MetaphorsandModernThreatsBiological,Computer,and.pdfVIP

Reprinted courtesy of the Strategic Studies Institute United States Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA Metaphors and Modern Threats: Biological, Computer, and Cognitive Viruses By Edmund M. Glabus Aegis Research Corporation 7799 Leesburg Pike, Suite 1100 North Falls Church, VA 22043 March 31, 1998 Introduction One challenge of national security planning and force protection programming is how to visualize military threats. For current operations, this task is made difficult by the sheer volume of information we receive purporting to help us understand threats to military and civilian assets and operations. Unfortunately, military decision-makers, planners, and analysts are often exposed to more information about any given situation than they can assimilate within normal operational and time constraints. When planning for future strategies and capabilities, the converse is true. Instead of too much information, we suffer from too little. Analysts, planners, and leaders understandably are hesitant to bet the farm on predictions, projections, or forecasts about future adversaries and scenarios. However, time and events wait for no man. In the short term the budget calendar, Program Objective Memorandum (POM) timeline, and systems acquisition and fielding cycles all drive Department of Defense personnel to identify assumptions, derive conclusions, present recommendations, and make decisions. The military leaderships emphasis on extending our conceptual horizons (e.g., Joi