Some of the presentations today have been excellent but have highlighted the desperate need for alternative approaches to some of the problems governments are facing in weak and failing states. But the stomach for taking risks inside of governments has disappeared. We need to bring back the imagination and resourcefulness of the 1970s and early 80s.
It may have become fashionable in policy circles to talk of red teaming, the “structured, iterative process executed by trained, educated and practiced team members that provides commanders an independent capability to continuously challenge plans, operations, concepts, organizations and capabilities in the context of the operational environment and from our partners’ and adversaries’ perspectives.” But we don’t do it.
As Lord Butler noted in his review of intelligence on WMD, ‘well developed imagination at all stages of the intelligence process is required to overcome preconceptions. There is a case for encouraging it by providing for structured challenge, with established methods and procedures, often described as a ‘Devil’s advocate’ or a ‘red teaming’ approach. This may also assist in countering another danger: when problems are many and diverse, on any one of them the number of experts can be dangerously small, and individual, possibly idiosyncratic, views may pass unchallenged..
At times of uncertainty and criticism the response is usually to bunker down, keep information tightly controlled and react react react…. But everything we have seen in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere has shown we need to do the opposite. We need individuals who have a license to be awkward, and in doing so help all of us tackle the complex problems of today and tomorrow.
