There is uncertainty in when and where threats will develop and what threat characteristics will be. And since TMD is still developmental, there is uncertainty in how developments will go, and how fielded systems will operate even against known threats. 145 Commanders must be able to deal with uncertainty. Through reflection, experience, and good professional judgment, they must be able to render decisions and move ahead without necessarily having all the facts. Indeed, to wait for all the facts may well be to wait in vain.
Uncertainty is an inevitable characteristic of warfare.
One task of the commander, then, is to ascertain what is knowable while recognizing what will remain uncertain. To bound that uncertainty, the commander must carefully examine what is known, evaluate the reliability of that intelligence, then plan to the best of his ability for what is unknown. For this study, the threat posed by conventionally armed theater ballistic missiles is known and has been demonstrated in combat against U.S. forces, coalition partners, and neutral third party states. The true threat of TBM s carrying weapons of mass destruction is unknown, as systems so configured have yet to be used in conflict. Nevertheless, a good deal of knowledge exists to reduce the realm of uncertainty even about the TBM-WMD threat.