Predicting Personal Pearl Harbors, aka “Your Crystal Ball of Harm” by Mark Hatmaker

 

I’m going to get into a huddle with you and tell you where and when you are most likely to be assaulted.

I’m not talking “y-o-u” in the abstract plural, I’m talking to the personal Y-O-U.

That’s right, Dear Reader, I am talking directly to you, whoever you may be.

Before I tell you where you may meet some bad deeds let’s have a look at an excerpt from a boring historical memorandum.

“The island of Oahu, with its military depots, both naval and land, its airdromes, water supplies, the city of Honolulu with its wharves and supply points, forms an easy, compact and convenient object for air attack…I believe therefore, that should Japan decide upon the reduction and seizure of the Hawaiian Islands…attack will be launched on Ford’s Island at 7:30 a.m.”-William Mitchell, from his Memorandum for the U.S. Army Chief of Staff.

That did indeed occur on the Day of Infamy, December 7^th, 1941.

Mr. Mitchell, said the attack would commence at 7:30 a.m.

It actually commenced at approximately 7:55 a.m. Honolulu time.

Off by 25 minutes, right in in all other particulars.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that Mr. Mitchell was kinda dead-on there, huh?

Did he have access to some inside skinny? Glean some information from a decrypted Japanese message? Or perhaps possess a strategic mind on par with the best martial minds of all time?

Or, maybe, just maybe, he was offering assessments based on commonly understood but usually ignored likelihoods?

Mr. Mitchell was not the only martial mind to offer such eerily accurate predictions.

So how did Mr. Mitchell and like minds get it so uncannily right?

First, let’s drop a date on that memorandum and make it even more prescient.

When do you think Mr. Mitchell wrote that memorandum?

Take a guess.

·        A week before the attack?

·        Perhaps in November when Japanese and American relations were really getting griddle hot?

·        Perhaps Mr. Mitchell got to work on his assignment shortly after September 27, 1940, when Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, which became known as the Axis Alliance. Such an act of foresight would put Mr. Mitchell and others a full 12-13 months before the predicted attack.

So, have you locked in your answer?

Mr. Mitchell’s Memorandum was delivered in the year of 1924.

WTF?

“Mark, you’re telling me we had, at a minimum, 17 years warning of the tragedy that could possibly occur?”

Indeed.

And I’m also telling you that numerous assessments to follow on the heels of Mr. Mitchell’s echoed his evaluation.

Now, before we get to why this information was likely ignored, let’s look at how the assessments got it so right.

Back to the Mitchell Memorandum

“The island of Oahu, with its military depots, both naval and land, its airdromes, water supplies, the city of Honolulu with its wharves and supply points, forms an easy, compact and convenient object for air attack…”

·        Mr. Mitchell rightly points to the strategic value of the target in the sparse island steppingstone geography of the Pacific.

·        In an ocean where territory is sparse—choose value, choose chokepoints.

“…I believe therefore, that should Japan decide upon the reduction and seizure of the Hawaiian Islands…attack will be launched on Ford’s Island…”

·        Why Ford’s Island?

·        Ford’s Island was the basis of activity for the military defense of the Island.

·        It makes no strategic sense to strafe tourist beaches and leave that which can retaliate intact.

“…attack will be launched on Ford’s Island at 7:30 a.m.”

·        That one is mighty specific, and uncannily accurate, but also common sense in tactical terms.

·        One-Troops are often at their slack point in the morning hours. Sunday morning indolence was added as a compounding factor.

·        Two-The morning sun is at an acute angle, the attack was to be aerial, fighters coming out of the sun have the visibility advantage and glare in the eyes of ground gunnery.

·        Three-Tide Factors. You have morning and evening tidal changes. All sailors know that launching and or mooring is a bit different in these times. Choosing assault when the enemy is at a possible maneuvering disadvantage is always wise.

·        We could continue on with prevailing wind factors etc. but we see Mitchell and his fellow assessors were not shooting blindly. They were using strategic and tactical likelihoods.

So, why was his and the other risk-assessments ignored?

Let’s look to another memorandum for a possible answer.

R. Jack Smith, former Deputy Director for Intelligence [DDI] for the CIA, said this in 1989 regarding the mindset of folks who receive intelligence assessments.

“Another emergent heresy is that [interpreters of intelligence] are influenced by academics and academic thinking to the detriment of realistic analysis. I am reminded of one venture we launched in the late 1960s to tap the knowledge and judgment of the best scholars of Chinese affairs…The scholars were brilliantly knowledgeable of Chinese history, culture, and social structure, but they were as innocent as babes about current conditions, be they political, economic, or military.”

In other words, they were concept-blinded, theory saturated, unschooled in the concrete.

Mr. Mitchell’s and like assessments are offered based on concrete likelihoods and then read by folks who shoot it through a prism of “Well, I met so-and-so and we seem copacetic on this point” or “Traditionally the Japanese would…” or “You see Bushido code dictates….”

Those who receive assessments are not dumb. Likely they are well-schooled intelligent folks.

Assessments that are rooted in the concrete are not done deals of fate, but they are templates of, “If things are gonna go bad, there is a good chance they go bad in this manner.”

Mark Predicts your Personal Pearl Harbor

Let’s get back to that opening promise I made.

Likely you’re ahead of the game at this point.

If we were to hire Mr. Mitchell to look at your life, day-to-day habits, routines, associates, loved ones, assumptions what might he offer?

We must never forget that most attackers are folks we know. Hazards we know.

Most economic ruin will be via a bad relationship decision, a travesty of a divorce settlement, a bet on your unreliable brother-in-law’s business idea.

Most assaults [not all] once they occur, in retrospect have an element of, “Yeah, I kinda thought something seemed off.”

To step away from the physical assault side of things to the potential financial debacle or emotional minefield, most spawn from relationships gone bad. Folks we have already assessed as “Serene as Oahu!” but in retrospect we admit to how many Mitchell Reports we read and ignored along the way.

Much of our training, if we are honest, resides in some domain that straddles cinema choreography and being a protagonist from a Mitch Rapp or Lee Child novel rather than being reflective of the likelihoods of our own daily life tidal changes, sun angles, and personal chokepoints.

We often tout hyper-vigilance and sport the multi-tool badge of honor on our belt that says, “Can do! All the Way!” and yet are mystified at how to run the clothes washer or deal with a minor disagreement with de-escalating grace.

In our day-to-day lives we can appear absurdly smart [and likely are] and yet make bold brash dumb life-changing decisions.

In our day-to-day lives we often prepare for something big but unlikely and fail to do much [if anything] for the small and highly probable.

Pop Quiz Gut-Check: When’s the last time you checked the charge on your home fire-extinguisher? [You do have one, right?]

So, the wisest among us will write a Mitchell Memorandum of our own lives and then prepare for those likelihoods in advance.

Don’t be the “expert” who ignores the sun and tide for “smartified” in-the-weeds theory.

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