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Year 2000 International Security Dimension Project Report

II. Our Big Picture Approach

DoD Preparations for Y2K and Where We Fit In

We won't be offering any "official history" here, nor any insider critiques of US Government efforts to prepare for Y2K.  We just want to be up front and clear in explaining how we see our work fitting in with the rest of DoD's broad, long-term effort that stretches back several years.  By and large, we're late-comers to this party, having only begun our research effort in August of 1998.  To the extent that we've moved closer to the head of the pack on scenario planning, it's because we've focused on the broad dynamics of how the Millennial Date Change Event may possible unfold--not on the technical aspects of network, software, or embedded chip failures directly caused by Y2K, nor on any remediation efforts to prevent such failures.  In short, we're pure crisis management in focus, which is why our analysis has attracted particular attention within the intelligence community.
 
 
 

Slide 1:  Inside the Wire vs. Cross Wire vs. Outside the Wire Perspectives


 

DoD preparations for Y2K through the spring of 1999 have almost exclusively focused on dealing with what we'd describe as the known knowns (see Slide 1 above), or identified problems that have identified answers.  For DoD, it's useful to think of these problems--albeit in a highly reductionist manner--as those that occur inside the wire ("wire" referring to that which separates the military world from the civilian world, or the fences that typically surround military bases), meaning those activities that occur within bases or between operating platforms (e.g., ships, planes, transport vehicles).  This is the classic remediation focus one would expect: making sure all our systems work individually and collectively.  By most reasonable measures, DoD has this problem set well in hand--and it only makes sense that it would.  It's a huge organization with lots of money and lots of responsibility.

Starting early this year, DoD attention has turned increasingly to the subject of host nation and US local community support to military bases--namely, utilities such as electricity, phone systems, and sewer.  We like to describe this set of potential issues as the known unknowns, meaning identified problems without easily identified answers.  If the known knowns can be thought of as existing inside the wire, then the known unknowns are basically those Y2K issue areas that cross the wire that separates the military and civilian worlds.  From DoD's perspective, no matter how well they remediate their own systems and networks, there's still the huge question of how much their base operations rely on host nation support.  This will be a subject of intense DoD effort and planning as the rest of the year unfolds.

Our project's work really has nothing to do with either of those first two problem sets, for what we're really concerned with is what can still go wrong beyond the wire.  Moreover, we're not concerned with bases located within the US, as Y2K crisis management within the US will be led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in conjunction with a host of state and local government agencies.  Thus, our study's focus is exclusively on what could go wrong during Y2K beyond the wire in foreign countries, or crises to which DoD could be called upon by National Command Authority (i.e., the White House) to respond.  This is the real set of unknown unknowns, for while most Y2K analysts will agree that we have a fairly decent read on what will or will not likely happen in the US, our sense of what could or could not go wrong abroad is far weaker.

Historically, the US responds to about 5 to 8 major crises a year around the world with some sort of significant military effort (e.g., ships dispatched, troops deployed, planes fly sorties).  Typically, 2 to 3 of these crises are ongoing situations where we continue operations begun in a previous year, like those today in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia or Iraq. The rest tend to be "peaks in messes," meaning ongoing bad situations that flare up or deteriorate to the point that the US decides to intervene militarily in some manner, such as recent forays into Haiti or Somalia.

Of course, the $64,000 question with Y2K and the Millennial Date Change Event is,  "Is this confluence of elements likely to create a higher-than-normal crisis load for DoD over the year 2000?"  For example, instead of looking out on the world and seeing the usual 10 to 20 crises and picking 5 to 8 for response, does the US Government look out over the course of 2000 and see some larger number of crises, and, if so, do we pick the same "top 5 to 8?"  Or a different "top 5 to 8?" (meaning our calculus of national interest might be changed during this unusual period).  Or do we try to do more than the usual effort?  In short, how important may Y2K turn out to be in terms of US foreign policy--both in the short term and over the longer term?

No one can offer precise answers to these questions.  What we can say, though, is that our analysis to date hasn't uncovered any serious evidence that what DoD could be called upon to do in terms of crisis response would be dramatically different from what we've done in the past--namely, disaster relief and humanitarian assistance.  Of course, there's always the chance that crisis will generate conflict, but again, we don't foresee any new species of crisis here, but rather the types of situations with which DoD has great experience.

We believe our analysis offers particular utility in alerting military planners, decision makers, and operational commanders to the sorts of broad scenario dynamics they may encounter if they are called upon to engage in military operations in response to Y2K-related crises, or even non-Y2K-related crises that occur during the same time period.  So while the missions may not change, the local and regional environment within which those missions occur may experience social, political, economic and infrastructural dynamics that are unusual and linked to either Y2K or the larger Millennial Date Change Event.  Moreover, to whatever extent our analysis of generic Y2K and Millennial Date Change Event scenario dynamics illuminates potentially similar dynamics within the US, additional understanding may accrue concerning the overall stress level that may occur "back at the home front."

