Saturday, February 18, 2006
THE EMERGENCE OF EMERGENCE
A short but very intriguing paper by Dr. Tim Challans of was posted at The Small Wars Council that primarily criticizes Effects Based Approach/Effects Based Operations but raises the question of emergence in warfare.
Briefly, emergence is the phenomenon of a new, unanticipated, spontaneous behavior as a result of a system reaching a particular point of complexity. Usually the constituent components of the system lack the capacity for the emergent behavior until the collective has formed a pattern of interaction. If the emergent pattern- say for example the formation of a scale-free network - possesses the characteristics of resilience, it will stabilize as a recognizable and observable entity or phenomenon. The implications of emergence in systems are strongly Darwininan and quite naturally have immediate applications for such fields as physics and economics but would apply to virtually everything and as such, is a consilient concept.
One with revolutionary potential.
LINKS:
"Emergence" by Dr. Von
"Emergent Intelligence in Open Source Warfare" by John Robb at Global Guerillas ¶ 7:20 PM
A short but very intriguing paper by Dr. Tim Challans of was posted at The Small Wars Council that primarily criticizes Effects Based Approach/Effects Based Operations but raises the question of emergence in warfare.
Briefly, emergence is the phenomenon of a new, unanticipated, spontaneous behavior as a result of a system reaching a particular point of complexity. Usually the constituent components of the system lack the capacity for the emergent behavior until the collective has formed a pattern of interaction. If the emergent pattern- say for example the formation of a scale-free network - possesses the characteristics of resilience, it will stabilize as a recognizable and observable entity or phenomenon. The implications of emergence in systems are strongly Darwininan and quite naturally have immediate applications for such fields as physics and economics but would apply to virtually everything and as such, is a consilient concept.
One with revolutionary potential.
LINKS:
"Emergence" by Dr. Von
"Emergent Intelligence in Open Source Warfare" by John Robb at Global Guerillas ¶ 7:20 PM
Comments:
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Mark,
Good subject for further discussion and debate. Though the article is a critique of EBA / EBO you caught the greater "ramifications" of Challan's position. Certainly something that has (and will) gotten (get) within doctrine writer's OODA loop.
Dave
Good subject for further discussion and debate. Though the article is a critique of EBA / EBO you caught the greater "ramifications" of Challan's position. Certainly something that has (and will) gotten (get) within doctrine writer's OODA loop.
Dave
# posted by 
: Sunday, 19 February, 2006
: Sunday, 19 February, 2006
Hi Dave,
I was impressed with Challans - a lot of intellectual punch in so short a paper. This is one example of "out of the box thinking" I hope gains wider circulation in the defense -national security community.
They - "they" meaning the Pentagon's various universities and semi-official think tanks - need to start inviting complexity, chaos and network theorists in for some brainstorming sessions with the defense community's up and coming strategists and operational planners.
I was impressed with Challans - a lot of intellectual punch in so short a paper. This is one example of "out of the box thinking" I hope gains wider circulation in the defense -national security community.
They - "they" meaning the Pentagon's various universities and semi-official think tanks - need to start inviting complexity, chaos and network theorists in for some brainstorming sessions with the defense community's up and coming strategists and operational planners.
hi Sonny,
"I guess next time, we are going to ask the Russians for their theories. Sorry I took so much space"
No, feel free to comment what you wish. That's why I post these things, to solicit informed opinions like yours.
I agree that this paper takes an extreme position on EBO ( making it good for sparking discussion)in favor of moral and political warfare but that too has its limits. There are scenarios where only meting out swift and sure destruction will do. I think the author's point was that EBO fits less well with the limited political objectives that we are often pursuing.
And we actually DID pull a major idea from the Russians, the " Revolution in Military affairs" which was propagated by Marshal Ogarkov when he became a senior figure but preceded him as an idea inside the Red Army by ( I think) something like 10 years
"I guess next time, we are going to ask the Russians for their theories. Sorry I took so much space"
No, feel free to comment what you wish. That's why I post these things, to solicit informed opinions like yours.
I agree that this paper takes an extreme position on EBO ( making it good for sparking discussion)in favor of moral and political warfare but that too has its limits. There are scenarios where only meting out swift and sure destruction will do. I think the author's point was that EBO fits less well with the limited political objectives that we are often pursuing.
