Managing Strategic Surprise: Lessons from Risk Management and Risk Assessment

The scope and applicability of risk management have expanded greatly over the past decade. Banks, corporations, and public agencies employ its new technologies both in their daily operations and long-term investments. It would be unimaginable today for a global bank to operate without such systems in place. Similarly, many areas of public management, from NASA to the Centers for Disease Control, have recast their programs using risk management strategies. It is particularly striking, therefore, that such thinking has failed to penetrate the field of national security policy. Venturing into uncharted waters, Managing Strategic Surprise brings together risk management experts and practitioners from different fields with internationally-recognized national security scholars to produce the first systematic inquiry into risk and its applications in national security. The contributors examine whether advance risk assessment and management techniques can be successfully applied to address contemporary national security challenges.

Paul Bracken is Professor of Management and Political Science at Yale University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and works with private equity and hedge funds on using scenarios for investment strategies.

Ian Bremmer is President of Eurasia Group, the world's largest political risk consultancy. He is also Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute and a columnist for the Financial Times. His research focuses on states in transition, global political risk, and US national security.

David Gordon is Director of Policy Planning at the US Department of State. He previously served as Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and is the former Director of the CIA's Office of Transnational Issues (OTI). He has directed major analytic projects on country-level economic and financial crises, emerging infectious disease risks, global demographic trends, and the changing geopolitics of energy.