Capital Shield: Redefining Crisis Management for the Age of Chaos
Earlier this year, I published an article entitled: The Anarchy of the Moment.
In it I argued: “What makes this anarchy particularly disorienting is its ubiquitous character. In previous eras, global disorder often emanated from great powers or major institutions. Today’s chaos emerges from everywhere and anywhere, a single individual with a smartphone can trigger international incidents, small-scale cyber attacks can cascade into major disruptions, and local environmental disasters quickly become global concerns.
“This ubiquitous of crisis means that traditional hierarchies and channels of influence are constantly being bypassed. A teenager’s climate activism can reshape international negotiations. A regional bank’s collapse can threaten global financial stability. A local conflict can draw in major powers through the magnetic pull of social media attention and public pressure.
“The result is a world where the next major disruption is as likely to come from an unexpected corner as from the usual suspects, making prediction and preparation extraordinarily difficult.”
This results in a key challenge for institutions having to master what I have called “chaos management.” This is a phenomenon I have been interested in all of my professional life indicated by the fact that my PhD thesis was entitled: “Order Within Chaos: On Historical Change.”
This is a concept which I highlight in a book I am publishing next year whose main title is: “From Crisis Response to Chaos Management”
This particular book is focused on the dynamics of change affecting the USMC and a sense of the analytical focus can be seen from one comment in the book: “The concept of chaos management represents a fundamental departure from traditional military approaches to uncertainty and complexity. Rather than trying to impose order on chaotic situations, chaos management seeks to develop the capability to operate effectively within complex, unpredictable environments.
“This approach recognizes that modern battlespaces are inherently chaotic systems characterized by nonlinear dynamics, emergent behaviors, and unpredictable interactions between multiple variables. Attempting to control these systems through traditional command and control methods is often counterproductive because it creates rigidity that prevents adaptation to changing conditions.
“Chaos management instead focuses on building adaptive capacity that can respond to whatever conditions actually emerge. This requires developing organizational cultures and operational procedures that embrace uncertainty rather than trying to eliminate it. It means creating systems that can learn and evolve in real-time rather than following predetermined scripts.
“The key insight is that chaos can be a strategic advantage for forces that are better adapted to operate within it. While adversaries struggle to maintain coordination and effectiveness in complex, rapidly changing situations, forces trained in chaos management can maintain operational coherence and continue to execute effective responses.”
During my most recent visit to Australia, I met with an Australian start up that has grasped the core point of crisis management and have built their company around software simulation enabling teams within institutions to shape responses in crafting chaos management strategies.
In a world where crises cascade across domains, from cyber warfare to supply chain disruptions, from executive scandals to geopolitical shocks, traditional crisis management has become dangerously obsolete. Enter Capital Shield, a Canberra-based company that has emerged from academic excellence to challenge how organizations prepare for the unthinkable.
The company was born from the remarkable success of the Australian Crisis Simulation Summit (ACSS), a groundbreaking initiative that began with 30 students at Australian National University and has since earned praise from figures like Admiral Chris Barrie and former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
The problem isn’t just about having better plans; it’s about fundamentally different ways of thinking. In an AI-driven age where information moves at light speed and stakeholders multiply exponentially, the old model of sitting around conference tables with PowerPoint presentations has become not just ineffective but actively harmful. When decision-makers default to hierarchical thinking and familiar frameworks, they miss the dynamic, interconnected nature of modern crises.
I talked with Connor Kneebone, the Chief Technology Officer of Capital Shield, about the company’s approach to enabling forward leaning thinking. He told me that Capital Shield’s answer to this challenge is Foresight, their proprietary crisis simulation platform that serves as what they call “the flight simulator for crisis leadership.” Just as pilots don’t learn by reading manuals but by experiencing realistic conditions in simulators, leaders need to face the chaos of real decision-making environments before crises hit.
Foresight represents a quantum leap beyond traditional tabletop exercises. The platform creates “ultrarealistic, high-intensity crisis exercises, navigating the complexities of decision-making in the information age” using military-grade software, sophisticated data analytics, and real-time communication technologies.
