zenpundit.com

Courtesy of Lexington Green:

Our British friends have become alarmed at self-radicalization of British Muslims juxtaposed with the “uncertainty”effect of the EU on the national security of the U.K. and the moral malaise of the British elite. The RUSI Risk, Threat and Security: The case of the United Kingdom  (PDF) outlines a scenario where a situation recognizable as 4GW, a situation that if left unchecked, imperils primary loyalty to the British Crown.

The authors, who include General Sir Rupert Smith, are UK heavyweights and this document has the air of a call to arms reminiscent of Kennan’s X Article or the Iron Curtain speech. Fascinating.

Herman Kahn was the “shock jock” of America’s Cold War nuclear strategists, who used irreverence and comedic gesture to hook America into deep thinking about the implications of thermonuclear war (something the editors of Scientific American, his bitterest critics, have yet to forgive Kahn). Wiggins at Opposed Systems Design recently pointed to a fantastic post on Kahn by a fellow Wohlstetterian blogger, Robert Zarate , “Kahn and Mann’s “Ten Common Pitfalls” (1957)”. Zarate commented:

Less known, though, are Kahn’s reports and memos, many of which are available on the RAND Corporation’s website. In my mind, one stands out:

Herman Kahn and Irwin Mann, Ten Common Pitfalls, RM-1937 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, July 17, 1957).

This research memorandum (hence its designation as “RM-1937”) was intended to be a very preliminary draft of a chapter in Kahn and Mann’s planned, but never completed, book, Military Planning in an Uncertain World. RM-1937 offers the book’s provisional table of contents.

Ten Common Pitalls examines a series of methodological problems that often hamper or distort the work of policy analysts. Kahn and Mann’s examination, however, is intended to be descriptive rather than analytical. In the introduction, they write that they hope RM-1937 will serve “as a sort of checklist” for analysts, or at least alert them “to the things to look for in an analysis.” As a bonus, the research memorandum illustrated (literally) each pitfall with a drawing by Kahn. These drawing, reproduced below, are quite humorous and give a sparkling sense of Kahn’s own wit and personality.

It’s interesting to me that both Kahn and John Boyd ( see the current Roundtable on Science, Strategy and War at Chicago Boyz) were intrigued by the implications of systemic, deep uncertainty, on military strategy and human cognition, with Kahn preceding Boyd in that regard by approximately a decade and a half. Both men frustrated and amazed their peers and were dedicated briefers who evolved their thinking through study, reflection, presentation and discussion who had difficulty getting their ideas into a final book format. Kahn less so than Boyd, as he is best known for On Thermonuclear War but there are many “unfinished symphonies” in Kahn’s intellectual legacy; important ideas, arguments and projections that were never developed to their full potential.

THINKING STRATEGICALLY ABOUT STRATEGIC THINKING

Art Hutchinson has had a very stimulating series of posts at Mapping Strategy that cover many topics related to strategic thinking and futurism that I cannot let pass without a high recommendation and brief commetary:

1. “Perils of Prediction: The Elusiveness of Certainty and the Value of ‘Simulated Hindsight’“

Art lauds Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” and discusses using “simulated hindsight” as a cognitive tool. This is not unlike counterfactual history exercises applied to futurism.

2. “sdrawkcaB gniknihT – Mind Game or Creative Lever?“

Art is concentrating here on reverse order thinking exercises which powerfully disrupt our brain’s natural preference for automaticity in “learned” activities, forcing a rexamination of assumptions in terms of process, sequence and causation. Art also explains why some folks are more equal than others with this technique.

3. “Thinker or Tinker – In Pursuit of Practical Strategy“

Partly a blog dialogue between Art and Dave Snowden on narrative and scenario strategies and Art’s advocacy of modular, interactive scenarios. Art also keys into the creativity/innovation aspect of recognizing and managing possibilities at what in the Medici Effect would be called ” intersections”.

Excellent.

INTELLIGENCE, PUZZLES AND MYSTERIES

Gregory F. Treverton writing in the latest issue of The Smithsonian:

“Risks and Riddles“

“During the cold war, much of the job of U.S. intelligence was puzzle-solving—seeking answers to questions that had answers, even if we didn’t know them. How many missiles did the Soviet Union have? Where were they located? How far could they travel? How accurate were they? It made sense to approach the military strength of the Soviet Union as a puzzle—the sum of its units and weapons, and their quality. But the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of terrorism changed all that. Those events upended U.S. intelligence, to the point that its major challenge now is to frame mysteries….

….Puzzle-solving is frustrated by a lack of information. Given Washington’s need to find out how many warheads Moscow’s missiles carried, the United States spent billions of dollars on satellites and other data-collection systems. But puzzles are relatively stable. If a critical piece is missing one day, it usually remains valuable the next.

By contrast, mysteries often grow out of too much information. Until the 9/11 hijackers actually boarded their airplanes, their plan was a mystery, the clues to which were buried in too much “noise”—too many threat scenarios. So warnings from FBI agents in Minneapolis and Phoenix went unexplored. The hijackers were able to hide in plain sight. After the attacks, they became a puzzle: it was easy to pick up their trail. Solving puzzles is useful for detection. But framing mysteries is necessary for prevention. “

This article, though written for a general audience, struck a number of chords with me. Specifically:

* “Noise” is an important consideration in an era of attention scarcity economies. Eliciting a surge in ” white noise” by unrelated third parties ( say disinformation that sends pro-lifers off on a media campaign and in turn, energizers their pro-choice enemies to respond, diverting the attention of the general public to “X” degree) is useful camoflague. Purpleslog had a deservedly well-received post at Dreaming 5GW on ” the Puppetmaster” as a “5GW Archetype”. Such a mentality would cultivate media noise the way the KGB once set up and subsidized endless Communist front groups in the West.

* Uncertainty is relative. Some “mysteries” are more decipherable with a change of perspective, scale or temporal framework; others represent questions of deep uncertainty. Imaginative scenario planning exercises can help pattern recognizers familiarize themselves with latent possibilities ( Neo–Eurasianism ? Pan-Turanism ? A derivatives-driven implosion of globalization? Eco-extremist bioterrorists longing for planetary genocide?).

We need radical thought experimentation.

UPDATE:

IT security expert Gunnar Peterson has already covered this base well but from a different angle:

“Vulnerability Puzzles and Mysterious Threats“

“Risk differs from uncertainty in that risk may be measured and managed whereas uncertainty may not. Risk management efforts hinge on this important distinction because it highlights differences where a team may be more proactive. For instance, many vulnerabilities are known, hence they may be measured and managed whereas the threats to a systems contain a greater degree of uncertainty in that the threat environment contains numerous elements such as threat actors that one’s organization can not directly control.”