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FOLLOW-UP TO RECOMMENDED READING

Sonny at FX-Based has published “In Defense of EBO – Part 2“.

Given the drubbing Sonny gives Peters on the details of EBO, I’m even more inclined to believe John’s interpretation that Peters was posting up to try and slow the momentum for war against Iran. When a great writer and thinker like Peters is sloppy, sometimes there are reasons.

GAMING GLOBAL RESILIENCE

I had the pleasure of exchanging ideas this weekend with Critt Jarvis, formerly of Enterra Solutions and Dr. Barnett’s original webmaster (duties now ably carried out by Sean Meade). Critt is embarked on an exciting developmental project with Dave Davison, to create an international relations game that reflects critical concepts from The Pentagon’s New Map along with Development in a Box and emergent principles like resilience.

Is this game Risk for futurist wonks ? Critt’s vision:

“For me, I see a MMPORG designed to allow participatory experience in learning to make global connections. The goal? Experiment in a virtual world, influenced by current events in-game and then be inspired to try it in real life. Educational, inspirational. Now that would be a conversation worth creating”

Critt emailed me a copy of the conceptual core of the game ” The Basic Cultural Unit ” for commentary which I gave, plus the feedback of a select group of my students. As soon as I can figure out how to repost the image here from a PDF file into blogger, I’ll solicit the input of Zenpundit readers.

Ah, my kingdom for a webmaster….

RECOMMENDED READING EL GRANDE

Had to take a couple of days off from blogging and in the interim there were some excellent, stimulating and important posts out there. This is one of those times that I wish there were four of me so I could have thrown my two cents into these discussions. I still may, but in the meantime:

Bush GOP loyalism vs. Movement Conservatism? :

Bruce Kesler, always lucid and hard-hitting, initiated a major debate in the Right Blogosphere over “Conservative Battle Fatigue” which he followed up with “Selling-out our principles: Reason to break with the administration?” and “Tapscott’s New Contract With America“. Conservative bloggers who joined Bruce include Mark Tapscott, Captain’s Quarters ( also here and here), Professor Bainbridge (and here and here), The Anchoress, Instapundit,
and Adam Graham. The debate is also being noticed elsewhere.

On Liberal Education:

Federalist X at Amendment Nine has the second part of his series on liberal education, “(ii) Liberal Education in a Nutshell ” ( Part I is here ) looking specifically at the ideas of Jacob Klein and the “New Program” of St. John’s College. Hint – clicking the wiki entry is worth it if you want to measure your own progress in reading great books. My reads were scattered throughout the list.

War and Strategy:

Wiggins at Opposed Systems Design has two excellent posts “Yarger’s Little Book” and “DoD 3000 follow-up: Momentum and SOAs” while Sonny at FX -Based defends EBO from a slashing attack by Ralph Peters ( see also John Robb on Peters/EBO).

On Iran:

Matthew Hogan of Aqoul has two posts worth reading – ” First As Tragedy, Then As Farsi: Ahmadinejad’s Letter” and one which will interest Dave and Marc, “Ahmadinejad’s 1953 Reference: The Skeleton in the Regime’s Closet Reaching Out?“.

On Networks (and resiliency):

Dr. Von has two posts here “Some Quick Thoughts on Resiliency in (Social) Networks ” and
“Analyzing the War on Terror in the Context of Network Theory” . Noah of DefenseTech
enlists Valdis Krebs to analyze the NSA story ( hat tip John Robb) .

That’s it.

A RESILIENT DIALOGUE: PREFACE

Steve DeAngelis of ERMB continued our discussion of resilience with a new post on the interface of technology, organizational culture and individual action. A critical excerpt:

“ But the organization becomes truly resilient when its leaders, managers and staff are willing to reach across those departmental lines themselves — when they collaborate to bring all of the organization’s resources to bear on the threat or the opportunity. Technology supports resilience — but true resilience also requires cultural and psychological comfort, as well as intensive training in the operation of resilient systems. Resilience requires a constant interplay between technological and human factors, with each reinforcing the other.

In the past, we’ve described resilience as the ability — of an individual, or an organization, or a nation state, or a trans-national system — to draw on all available resources in the face of a challenge. There is clearly a cultural component to this. Londoners were resilient in the face of the Underground bombings — and New Yorkers were resilient in the face of the September 11 attacks — in some measure because of a shared culture and heritage that they could draw on. They knew how to think about the challenge and how to rise to meet it. The same can hold true in an organizational setting — the people in a resilient organization know how to respond, have access to systems that support resilience, and know how to use them.”

