Strategic Warning Research Articles

The Western Forces’ March to the Sea

Alex Garland’s Civil War, which depicts journalists covering an American civil war in the near future, is a beautifully shot and stealthily clever film. It is also a strategic warning about a gruesome political outcome that is no longer beyond imagining. Garland does not articulate precisely why or how this civil war, under way for several years, might have arisen. He presumes, credibly, that audiences who have watched bedrock norms of political civility trashed in a toxically divided America will understand. In the movie’s world, the MAGA rebellion that the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol purported to foretell has been provisionally successful, and the president faces a counter-rebellion by the so-called Western Forces – an improbably plausible alliance between California and Texas. Garland is thinking the unthinkable out loud in hopes of motivating people to avoid it, and seeking to prepare the next generation for a protracted struggle even if it does not descend into full-blown civil war.

Intelligence and operational warning: lessons from Ukraine

ABSTRACT This paper examines the challenges of operational analysis as displayed in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Despite the tremendous success of strategic warning, analysts grossly over-estimated conventional Russian military capabilities and under-estimated the Ukrainians’ capability and will. Even after observing Russia’s operational capabilities and tactics, analysts again over-estimated Russia’s ability to secure Eastern Ukraine. This study finds that poor understanding of military campaigns is the result of six contributing factors. One, risk management requires tradeoffs based on competing priorities and finite resources inevitably creating blind spots. Two, there can be insufficient collection for operational details due to a focus on strategic requirements or tactical intelligence. Three, an insufficient number of analysts required to cover a breadth of topics leaving them susceptible to challenges like mirror-imaging or single source bias, culminates in poor analysis. Four, Russian and Western external and internal strategic narratives were filled with deception. Fifth, despite ‘need to share’ policies, information stovepipes continue to plague Western intelligence agencies. Finally, a lack of professional wargaming can lead to an analysis-centric view that ignores the valuable expertise of operators and logisticians. Each of these factors contributed to analysts’ poor understanding of the operational level of war in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The Proactive Nature of Warning in Anticipating Crisis Situations

"Adequate use of warning can contribute decisively to avoiding or reducing major consequences in case of crisis situations. This paper intends to emphasise the contribution that strategic warning can have in the proactive development of the decision-making process. The paper analyses the way in which the issue of warning was approached by a number of experts in the field. At the same time, it is noted that paying adequate attention to medium and long-term analysis methods could contribute to an effective transition towards a proactive approach to warning, in order to avoid strategic surprise, adapt strategies and maintain competitiveness in the operational environment."

Caracterul proactiv al avertizării în anticiparea situaţiilor de criză

"Adequate use of warning can contribute decisively to avoiding or reducing major consequences in case of crisis situations. This paper intends to emphasise the contribution that strategic warning can have in the proactive development of the decision-making process. The paper analyses the way in which the issue of warning was approached by a number of experts in the field. At the same time, it is noted that paying adequate attention to medium and long-term analysis methods could contribute to an effective transition towards a proactive approach to warning, in order to avoid strategic surprise, adapt strategies and maintain competitiveness in the operational environment."

Caracterul proactiv al avertizării în anticiparea situaţiilor de criză

"Adequate use of warning can contribute decisively to avoiding or reducing major consequences in case of crisis situations. This paper intends to emphasise the contribution that strategic warning can have in the proactive development of the decision-making process. The paper analyses the way in which the issue of warning was approached by a number of experts in the field. At the same time, it is noted that paying adequate attention to medium and long-term analysis methods could contribute to an effective transition towards a proactive approach to warning, in order to avoid strategic surprise, adapt strategies and maintain competitiveness in the operational environment."

Expanding Warning: Anticipating Diffused Threats

The strategic warning function can be understood in two ways. One emphasizes existing and anticipated threats and threat streams, known challengers, and discrete events. This understanding of warning asks, for example, about the who, what, where, when, and how of the next attack. It is dependent on clearly defined spatial and temporal parameters. Another understanding of warning emphasizes the unknown, the more diffuse threat potential. More anticipatory in nature, this function of warning looks beyond the expected and the usual to ask about possible events not yet recognizable from available intelligence or relatable from previous experience. The first understanding of warning, as it is generally practiced, offers either predictions or forecasts of potential future developments, couched in terms of definitive statements or probabilistic assessments. The second, presented in this article, foregoes both prediction and forecasting, suggesting instead that warning can be expanded and augmented by adopting a foresight approach that emphasizes option identification. Intended to supplement existing warning activities, foresight-based warning activities would leverage unbounded scenarios and iterative probability assessments to enhance and expand warning through greater consideration and attentiveness to emergent, unique, unexpected, and diffused threats.

