BLOGROLL BURST
Many additions to the blogroll, a few of which I have been looking at for some time. Others caught my eye only this morning. Check them out!
Abu Muqawama
Cognitive Daily
Contentions
Cox and Forkum
Gyre.org
Haft of the Spear ( Tanji has set up a new site and url)
Mind Hacks
PrairiePundit
Project on Defense Alternatives
ShrinkWrapped
The SPOT Report
Westhawk
RECOMMENDED READING
A day late but it is here.
Lexington Green -“Article Roundup” An impressively robust reading list in the area of “small wars” and COIN ( some pieces I have already linked to here, others not) as well as a variety of other interesting topics, along with Lex’s commentary.
Steve DeAngelis – “Fostering Innovation” Steve continues the conversation on organizational creativity and productivity that he began and I responded to last week (more on this post later).
Dan of tdaxp – “Corporate Bloggers” Dan joined the creativity-innovation conversation too.
The Jamestown Foundation – “The Role of Foreign Trainers in Southern Thailand’s Insurgency” Generally, a sleeper issue in the Western media but an important test case on the ability of international Salafist terror networks to subvert states that are overwhelmingly non-Muslim and the willingness of these states to resist.
The NYT -“How Great Leaders Juggle Ideas” Interesting. Indicates a mental “zen” point regarding synthesis of contradictory concepts (hat tip KurweilAI).
That’s it!
RICHARDS ON STRATEGIC TRANSFORMATION
Dr. Chet Richards of DNI has posted the introduction to his forthcoming book, If We Can Keep It. From what I have gathered, this book will be an extension of the radical military analysis Richards began with his previous work, Neither Shall the Sword: Conflict in the Years Ahead . An excerpt:
“Three national myths
The first is that “terrorism” poses the most serious threat to our survival and our way of life. In fact, the physical damage that terrorism does is small in comparison to other threats to our national well-being, and there are means available to reduce it even further. The greatest threat of “terrorism” is the damage we do to ourselves in sincere but misguided attempts to deal with it.
The second national misperception is that we still require a military establishment whose cost exceeds not just that of the next most powerful nation or even the next three, but of all the rest of the world, combined. Most of this expense goes into conventional (non-nuclear) forces that are no longer needed or even useful. The reason for this is not that world brotherhood has broken out, as earlier generations of pacifists mistakenly assumed, but that nuclear weapons have made wars between major powers impossible. States that are not nuclear powers, on the other hand, are either U.S. allies or are far too weak to pose any kind of military threat, and our attempts to use military force against non-state opponents, such as the “terrorists” mentioned in the previous paragraph, have not proven particularly successful.
The third, and perhaps the most dangerous because it seduces us into thinking that we can make military force into a normal tool of policy, is the notion of counterinsurgency theory. The problem is not that insurgencies cannot be defeated, but that proponents of this theory sometimes fail to distinguish between different meanings of the term “insurgency.” Several observers, recognizing this limitation, have proposed classifications. Biddle (2006) distinguishes between “people’s wars,” in which groups try to overthrow the government, and “communal civil wars,” where groups are fighting to avoid genocide. Metz (2007) classifies insurgencies based upon whether a legitimate government exists or can be created. These are both valuable and help explain why some insurgencies succeed where others do not.
….In the specific area of national defense policy, I recommend that the Department of Defense be gradually downsized to roughly the current U.S. Marine Corps plus special operations forces and supporting tactical air. This is more than adequate to deal with any future military threat. Concerning strategic – nuclear – forces, 10,000 weapons are more than we need to preserve the proven doctrine of mutually assured destruction (Blair, 2007a). Some reduction in this arsenal is clearly feasible.
Such a reordering of priorities towards our real problems implies a restructuring of the federal government. We should immediately disband the terrorism bureaucracy, particularly the Transportation Security Administration and its parent, the Department of Homeland Security and should review the roles and functions of the other agencies and departments.
Over time, as the Defense Department assumes its natural size, as has already happened with most of our European allies (Bacevich, 2006), intelligence will assume a more important function. Although military operations in the future will be rare, it becomes more important than ever that they be perceived by our friends and allies as justified, and when they do occur, they must be rapid, daring, and successful. