Cyber Shockwave + Oil Shockwave
Marc Ambinder is aflutter over this exercise. It focuses on the reaction of cabinet-level officers to the extremely unlikely case of the equivalent of a cyber-nuke attack from the unknown. I’m much less optimistic. Like Oil Shockwave before it, its a high profile exercise that doesn’t actually accomplish anything.
Oil Shockwave was predicated on the idea that, over four months, oil supplies would crash as a result of geopolitical crises, and prices would skyrocket. They used markers with a range of $100 to $180 per barrel ($115 and $165 if I recall correctly.) Of course, when prices did hit $115, ultimately peaking at just under $150, little to nothing of what the cabinet or POTUS did mattered. The response then, (limited though it was) was entirely at the individual level. We’re likely to see the same kind of dynamic emerge here. Lots of ad-hoc.
IF you want to do something like this, the right approach is to do so with the widest set of participants possible (vs the EXTREMELY narrow set demonstrated here), and make it an ongoing process.
-Shlok
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