The 59 participants were invited on the basis of their expertise in national defense issues; their leadership, operational or analytical experience within the Department of Defense, Department of State or other agencies or academic institutions; and their community reputations as creative thinkers.
The workshop was intended as a functional “experiment” in a top-down approach to generating novel ideas that “break the mold of conventional thinking” concerning necessary changes in the national security plans, processes and organization of the United States.
This depiction of the concept of experiment reflects the fact that the workshop was not conceived as a stand-alone event, but was envisioned as part of an evolving process in generating “radical” ideas in which other participants and the Naval War College faculty would subsequently participate.
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