Introduction

Abstract

Humans are naturally drawn to stories, since we use narratives to make sense of a complex world, to order information into chains of causality, and to communicate and respond to ideas. Confronted with novel technologies or tactics, we are often drawn to narrative vignettes of how these capabilities could be employed in order to visualise their effects. However, narratives are not merely descriptive; they implicitly promote frameworks that prompt behaviour and judgement. It has long been recognised in economics that narratives shape expectations, stimulate imagination and guide investment decisions in ways that empirical analysis often struggles to match. Within Defence, the shaping influence of uncritically accepted narratives can have problematic consequences. In many areas of defence policy, such as cyber warfare, space or novel weapons systems, deep subject matter expertise is required to understand the potential benefits and limitations. The same is true of attempts to assess the policies and actions of strategic competitors with very different cultural and geopolitical viewpoints. Crucial nuances and practical constraints are almost unavoidably lost in translation as senior decision-makers shape policy and generalists rewrite doctrine and strategy documents based on their own understanding of briefings given by specialist practitioners and subject matter experts. This tendency is exacerbated by a natural inclination to over-hype the potential for novel technologies or strategies to provide transformative effects. Incompatible