| Summary/Abstract |
The budget reductions being imposed on both the military and intelligence communities will result in greater risk from emerging or concealed threats as information about such threats declines along with Washington's abilities to respond to them. The decline in intelligence expenditures, in particular, increases the likelihood that serious threats will evade detection and identification. A potential adversary could suddenly present the United States with a long-duration threat to its electrical grid or a crippling blow to its overseas force projection. Failure to look for such concealed threats is a formula for unacceptable strategic surprise. Since the natural tendency of intelligence operations is to focus available resources on known threats, looking for concealed threats is as much a challenge to resource allocation as search methodology. Both challenges can arguably be addressed by focusing on the most intolerable of potential consequences: national catastrophes.
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