecontingencies. Anticipation of unconventional shocksin particular is exceedingly important. This calls for adisciplined approach to their deliberate identicationand analysis.

In this regard, it is difcult to nd something one isnot rst committed to looking for. The degree of dangeror harm from defense-relevant strategic shocks morebroadly is directly proportionate to DoDs ability tosee them coming in sufcient time and with sufcient

clarity to affect meaningful advanced preparation. Thisrequires a commitment to look for and examine shocksin the rst place.

Once identied as plausible, the most disruptiveprospective shocks must become the subject of detailedinterdisciplinary examination. All of this argues forcontinued defense and interagency investment in androutinization of initiatives like strategic trends andshocks and Project Horizon. The current defenseteam is inclined in this direction. According the recentNPS report:

One of the key objectives of the (d)epartment is developinga systematic process and intellectual foundation toidentify key trends and shocks, and subsequent impactsof these shocks.57

Identifying on-coming defense-relevant shockswill never be a DoD responsibility alone. The moreunconventional the prospective shock, the more this


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is the case. Likewise, preventing shocks or respondingto them will always require the innovative blending

of all instruments of national power. Both advancedwarning of impending shock and the decisive blendingof defense and non-defense resources in response relyon a whole-of-government commitment to tackle thetopic from its infancy in an intellectually disciplinedfashion. Having already invested in preliminaryconsideration of strategic shocks, DoDs ongoingefforts should continue and mature in this regard.

This intellectual heavy-lifting requires that shocksbenet from sufcient emphasis in future defensestrategy development. This demands the interestand engagement of high-level DoD leadership.It further requires defense strategists who areadequately socialized to look for and contend withcritical uncertainties, indications of sudden change

in the environment, and, nally, shock. In general, itrequires a defense establishment that is predisposedtoward curiosity about and investigation into theunconventional and the unknown. All of these are insome respects countercultural.

In short, strategic shocks should increasinglyenter defense convention as a key driver for strategydevelopment and strategic planning. According toSchwartz and Randall, One cannot foresee strategicsurprises without being imaginative, but the results willnot be believed without being systematic. 58Indeed, if9/11, the WoT, and the Iraq insurgency are indicators,deliberate consideration within DoD of some keyprospective shocks will be more important to strategicdecisionmaking than will detailed examination of

other long-standing conventional policy drivers. Thelatter are consistently over-considered and thus, well-understood. The recent past provides a tragic exampleof the failure of imagination in this respect.


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Naturally, there are both benets and hazardsto incorporating strategic shocks more broadly into

defense decisionmaking. However, the benets out-weigh the hazards. According to Tangredi:

Assessing the potential effects of wildcards may bringone to the point where imagination overtakes research.Nevertheless, sketching the outlines and prospectiveimpacts of such unanticipated events helps identify thealternatives against which hedging strategies may beappropriate.59

As suggested above, deliberate consideration ofthe most consequential, high-impact unconventionalshocks must be an interdisciplinary effort occurring atthe intersection of strategy and policy development,intelligence, and defense analysis. Synthesized,interdisciplinary judgments on shocks ensures that

any process chartered to examine them avoids thetrap of becoming an unfocused, speculative, andoverly academic examination of what if and insteadbecomes a policy-relevant input into the Secretary ofDefenses decision space on the merits of plausibility,strategic relevance, and impact. In order for theseinterdisciplinary judgments to have requisite inuenceon higher-level DoD decisionmaking, any examinationof shocks must occur in close proximity to and havethe attention of the Secretary of Defense himself.