Again, none of our material here is meant to be predictive in the sense of providing a step-by-step "cookbook" approach to Y2K and Millennial Date Change crisis management.   Our fundamental goal in collecting and synthesizing this analysis is to avoid any situation where US military decision makers and/or operational commanders would find themselves in seemingly uncharted territory and declare, "I had no idea . . .."  We can't and won't tell any regional CINC staff how to run a military operation during Y2K's unfolding or the Millennial Date Change Event.  They know far better than we how to proceed in such real world contingencies.  All we can do is alert them to the particular scenario dynamics that may come together during this potentially unusual global experience.
 

A Process View of Y2K

"Y2K--The Event" will feature a distinct build-up phase (already begun), a peak period we consider "THE crisis," and an "end" phase in which the crisis unwinds either by its own accord or, more likely, by decree.  Either governments will declare that the "crisis has passed" or some other crisis will arise and capture our attention.  Slide 2 below presents another way of thinking through the process of Y2K's build-up, unfolding, and end.
 
 

Slide 2:  A Process View of Y2K


 

The vertical axis of Slide 2 speaks to Network Instability/Failures, meaning the sorts of computer and network failures we've all experienced in our daily lives.  The horizontal axis offers a timeline from 1998 to 2001.

As we move from left to right, the relatively low level of network instability and/or failures that we show for 1998 represents life as we know it--i.e., computers and networks break down with a certain frequency that we have come to know and accept.  A big part of that acceptance is the "rule set" we have developed for dealing with these failures, such as "Always check by phone if the pager seems down," or "Always follow up with a phone call when the e-mail doesn't seem to go through."  We'll call these familiar rules of thumb the "old rules," which we've developed as workarounds for familiar failures.  These are our effective coping mechanisms, to use a psychological term.

The key uncertainty for 1999 is the extent to which the level of network instability/failures begins to rise over the course of the year as we get closer to dateline 010100 (six digit code representing the first day of January, 2000, as in, ddmmyy).  If Y2K turns out to be a significant experience, then at some point in late 1999 or perhaps the first few days of 2000 the frequency and/or severity of the network instability and/or failures will reach some unknown threshold past which the "old rules" will no longer seem to apply.  At that point, society would--in effect--develop a "new rule set," or "new rules" that apply to the dramatically altered parameters of the perceived crisis situation--however defined.

Our project is largely concerned with uncovering and understanding the potential "new rule set" that would ensue if Y2K, when combined with the Millennial Date Change Event, turns out to cause a significant and unprecedented rise in network instability for an extended period of time.  Now, we can debate what the word "extended" means, but for our analytical purposes, it would be a length of time that exceeds what a reasonable citizen might expect in terms of network, economic, social, and government service disruptions arising from the "3-day snowstorm" measure that many advocate as a planning parameter for Y2K.  Any unfolding of Y2K that doesn't create a lengthier array of significant disruptions for any area, country, or region, is unlikely to generate a "new rule set."

Finally, once the Y2K Event plays itself out (signified in the slide by the break in the chart line) and the failure/instability rate begins to decline, the question in terms of Y2K's long-term legacy is whether or not we return to the "old rules" associated with the previously understood standard of network instability, or whether we settle in on some "changed rule set" engendered by our experiencing of the Y2K Event.  In large part, that will depend on the extent to which we come to understand Y2K as either a one-time event unique in human history or a preview of what "network instability" (and its associated crises) may evolve into as we move ever deeper into a period of history where individuals, communities, countries, and regions of the world become more interconnected and interdependent.  In short, if globalization and networking represent the future, maybe Y2K has far more to teach us about that future than we might think if we view it as nothing more than the "last stupid act of the 20th Century."
 

Millennial Mania as a Key Element of the Millennial Date Change Event

In this section, we'll define Millennial Mania as corresponding to one of our previously noted elements of the Millennial Date Change Event--namely, the Millennial Event in its extremist form, i.e., characterized by expectations of profound and cataclysmic global change, typically associated with apocalyptic visions involving interventions by a deity or supernatural force.  Having to define this element, we might seem to be relegating it to the extreme edges of society, and, to a certain extent, we are.

However, given the simultaneity of Y2K's unfolding and the opportunity afforded by the Millennial Date Change Event for a portion of the public to interpret Y2K's meaning and causality through the prism of an apocalyptic perspective, the Millennial Mania element may--in effect--"pour fuel on the fire," heightening inappropriate or counter-productive responses to those direct Y2K failures that may occur.  This can happen in a variety of ways, with the three most important avenues being:

It is the last concept that we would like to highlight--namely, the notion of "iatrogenesis," which is narrowly defined as the unintended side effects resulting from treatment by a physician, but which we use more broadly to mean average people doing stupid things during stressful times (although the notion of unintended side effects caused by a true expert is useful as well--namely, the mistakes created by software remediation).

As is readily apparent to anyone who's tracked the Y2K debate, there are many Y2K "physicians" currently on the scene, many of whom have little understanding of information technology, but who are nonetheless offering all sorts of "advice"--usually for a fee.  By and large, we are not talking about IT firms and consultants in the business of remediation or commercial crisis management, but the relatively narrow group of self-proclaimed experts who offer frightening predictions regarding Y2K effects, as well as ways to "weather the storm"--usually by purchasing their products or services.

