Coping with Surprise in Great Power Conflicts.

Coping With Surprise In Great Power Conflicts -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Executive summary -- Why think about surprise now? -- What is surprise? -- Some surprise is inevitable -- It's more than surprise attack -- So, what to do? -- Chapter 1: Why Think about Surprise Now? -- Return of great power competition: Back to the future -- The long peace -- Changes in warfighting -- Hubris -- Chapter 2: Approaching the Problem -- What is "surprise"? -- Why surprise matters -- Coping with surprise now -- Great power conflicts, conventional conflicts, and first battles -- Using vignettes -- Helping policymakers -- Types of surprise: strategic, technological, doctrinal, diplomatic/political -- Not a net assessment -- Chapter 3: The Inevitability of Surprise -- The debate about surprise -- Why surprise is inevitable -- The Inherent difficulty of predicting the future -- Human weakness -- Vulnerability of status quo powers -- Known and unknown -- Chapter 4: Strategic Surprise -- Shock produces a rich literature but uncertain progress -- Areas of current vulnerability -- Chapter 5: Technological Surprise -- Surprise from an adversary's technology -- Surprise from failure in our own technology: "a stab in the back" -- Areas of current vulnerability -- Chapter 6: Doctrinal Surprise -- Many paths to doctrinal surprise -- When our own doctrine fails: best laid plans that go astray -- Areas of current vulnerability -- Chapter 7: Political/Diplomatic Surprise -- Diplomacy-Beware the realists -- Politics -- Areas of current vulnerability -- Chapter 8: What to Do? Preparing for and Managing Surprise -- General principles -- Anticipation -- Resilience -- Adaptation -- Appendix: Vignettes -- Strategic Surprise -- Vignette #1: Russian Blitz in the Baltics -- Vignette #2: China Invades Taiwan -- Vignette #3: China Attacks Vietnam -- Technological Surprise.

Vignette #4: "Assassin's Mace"-Asymmetric Cyber Attack -- Vignette #5: Biological Enhancements to Special Operations Soldiers -- Vignette #6: U.S. Military Satellites Neutralized -- Vignette #7: Pearl Harbor 2.0-Drone Style -- Vignette #8: NATO Submarines Located and Attacked through Nonacoustic Submarine Sensors -- Vignette #9: Stealth Strike Fails-Schweinfurt-Regensburg for the Twenty-first Century -- Vignette #10: A Technological Stab in the Back-Bad Chips in Air-to-air Missiles -- Doctrinal Surprise -- Vignette #11: Cruise Missile Strike on the U.S. Homeland -- Vignette #12: Decapitation of U.S. Leadership -- Vignette #13: Espionage Enables Attacks on U.S. Military Sealift -- Vignette #14: Hybrid Attack on NATO -- Diplomatic/Political Surprise -- Vignette #15: U.S. Alliances in East Asia Collapse -- Vignette #16: Panama Declares Neutrality in U.S.-China Conflict -- Vignette #17: Cuban Missile Crisis-Round 2 -- Vignette #18: Senior U.S. Military Commanders Arrested for Alleged War Crimes -- About the Author.

This study examines potential surprises in a great power conflict, particularly in the initial stages when the interaction of adversaries' technologies, prewar plans, and military doctrines first becomes manifest.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.