Strategic Shock: Managing the Strategic Gap

Abstract

The national security environment has grown increasing volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Increasingly, threats to national security will be unconventional threats of context that arise from the environment. These threats will include dangerous strategic shocks with catastrophic effects that require the rapid reorientation of national priorities. In order to effectively plan for and respond to these threats, an integrated whole-of-government response will be required. Effective whole-of-government planning for and response to strategic shocks is a challenging undertaking, one for which our nation is currently ill-prepared. This paper defines and examines strategic shocks and threats of context, presenting examples of each and their impacts, examines the challenges the U.S. Government experiences in planning to prevent or mitigate the effects of strategic shocks arising from threats of context, and provides recommendations on how it can improve its ability to effectively manage our nation s future security challenges.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2013
Accession Number
ADA589203

Entities

People

  • Peter J. Lane

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Counter WMD
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

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  • Climate Change
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  • Department Of Defense
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  • Environment
  • Governments
  • Groundwater
  • Human Population
  • International Organizations
  • National Governments
  • National Security
  • Political Systems
  • Second World War
  • Security
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Water Resources

Readers

  • Strategic Security Studies