ROUTINIZING IMAGINATION: PLAUSIBLEUNCONVENTIONAL SHOCKS

Illustrations of prospective shocks are more

compelling to policymakers than are generalizeddescriptions of dangerous trends.General descriptionsof dangerous trends, while important contextually,are not nearly as powerful to policymakers as are


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tight, illustrative descriptions of the most dangerousendpoints, waypoints, or discontinuous breaks in trend

lines. Paraphrasing the 9/11 Commission, it is criticallyimportant for DoD to routinize consideration ofplausible strategic shocks so as to posture it to betteranticipate, hedge against, and respond to them in themost effective and risk-informed way.60 The followingunconventional shocks are illustrative.61 They are onlyintended to demonstrate the type of disruptive shockgroups that merit deliberate consideration in futuredefense strategy deliberations.

Strategic State Collapse.62

In the international system, some states mattermore than others. There are a number of states whosestable functioning is uniquely important to the United

States and its interests. Most of these states harborvast potential for harm should they succumb tosudden, catastrophic instability or failure. This is trueregardless of their pre-collapse disposition toward theUnited Statesfriendly, benign, or neutral. These arestrategic states that: Possess signicant employable weapons of mass

destruction (WMD) capacity;63

Possess signicant strategic resources, economiccapacity, and/or dominant geographic lever-age;

Are in close proximity to the United States or akey strategic partner and have a large dependentpopulation vulnerable to uncontrolled migra-tion;

Could with unanticipated destabilization triggercontagious instability in an important region;and/or,

Are allies or key strategic partners.


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None of these categories are mutually exclusive.

Failure, uncontrolled instability, or collapse of statesexhibiting one or more of these qualities would presentthe United States with complex hybrid challenges. Theymay, for example, pose grave harm to the security ofan important region. Alternatively, they may suddenlyprovide consequential opponents of the United Statesunrestricted access to or inuence over a victim statesassets, resources, and political outcomes.

There are a number of plausible collapse scenarios.Triggers for collapse are rooted in irregular, cata-strophic, and hybrid threats of purpose and context.Given the recognized instability of some strategicstates, collapse might mark a natural endpoint to analready recognized and unfavorable trend. In othercases, strategic state collapse may arrive via Black

Swan with little or no strategic warning. For DoD,the collapsed strategic state presents an immenselycomplex defense relevant challenge. Sheer capacityalone indicates a decisive DoD role in restoring a newmore stable status quo.

Fullling that role would be problematic given thecharacter of the post-collapse environment.64 In thecollapsed strategic state, elements of the armed forcesand security services may remain under coherentcommand and control and actively resist intervention.Dedicated agents of the prior unstable status quo areprone to ghtoften violentlyto protect or restorevestiges of the old order. Criminals and pop-upmilitias are likely to carve out new, defensible spheresof inuence from pieces of the fallen state. Adjacent

powers will rush in physically, politically, and/ormaterially to decisively inuence outcomes. Long-repressed political constituencies will be prone to seek


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out former oppressors and exact vengeance. Localnationalists will resist foreign imposed or inspired

solutions. Some internal constituencies will ght torebalance political authority. Others will ght againstthat rebalancing. Finally, supercharged indigenous andexpatriate constituencies may sow instability beyondthe borders of the victim state. All of this will occur in anenvironment where the surety of nuclear or biologicalweapons is in question, critical strategic resources areat risk, and/or the core interests of adjacent states arethreatened by spillover. Further still, this will all occurin a sea of abject human insecurity.

One of the most dangerous prospective contingen-cies in this regard might be collapse of a large capa-ble state that results in a nuclear civil war. Uncontrol-led proliferation in the event of a nuclear statescollapse is an ever-present threat. However, here also

DoD would have to contend with stabilization in theaftermath of nuclear use. It might be the lead agentin reassertion of responsible control over substantialnuclear weapons capabilities. Finally, it would likelybe responsible for the armed separation of nuclear-armed opponents and the deliberate disarmament ofthe various parties to the conict. All of this wouldoccur under the constant threat of continued nuclearuse within or outside the connes of the victim state.

Violent, Strategic Dislocation Inside the UnitedStates.

As a community, the defense establishment swearsto protect and defend the constitution against all

enemies foreign and domestic. DoDs role in combatingdomestic enemies has never been thoughtfullyexamined. Thus, there is perhaps no greater source


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of strategic shock for DoD than operationalizing thatcomponent of the oath of service in a widespread

domestic emergency that entails rapid dissolution ofpublic order in all or signicant parts of the UnitedStates.

While likely not an immediate prospect, this isclearly a Black Swan that merits some visibility insideDoD and the Department of Homeland Security. Tothe extent events like this involve organized violenceagainst local, state, and national authorities and exceedthe capacity of the former two to restore public orderand protect vulnerable populations, DoD wouldbe required to ll the gap. This is largely unchartedstrategic territory.

Widespread civil violence inside the United Stateswould force the defense establishment to reorientpriorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order

and human security. Deliberate employment of weap-ons of mass destruction or other catastrophic capabili-ties, unforeseen economic collapse, loss of function-ing political and legal order, purposeful domestic resis-tance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergen-cies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters areall paths to disruptive domestic shock. An American government and defense establish-ment lulled into complacency by a long-secure domes-tic order would be forced to rapidly divest someor most external security commitments in order toaddress rapidly expanding human insecurity at home.Already predisposed to defer to the primacy of civilianauthorities in instances of domestic security and divestall but the most extreme demands in areas like civil

support and consequence management, DoD mightbe forced by circumstances to put its broad resourcesat the disposal of civil authorities to contain and


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reverse violent threats to domestic tranquility. Underthe most extreme circumstances, this might include

use of military force against hostile groups inside theUnited States. Further, DoD would be, by necessity, anessential enabling hub for the continuity of politicalauthority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conictor disturbance.

A whole host of long-standing defense conventionswould be severely tested. Under these conditions andat their most violent extreme, civilian authorities,on advice of the defense establishment, would needto rapidly determine the parameters dening thelegitimate use of military force inside the United States.Further still, the whole concept of conict terminationand/or transition to the primacy of civilian securityinstitutions would be uncharted ground. DoD isalready challenged by stabilization abroad. Imagine

the challenges associated with doing so on a massivescale at home.

Politics, Economics, Social Action, and PoliticalViolence as Hybrid War.

The United States might also consider the prospectthat hostile state and/or nonstate actors mightindividually or in concert combine hybrid methodseffectively to resist U.S. inuence in a nonmilitarymanner.65This is clearly an emerging trend. Imagine, forexample, a China-Russia axis that collectively employssubstantial political power within international insti-tutions and markets to hold key American interests atrisk. At the international level, actors like this might

employ extant and emerging political/economicarrangements as instruments for purposeful resistanceand war.66


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At the national and subnational level, purposefulopponents could synchronize nonmilitary effort,

agitating quasi-legitimate proxies into concerted socialaction and precision political violence targeted atnullifying traditional U.S. military advantages, limitingAmerican freedom of action, and adversely shaping thestrategic choices of or political outcomes inside key butvulnerable American partners.67Imagine a new era ofcontainment with the United States as the nation tobe contained where the principal tools and methodsof war involve everything but those associated withtraditional military conict.68Imagine that the sourcesof this new era of containment are widespread;predicated on nonmilitary forms of political, economic,and violent action; in the main, sustainable over time;and nally, largely invulnerable to effective reversalthrough traditional U.S. advantages.

The pressure on the United States would becumulative and persistent. In the extreme, it coulddrive U.S. decisionmakers into increasingly desperateand potentially illegitimate counteraction. Under thesecircumstances, when competitor militaries are in themix, they are less tools focused directly against U.S.military superiority and more effective foils againstAmerican military intimidation. In this regard, U.S.military forces would be sidelined. Employment of U.S.military power would hold little promise for reversingadverse political and economic conditions. Further,the overt use of military force by the United Stateswould largely be viewed as illegitimate for redress ofcompetitor success in nonmilitary domains. Finally,should the competition involve major competitors like

China or Russia, U.S. military action might hazardunacceptable costs or unwanted and uncontrolledescalation.69


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In this regard, the role of DoD would be morenuanced but also critical. This is particularly true to

the extent that a hybrid competitor leverages somediscriminate political violence against the United Statesor its partners as a force multiplier. Under conditionsof hybrid war fought largely with nonmilitary andoften nonviolent means, defense capabilities for directaction and intelligence gathering would need to bene-tuned to both the more unconventional characterof the conict, as well as the high risks associated withmilitary imprecision and miscalculation. To the extent a hybrid conict like this enduresand remains substantially nonmilitary in character,DoD might witness both a signicant re-rolling and asubstantial loss of material resources as U.S. politicalleaders shore up more useful nonmilitary instrumentsof power. In either case, there is no contemporary

strategic or doctrinal appreciation for the role of DoD inwarfare prosecuted against the United States by otherthan military and predominantly nonviolent ways andmeans. Strategic shock would follow.

CONCLUSIONAVOIDING THE NEXT BLUERIBBON PANEL OR WORSE

The aforementioned are admittedly extreme. Theyare not, however, implausible or fantastical. Avoidingthe next blue ribbon panel, chartered to investigatefuture failures of strategic imagination, requiresthat DoD continue its commitment to identifyingand analyzing the most credible unconventionalshocks on the strategic horizon. Increased attention

to unconventional shocks in defense strategy shouldneither supplant prudent hedging against conventionalsurprise nor routine preparation for the likeliest


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defense-specic traditional, irregular, and catastrophicchallenges. It should, however, become increasingly

important in routine defense decisionmaking.Historically, shocks like Pearl Harbor, 9/11,

and the Iraq insurgency have generated wrenchingperiods of self-examination. However, these periodsof introspection most often focus on solving the lastproblem versus deliberately avoiding or contendingwith the next one. For example, DoD is admittedly betterat COIN and CT in light of its post-9/11 experience. Itis, however, reasonable to ask how relevant these arecorporately to the next defense-relevant strategic shock.Absent continued reconnaissance into the future, thereis no good answer to this question.

Thus, prudent net and risk assessment of (1) themyriad waypoints along dangerous trend lines; (2) thesudden or unanticipated arrival at the end of the same

trends; and nally, (3) rapid onset of the rarer BlackSwan are increasingly important to DoD. Under thisadministration, valuable work has begun in this regard.This work should continue to mature uninterrupted.Preemptive examination of the most plausible knownunknowns represents a reasoned down paymenton strategic preparedness and an essential defenseinvestment in strategic hedging against an uncertainand dangerous future.

It would be wise for the next defense team torecall the experience of its predecessors. On September11th, 2001, the latter witnessed the disruptive collisionof defense convention and strategic reality. The rest, asthey say, is history.


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ENDNOTES

1. Hart Seely, The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld: Recent Workby the Secretary of Defense, Slate, available from www.slate.com/id/2081042/, accessed August 28, 2008. Seely quotes Secretary ofDefense Donald Rumsfelds now famous assertion, As we know,there are known knowns. There are things we know we know.We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we knowthere are some things we do not know. But there are also unknownunknowns. The ones we dont know we dont know.

2. This is a common theme in post-9/11 government andacademic commentary. See, for example, National Commissionon Terrorist Attacks Upon the Nation, The 9/11 Commission Report ,available from cnn.net/cnn/US/resources/9.11.report/911Report.pdf,accessed December 27, 2007, pp. 339-348; and Michael Ignatieff,The Burden, New York Times Magazine, January 5, 2003,available from www.faculty.washington.edu/msingh/ignatieff.htm.The 9/11 Commission argued that rst among the four criticalfailures that led to 9/11 or, at a minimum, led to the United States

being caught unaware by 9/11 was a failure of imagination.Similarly, Ignatieff observed, It was also, in the 1990s, a generalfailure of historical imagination, an inability of the post-cold warWest to grasp that the emerging crisis of state order in so manyoverlapping zones of the world . . . would eventually become asecurity threat at home.

