American news outlets announced that the Taliban would take months to roll back the Afghan government following coalition departure in 2021, and it took days. The Russians intended to take Kyiv in days, and Ukrainians continue to fight and win a year later. Both instances highlight the difficulty in predicting outcomes. History is littered with these strategic blunders where states misjudged the future. States may struggle to envision future warfare because they draw too much from history. This is not an anti-history article. History feeds theory. Theory, when tested, drives doctrine. Yet states, specifically the planners and decision-makers within those states, must learn to take historical knowledge a step further.
The art of trying to envision the future is not a cure-all; foresight-driven warfare is what we seek. The goal of any nation should be to prepare for various plausible futures or outcomes, which drives down strategic risk, enables a state to become operationally flexible, and positions a state with the means necessary to fight the next fight. Achieving foresight driven national strategy, defense policy, and modernization begins with finding an effective model for planners, which might include Scenario Planning. Scenario Planning methodologies provide prognosticators a way to envision multiple plausible futures versus a singular outcome for a complex, adaptive global system.
Scenario planning is an art. When done correctly, the process opens minds, enhancing strategic thought and exploration of the future.[1] As a result, planners can prepare for a wider range of futures by testing current plans against the unveiled futures. In today’s complex environment, the process is invaluable. During this process, planners must seek to anticipate the future, not attempt to predict it. According to Conway, strategy's importance lies in positioning correctly for the future, but historical information and the present operating environment drive strategic decision-making.[2]
Achieving foresight driven national strategy, defense policy, and modernization begins with finding an effective model for planners, which might include Scenario Planning. Scenario Planning methodologies provide prognosticators a way to envision multiple plausible futures versus a singular outcome for a complex, adaptive global system.
The Pitfalls of Utilizing History to Prepare for the Future
Two fundamental problems occur when examining history. First, the lessons learned are generally stale, and only portions of the lessons learned apply to the next conflict. The lessons learned are also generally written without utilizing the full context. Strategists must understand the why behind a successful campaign, maneuver, etc., and be able to apply that to a future scenario.
Planners can appear to move at cumbersome speeds. History informs plans, but the intelligence that drives this information is stale even before the plan is generally finalized. Planners may struggle to think about what the enemy could do long term and iterate on this process. A plan may appear to be completed after just a few explorations of the future, and lack branch or sequel plans to accompany them.
Themes in Current Planning
Through strategic lenses, states have envisioned future warfare. In American military schools, there is an apparent shift from insurgency or guerrilla fighting back to a large-scale combat operations (LSCO) mindset. LSCO preparation has advantages. The military can demonstrate a need for modernized weapons to fight peer adversaries or to gain an asymmetric advantage against a more significant force, reflecting changes in service and joint doctrine. The current doctrinal trends also reflect the emergence of service and joint views on an extended battlefield, information's importance, space dominance, and offensive and defensive cyber. The next war will be truly global, with forces able to disrupt each other's homelands.
Moreover, the shift has reflected changes in the recently published 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, focused on the People's Republic of China as a pacing threat. With a new Cold War appearing to erupt, the emphasis remains on building competitive edges in all domains against adversaries. In some areas, the Western world is trying to catch up. Elsewhere, it fights to maintain its advantage.
A common discussion in a counter-PRC fight remains the defense of Taiwan; yet, this is only one future scenario. For America’s more immediate threat, Russia, Ukrainian forces continue to maim the Russian military. If we are not careful, this might accidentally cause a myopic approach in preparing for future military operations. The question to be asked, though, is this: What other scenarios create threats to the U.S. that are not given enough consideration and how does it prepare for them?
A Russian Su-35 aircraft unsafely intercepts a P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft assigned to U.S. 6th Fleet over the Mediterranean Sea, May 26, 2020. (U.S. Navy Photo)
Why We Fail to Prepare for the Future: An Example From Korea
From all staff perspectives, planners need to prepare for the future of warfare at all echelons. A theater-specific operational plan might be updated every 5-8 years, depending on its relevance to current events or significant changes to the operational environment. In most cases, planners may appear to only focus on plan creation, depending on the size or capability of the staff. More time is needed to run scenario development and build branch plans that tackle alternate futures outside the plan's scope. Again, the process is cumbersome.
The various operational plans addressing military actions by the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea highlight some of these shortcomings. At some echelons, the base plan is nearly a decade old when considering the initial mission analysis inputs for the planning and refinement processes. In those various echelons, military planners in the theater could be planning against outdated intelligence products and planning assessments, refining their products against an enemy that has had a decade to morph. Yet, forces still appear to exercise against the plan as if it were realistic.
The future of warfare demands that we start doing more scenario-planning exercises and training to overcome these shortcomings. Given the ephemeral nature of operational environments and a constant rotation of experienced planners in a region or unit, the United States military needs to improve their approach to comprehensive scenario-based exercises. It requires experts. It takes time. Most importantly, it requires a concerted effort to visualize plausible futures.
So, What Can We Do?
At the beginning of this article, it was stated that the “goal of any nation should be to prepare for various plausible futures or outcomes, which drives down strategic risk, enables a state to become operationally flexible, and positions a state with the means necessary to fight the next fight.” Scenario-focused planning produces this end-state, but planners must run the process thoroughly. Most importantly, like all planning efforts, leadership must champion the scenario-focused planning process. It must build a dynamic group of experts to include economists, environmentalists, military planners from the joint force, members of government organizations, etc. Once leaders finalize the team, they must explore with the opportune time afforded to their effort. Finally, strategic planners must act on the plausible futures, informed by the planning teams to gain the full benefit of the process.
The recommendation above takes work. There is no excess of military planners at all strategic and theater-strategic echelons capable of performing these functions. At tactical echelons, assignments may only be one person deep. An understaffed echelon may limit a planner's focus on preparing for the next operational plan instead of iterating on branches or sequels for numerous plans, but scenario planning could provide some key benefits.
One such benefit is through balancing the principle of surprise and the element of tempo. Given the United States's current posture in many areas of operation, the nation may choose to cede the initiative to some enemies. Being unprepared for the type of warfare presented only exacerbates the situation, and it will take longer to generate the military means to win. Scenarios help nations like the United States better prepare and resource itself against enemy surprises by aiding planners in engaging in series “if/then” thought exercises. Most importantly, planners can build and recommend appropriate indicators for potential adversary or enemy actions.
Developing and refining indicators and warnings can be one of the most important by-products of scenario planning. Imagine a future scenario as a maze. These indicators are like breadcrumbs placed along the way; they are signals to watch for in scenario development. The development of leading indicators is how states can fully harness the information and make it worthwhile. Similar to how a military uses indicators and warnings to understand an enemy's next action, states can utilize indicators to forewarn that a plausible scenario is becoming a reality.
Finally, scenario-focused planning can move strategic decision makers away from short-term thinking regarding resourcing or policies. The process encourages users to look at trends and project those ideas forward into the future. In this process, more significant uncertainty leads to a broader range of plausible outcomes, requiring a constant need to revisit scenarios and possible solutions. Regarding methodology, Peter Schwartz offers one possible step-by-step recommendation.[3]
ID Focal Issue
Forces in the Environment
Driving Forces
Importance and Uncertainty
Selecting Scenario Logics
Fleshing Out Scenarios
Implications
Leading Indicators
Conclusion
A historical examination is essential, but states must ensure they do not prepare for the last war. States must make the proactive choice to plan for the future utilizing scenario planning, or they risk being surprised by the future. This article sought to highlight some of the pitfalls in the current planning construct and advocate for a more proactive approach. In doing so, states can work towards foresight-driven warfare.
In a complex system, looking at a problem begins to shape it in the future. Similarly, choices and decisions now affect future outcomes. States should use this knowledge to shape futures most detrimental to their existence. History helps in this effort, but the full utilization of scenarios can shape a safer future.
Samuel Shamburg is an Air Force officer and operational planner. This review essay reflects his own views and not necessarily those of the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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Header Image: Agile Combat Employment C2, Hurlburt Field, Florida, 2022 (Shelton Keel).
Notes:
[1] Brook Mitchell, “Scenario Planning for the Twenty-first-Century Military Strategist,” Air University, April 27, 2020, accessed November 20, 2020, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Wild-Blue-Yonder/Article-Display/Article/2161592/scenario-planning-for-the-twenty-first-century-military-strategist/.
[2] Maree Conway, Foresight Infused Strategy: A How-To Guide for Using Foresight in Practice (Melbourne, Australia: Thinking Futures, 2019), 56.
[3] Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1991), 241-246.