Cyber Intelligence: Strategic Warning Is Possible

Governments and private security firms have studied many intelligence aspects of cyberconflict, but the public literature has not described the existence of a strategic cyber warning function or addressed the question of whether strategic warning of significant cyberattacks is possible. This article argues that it is, but technical characteristics of cyberspace and the rapidly evolving nature of cyber-related conflict make cyber warning more difficult than traditional strategic warning. Addressing these complexities requires specialized teams of experts. In the U.S. case, new warning skills and institutions are needed.

Disaster intelligence: developing strategic warning for national security

ABSTRACT The growing occurrence and intensity of disasters pose complex risks to national security, yet intelligence agencies do not possess the expertise to identify and assess emerging hazards effectively. Greater cooperation with experts outside the intelligence community, particularly scientists and local experts with valuable information, can allow effective warnings in advance of catastrophic events. This article makes an argument for strategic disaster intelligence, using two cases of major earthquakes and tsunamis to illustrate both disaster warning failures and opportunities for more effective disaster and risk mitigation.

Tradecraft of Warning

On November 23, 2021, Mr. Randolph Pherson, Chief Executive Officer of Globalytica and President of Pherson Associates, presented on The Tradecraft of Warning: Warning Intelligence in the 21st Century at the 2021 CASIS West Coast Security Conference. The presentation was followed by a moderated question and answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives. The key points discussed were who is responsible for the role of strategic warning, the causes of warning failures and how to mitigate them, as well as ways to deliver a warning message when dealing with senior policy makers.

Does Canada have anything in the way of a strategic warning intelligence culture (and does it need one)?

During the Cold War, Strategic Warning Intelligence (SWI) was a necessary and recognized function within the intelligence community given the threats posed by conventional Warsaw Pact forces in Western Europe and Soviet ballistic missiles. With the end of the Cold War, the focus of intelligence shifted to tactical or operational issues against known threats, and the SWI function and expertise atrophied as a result. With today’s expanding and more complex threat environment, this article examines whether SWI capacities should be reintroduced in order to apprise decision makers of trending threats to national security, albeit based on faint signals, so the necessary policy decisions can be made and prioritized to mitigate said threats in a timely manner.

Strategic Warning Intelligence: History, Challenges, and Prospects

Strategic Warning Intelligence: History, Challenges, and Prospects

Strategic Warning and Anticipating Surprise: Assessing the Education and Training of Intelligence Analysts

Strategic Warning and Anticipating Surprise: Assessing the Education and Training of Intelligence Analysts

Определение категории устойчивости для распределенных автоматизированных систем управления

At present, space systems and means became one of the main instruments of ensuring fighting and daily activity of Armed forces of the developed states of the world. In modern conditions space systems rise in a row strategic a component which stability of functioning it is critical for maintaining strategic balance. The analysis of the conflicts of the last decades has shown a tendency to confrontation shift to the space sphere and a cyberspace. Space systems and means allow to raise significantly fighting opportunities of troops, and the state which doesn't have potential of use of the means of armed struggle placed in the aerospace sphere, or allowed miscalculations in policy of development and use of the space systems and means, will be doomed to the guaranteed defeat in future military conflicts. The defense capability and safety of the Russian Federation directly depend on a state and opportunities of means of strategic warning of preparation for aggression, the beginning of nuclear missile attack and also quality of comprehensive providing with space forces and means of army and fleet in peace and wartime. In this regard there was a need to carry out correction of content of category of stability of a funktsionirorvaniye of the distributed automated control systems.

U.S. Strategic Warning Intelligence: Situation and Prospects

Strategic warning long has been a core function of national intelligence services. Many people believe, and U.S. law states, that intelligence can provide no greater service than warning of impendi...