3. Jack Davis, Improving CIA Analytic Performance: StrategicWarning, Kent Center Occasional Papers, available from www.

cia.gov/library/kent-center-occaissional-papers/vol1no1.htm, accessedDecember 6, 2007.

4. See Peter Schwartz, Inevitable Surprises: Thinking Aheadin a Time of Turbulence, New York: Gotham Books, 2003, p. ix;Francis Fukuyama, Chapter 1: The Challenges of Uncertainty:An Introduction, in Francis Fukuyama, ed., Blindside: Howto Anticipate Forcing Events and Wild Cards in Global Politics, AnAmerican Interest Book, Washington DC: Brookings Institution

Press, 2007, p. 1; and Francis Fukuyama, Chapter 15: Afterward,in ibid., p. 170. Both Fukuyama and Schwartz suggest that 9/11and the Iraq insurgency were strategic shocks.
http://www.cia.gov/library/kent-center-occaissional-papers/vol1no1.htmhttp://www.cia.gov/library/kent-center-occaissional-papers/vol1no1.htmhttp://www.cia.gov/library/kent-center-occaissional-papers/vol1no1.htmhttp://www.cia.gov/library/kent-center-occaissional-papers/vol1no1.htm


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5. Both the terms defense-relevant and defense-specic areused in this monograph.Defense-relevantsecurity challenges orconditions are mostly nonmilitary in character but should be ofsubstantial interest to DoD. A defense-specicchallenge is one thatsprings from a military source and requires primary involvementby DoD.

6. This point was raised in a conversation on this paper byDr. Carl Van Dyke, a Senior National Intelligence Ofcer with theNational Intelligence Councils Ofce of the National IntelligenceOfcer for Long Range Warning.

7. In this regard, military connotes those threats, activities,capabilities, or circumstances associated with the armed forcesof states. Nonmilitary connotes security challenges, activities,capabilities, or circumstances whose origin and form have little incommon with conventional conceptions of state armed forces.

8. The same points are argued in the forthcoming CSISpublication by the author entitled Shifting Emphasis: Leaders,Strategists, and Operators in an Era of Persistent UnconventionalConict.

9. Department of Defense (DoD), National Defense Strategy,June 2008, p. 5.

10. The Strategic Trends and Shocks project on-going withinOSD Policy Planning is a preliminary venture into the routinizedinclusion of strategic shocks in defense strategy development.For helpful descriptions of this effort, see Naval PostgraduateSchool (NPS) Transformation Chair, Forces TransformationChairs Meeting: Visions of Transformation 2025Shocks andTrends, February 21, 2007, available from www.tfxchairs.net/cms/les/TFX%20Mtg%20FEB07%20Report.doc, accessed August 21,2008; Terry Pudas, Trends and Shocks: An Alternative Constructfor Defense Planning, available from www.federaltimes.com/index.php?S=2752923, accessed May 19, 2007; and DoD, June 2008, pp.4-5.

11. See Schwartz, p. xvii. Schwartz argues that shock (or inhis words surprise) is inevitable and predictable. He concludesthe preface with the following, History provides ample reasonto believe that we can expect inevitable surprises ahead.


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12. Sam J. Tangredi, Chapter Seven, Wild Cards, McNairPaper 63:All Possible Wars? Toward a Consensus View of the FutureSecurity Environment, 2001-2025, November 2000, available fromwww.ndu.edu/inss/McNair/mcnair63/63_07.htm, accessed May 19,2008.

13. Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, Chapter 9, Ahead ofthe Curve: Anticipating Strategic Surprise, in Fukuyama, ed.,Blindside, p. 93.

14. Ibid., p. 93.

15. Ibid., p. 94.

16. John L. Peterson, Out of the Blue: Wild Cards and Other BigFuture Surprises; How to Anticipate and Respond to Profound Change,Washington, DC: The Arlington Institute, 1997, p. 10.

