Overcome by events

Overcome By Events (OBE) or Overtaken By Events (OTBE), is a term of military origin used when a situation changes so rapidly that previously proposed courses of action are no longer relevant.

Examples

An example for OBE, albeit in a political context, would be the changes in foreign politics due to the unexpected event of the September 11, 2001 attacks ^[1]

In a military context, the first use of the atomic bomb on Japan probably caused the Japanese government to be OBE. ^[2]

References

1. ^ Johnson, S. S. (2005, Mar) Can Events Data Analysis be Overcome By Events? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, Hawaii Online
2. ^ "Pam Smith, Myth Works, Applied Mythology, Mythworks". Archived from the original on Nov 15, 2009. http://web.archive.org/web/20091115164909/http://www.mythworks.net/myth_obe.asp.