STRATEGIC

Is the World Falling Apart (And How Would We Know)? 51
Figure 3.2
Familiar and Unfamiliar Challenges
Familiar threats:
Assertive Russia, China,
North Korea, Iran
Rebellions, insurgencies
Natural disasters
Plagues; chronic,
noncommunicable
diseases; famine
Localized terrorism
Hybrid
threats:
Asymmetric
warfare
“Gray zone”
aggressions
Pandemics
Hacking
Unfamiliar threats:
Abrupt climate changes
Cyberwar
Metastic Jihadism
Use of artificial
intelligence in warfare
Gene-edited bioweapons
Cascading disasters
RAND RR1631-3.2
Table 3.1 describes these three types of problems in detail. Each type
plagues the world today, sometimes in isolation, other times in a specific
region, and sometimes coinciding with other problems in time and space.
Familiar Problems
Familiarity does not make problems necessarily easier to solve. They
may persist because they are expensive, intractable, bloody, or recurring.
Often they arise from states that break the international rules;
and therefore they can be addressed by traditional tools of statecraft:
diplomacy, defense, deterrence, alliances, economic and military
assistance, economic coercion, public diplomacy, subversion, and, as
a last resort, war. 33
The United States faces a familiar problem from states that are
trying to challenge the American-led status quo (China and Russia, and,
33 Dobbins et al., 2015.