The Information Equilibrium

We must ask the simple question. Why did Taiwan, Hong Kong and S. Korea respond quickly and protect against the spread of the virus, yet our IC did not report or respond (at least what is in the open) until late January 2020?   And worse, if we did know, but we over classified, the reporting was irrelevant and useless as the information – if provided – was not on time nor useful to drive proactive efforts to protect our nation. Second, the delay in understanding and responding to the massive Chinese disinformation campaign was a secondary blemish at first.   In this case the response has been effective.   Cultures protect themselves. It is not because the professionals are not doing their job.   It is because the culture (policy) and structure (organization) do not enable action nor innovation.    Open sources began reporting in mid-December or earlier, but our IC is geared to react, not to drive proactive operations to preclude impact.   It ...

Our national security apparatus is reactive, slow, and encumbered by industrial age structure (organization) and culture (policy).  We fail to educate and train our leaders in defense, diplomacy, intelligence and other areas how to build, sustain and change an organization to operate strategically, as part of an enterprise, and enable sustained innovation.  This failure is reflected in our failure to identify and preclude strategic surprise – whether Covid-19, 9-11, or other.  It also reflects our inability to achieve our desired outcomes in Afghanistan, Iraq or with our adversaries like Russia, China and Iran.  We do not operate as a whole of government enterprise, and therefore fail to leverage not only national capabilities properly, but team and leverage those of our allies as well. We have the piece parts for a strong initial foundation, but not the leadership to get there.  This must come via the White House and the NSA, as none of the other burea...

Leveraging a Whole of Government/National Response to Covid-19 to Advance Dominance in the Cognitive Domain The following paper is being sent as a call to action to a number of senior IC, DoD and Federal officials.  If we fail to change, we will be changed, and it will not be the Republic we wish, but one that is either critically impaired, disadvantaged, or imposed on us due to lack of proactive thought and moving beyond our own cognitive dissonance.  It is well past time for change.  We define our future, or let others do it for us.  What is your choice? White Paper Executive Summary & Introduction The purpose of this white paper is to sound the alarm on a gaping hole in our nation’s ability to compete in the most critical domain – the cognitive domain.   The cognitive domain [1] – is as the name suggests, is the domain that involves thought, reasoning, and knowledge.  Our response in the cognitive domain to the Covid-19 crises pl...