Having recently completed Soldiers of Reason- a history of the RAND Corporation by Alex Abella – I was struck by how familiar a story or series of stories from the 50s and 60s so mirrored the problems and approaches being undertaken today in the virtual realm. What follows is not a robust review of Abella's work, but I think these high-points are illustrative:

• New technology (nukes then, IT now) really does require a lot of heavy AND diverse brain power to fully exploit and rationally, reasonably employ (or in the case of nukes, plan to employ). RAND was math geeks, then physics geeks, then social science geeks . . . IT tends to just be computer geeks. There is a lot of brain power in the latter group; it just does not seem that diverse, which is probably why no matter the question in this space the answers are always the same.
  
• Don't dis the practitioner. Curtis LeMay didn't give two hoots about any plans that didn't involve turning the Soviet Union into a big smoking hole. Never mind that – to paraphrase one of the subjects of the book – Le May had fought exactly as many nuclear wars as anyone at RAND.  Thankfully we don't know who was right in their approach, but it is worth noting that someone who did the next "best" thing (fire bombing Japan) isn't to be trifled with. Something to consider when presented with the best book learnin' money can buy. On a related note . . .
  
• Not every correct answer is the right answer. Crunching raw data into sound formulas can produce answers; they just might not be answers that can survive outside the lab. Real people and politics can be large monkey wrenches, as noted by RAND's early foray into social science work or their analysis of what was and was not working in Viet Nam (spoiler: neither ended well).
  

As we look at a fresh rotation of stories about how to deal with cyber war, terrorists operating online, etc., we see a rather predictable response, largely because there have been few if any significant developments in this space in ages. How many people without technical degrees or IT day-jobs are being brought into the e-Ranks? It is unlikely anyone can say with authority, but it would be safe to guess the number approaches zero. That's bad news given the frequency with which history within this domain echos, and the frequency with which little balloons "go up" worldwide.