This article contests the U.S. military’s current risk framework and provides an initial vector for how to consider risk in strategic competition. In doing so I also dismantle the U.S. military’s nascent risk “actions:” accept, avoid, reduce, and transfer. Using systems theory as a foundation, I illustrate how risk cannot be created or destroyed but can be accepted in its current state or transferred to another state. Finally, I recommend two revisions to the way the U.S. military measures risk to better derive clarity for commanders: increasing the precision of measurements and expanding the temporal scope to better assess cumulative risks.
President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
