Thanks for the Clausewitz piece.
I'm not sure I agree with the author's conclusions however. Not least because . . . ¨ Clausewitz's strategic and tactical parameters are largely linear and hierarchical. (He wrote of and for 'the commander' and essentially parallels Sun Tzu's claim that 'Management of the many is the same as management of few.') ¨ His work occurred during and analyzes the era of '2nd generation' (massing) warfare, during which battles were often logistically complicated, but I would argue, not truly complex. (As Wellington said, 'God is always on the side of the big battalions.') ¨ His underlying assumption is of state actors and their monopoly on organized violence. For looking at complexity in warfighting theory, military types seem to prefer Galula (Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice), Hammes (The Sling and the Stone), Van Creveld (Transformation of War) or even Lawrence (Seven Pillars of Wisdom), all of whom anticipate or describe what is now increasingly called 'fourth generation warfare' (4GW). (Rather than the more traditional 'counterinsurgency'.) In 4GW, the battle is for the hearts, minds and acquiescence of the population and public opinion, which Clausewitz did acknowledge, but did not explore. The modern necessity of 'armed social work' or 'armed propaganda' was unimaginable during Clausewitz's time. John Robb (Brave New War - coming April 27) pushes the envelope with the concept of 'open source warfare' in which he suggests there will be as many armies as there are causes to fight for. (Which will include high value extortion and simple criminality - something we're already seeing with burglary 'crews' around the country.) More important, he argues that extremely small groups will fight states - using swarming tactics, sometimes in temporary alliance with gangs, mercenaries, religionists, rogue states or mafias - and frequently win. He advocates that states decentralize and distribute vulnerable systems, as well as make all citizens responsible for some part of security. (A whole new application of distributed leadership.) Check his blog at http://www.globalguerrillas.typepad.com/ You might also like RAND's work on Swarming and the Future of Conflict (http://www.rand.org/pubs/documented_briefings/2005/RAND_DB311.pdf) or Kilcullen's new (and currently being field tested in Iraq!) 'Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency' (http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/pdf/kilcullen_28_articles.pdf) which is quite a good complexity manual. So . . . as you might guess, I think one of the best entry points for exploring complexity is 4GW / NetWar. Anyone else interested in this discussion? jdg The future has already arrived; it's just not evenly distributed yet. William Gibson
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