17. See Schwartz, 2003, p. 3. Schwartz observes:

There are many things we can rely on, but three ofthem are most critical to keep in mind in any turbulentenvironment.

First: There will be more surprises.

Second:We will be able to deal with them.

Third:We can anticipate many of them. In fact we canmake some pretty good assumptions about how most ofthem will play out.

We cant know the consequences in advance . . . but weknow many of the surprises to come. Even the mostdevastating surprises . . . are often predictable becausethey have their roots in the driving forces at worktoday.

18. NPS Transformation Chair, p. 3.


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19. Ibid. This is consistent with the DoD view of strategicshocks. The 2007 Naval Postgraduate School report suggeststhat DoDs ofcial view is that strategic shocks undermine theassumptions on which all current policies are based.

20. Ibid.

21. Thomas Schelling, Foreword, in Roberta Wohlstetter,Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision, Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 1962, p. viii.

22. For a valuable description of the idea of trend lines ina DoD context, see Naval Postgraduate School TransformationChair, p. 3. Here trends are described as (a) path along whichevents tend to evolve predictably.

23. These two conclusions were the product of an informaldiscussion between the author and Kathleen Hicks of the Centerfor Strategic and International Studies and Robert Scher of theconsulting rm Booze-Allen-Hamilton.

24. See Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of theHighly Improbable, New York: Random House, 2007. Taleb arguesa Black Swan has three attributes. First, they lie outside therealm of regular expectations; second, they promise an extremeimpact; and, third, in spite of its outlier status, human naturemakes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact,making it explainable and predictable.


26. DoD, June 2008, p. 4.

27. Hugh Courtney, 20/20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in anUncertain World, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2001, p.29.

28. Ibid., p. 32.

29. See DoD, The National Defense Strategy of the UnitedStates of America, March 2005, p. 3. The 2005 National DefenseStrategy denes disruptive challenges as those that come from


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adversaries who develop and use break-through technologies tonegate current U.S. advantages in key operational domains.

30. Schelling, p. viii.

31. The author described irregular, catastrophic and hybridchallenges in great detail in a previous monograph. See NathanFreier, Strategic Competition and Resistance in the 21st Century:Traditional, Irregular, Catastrophic, and Hybrid Challenges in Context,May 2007, available from www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdfles/pub782.pdf, accessed August 5, 2008. The author discussesthreats of purpose and context in detail in the forthcomingCSIS monograph Shifting Emphasis: Leaders, Strategists, andOperators in an Era of Persistent Unconventional Conict. Onwhat the author means by the term core interests, see PeterBergen and Laurie Garrett, Report of the Working Group onState Security and Transnational Threats, The Princeton Projecton National Security, available from www.wws.princeton.edu/ppns/conferences/reports/fall/SSTT.pdf, accessed December 27, 2007. ThePrinceton working group led by Bergen and Garrett identieda construct of six fundamental interests useful to consider asa template. These include economic prosperity; governancecontinuity; ideological sustainability; military capability;population well-being; and territorial integrity.

32. See Phil Williams, From the New Middle Ages to a New DarkAge: The Decline of the State and U.S. Strategy, Carlisle, PA: StrategicStudies Institute, U.S. Army War College, June 2008, availablefrom www.Strategic StudiesInstitute.army.mil/, accessed September11, 2008. Williams reinforces this point when he observes,

In the 21st century in most parts of the world, issues ofsecurity and stability have little to do with traditionalpower politics, military conict between states, andissues of grand strategy. Instead, they revolve around thedisruptive consequences of globalization, governance,public safety, inequality, urbanization, violent nonstateactors, and the like.

Later, Williams returns to this point when he says,


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In a sense, states are being overwhelmed by complexity,fragmentation, and demands they simply are unable tomeet. They are experiencing an unsettling diminutionin their capacity to manage political, social, andeconomic problems that are increasingly interconnected,intractable, and volatile.

