National Security Decision-making in the Age of Technology: Delivering Outcomes on Time and on Target

National Security Decision-Making in the Age of

Technology: Delivering Outcomes On Time and

On Target

Gary P. Corn*

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

I. DECISIONS DELAYED ARE DECISIONS DENIED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

A. The Promise and Threat of Emerging Technology and the

Shrinking OODA Loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

B. NSPM-13, U.S. Cyber Operations, and the “Speed of

Relevance” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

II. PROCESS SHOULD ENABLE OUTCOMES, NOT PROCESS (AKA FIGHT THE

THREAT, NOT EACH OTHER)............................... 67

III. MOVING FORWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

INTRODUCTION

As anyone who has ever been responsible for or involved in significant

decision-making knows, a failure to make a decision is, in itself, a decision.

1

And

as the late Peter F. Drucker noted decades ago when discussing effective deci-

sion-making, inaction is not a risk-free proposition: “One has to make a decision

when a condition is likely to degenerate if nothing is done. The effective deci-

sion-maker compares effort and risk of action to risk of inaction.”

2

There is no

area where this basic truism has more resonance, and is potentially more conse-

quential, than in the area of national security decision-making, where the cost of

inaction can be at a premium. Poorly informed or precipitous decisions and

actions carry their own risks and can often lead to suboptimal results. But so too

can decision delay and paralysis in the face of gathering or ongoing threats. As

* Director of the Technology, Law & Security Program and Adjunct Professor of Cyber and National

Security Law at American University Washington College of Law; a member of the editorial board of the

Georgetown Journal of National Security Law and Policy, and the Founder and Principal of Jus Novus

Consulting, LLC. A retired U.S. Army colonel, Professor Corn previously served as the Staff Judge

Advocate to U.S. Cyber Command, as a Deputy Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff, the Operational Law Branch Chief in the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Army, the

Staff Judge Advocate to United States Army South, on detail as a Special Assistant United States

Attorney with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and on deployment to the

Republic of North Macedonia as part of the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force and as the

Chief of International Law for Combined Forces Command, Afghanistan. I would like to thank Tech,

Law & Security Program Fellow Justin Sherman for his assistance in putting this essay together.

© 2021, Gary P. Corn.

1. The familiar adage is attributed to the American philosopher and psychologist William James. See

2 WILLIAM JAMES, THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY 532-534 (Dover Publ’n 1950) (1890).

2. PETER F. DRUCKER, MANAGEMENT: TASKS, RESPONSIBILITIES, PRACTICES 475-76 (1974).

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