The problem of uncertainty in strategic planning

Survival

Volumn 48, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 131-146

  Fitzsimmons, Michael ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33751082066     PISSN: 00396338     EISSN: 14682699     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00396330601062808     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. Danish saying, often attributed to Niels Bohr. See Ned Sherrin, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
2. Neil Peart, 'Freewill,' Permanent Waves, Rush, January 1980, Mercury/ Polygram.
3. See, for example, The White House, A National Security Strategy for a New Century, Washington DC, 1998, p. 1
4. and US Department of Defense, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review, Washington DC, 1997, Section II.
5. US Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, Washington DC, 2001, p. iii.
6. Ibid. p. 17.
7. US Department of Defense, National Defense Strategy, Washington DC, 2005, p. 2.
8. Donald Rumsfeld, news briefing with Sec. Rumsfeld and Gen. Pace, Department of Defense, 12 January 2006, http://www.defenselink.mil/ Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=881.
9. Ryan Henry, 'Defense Transformation and the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review', Parameters, vol. 35, no. 4, Winter 2005-06, p. 12.
10. US Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, Washington DC, 2006, p. vi.
11. For useful overviews, see Robert Jervis, System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997)
12. and David Byrne, Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 1998).
13. See, for example, US Department of Defense, National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism, Washington DC, 2006, and The White House, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, Washington DC, September 2006.
14. US Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 2006, pp. v and vi.
15. For an expansion on the implications of this point for defence planning, see Christopher J. Lamb, Transforming Defense (Washington DC: National Defense University University Press, 2005), pp. 15-17.
16. The introduction of this distinction to the rational choice literature is usually attributed to Frank Knight, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1921), though the exact nature of the distinction has been the subject of unresolved academic debate for decades.
17. See, for example, John D. Steinbruner, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), pp. 91-124.
18. Richard K. Betts, Surprise Attack: Lessons for Defense Planning (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1982), p. 103.
19. Douglas J. Feith, Statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, 14 February 2002.
20. Keith Payne et al., Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms Control: Volume 1 Executive Report (Fairfax, VA: National Institute for Public Policy, 2001).
21. Ibid. p. 10.
22. National Academy of Sciences, The Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy (Washington DC: National Academies Press, 1997), p. 5.
23. Henry, 'Defense Transformation', p. 5.
24. For critiques of this nature, see Stephen Biddle et al., 'Roundtable Discussion on the Quadrennial Defense Review,' transcript, Council on Foreign Relations, 8 February 2006, available at www.cfr.org
25. Michele A. Flournoy, 'Did the Pentagon Get the Quadrennial Defense Review Right?', Washington Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 2, Spring 2006, pp. 67-84
26. Fred Kaplan, 'Rumsfeld Surrenders: The QDR Dashes his Dreams of Military Transformation', Slate, 3 February 2006
27. Andrew Krepinevich, 'Old Remedies for New Evils', Wall Street Journal, 14 February 2006, p. 22
28. Michael O'Hanlon, 'Quadrennial Defense Review Resonance', Washington Times, 17 February 2006, p. 18.
29. US Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 2006, pp. vi, 3-4, 19-20.
30. Jason Sherman, 'QDR Architects Say Review Changes the Way the Pentagon is Run', Inside Defense, 31 January 2006.
31. Congressional Budget Office, The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans and Alternatives, Washington DC, January 2006, p. 2. This estimate refers to the most conservative of office's cost-growth assumptions and does not include the potential costs of future supplemental appropriations. The estimate covers the years 2012-24.
32. Paul Pillar, 'Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq', Foreign Affairs, vol. 85, no. 2, March-April 2006, p. 16.
33. Ibid., pp. 18-19.
34. See, for example, George Packer, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), pp. 97-9
35. and Eric Schmitt, 'Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force's Size', New York Times, 28 February 2003.
36. Donald Rumsfeld, News Briefing with Gen Richard Myers, Department of Defense, 12 February 2002, http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/ Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=2636.
37. See Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2004), pp. 282-4,
38. and Packer, The Assassins' Gate, pp. 74-80, 110-14.
39. General Eric K. Shinseki, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 25 February 2003, available at www.gpoaccess.gov.
40. Thomas Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin, 2006), pp. 64-6, 96-7
41. and Packer, The Assassins' Gate, p. 111.
42. Paul D. Wolfowitz, testimony before the House Budget Committee, 27 February 2003, available at www.gpoaccess.gov.
43. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 117.
44. Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers (New York: The Free Press, 1986), pp. 151-2.
45. Richard K. Betts, 'Is Strategy an Illusion?', International Security, vol. 25, no. 2, Fall 2000, p. 20.
46. Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1991), p. 6.