Left of Boom: Because Not Every Threat Needs a Target
The Pentagon’s AI-powered efforts to find and fix targets before the enemy strikes, highlighted in this recent Defense One article, are nothing short of impressive. Project Maven and its spinouts are delivering on a long-standing dream of automating intelligence workflows and giving commanders faster, sharper tools. But as we applaud these advances in machine-speed detection and prediction, we should ask: Is this the only way forward?
In fact, it might be time to look left, left of boom, that is. And do so with more than just the “M” in our now-expanded DIMEFIL toolbox.
M Is Still Taking the Lead—But It Can’t Stand Alone
When we talk national security, we often default to the Military instrument - it’s visible, heavily resourced, and politically resonant. But DIMEFIL stands for Diplomatic, Informational, Military, Economic, Financial, Intelligence, and Law Enforcement instruments of national power, and each one matters. The problems we face today, hybrid conflict, transnational instability, and strategic competition, require coordinated action across all of them.
Dr. Isaiah “Ike” Wilson III, former Army strategist and founder of Wilson Strategic Enterprises (WiSE), has long warned that military force alone can’t solve what he calls the Compound Security Dilemma. His work, including a must-read article in Parameters, calls for a more integrative approach - one that blends disciplines, sectors, and instruments of power to match the complexity of the threats we face.
Storm King Analytics is proud to partner with Dr. Wilson through StormWiSE, a new initiative designed to bring this vision into practice - through real-world decision support powered by AI, foresight, and complexity modeling.
Discovering Possibility with Foresight, Not Just Firepower
One of the core ideas we champion at StormWiSE is strategic foresighting - a discipline that helps decision-makers get ahead of emerging risks by mapping plausible futures and aligning today’s actions with long-term objectives. As we wrote in Consilience in Action, breakthrough solutions often arise when we step back and view the challenge through multiple lenses, not just the military one.
Imagine applying that mindset to national security. What if instead of just optimizing target acquisition, we used AI to:
Spot early indicators of social unrest in economic and financial trends
Trace disinformation campaigns using open-source intelligence
Model diplomatic risk and forecast alliance resilience
Identify legal and regulatory gaps before adversaries exploit them
That’s how you get truly left of boom, by preventing the conditions that give rise to crisis, not just reacting faster once it ignites.
What We’re Missing When We Don’t Use the Full Toolkit
With DIMEFIL, we now recognize that the real levers of influence span far beyond kinetic options:
Diplomacy: Building strategic trust and mitigating flashpoints through sustained engagement
Information: Managing the information environment to inoculate against adversary influence
Economics & Finance: Using trade, aid, and sanctions as proactive tools—not just punitive ones
Intelligence: Identifying complex, non-obvious threats through multi-domain analysis
Law Enforcement: Disrupting illicit networks that blur the lines between crime and conflict
None of these tools are standalone, but together, they offer more precise, targeted, and sustainable ways to secure our interests and preempt instability.
Final Thought: Smarter Doesn’t Just Mean Faster
The future of national security isn’t just about speed, automation, or sensor fusion. It’s about strategic integration - recognizing that technology alone doesn’t solve complex problems unless it’s guided by wiser frameworks and broader intent. True security comes not just from having the best tools, but from using them to shape better outcomes.
That means having the courage to balance investment - into the tools that don’t just win wars, but make them less necessary in the first place. Diplomatic relationships, trusted information flows, resilient economies, legal frameworks, and financial levers -these are just as vital as any algorithm or autonomous platform.
At StormWiSE, we believe that’s the next big leap. Not just smarter weapons, but smarter thinking. We’re building solutions that help decision-makers reframe problems before they escalate - leveraging AI, network science, and anticipatory analytics to empower leaders to act earlier and more broadly across the DIMEFIL spectrum.
Because getting left of boom starts long before the AI sees a target - it starts with how we define the problem, the options we include, and the future we’re working to create.
Ready to Think Left of Boom?
If you're interested in shaping smarter strategy with the full power of DIMEFIL—before crises escalate, connect with us at StormWiSE. We’re actively partnering with organizations seeking to integrate foresight, AI, and multi-domain analysis into national security, development, and resilience planning.
Let’s discover what’s possible - before the boom.
Great piece, Dan Evans @stormkinganalytics! In an age ruled by the compound security dilemma, and where compound security competition (CsC) is the new character of global affairs, from household to world-system levels, …. Any and all “wins” will have to be found “Left of…” booms, bangs, flashpoints, fault lines, and threat production.