Proteus Management Group

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The Proteus Management Group is sponsored by The Office of the Director for National Intelligence and the U.S. Army War College’s Center for Strategic Leadership (CSL). The program is directed by the Command and Control Group (C2G), Science and Technology Division within the Center.

The Proteus Management Group's (PMG) mission is to promote further discourse, study and research, focusing on the refinement, development and application of Proteus Insights (PI) and other PI related new and emerging “futures” concepts, methods, processes and scenarios that will:

Assist strategic and high-operational level decision makers, planners and analysts in “outside the box” consideration and critical analysis of National, military and intelligence issues within the Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental and Multinational (JIIM) environment by encouraging them to:

Consider differing values and perceptions of future target audiences by systematically looking “outside” of the values contained in Western Civilization when considering the application of all elements of national power (Diplomatic, Informational, Military, and Economic). Frame complex issues holistically to identify and consider the 2nd and 3rd order effects and unintended consequences of policy and strategy decisions. Scan the horizon and define the future environment and scenarios to systematically identify discreet threats and capitalize on hidden opportunities.

Background

Proteus began in 1999 as a result of an effort by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Advanced Systems and Technology Directorate to explore the “Problem Space” for the year 2020 and assist in identifying technology needs for “Systems-After-Next.” The NRO brought together some of the finest minds in the country – “from poets to intelligence professionals” – to examine possible future world scenarios and to compile a group of necessary and important insights into ways of dealing with future national threats and issues. During an eighteen month period the group created a 2020 Forecast Document. The document consisted of Future Intelligence Needs, Global Trends and Probable World Scenarios, “Wild Card” Events, Asymmetric Warfare Concerns, and Global Weapon Trends. A scenario-based planning group was formed. The scenario team identified mission “drivers” and planning space “dimensions,” identified “worlds,” and wrote “narrative histories.” They then prepared and conducted a series of workshops and synthesized their findings. The team then developed sixteen scenarios. Each scenario’s planning space incorporated varying transnational openness and mobility, global structures of influence, U.S. government global involvement, perceived threats to U.S. quality of life, and U.S. economic position and strength. From these sixteen scenarios, five were selected to be the grist for the workshop problem-solving sessions. The workshop participants consisted of “insiders” from the intelligence community and “outsiders” from various academic and scientific backgrounds. The groups’ task was to identify threats and problems in each of these scenarios. One of the intriguing findings was that each group had different ideas and experienced varying degrees of difficulty concerning “how” to identify the problem sets and threats. The process also revealed biases that often blinded the intelligence community and precluded creative thought and alternate means of problem solving when confronted with future uncertainty. These sessions proved to be extremely valuable because of the insights derived from their work. The entire project took on the name of “Proteus” and the insights they developed are now commonly referred to as the “Protean insights.”

Thus the importance of the Proteus work is in the insights; or “lenses”, that provide a potential change in focus in the way the U.S. considers the problems and difficulties in the contemporary world. Instead of looking through “Cold War” lenses or through a United States-only set of filters, Proteus encourages the user to consider a variety of issues that may affect the actions and reactions of people groups and leaders. These insights or lenses can create a group of analysis, planning and decision making tools to assist leaders in many areas of government to establish a new paradigm to face new asymmetrical emerging threats; non-state actors, ambiguous operations, unanticipated conflicts, changes to the political and economic environment in the U.S., etc. The Proteus insights are new lenses for leaders to use to gain a much fuller understanding of the dynamics of the future geo-strategic environment and conflict, as well as avenues for consideration for military planning in non-traditional operations.

Reference

https://www.carlisle.army.mil/proteus/ pmg_history.aspx.