Table of Contents

1. Risk, Judgment and Uncertainty.- 2. Defining Risk.- 3. Approaches to Risk in National Security.- 4. Risk and Uncertainty.- 5. Risk is What We Make of It.- 6. Indifferent to Consequences.- 7. The Swans to Worry About Are Gray.- 8. Risk Becomes Personalized.- 9. What You Don’t Know Can Destroy You: Ignorance and Correlated Risk.- 10. Risk, Incentives and Culture.- 11. The Role of Risk in Strategy.- 12. Outcome Assessment of the Emerging U.S. National Security Strategy.- 13. Principles of Effective Risk Management.- 14. Managing Uncertainty.

Promotional Information

"This book is both extraordinarily relevant and timely for today's policy makers. The complexities of strategy development and decision making under conditions of uncertainty are not going away. Doing strategy right is hard, but as Mazarr shows, incorporating a better conception of risk is essential." (Frank Hoffman, Senior Research Fellow, Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, USA) "The financial industry remains haunted by a systemic failure of firms, regulators, and other market participants to recognize emerging risks that nearly brought down the global economy. This book could not have arrived at a better moment in history, having the financial crisis to use as a model for strengthening national security risk management at a critical time." (Clifford Rossi, Executive-in-Residence and Professor of the Practice at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, USA)

About the Author

Michael J. Mazarr is a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation, USA. The author of 12 books, he has been a professor and dean at the National War College, USA, a special assistant to the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), USA, and a defense aide on Capitol Hill.