“So the medium through which the vertical shock is translated into horizontal scenarios is important, with the basic rule being the denser the medium, the more rapid and profound the transmission.So all the connectivity of the Information Age and globalization is crucial in defining the extent of the system that can be perturbed.”
“So the definition of System Perturbation is driven by by the Connectivity of globalization. Prior to globalization, there were earth shattering triggers as Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, the American Revolution and the invention of the steam engine that took years, decades, even centuries to play out”
[ The ” speeding up” of the movement of goods, people and information toward real time – and a direct reduction of distance/space as an obstacle- is a critical change wrought by globalization]
“We really do not see a System Perturbation in the way I like to define it- with all apologies to complexity theorists- until we see globalization. So for me, the first true System Perturbations were events like the Great depression or World War II”
[ I would have a few other examples that were forerunners to Systems Perturbation in a less globalized world. The discovery of the New World rates top billing. A close second would be the explosion of the Mongols under Ghengis Khan and his immediate successors out of nowhere to conquer and disrupt five major civilizations – Sung China, India, Orthodox Kievan Rus, Persia and the Arab-Islamic world. Another would be the Black Death that fatally disrupted feudalism. ]
” The vertical shock generates an outflow of horizontal waves while cascading effects can cross sectoral boundaries, actually growing with time”
[ The ” Butterfly Effect” coupled with the ” Law of Unintended Consequences” – much of pages 264-267 are examples to illustrate these effects of System Perturbation]
System Perturbations is a critical idea because globalization has made societies and economies vastly more interdependent than even a generation ago. While the formal and informal barriers of the past – tariff walls, police states, taxes, customs regulations, border controls, censorship – were mostly negative, slowing economic growth and technological progress, they also acted as a ” brake” on Systems Perturbations. The Soviet Union was mostly unaffected by the Great Depression and when Hitler ” disconnected” Germany, rearmament, barter and autarky paved the way to a swift economic boom. Today that “brake” is gone, creating worldwide economic growth for those countries that accept the connectivity rule sets of globalization’s Core states. That connected Core is also more vulnerable to the actions of terrorists determined to strike at the system’s choke points with apocalyptic force. Connectivity is both the Goose that laid the Golden Egg and the Achilles heel of globalization.
In Part II. Later this week we will look at what I think are the strategic rules of System Perturbation and how we can adapt to minimize our vulnerability during the War on Terror.
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