Known Unknowns

This timely PKSOI Paper on unconventional strategic shock provides the defense policy team a clear warning against excessive adherence to past defense and national security convention. Including the insights of a number of noted scholars on the subjects of "wild cards" and "strategic surprise," the author, Nathan Freier, argues that future disruptive, unconventional shocks are inevitable. Through strategic impact and potential for disruption and violence, defense-relevant unconventional shocks, in spite of their nonmilitary character, will demand the focused attention of defense leadership, as well as the decisive employment of defense capabilities in response. As a consequence, Mr. Freier makes a solid case for continued commitment by the Department of Defense to prudent strategic hedging against their potential occurrence. The Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute and the Strategic Studies Institute are pleased to offer this insightful monograph as a contribution to the debate on this important national security issue. Produced by the Department of Defence, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army. November 2008. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR NATHAN FREIER is a Visiting Professor of Strategy, Policy, and Risk Assessment at the U.S. Army's Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute and a Senior Fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Mr. Freier joined CSIS in April 2008 after retiring from the U.S. Army after 20 years as a lieutenant colonel. His last military assignment was as Director of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute. Prior to that, he served in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, where his principal responsibilities included development of the 2005 National Defense Strategy. Previously, he was an Army fellow/visiting scholar at the University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies and a strategist with the Strategy, Plans, Concepts, and Doctrine Directorate, Department of the Army Staff in Washington, DC. Mr. Freier twice deployed to Iraq as a strategist while assigned to the Army War College. From January to July 2005, he served in the Strategy, Plans, and Assessments Directorate of Headquarters, Multi-National Force-Iraq, and from May to August 2007, he served as a special assistant to the Commander, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, in the Commander's Initiatives Group. In his current capacity, he continues to provide expert advice to a number of key actors in the security and defense policymaking and analysis communities. Among his research interests and areas of expertise are U.S. grand strategy; national security, defense, and military strategy and policy development; irregular, catastrophic, and hybrid security challenges and conflicts; strategic net and risk assessment; terrorism; and the Iraq War. Mr. Freier holds masters' degrees in International Relations from Troy State University and Politics from The Catholic University of America. vii SUMMARY The current defense team confronted a game-changing "strategic shock" in its first 8 months in office. The next team would be well-advised to expect the same. Defense-relevant strategic shocks jolt convention to such an extent that they force sudden, unanticipated change in the Department of Defense's (DoD) perceptions about threat, vulnerability, and strategic response. Their unanticipated onset forces the entire defense enterprise to reorient and restructure institutions, employ capabilities in unexpected ways, and confront challenges that are fundamentally different than those routinely considered in defense calculations. The likeliest and most dangerous future shocks will be unconventional. They will not emerge from thunderbolt advances in an opponent's military capabilities. Rather, they will manifest themselves in ways far outside established...