I always kinda liked Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. He was a plain speaker and a proponent of a major shift in the armed forces to a much more high-tech modernized military. During the Iraq War, he was famous for calling the French and the Germans “Old Europe,” meaning “New” Europe was Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other recently added NATO countries. Boy, the Frogs and Huns freaked out over that one.
Rummy also famously said, in response to the fact that there were some elements of the the military that lacked proper equipment, or more desirable vehicles, “You go to war with the military you have, not the military you want.” True dat. No military is ever as ready as it wants to be for conflict.
But one of his more insightful comments was when he outlined for the media the “four boxes” of intelligence planning. There are “known knowns,” those things that a person (or country) are pretty sure of. Very few surprises come from this box. Then there are “known unknowns.” Those are the things you can extrapolate to, or with certainty guess will exist, but which you cannot absolutely prove. For example, let’s say in World War II one of our scout planes saw a flotilla far from Japan—-but didn’t notice any oilers. It would be a “known unknown” that almost certainly oilers would be accompanying a fleet far from home. Or say you pass a house that has a “beware of dog” sign and you hear barking—-but you’ve never actually seen the dog. Could be a recording, or it could be a real dog but a tiny one that isn’t vicious. But if you are planning to be a burglar, it would probably be a “known unknown” to assume a large, deadly dog is in the house.
Yes, at times individuals, spies, and militaries can be fooled. We did it with the psy-ops campaign prior to D-Day, where we made plastic “tanks” and generated phony pay stubs for an army that didn’t exist. Usually, however, we base many of our decisions on the “known unknowns.” If all the caterers in town are hired for a weekend, and all the tuxedo shops are sold out, and all the florists are dry, and all the orchestras are booked——there are probably a few weddings going on that weekend, and it would be a bad time to stage an event.
Rumsfeld’s third box was the “Unknown knowns.” These would be things that predictably always happen. For example, you don’t know how 10% of your attack force will be killed, but you know from similar battles elsewhere, with similarly-sized combatants, with similar weapons, your force will lose about 10% of its men. You know that, as a scheduler for aircraft, a certain percent will always have maintenance issues or flight crew delays—-but you don’t necessarily know which ones.
His final box was “unknown unknowns.” These are things we know will be both bad and good (a freak storm, a mysterious disease, a bird flying into a power station taking out a grid, or, conversely, surprisingly good weather, unexpectedly good health, money that comes in out of the blue. These are entirely unpredictable but you must at lease consider “crap happens.”
In our recent burst of UFO activity we seem to cross almost every box. With a balloon, we could see it, know it’s a balloon. By shooting it down, we knew it was not “aliens” (because if it was, I say “bring em on!!” They’d have to be the weakest aliens in the universe). We move to known unknowns—it was man made, low level tech. But who made it? Either we don’t know yet or aren’t saying. We move to unknown knowns. We don’t know who sent it but have known enemies who would like to have sent it and who were capable. We don’t know what their motivations were. But the scary one is the unknown unknowns. If country “a” can do this, which country “b” out there can also do it? And if “a” could cross all of North America, what might country “b” do? And if country “b” was us??? What does that imply?
One of my more easily-spooked friends is sure Rutabaga will use these incidents to “close down all air travel.” We know that DemoKKKrats and Rutabaga in particular hate America and want to see her prostrate. We know (China Virus lockdowns, 2020 fraud) they will use different events to harm ordinary Americans, but unknown is what they would specifically gain from this. While we know from the China Virus they will use any “crisis” to advance their ideology, it is unknown if they are willing to destroy themselves, their livelihoods, or their comfort in the process. And of course, the unknown unknown is what if this is not explained by any of the above?
Suffice it to say, much of what has happened can be attributed to the most gross incompetence of any American administration, including Zero’s. But it is also true that this particular group of demonic poly-poppers is singularly evil in all of American history. The KKK racists never attained levels of pure hatred for people of any color as the Rutabaga’s fascisti snot-gobblers. So “unknown unknown” usually describes everything they do.
Larry Schweikart
Rock drummer, Film maker, NYTimes #1 bestselling author
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