33. Courtney, 20/20 Foresight, pp. 125-126.

34. Dr. Phil Williams, a Visiting Research Professor at the U.S.Armys Strategic Studies Institute, made this observation duringa conversation on a draft version of this monograph.

35. See war. (n.d.), Dictionary.com Unabridged(v 1.1), availablefrom dictionary.reference.com/browse/war, accessed August 5, 2008.Here war should be considered active hostility or contention;conict; contest.

36. See DoD, March 2005, p. 2. The word traditional in thiscontext implies challenges posed by states employing recognizedmilitary capabilities and forces in well-understood forms ofmilitary competition and conict.

37. The following section includes adaptations of argumentsmade by the author in the forthcoming CSIS monograph ShiftingEmphasis: Leaders, Strategists, and Operators in an Era ofPersistent Unconventional Conict.

38. DoD, June 2008, p. 4.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid., p. 9.

41. Schelling, p. vii.

42. Military is this regard connotes security challenges,activities, capabilities, or circumstances associated with the armedforces of states.

43. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the Nation,The 9/11 Commission Report, available from cnn.net/cnn/US/
http://dictionary.reference.com/%20browse/warhttp://dictionary.reference.com/%20browse/war


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resources/9.11.report/911Report.pdf, accessed December 27, 2007, p.344.

44. DoD, Section III: Defense Strategy, Quadrennial DefenseReview, May 1997, available from accessedwww.fas.org/man/docs/qdr/sec3.html, accessed May 19, 2008.

45. Fukuyama, Chapter 1, in Fukuyama, ed., Blindside, p. 2.

46. Fukuyama, Chapter 15, in ibid., pp. 169-172.

47. Ibid., pp. 169-170.

48. Ibid., p. 171.

49. Ibid.

50. DoD, March 2005, p. 3.

51. See DoD, June 2008, pp. 10-11. This trend endures today.Note the language in the current NDS.

52. See DoD, March 2005, p. iii. The 2005 NDS recognizes thislatter point when, in the foreword, Secretary Rumsfeld observes,The National Defense Strategy outlines our approach to dealingwith challenges we will likely confront, not just those we arecurrently best prepared to meet.

53. Ibid., pp. 2-3.

54. See, for example, Schwartz and Randall, p. 93. Withrespect to 9/11, Schwartz and Randall observe, (E)ven themost devastating surprises are often inevitable. Many peopledid anticipate the terrorist attacks of September 11 . . . Yet, mostAmericans, as well as ofcials in both the Clinton and Bushadministrations, focused their attention elsewhere while theinevitable grew imminent.

55. For a discussion of Project Horizon, see Sid Kaplan,Project HorizonA New Approach to Interagency Planning, availablefrom www.epa.gov/osp/futures/Project Horizon.pdf, accessed May 19,2008.


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56. Department of Defense, 2008, p. 5.


58. Schwartz and Randall, p. 97-98.

59. Tangredi, Chapter Seven: Wild Cards.

60. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the Nation,The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 344.

61. The detail expressed herein does not reect ofcial U.S.government policy.

62. See DoD, 2008, p. 9; and NPS Transformation Chair, p. 6.Strategic state collapse is clearly on the defense radar screen asa prospective strategic shock. The author is currently writing amonograph on the policy implications associated with strategicstate collapse.

63. The author is principally concerned here with sizeablenuclear or biological capabilities.

64. See Freier, Strategic Competition, p. 58-59. A similardescription of strategic state collapse is included in a previousmonograph by the author.

65.Ibid., pp. 47-52.

66. In an initial conversation on this project with with D.Burgess Laird of the Institute for Defense Analysis, Laird raisedexisting institutions like the Shanghai Cooperation Council, theUnited Nations General Assembly, etc. as potential forums forfuture coordinated political competition with the United States.

67. Ibid., pp. 48-49.

68. Schwartz and Randall, p. 108.

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Known Unknowns: Unconventional “Strategic Shocks” in Defense Strategy Development