Focus on Outcomes not Origins

"The next U.S. president will govern in an era of increasing international instability, including a heightened risk of terrorist attacks in the near future, long-term prospects of regional conflicts and diminished U.S. dominance across the globe," is how the Washington Post summarized a speech last week by the CIA director.

The CIA is appropriately focused on assessing threats from outside the United States. But external threats do not constitute the nation's only or necessarily most serious risks.

Last week President Bush spoke at graduation ceremonies for the FBI Academy. "Here at home, we've transformed our national security institutions and have given our intelligence and law enforcement professionals the tools and the resources they need to do their job, and that is to protect the American people. We formed a new Department of Homeland Security. We created a new Director for National Intelligence. We established a program at the Central Intelligence Agency to interrogate key terrorist leaders captured in the war on terror... Since 9/11, the Bureau has worked with our partners around the world to disrupt planned terrorist attacks."

Counter-terrorism deserves sustained attention. Is there similar priority and sufficient strategic attention given to other catastrophic risks?

Last week a United Nations conference declared the risk of pandemic has never been higher. Concern for domestic terrorism was underlined by the arrest of white supremacists planning a killing spree. An extended wildfire season in many areas of the United States has depleted budgets and exhausted firefighters. We are past due for a major California earthquake. Hurricane recovery continues on the Gulf Coast.

In February 2007 the British think-tank Demos recommended a fundamental reconceiving of national security. The Demos report cites a "broad spectrum of threats and hazards to national security." Among those listed are, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, organized crime, espionage, fragile states, natural disasters, pandemics, energy security, and vulnerability of critical national infrastructure.

Rather than focusing on the origin of a threat, the Demos report suggests giving more attention to the outcome of a risk. What is the consequence of a calculated risk? What is the likelihood of a threat? What are our greatest risks regardless of origin?

We can be creatures of our categories, how we organize reality. From time beyond memory we have tended to organize our threats by the enemy outside, the criminal inside, and the unfolding of mysterious fate or divine punishment or random accident. For each of these origins we have had a different attitude and response.

Tactically the focus on different origins can be helpful. Strategically the focus on origins rather than outcomes can discourage effective prevention, mitigation, and readiness. Recognizing this the United Kingdom's 2008 National Security Strategy (pdf) encourages more attention to relative risk rather than just external threats.

Geographically and constitutionally - even geologically and meteorologically - the US situation is more complicated than that of the British. A small island nation two generations removed from imperial ambition is more predisposed to comprehensive risk analysis than a continent-striding superpower.

But the consequences of Katrina - and the entirely predictable economic, social, political, and human consequences of a major California quake or serious pandemic - should be sufficiently clear to encourage more coordinated attention to the whole horizon of risk.

One modest step the new administration might take is the creation of a White House Council for Risk Estimation. This body would work to provide the President and cabinet a framework for prioritizing risk. Similar to how the National Intelligence Council supports the Director of National Intelligence, the Council for Risk Estimation would:

• Coordinate the contributions of Federal agencies to evaluate risk outcomes and priorities.


• Reach out to nongovernment experts in academia, the private sector, and State and local agencies to broaden the Federal understanding of risk.


• Produce National Risk Estimates (NREs) and related products to support policy making and resource allocation.


• Contribute to decisions by the President, Office of Management and Budget and Cabinet agencies to allocate resources in a manner to reflect risk priorities.