In addition to the hucksters and outright scam artists, there is a relatively small but highly vocal and well connected (over the Internet) group of individuals and organizations promoting all sorts of apocalyptic interpretations of Y2K's meaning and causality.  Some seek remuneration, but many do not, as they firmly believe--in their millennarian fashion--that the "signs" of the "end times" are somehow foretold in Y2K's onset and unfolding.  The vast majority of these "physicians" tend to predict great harm will come to those elements of society for whom they have historically shown great contempt.  In other words, these "experts" tend to warn of disaster for those unlike themselves, with "unlike" being defined in terms of religious beliefs, racial or ethnic categories, political attitudes, social mores, sexual orientation, and the like.  The tendency of some of these "experts" to attribute Y2K's alleged destructiveness to the "evilness of their ways" is unmistakable and deplorable.

Such fear-mongering "physicians" prey on those intimidated by information technology in general, and in particular those looking for external guides to help them interpret and understand Y2K's meaning and causality.  The impact this small but influential group of "experts" may have on societal response to Y2K's onset and unfolding is extremely difficult to predict.  Mass media and elites in general tend to grossly overestimate the panic factor in natural and man-made disasters, as proven time and time again throughout history.  Moreover, the tendency of elites to censor the flow of information out of fear of panic is often a far larger source of instability than the crisis itself.  In that sense, it is less the power over mass behavior that fear-mongering "physicians" or "experts" actually exert during Y2K's onset and unfolding, than the power they seem to exhibit in the preceding months and weeks that may negatively impact elite decision making regarding the transparency of government preparations and plans for dealing with whatever crisis may actually ensue.  In short, the most profound iatrogenic effect these "physicians" or "experts" may have could be on elite behavior vice mass behavior--again, in that self-fulfilling manner that exemplifies iatrogenesis.

For further insights into Millennial Mania and the forms it may take surrounding Y2K and the Millennial Date Change Event, we recommend the following:

And if none of that jars your imagination regarding Millennial Mania, then just consider that astronomers are predicting one of the most violent periods of solar flare activity in recorded history for the period January through March 2000. So, if you're looking for a sign from above . . . you'll get it.
 

The Biggest Picture View of Y2K's Potential Impact on Global History

The Y2K Event comes at what may be a pivotal point in global history.  We'll explain this bold statement using Slide 3 below:
 
 

Slide 3:  The Biggest Picture View of Y2K


 

The global rule set that has marked international relations throughout the Cold War period and into the 1990s finds its roots in the systemic stresses of the 1930s--namely, the Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe.  These twin developments relatively quickly segued into the Second World War, from which came the notion that "never again" would the international community engage in the sort of self-destructive behavior (e.g., economic protectionism) that both led to and exacerbated the Great Depression, and by doing so laid much of the groundwork for World War II.  Based on that "never again" spirit, the global system's great powers, led most notably by the United States, attempted to "firewall off" the experiences of the 1930s and early 1940s by creating a new global rule set, whose main attributes were exemplified by such international organizations as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

This new global rule set gave birth to the second great period of economic globalization (the first being roughly from 1880 to 1929), creating what we've eventually come to know and identify as the globally networked "New Economy." This New Economy features, as Thomas Friedman has noted in his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999, pp. 39-58), three critical democratizing processes:

As this New Economy emerges on a global scale, it has begun to feel some "growing pains," most notably in the global financial crisis of 1997-98 (beginning in Asia and spreading to Russia and Brazil), leading some to question whether the Global Rule Set of the early postwar years is still appropriate for the world in which we currently live.  Granted, the now seemingly "old" Global Rule Set of the late 1940s and early 1950s succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its progenitors.  It not only outlasted the main threat to global stability of its time, the Soviet Bloc, but created the greatest period of global economic advance in history, not to mention the longest period of great power peace in the 20th Century. However, as states and their economies become increasingly intertwined in this information technology-driven New Economy, legitimate questions arise as to whether or not a new Global Rule Set is in order.

Naturally, the United States is not particularly enamored with the call for a new Global Rule Set, for it is doing quite nicely in the current set and most of the calls for new rules typically center on placing restrictions on the free flow of international capital, something the U.S. does not wish to see for reasons of its obvious economic success over the course of the 1990s.  If, however, Y2K were to induce serious global economic disruptions, coming as it does on the heels of the Global Financial Crisis of 1997-98, then it is possible that international sentiment for some aspects of a new Global Rule Set, however defined, would grow so powerful that even the United States might find it advantageous to shape its emergence rather than delay or prevent its emergence.

Could Y2K play the role of the "straw that breaks the camel's back?"  At this point, it seems like a long shot, and yet, 1989 looked to be a rather ordinary year until 1990 rolled around and we realized the Cold War was essentially over.  In short, we rarely have the opportunity to schedule moments of global historical importance--they simply appear on their own and usually elicit our great surprise.  The fact that Y2K is indeed a scheduled moment in history only adds to its mystery, but in the end, if Y2K proves to be an historical turning point between one era and the next, it won't be because of what Y2K is, but because of what it told us about the status quo and the need for change.  In short, it's not what Y2K destroys that will be important, but what it illuminates.
 


 

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