Dominant Logistics
Betting on Terror?
As is typical, politics has once again stepped in to kill off what is arguably the most brilliant intelligence idea conceived by DARPA in years, a program called FutureMAP. In an effort to curry favor with voters, politicians are publicly attacking DARPA for creating a "terrorism betting parlor" with tax dollars, when in fact, this program could've been an extremely useful and effective tool in preventing future terrorist attacks and in predicting other useful security events. Let me say that in no way am I, or anyone that I know, associated with the Pentagon, DARPA, or any other major player in this fiasco - the information I am providing is based solely on media reports I have read on the Internet. But let me add to that that based upon what I have read of the program, there is not a doubt in my mind that had this program been in place during the 1990s, the attacks of September 11, 2001 never would've happened. Let me rephrase that so there is no doubt about what I am saying here - FutureMAP would've prevented the 9/11 attacks had it been in place. With that in mind, here is why we SHOULD be "betting on terror."
The Underlying Concept
A number of decades ago, the U.S. Navy lost a submarine in the Atlantic and couldn't find it. I'll spare you the specifics and just say that all conventional means to locate the sub failed. Ultimately, a novel mathematical concept was devised that enabled the Navy to find the sub and determine what happened to prevent similar future accidents. While we've all heard of the term "scientific wild-ass guess", the Navy used this notion in a very literal sense in order to find the sub. In the end, an entire new mathematical field was born.
They developed a scenario of what may have happened on the sub and then approached a variety of experts. The experts were polled on how they would've reacted to the scenario and were asked to provide a measure of how confident they were of the prediction. A formula was then used to combine all of the responses and confidence measures to provide a true "scientfic wild-ass guess" - a guess that almost immediately resulted in the sub being located. With virtually no actual facts to go on, the experts were literally able to guess what happened with startling accuracy. These results were further validated in a search for a nuclear bomb jettisoned in the ocean, and in various other areas since that time.
What this shows is that with relatively little information to go on, it is possible to make predictions with a relatively high degree of accuracy. In essence, it CAN be possible to predict some types of future events using these methods. This is the basic concept that drives futures markets, where investors make investments based upon events they believe will happen in the future. In essence, they are betting on a guess.
The Essence of FutureMAP
The FutureMAP program was an effort to create a futures market for predicting events that could impact national security. Investors could've purchased shares in a given prediction and made a profit if that prediction were to come true. The profit aspect is the driving concern amongst many of the politicians who are now frothing at the mouth over this program - nevermind the millions of taxpayer dollars being paid to known criminals and even killers through witness protection and informant programs, THIS is what is supposedly a true outrage. We're also supposed to conveniently ignore the millions of taxpayer dollars given to private corporations and individuals for "consultant fees" - providing the same services FutureMAP would provide, except making a substantial profit whether they are right or wrong. We're also supposed to ignore the utter failure of existing intelligence techniques to predict or prevent just about ANY major international event, and in particular:
The bottom line here is that we obviously need to try new techniques in the world of intelligence. While there are clearly a variety of ethical and moral issues that need to be addressed, the FutureMAP program could've been a very useful tool for enhancing our national security intelligence estimates. In effect, scenarios would've been devised and offered for sale as a future. Investors, who do not tend to haphazardly throw money around, would've researched the scenarios, formed their best guess, and made investments accordingly giving an indication of their confidence in the prediction by the size of their investment.
This information could then be used with our previously discussed mathematical formulas to then make a reasonable prediction about some events that may occur in the future. These predictions will not always be correct, but it is hard to believe that they would be any less accurate than the information currently provided by the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
The 9/11 Scenario
The best example that can be given of how this system would work in action is the timeframe preceding the 9/11 attacks. Of particular note is an event that goes all the way back to 1995 - namely a raid in the Phillipines that uncovered information about a Project Bojinka that was to involve bombing airliners as well as crashing them into buildings. Target lists for the project specified the World Trade Center, Pentagon, Sears Tower, CIA headquarters, and others. All of this information was publicly available in 1996 through the trial of Ramsi Yousef, the original WTC bomber. The scenario was dismissed by the so-called experts as being beyond the capabilities of terrorist organizations.
But what if a future had been offered for investment on Project Bojinka? The savvy investor would've done a little bit of research and easily discovered that this particular group of terrorists (the group we now call al Qaeda) had access to very substantial resources, particularly large sums of money. They also would have noted the original attack on the WTC by a man associated with the group, as well as numerous other attacks on American interests abroad by the group (the African embassy bombings and the U.S.S. Cole attack). They also would've noticed the tendencies of islamic extremists to attack airliners in general, going all the way back to the early 1970s. When compared to some of the other "security threats" out there, like the ridiculous bioterrorism and dirty bomb concepts, this was an idea that would've likely sold well on a futures market.
Even if the federal government continued to ignore the threat as they did in actuality, the commercial and other private groups interested in these events would've stood up and taken notice. Airlines would've been asking the obvious question - if this threat isn't real, why are people betting money that it is? Think tanks would've seen the betting and also weighed in with detailed and thorough reports of their respective view on the threat. Politicians would've seen this and approached the CIA for answers on why they do not consider this a threat when so many others do. Actions would've been taken and in the end, the attacks of 9/11 wouldn't have happened at all.
The Obvious Problem
Which brings us to the key flaw in the FutureMAP concept - if the idea is to prevent these events from happening, why would investors buy the futures when their purchase is going to be voided by our later actions? And frankly, there is no way around that particular problem, a fact which would've been discovered rather quickly and an alternative approach implemented. We ultimately would've gone to something where interested parties would be paid a flat fee to cover the expenses of taking part in the project. They would then be given the funds used for investment. A commission would be paid to those whose predictions proved accurate while those who failed to effectively make predictions would be eliminated through running out of funds.
As an "investment group" gets eliminated from the project, a new group would be brought in, all investments would be halted to redisburse the funds evenly again, and then the process starts all over. Ideally, as many as ten thousand investment groups or individuals would be included in the project. The system would still function as a market but with no actual profits or investments taking place. For that matter, we wouldn't even need to use money at all, except to pay the participants for taking part in the project.
At the end of the day, this is a concept that is well worth considering and should not be so easily dismissed. It is in need of some serious changes, but the project should not be killed in its entirety, nor should those who created it be attacked and dismissed from the Pentagon. Its an excellent idea but they used poor execution to carry the idea out. A reasonable alternative can, and should, be implemented as soon as is possible.