Looking Out for Future Shocks in Resilience and National Security in an Uncertain World, Ed. Centre of Excellence for National Security, (Singapore: CENS-RSIS, 2011)

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Looking out for Future ShocksHELENE LAVOIX

In 2007, the Strategic Trends and Shocks project within the Oce

of the US Secretary of Defense (OSD) Policy Planning introduced the

idea of strategic shock. The new concept was dened as an event

that punctuates the evolution of a trend, a discontinuity that either

rapidly accelerates its pace or signicantly changes its trajectory, and,

in so doing, undermines the assumption on which current policies are

based Shocks are disruptive by their very nature, and can change

how we think about security and the role of the military.1

Until then, Strategic Foresight and Warning (SF&W), that is,

the organized and systematic process to reduce uncertainty

regarding the future that aims at allowing decision-makers to

take decisions related to security with sucient lead-time to see

those decisions implemented at best, had essentially focused

upon surprise. Strategic surprise referred initially to surprise

military attacks and was recently enlarged to any surprises with

strategic signicance. Strategic surprises correspond approximately

to wild cards and to Talebs gray swans.2 However, in 2003,

1 Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Transformation Chair, Forces Transformation Chairs Meeting: Visions of Transformation 2025 - Shocksand Trends, February 21, 2007, http://www.sagecenter.net/les/trends%20and%20shocks.doc (Accessed 21 August 2010).

2 A wild card is a future development or event with a relatively low probability of occurrence but a likely high impact on the conduct ofbusiness, BIPE Conseil / Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies / Institute for the Future: Wild Cards: A Multinational Perspective,(Institute for the Future, 1992), p. v; for Nassim Nicholas Taleb, gray swans are rare but expected events that are scienti cally tractable,e Black Swan: e Impact of the Highly Improbable. (New York: Random House, 2007), pp. 37, 272-273.


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Steinmuller underlined that wild cards change our frame of

reference, and, in 2007, Schwartz and Randall stressed similarly

strategic surprises game-changing dimension.3 As Freier highlighted,

strategic shock and strategic surprise became almost identical.4

Do we thus need two dierent concepts? If yes, how do we

recognize one from the other and what are the consequences for

SF&W? We shall investigate those questions here, rst delving deeper

into the idea of shock, second specifying that both surprise and shock

are located on a continuum of change, highlighting the dynamics

leading to shock, andnally underlining some consequences for SF&W.

Surprise and Shock

According to Luttwak, surprise at war suspends strategy, however,

briey and partially.5Thus, it does not necessarily imply any in-depth

revision of mindset. Hence, surprise and shock are two dierent

phenomena that each demand specic actions. When we compare

dierent shocks, for example the 1929 nancial crisis, Pearl Harbour,

the fall of the Soviet Union or 9/11, with a case such as the poor

performance of Israels military in the 2006 IsraeliHezbollah War,

it would seem that all are not equivalent. Could we have another

phenomenon hidden within the idea of shock? Even if the 2006

IsraelHezbollah War was a strategic shock because it was a game-

3 Karlheinz Steinmller, e future as Wild Card. A short introduction to a new concept, Berlin, 2003, http://www.steinmuller.de/media/pdf/Wild%20Cards%20Web.pdf (Accessed, 27 August 2010); Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall dene strategic surprises as those patternof events that, if they were to occur, would make a big dierence to the future, force decision-makers to challenge their own assumptionsof how the world works, and require hard choices today in Chapter 9, Ahead of the Curve: Anticipating Strategic Surprise, in FrancisFukuyama, ed. Blindside: how to anticipate forcing events and wild cards in global politics (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press,2007), p. 93.

4 Nathan Freier, Known Unknowns: Unconventional Strategic Shocks in Defense Strategy Development (Carlisle, PA: Peacekeeping and

Stability Operations Institute and Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2008), p. 5-6.5 Cited by Crocker, irteen Reections, p.2: Edward N. Luttwak, Strategy: e Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 2001 2nd edition), p. 4.


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e Concise Oxford Dictionary, 8th edition, s.v. shock.7Freier, Known Unknowns, p. 7-8

changing event which forced the military of various nations to revise

perceptions and concepts on warfare, in which way is it dierent from

the other cases?

The common denition of a shock is dened as follows: A violent

collision, impact, tremor; a sudden, disturbing eect on the emotions,

physical reaction; an acute state of prostration following a wound,

pain; a disturbance in stability causinguctuations in an organization.6

Many of those components are absent from the OSDs denition.

Nonetheless, including the scope and depth of the events emotional

impact in the idea of strategic shock conrms and explains the previous

distinction between cases. It also points towards the subjectivity of a

categorization in shocks, as actors and populations directly involved

are more likely to feel a deeper shock. To include emotion enhances the

dierence with strategic surprise. Yet, if strategic surprise and strategic

shock are dierent, then, how is an event like Pearl Harbour, categorized

as both?

Surprise and Shock on the Continuum of Change

Freier underlines that surprise and shock are two similar phenomena

with no scientic break point between the two, shock being linked

to a higher degree of unpreparedness in terms of policy, strategy and

planning.7 Furthermore, the emotional reaction (prostration, panic)

heightens the disruption, making it more dicult to nd adequate

answers, while its spread among other actors potentially changes both

the initial impact and consequent policy and strategic planning. The


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potential for long-term destabilization is thus amplied with the depth

and scope of the shock.

Hence, if an event is a strategic shock, it is also a strategic surprise whilethe reverse is not true. Strategic surprise and strategic shock are thus

two ideal-types located on the continuum of change according to the

ease of coordination of human activities with changes in their larger

environment those changes that caused surprise or shock, accordingly

- for security and ultimately survival. Shocks imply considerably more

dicult coordination than surprise. All events that are likely to occur

and to constitute shocks are the outcome of dynamics. They do not

happen out of the blue.8

In fact, two possible processes, which are not mutually exclusive,

will underlie a shock and its level. First, when violence and its impact

reach a new stage in a process of escalation, this new stage will then

be perceived as a phenomenon that is both new (relatively true) and

sudden (not true). Second, an accumulation of non-perceived or

improperly perceived grinding alterations (not necessarily linked to an

escalation) leads to a change that takes then the characteristics of a

shock, for example a tipping point. This was noted by the US Department

of Defence when it stated, Shocks can be sudden and violent, and

are often unanticipated. They can also occur when a system passes a

critical point and undergoes a phase change. This type of shock results

from the gradual accumulation of change in a number of variables (for

example, increased violence and frequency of hurricanes as a result of

rising ocean temperatures).9Thus, a shock and its level result from the

impact that is inherent to the dynamics observed, including emotional

8 is point would deserve a longer discussion comparing an understanding the world in terms of trends with an approach throughunderlying processes and dynamics.

9 US Department of Defense, Joint Operating Environment: Trends & Challenges for the Future Joint Force rough 2030, (Suolk, VA:United States Joint Forces Command, 2008), p. 3.


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consequences, and from our perceptions, as the abruptness of the

perception enhances the emotional component of the impact.

Looking out for Future Shocks: Some Consequences for SF&W

The most important consequence for SF&W would take place at

the analytical level, with an enlargement of the object of analysis.

Indeed, when trying to foresee and warn about surprise, one is

mainly concerned with others, be it in terms of intentions, capabilities

and actions, and with what is exterior to oneself, through events

befalling us.

If we want to look out for shocks, then we need to devote as much

analytical attention to ourselves, not only the institution where the

SF&W oce is located but also our society. Considering the way

intelligence and security agencies are usually organized, that is, with a

clear separation between the domestic and international realms, this

would be a major change, involving ethical discussions if individual

freedom is to be respected and appropriate legislation. We would

also need to include into our impacts evaluation new areas such as

the media and the world-wide-web as propagating, enhancing or

dulling emotions. Looking out for future shocks would also put to the

test the intelligence principle to speak truth to power, as self-scrutiny

would imply analysis of policy, past, present and planned, and of its

consequences. Our struggle against biases would need to be enlarged

to emotionally-induced biases and those incorporated into our impact

assessment. The analytical enlargement aecting impact, probability

and timeline, in turn it would have consequences on the prioritization

of issues.


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Finally, an approach through shocks could change how horizon scanning

is done, as exploration of weak signals according to issues could be

supplemented and cross-checked with an identication of emergence

of weak signals relevant to the dynamics leading potentially to shockswithin our societies. Adding strategic shock to strategic surprise as a

focus for SF&W may only enhance our eciency in ensuring national

security, but it needs to be a full understanding of strategic shock,

including emotional impact. A by-product, considering the crucial

importance of emotions for consciousness and survival, could be an

overall enhancement of our societies resilience, including through a

reduction of the depth of shocks to come, an emerging opportunity for

the future.

Documents

Looking Out for Future Shocks in Resilience and National Security in an Uncertain World, Ed. Centre of Excellence for National Security, (Singapore: CENS-RSIS, 2011)