Turn And Face The Strain--Ch-Ch-Changes

Philosopher-savant Forest Gump gave a reasonable analogy regarding the global security environment with the now ubiquitous “you never know what you’re gonna get.” With the world now trending towards less stability and more interdependence, with lot of wicked problems, fundamental questions regarding how much security is needed, how much can we afford, and what can we do are moving towards the front of people's thinking.

To address the issue, at least in part, the Defense Science Board (DSB) was chartered to examine what was referred to as “capability surprise” which looked at an adversary’s ability to generate capabilities that were unexpected or unanticipated. With the DSB release of its report which will address the broader issue of surprise, along with assessments and recommendations to 1) evaluate the surprise mechanisms, 2) reduce the potential for surprise, 3) better prepare to respond to surprise, and 4) look at rapid, unique, and cost-effective ways the U.S. might impose surprise on adversaries.

Surprises are inevitable, but although the future is inherently unknowable, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything about it. In the DSB report, ten items are listed as reasons why the U.S.--and just about anyone else, for that matter--gets “strategically surprised.” Depending on how you categorize these items, most of the reasons for surprise can be described as risk assessment or judgment failures. A couple of the reasons for surprise are attributable to the failures of our own imaginations, and only one is due to an awareness shortcoming. So if the DSB’s assessments are correct, at least by category, this means almost all the nation’s security surprises are due to improperly assessing the information already available, as opposed to breakdowns in technical intelligence or a lack of information.

So just how do we keep ourselves from being surprised? To paraphrase portions of a recent leadership polemic, if America wants to avoid surprise, it needs to create systems that develop and reward the characteristics that help avoid surprise. That is, it must create incentives within the Department of Defense and the Services which fully develop and value honesty and openness, enhance judgment and assessments, and improve imagination among its individual members. At the same time, the system has to be able to accurately sort through a global pipeline of noise, data, and clutter. Identifying what needs to be done conceptually is the easy part--the hard part is figuring out just how to do these things and who leads and who follows.

Organizationally, changing a massive bureaucracy like DoD towards avoiding surprise has great obstacles. They include chain of command (who works for who), organizational issues (the generally separate and distinct capabilities, limitations, and vulnerabilities each group possesses), and differing institutional cultures. For each individual within the huge national defense team, avoiding surprise leads to subjects like career paths, self-mastery, and an attitude embracing lifelong learning, to include coaching, teaching, mentoring, and language skills. While Secretary Gates has laid out his ideas to address future threats (a balanced force; having allies and host nations carry more of the burden; more soft power; etc.), these are largely ways of responding to challenges, and tend to only deal indirectly with avoiding surprise.

If we reap what we sow, what will DoD and the military branches have to sow in order to reap improved creativity, maturity of thought, and more fully developed skills needed to enhance national security? Conversely, if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll keep reaping what has already been sown, to the detriment of our ability to address the issue of “surprise.” Emblematic of this concern is the defense acquisition system, which moves at a glacial pace, and often culminates in products that are over budget and obsolete.

Apart from creating a system that rewards creativity, maturity of thought, and essential skills--that'll be hard--what else can be done to reduce surprise? The DSB will certainly endorse some of the usual suspects, including more meaningful red-teaming, war-gaming, exercises, and experimentation; the continued or increased use of gray-beards (after all, that’s what the DSB is); attempts to more rapidly field new capabilities; and, of course, organizational changes. Effectiveness has to retain its paramount position, but a massive push for efficiency in fielding capabilities should also be required, although the details are devilish.

While total control all factors involved is an illusion, influence over them is achievable. A world full of wicked problems has no easy, stop, reset, or uninvent buttons to push, regardless of the desire to reduce and simplify. While the military services understand their need to think through problems, the disconnect is we’re convinced we already do. Convincing the DoD to actually accomplish what it already says it does is – to use another farming term – a long row to hoe. Sometimes it’s not what you don’t know that will kill you; it’s what you think you know that isn’t really true.