And we actually DID pull a major idea from the Russians, the " Revolution in Military affairs" which was propagated by Marshal Ogarkov when he became a senior figure but preceded him as an idea inside the Red Army by ( I think) something like 10 years
After reading Sonny’s comments, I have to believe that even with the strategic mess that I believe our civilian leadership have dealt our military, there is still hope for a positive outcome in Iraq, because of people like Sonny.
Tim Challans wrote, “One simply cannot cause another person to act a certain way, people act for reasons, not causes”
A few months back, when I first started blogging, I may have agreed with Tim. In fact it was just this idea of changing implicit controls that got me to comment. I told Mark that you can’t change implicit ideas because of the fact they are simply a person’s own thoughts. However, now, after just scratching the surface of understand about an OODA loop, I believe a person can cause another person to act a certain way. In fact, I believe we cause people to react in a certain way all the time. Maybe Mark is making me say this, I don’t know. Maybe he has even entered my OODA loop! The little PISRR!
All OODA does is give us a way of understanding how we can cause another person to act. In short, we send a person’s decision making back to orientation, and then change the person’s orientation to match the outcome of what we want to happen. To do this takes information to start the process and trust to maintain it. To fail at either brakes, what I call, the flux, of the OODA loop.
I believe we presently have an old coot in charge of the DOD (he is braking our OODA loop) and Arab sympathizers (selling our strategic interests to Arabs) in the White House. However, one advantage of this is that the military leaders, who now have to work in this kind of a situation, and who will ultimately need to win the war we are fighting, are learning what it will take to win. There will always be old coots and enemy sympathizers. What there will never be enough of are thinkers who can see past these people and know how to win. In some ways, I believe our military was attacked before it penetrated Iraq. The enemy entered into our destructive cycle (OODA) before we entered our constructive cycle (PISRR). I don’t believe this attack was necessary fatal.
What would be fatal is the possibility of getting too hung up on terms. We are really only talking about the flow of energy, after all. Non-kinetic (ideas) and kinetic (sword) energy have been with us for a long time. Which is greater, the pen or the sword?
"If there's one word I can use to describe my various experiences in Southwest Asia, that word would be "chaos", followed by "friction"", Sonny.
Friction is an electrical force. An electrical force carries both non-kinetic energy (voltage) and kinetic energy (currant). Neither can be destroy but both can be influenced. Over time both Chaos and friction should be influenced by our actions, with the help of trust and information.
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Tim Challans wrote, “One simply cannot cause another person to act a certain way, people act for reasons, not causes”
A few months back, when I first started blogging, I may have agreed with Tim. In fact it was just this idea of changing implicit controls that got me to comment. I told Mark that you can’t change implicit ideas because of the fact they are simply a person’s own thoughts. However, now, after just scratching the surface of understand about an OODA loop, I believe a person can cause another person to act a certain way. In fact, I believe we cause people to react in a certain way all the time. Maybe Mark is making me say this, I don’t know. Maybe he has even entered my OODA loop! The little PISRR!
All OODA does is give us a way of understanding how we can cause another person to act. In short, we send a person’s decision making back to orientation, and then change the person’s orientation to match the outcome of what we want to happen. To do this takes information to start the process and trust to maintain it. To fail at either brakes, what I call, the flux, of the OODA loop.
I believe we presently have an old coot in charge of the DOD (he is braking our OODA loop) and Arab sympathizers (selling our strategic interests to Arabs) in the White House. However, one advantage of this is that the military leaders, who now have to work in this kind of a situation, and who will ultimately need to win the war we are fighting, are learning what it will take to win. There will always be old coots and enemy sympathizers. What there will never be enough of are thinkers who can see past these people and know how to win. In some ways, I believe our military was attacked before it penetrated Iraq. The enemy entered into our destructive cycle (OODA) before we entered our constructive cycle (PISRR). I don’t believe this attack was necessary fatal.
What would be fatal is the possibility of getting too hung up on terms. We are really only talking about the flow of energy, after all. Non-kinetic (ideas) and kinetic (sword) energy have been with us for a long time. Which is greater, the pen or the sword?
"If there's one word I can use to describe my various experiences in Southwest Asia, that word would be "chaos", followed by "friction"", Sonny.
Friction is an electrical force. An electrical force carries both non-kinetic energy (voltage) and kinetic energy (currant). Neither can be destroy but both can be influenced. Over time both Chaos and friction should be influenced by our actions, with the help of trust and information.
# posted by : Tuesday, 21 February, 2006
: Tuesday, 21 February, 2006<< Home