This is a very apt description of the resiliency dynamic ( the cool part of interacting with sharp thinkers like Mr. DeAngelis is the speed with which they can extend or deepen any point of discussion) and here’s why:

Most of us have been educated to think in terms of compartmentalization, isolation, sequence and hierarchy which would be the entirely wrong paradigm for considering the effects of phenomena like resilience. Instead, we should reorient our cognitive perspective toward integration, synergy, interdependence, feedback and simultaneity – a more useful framework for understanding networked behavior. Resiliency has its greatest effects as a systemic characteristic and as such, it is a conceptual tool for systems analysis or engineering.

What therefore do we need to ask ourselves to pursue resiliency on a practical, useful level ? Here are some of the concepts and questions I would like to consider in future exchanges with Steve ( since the tech “platforms” aspect currently being discussed by Tom Barnett and John Robb are far, far, far outside my area of expertise, I’ll leave that subject to them and for Steve):

The strategic edge provided by resilient cultures.

Engineering resiliency and cultural evolution

Can resiliency be a two-edged sword?

The psychology of resiliency

Educating for resiliency

The ” flow” of the resilient moment.

Comments, criticism, suggestions from readers are solicited.

BUILDING INSTITUTIONS VS. NATIONS OR STATES [ UPDATED ]

Very interesting discussion going on over at Dr. Barnett’s over a TCS Daily review of Blueprint For Action by Max Borders, the TCS managing editor and think tank scholar. In his review of BFA, Max wrote:

“And it is in Barnett’s recommended process of transforming Gap states into Core states that we see the age-old tension between theory and practice start to emerge. Before attempting to expose this tension, we should note that Barnett’s Blueprint for Action is a worthwhile effort. Still, it falls short — not due to the Wherefores carefully elaborated the first book, but due to some of the Hows elaborated in the sequel. The shortcomings of the second stage of Barnett’s grand strategy — implementation — are, in some respects, due to what Friedrich Hayek called “the fatal conceit.” In other words, Barnett focuses too much on nation-building and not enough on institution-building

…The most important aspect of any SysAdmin effort should be institution-building, not just nation-building. This is where the UN and the quasi-governmental behemoths have failed so utterly in just about everything they’ve done. To build a nation without transfusing vital institutions is to build a house of cards ready to collapse. To wit: India and China are in no position to contribute to institution-building, as they’re still grappling with the internal transformation of their own institutions. The most successful Core states are the states that look the most like the US in their institutions. So while you might want Britain or Australia to contribute to institution-building, you’re not likely to want Russia or Brazil to do so.”

( Hat tip to Bruce Kesler )

Borders review deserves to be read in its entirety, but the point about institutions has become a focal point of discussion. Tom responded in his own post:

“His larger critique that I focus too much on nation-building vice institution-building is at worst a misrepresentation of my ideas (BFA is full of discussion on the latter, which, quite frankly, is logically indistinguishable from the former–to wit, what is a nation but a collection of institutions?) and at best an argumentative ploy (reminding me of the criticism that “Barnett should think less about shrinkíng the Gap and more about growing the Core,” to which I reply “Fine, call it whatever you want.”).

Borders’ points about the complexity of the challenge are all good and his emphasis on, and articulation of, the goals of institution-building are most welcome. But he needs to put his considerable brainpower to the “how’ answers, not just the “how not” summaries of past experience. “

As I commented at Tom’s, the issue here is primarily one of scale ( a point on which Max strenuously dissents) though nations and states are separate questions. I’m pretty sure we can build states which are nothing more than a large network enjoying the function of sovereignty and a monopoly over the legal use of force. Inevitably, any Sys Admin force will have to build both institutions and the state simultaneously to some degree in order to create a zone of security and order in which civil society and the market can evolve and thrive. I don’t see this issue as an either-or proposition but “both”.

Nations are another question. A functional, competent, state can certainly help the nation-formation process ( Prussia 17-19th century) and a dysfunctional, corrupt or illegitimate state can impede it ( Mobuto’s Congo, today’s Nigeria) but the sense of nationhood comes from the heritage of a shared experience that bridges tribal, sectarian or other associational primary loyalties. We can encourage that or discourage it but I’m not sure that such a thing as a ” nation” in the organic sense can be built.

UPDATE:

I wanted to call your attention to a recent post by Eddie at Live From the FDNF who has given a lot of thought this past year to humanitarian intervention problems. In “Sys-Admin Academy & Exchange“, Eddie throws out a number of intriguing yet pragmatic ideas regarding Sys Admin possibilities.