What sets Foresight apart is its embrace of artificial intelligence at its core. Unlike static scenarios that play out predictably, Foresight dynamically responds to participant decisions, creating the sort of immersion and realism needed to accurately prepare for modern crises. As Connor Kneebone explains, “participants, field calls, analyze intelligence, combat misinformation, negotiate with stakeholders and tackle live media interviews all within a controlled environment that reveals how teams actually function under pressure.”
The deeper insight driving Capital Shield’s approach is that they’re not really in the simulation business — they’re in the thinking business. Their platform serves as what one might call a “tailorable tool that doesn’t take too much time that people understand” and that gets people genuinely engaged rather than looking at their phones during yet another meaningless meeting.
This represents a crucial distinction. Traditional war gaming builds scenarios and examines reactions. Foresight builds dynamic environments that force participants to think differently about problems in real-time. The platform doesn’t provide answers; instead, it stimulates personnel to become uncomfortable with easy answers and default assumptions.
Capital Shield’s timing couldn’t be more critical. Organizations today face what Kneebone describes as a world where “crises are coming thick and fast for organizations, for the second and third order effects cascade. They compound. They escalate.” Whether it’s a Fortune 500 company dealing with everything from executive scandals to natural disasters that shut down sites to wars that shift supply chains, or government departments managing maritime border security in an era of hybrid threats, the complexity demands new approaches.
As their website emphasizes, “Exercises allow you to examine your organisation’s ability to prepare for, and respond to, pervasive, malignant threats, without compromising proprietary or national security interests.”
For corporate clients, Capital Shield addresses scenarios that traditional risk management often misses. Consider the recent high-profile public relations disasters that caught companies unprepared, scenarios where static “if X then Y” planning proved inadequate for 21st-century complexity.
When a corporation expands into new markets or faces media scrutiny, they must predict and prepare for responses from competitors, governments, media, and multiple stakeholder groups simultaneously. Foresight allows organizations to test different policy positions and see actual outcomes in compressed time, revealing what assumptions are driving decision-making and where gaps exist in organizational capabilities.
The platform’s AI-driven approach means scenarios can be generated quickly and customized extensively, dramatically reducing the front-end costs while increasing the sophistication of the exercise. Instead of spending weeks writing scenarios and creating supporting materials, organizations can brief artificial intelligence systems to generate realistic, dynamic environments tailored to their specific challenges.
For government clients, Capital Shield offers capabilities particularly relevant to Australia’s strategic environment. Whether it’s testing responses to cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure, managing complex diplomatic negotiations, or coordinating whole-of-government responses to natural disasters, Foresight provides a secure, sovereign platform built to the highest security standards.
Capital Shield positions itself as “Australia’s sovereign crisis simulation partner” serving not just Australian organizations but Australia’s partners as well. This sovereignty aspect is crucial in an era where crisis simulation necessarily involves sensitive information about capabilities, vulnerabilities, and decision-making processes.
Their origins in the Australian Crisis Simulation Summit give them unique credibility. The ACSS has been “described as ‘on par with’ or even surpassing those used in international government and private sector contexts” and has “set a new benchmark for crisis preparedness in Australia.” This isn’t just marketing. It’s recognition from Australia’s most senior national security professionals.
Capital Shield’s emergence represents more than a new company or even a new technology platform. It signals a recognition that we’ve moved from an era of crisis management, where discrete problems had discrete solutions, to an era of chaos management, where interconnected challenges require fundamentally different cognitive approaches.
Crisis management assumes you can identify, categorize, and respond to specific threats. Chaos management recognizes that threats are interconnected, unpredictable, and require organizations to build cognitive resilience rather than just operational plans.
Capital Shield represents a new generation of strategic thinking tools designed for leaders who recognize that the next crisis won’t look like the last one. Their Foresight platform doesn’t just simulate crises. It cultivates the cognitive capabilities needed to thrive in an era of permanent uncertainty.
For organizations serious about building genuine resilience rather than just checking compliance boxes, Capital Shield offers something unprecedented: the ability to experience failure safely, to test assumptions dynamically, and to build decision-making capabilities that scale with complexity rather than breaking under pressure.
In a world where the speed of change exceeds the speed of traditional planning processes, Capital Shield isn’t just offering better simulations. They’re offering better thinking. And in the age of chaos management, that may be the most valuable capability of all.
For their website, go here:
The featured image was created by an AI program.