Editing There are unknown unknowns (section)

{{Short description|Saying associated with the US invasion of Iraq}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2017}}
[[File:Defense.gov News Photo 020221-D-9880W-080.jpg|thumb|right|Rumsfeld during a [[The Pentagon|Pentagon]] [[News conference|news briefing]] in February 2002]]

"'''There are unknown unknowns'''" is a phrase from a response [[United States Secretary of Defense]] [[Donald Rumsfeld]] gave to a question at a [[U.S. Department of Defense]] (DoD) news briefing on February 12, 2002, about the lack of evidence linking the government of [[Ba'athist Iraq|Iraq]] with the supply of [[weapons of mass destruction]] to terrorist groups.<ref name="defense.gov-transcript">{{cite web |url=http://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=2636 |title=Defense.gov News Transcript: DoD News Briefing – Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers |work=United States Department of Defense |date=2002-02-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160406235718/http://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=2636 |archive-date=2016-04-06 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Rumsfeld stated:
{{blockquote|Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.<ref name="defense.gov-transcript"/>}}

The statement became the subject of much commentary. In ''The Decision Book'' (2013), author {{interlanguage link|Mikael Krogerus|de}} refers to it as the "Rumsfeld matrix".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Krogerus |first=Mikael |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/738350045 |title=The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking |date=2012 |publisher=W.W. Norton & Co |others=Roman Tschäppeler, Jenny Piening |isbn=978-0-393-07961-6 |edition=1st American |location=New York |pages=86–87 |language=English |oclc=738350045}}</ref> The statement also features in a 2013 documentary film, ''[[The Unknown Known]]'', directed by [[Errol Morris]].<ref name="GirardGirard2009">{{cite book|last1=Girard|first1=John|last2=Girard|first2=JoAnn|title=A Leader's Guide to Knowledge Management: Drawing on the Past to Enhance Future Performance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vqnTceVAjsUC&pg=PA55|access-date=February 10, 2014|date=June 1, 2009 |publisher=Business Expert Press|isbn=9781606490198|pages=55–}}</ref>

Known unknowns refers to "risks you are aware of, such as canceled flights",<ref name=Biafore>{{Cite web|url = http://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-tutorials/Identifying-risks/80780/95069-4.html|title = Project Management Fundamentals|date = December 14, 2011|access-date = October 17, 2015|website = Lynda.com|publisher = Lynda.com/LinkedIN|last = Biafore|first = Bonnie}}</ref> whereas unknown unknowns are risks that come from situations that are so unexpected that they would not be considered.

With respect to awareness and understanding, unknown unknowns can be compared to other types of problems in the following matrix:

{| class="wikitable"
|+Awareness–understanding matrix<ref name="Saravanan2021">{{cite book |first=R. |last=Saravanan |chapter=Chapter 13: The Rumsfeld Matrix |title=The Climate Demon: Past, Present, and Future of Climate Prediction |pages=193–211 |date=2021 |publisher=Cambridge University Press  |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IGlHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA200 |isbn=9781009039604 |doi=10.1017/9781009039604}}</ref>
|-
|
!Aware
!Not aware
|-
!Understand
|Known knowns: <br />Things we are aware of and understand
|Unknown knowns: <br />Things we are not aware of but do understand or know implicitly
|-
!Don't understand
|Known unknowns: <br />Things we are aware of but don't understand
|Unknown unknowns: <br />Things we are neither aware of nor understand
|}