00:00Welcome to week one of cyber strategy and planning. So week one, the first module, is going to be about
00:09strategy, about the theory of strategy, the theory of strategy in general, and then we'll get into the more specific
00:17pieces of cyber strategy as we go through this.
00:19The readings that are going to sort of buttress this discussion will begin with Lawrence Friedman's book, readings from his
00:29book on strategy, a history.
00:31And there's a couple of chapters in there. One is on rational choice and the other one is really titled
00:37The Myth of a Master Strategist.
00:38But the readings are designed to give you some foundation into Friedman's view of choice and strategy.
00:47And strategy really is all about choice. Strategy is about balancing risks and resources against a particular end state.
00:55So I'm trying to do something. I have these resources. And how I create a strategy then to be able
01:03to most effectively use those resources to get to that end state with a level of risk that I consider
01:09to be acceptable.
01:10In order to do that, I am making choices along the way.
01:14And one of the things that we're trying to tease out here in this reading, in the first couple of
01:19readings, and actually through all the readings in here, is the way that we make choices about the risk, resource,
01:26and trade-offs that we're making.
01:28And how we make choices about what we want a strategy to be able to do.
01:34And whether those choices are purely rational, i.e. sort of logical, or whether they are irrational, there's other forces
01:41that are at work here.
01:42So that's what that is designed to give you some background into that, into how strategists think about things, how
01:49you should think about things, how if you're going to be a strategist,
01:54and what strategic thinking is as opposed to just thinking about today and what you're trying to execute in the
02:01near term.
02:02The other readings that are there at the beginning of this thing, on the beginning of this module, on strategy
02:07and what it is, are papers that I have given to, presented at strategy conferences, some of them academic, some
02:14of them operational.
02:16One of them is entitled, Can Strategy Be Taught?
02:20And it seeks to answer the question about how can you teach people to, how can you teach strategy?
02:26And this will build on the foundation that we've created with the initial Lawrence Freeman readings.
02:33The second paper that I've got on there is some principles of strategic thinking.
02:37And this is kind of trying to get to the next level of, as we think about strategic thinking, what
02:43is it that differentiates that from just ordinary, you know, just looking at a problem with a near term solution.
02:51And so you'll see articulated in there some principles that I thought were important that distinguished strategic thinking, that articulated
03:00what that was.
03:00The last paper that's in the first section here is on phenomenology and strategic thinking.
03:07It's a bit more ethereal.
03:08It's a bit more of the philosophy behind how we relate to others.
03:13So how you relate to an adversary is important to know, how you relate to other people, things, et cetera.
03:20And that's the phenomenology and strategic thinking.
03:23And again, the intent is to give you some background into those kinds of relationships.
03:29So further on in the course, when you're trying to create a strategy and you're thinking about an adversary, that
03:35we've given you some tools to be able to have a different perspective, if you will, on how you're going
03:43to think about that adversary.
03:46The last couple of readings in this, the next section here, the readings are on strategic deterrence.
03:52And so as you develop a strategy, one of the things that happens is you begin to think about deterrence,
04:00right?
04:00Because a strategy, any kind of a deterrence is a form of a strategy.
04:04Because again, you're looking at how to deter an enemy from doing something that you don't want that enemy to
04:13do.
04:13And so the readings we've got articulated there are, again, initially some thoughts on deterrence in the cyber error.
04:23So again, the first five or six readings in this thing for this paper have been designed to give you
04:30a foundation in the theory behind strategy.
04:33Now we're going to start to talk in a little bit more specifics about a particular kind of strategy, a
04:39deterrence strategy, as an exemplar.
04:42And what's different about deterrence in this cyber age that's different or the same as we've thought about strategic deterrence
04:52in other eras,
04:54whether it's been nuclear or in other times and in other venues.
05:01And then the final reading will be the United States Cyber Command's vision from 2018 about what Cyber Command's vision
05:11is and why it matters.
05:12And so what we're trying to do here is I'm trying to give you a bit of an insight or
05:16an example of sort of a strategic insight that came from a combatant command, Cyber Command,
05:22and from the commander at the time, who was Admiral Rogers, and what it is that the strategic vision, what
05:31does that kind of look like?
05:32So again, module one, strategy, the theory, we start from the ethereal and from the basic theory and principles.
05:41And we migrate into a little bit of specifics here at the end on deterrence as well as on a
05:50specific sort of strategic vision of Cyber Command as we go forward.
05:54So at the end of this module, you would be able to articulate what the tenets are of a strategy,
06:02what goes into making a strategy,
06:04and begin to start to think about deterrence and Cyber Command's strategic vision.
06:10And the reason that that's important is because as we progress along in the course and we get to the
06:15case studies,
06:17which will be specifically about cyber operations, that you'll have the tools to be able to think about
06:22and to create a strategy, whether it's a strategy of deterrence or not, however you articulate and define that,
06:30to deal with specific problems and specific issues.
06:35So that's the end of week one. Thank you.
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