The concept of predictable surprises, i.e. failures to take preventative action in the face of known threats, was outlined by Max Bazerman and Michael Watkins in their book by the same name. This paper discusses predictable surprises as primarily organizational events that result from failure of organizational processes to support surprise-avoidance rather than surprise-conducive actions by individual members.

By Larry Irons

As a maritime nation, the United States is economically and strategically reliant on its ports, a fact well known to our potential enemies in the Global War on Terror. A successful attack against maritime critical infrastructure in our ports has the potential to cause major economic disruption and create mass casualties and conflagration.

By Robert Watts

Under the new “Joint Force” concept of operations model, the U.S. Navy has taken on added prevention responsibilities that include strategic and operational responses to asymmetric warfare.

By David Longshore

Terrorist threat actors are both cunning and adaptive, relying on surprise to overcome security measures. For this reason, military and security planners must embrace a more flexible, comprehensive, and comprehensible approach to contingency planning – a method based on neither threats nor scenarios exclusively, but rather on integrating these two approaches into a planning process based on capabilities.

By Thomas Goss