In the years immediately following 9/11, we scrambled to figure out what went wrong, and ultimately coined an expression “connect the dots” to describe what we were unable to see before the attacks. Connecting the dots has since become a key justification for increasing analysis budgets everywhere, all in the hopes of avoiding another tragedy by focusing on the “dots”, or details.

But this vision in our current geopolitical and multidomain reality is misguided. A far better use of time, capital and manpower is to understand and take action on the big picture – and this proverbial forest through the trees is what was (and still is) missing.

In nearly every pivotal crisis in our country’s history, the surprise attack shouldn’t have been a surprise at all. In every case, both the vulnerability and likelihood were right before our eyes, and targeted at domain-dominant industries. The attack on Pearl Harbor struck in the maritime domain, with the specific goal to thwart our ascendance to maritime dominance that once belonged to the British. The twin towers fell because of Al Qaeda’s cunning misuse of American aviation dominance and dependence. The common denominator to these attacks is that our adversaries have acted to prevent or manipulate Western capability and superiority. In today’s world, that means an attack on our space infrastructure, which embodies our 21st century domain advancement, is imminent.

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