Estimating Target Heights Based on the Earth Curvature Model and Micromultipath Effect in Skywave OTH Radar

Skywave over-the-horizon (OTH) radar systems have important long-range strategic warning values. They exploit skywave propagation reflection of high frequency signals from the ionosphere, which provides the ultra-long-range surveillance capabilities to detect and track maneuvering targets. Current OTH radar systems are capable of localizing targets in range and azimuth but are unable to achieve reliable instantaneous altitude estimation. Most existing height measurement methods of skywave OTH radar systems have taken advantage of the micromultipath effect and been considered in the flat earth model. However, the flat earth model is not proper since large error is inevitable, when the detection range is over one thousand kilometers. In order to avoid the error caused by the flat earth model, in this paper, an earth curvature model is introduced into OTH radar altimetry methods. The simulation results show that application of the earth curvature model can effectively reduce the estimation error.

National Intelligence University: Certificate of Strategic Warning

National Intelligence University: Certificate of Strategic Warning

Postmodern Intelligence: Strategic Warning in an Age of Reflexive Intelligence

Providing strategic warning to policymakers is a key function of governmental intelligence organizations. Today, globally networked challenges increasingly overshadow their historical state-centric counterparts so that warning has become considerably more difficult. It is recognized in parts of the intelligence community that many of the current problems for warning arise from continued reliance on analytic tools, methodologies and processes that were appropriate to the static and hierarchical nature of the threat during the Cold War. However, even though alternative analysis techniques have begun to be applied, this article argues that the intelligence community could benefit from the understanding that more than just the ontology of threats has changed, that in fact it is in the epistemological area that the most meaningful changes have taken place: Society has seen the replacement of the previous means—end rationality by a reflexive rationality. The notion of reflexive security can provide a valuable conceptual framework for understanding the current changes, and it could be instrumental in adapting intelligence sources and methods to a new era. In particular, an awareness of both complexity sciences and postmodernism might increase understanding of the limitations of knowledge and lead to the establishment of a political discourse of uncertainty.

How Intelligent Is Intelligence Reform?

Amy Zegart argues that the U.S. intelligence community suffered an adaptation that left it unprepared to deal with the terrorist threat after the Cold War.1 The core of this apparent failure was its inability to reorganize in response to a radically changed international setting, despite recommendations for reform from a number of prominent commissions and members of Congress. Zegart further argues that this bureaucratic sclerosis resulted from the nature of organizations, the rational self-interests of national security officials, and the decentralized structure of American federalism.2 Zegart is one of a handful of political scientists to look seriously at intelligence issues, and her study raises several important questions. Her model of bureaucratic inertia is theoretically compelling and deserves close scrutiny, even though we disagree with some of her conclusions about intelligence reform. The large organizational changes currently under way in the U.S. intelligence establishment have proceeded with insufficient attention from the security studies community. We hope that Zegart's analysis inspires more academic debate on the relationship between intelligence, foreign policy, and national security. In this commentary we critique three aspects of the article. First, its logic rests on an unjustified assumption about the need to reorganize in the face of new security challenges. Second, the article reveals an overriding preference for centralization, regardless of changes in the international environment. Third, we challenge her interpretation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as the culmination of the intelligence community's failure to adapt. In reality, the community provided accurate strategic warning of the terrorist threat and good tactical warning of the impending attacks. We conclude with a different argument: September 11 was not an intelligence failure; it was a national failure.

The paradox of Israeli power

Israel's national security doctrine has become obsolete. While Israel enjoys unprecedented military superiority over its enemies, the security of Israelis is at an all-time low, and a nuclear threat, primarily from Iran, is on the rise. This paradoxical situation stems from a failure to adjust Israel's security doctrine to regional, global and technological changes since the mid-1970s. Four major components of this doctrine in particular are inadequate to contemporary challenges: the traditional strategic triumvirate of deterrence, strategic warning and swift battlefield decision; the concept of the Israeli Defense Force as the ‘people's army’; Israel's nuclear policy; and the correlation between diplomacy and use of force as a means to reduce threats.

The Paradox of Israeli Power

Israel's national security doctrine has become obsolete. While Israel enjoys unprecedented military superiority over its enemies, the security of Israelis is at an all-time low, and a nuclear threat, primarily from Iran, is on the rise. This paradoxical situation stems from a failure to adjust Israel's security doctrine to regional, global and technological changes since the mid-1970s. Four major components of this doctrine in particular are inadequate to contemporary challenges: the traditional strategic triumvirate of deterrence, strategic warning and swift battlefield decision; the concept of the Israeli Defense Force as the ‘people's army’; Israel's nuclear policy; and the correlation between diplomacy and use of force as a means to reduce threats.