Future planning is critical.

• Author: Tangredi, Sam J.
• Position: READERS'FORUM - Letter to the editor

No defense planning can be effective without a rigorous assessment of the future security environment. That is why I am aghast at Sandra Erwin's comments concerning future Army planning ("Predicting the Future of Warfare: Why Bother?" October 2010).

Yes, the Army got burned by thinking too "technology futuristically" with their Future Combat Systems (FCS). But serious defense planning would have told them that they faced many not-yet-solved engineering problems before they made the decision to proceed with their--quite frankly--grandiose plans. The key is not to mistrust technology, but to mistrust overly optimistic assessments of what the technology will be or can do. There has never been, and never will be, "surgical wars," particularly not for ground forces. Future technologies will never be able to "transform the nature of war."

Human nature--in its most violent as well as most peaceful--is the one thing that does not change. A serious futurist, as opposed to technologists hyping their latest possibilities, knows that history is the laboratory by which plans are evaluated.

Planning is not about "predicting the future." No one can. Planning is about assessing the full range of future possibilities, including the possibility that one's plans can fail. Every plan should have hedges and fallbacks. Serious questions should be asked: what if this promised future capability doesn't work? What if it fails in the heat of battle? What counter-moves would an enemy naturally take? If we invest these resources and the system doesn't work, how will we recover?

Potential technology will not determine the future; planning, engineering and commitment will. Future planning is all about providing not just options to decision-makers, but also the range of consequences that could occur if things don't happen the way we expect.

Our joint forces are indeed engaged in two grinding wars. It is necessary to focus on the wars we have now to achieve success. But that does not mean that planning for other, quite different contingencies--with all the threats, capabilities and possibilities involved--should not be seriously pursued. It is fair to point out that if the decision-makers that initiated our involvements had planned for the full range of contingencies--from sectarian violence to bombing of supply convoys--maybe those wars would not have been so grinding, or, at least, we would have expected it.

The problem with avoiding...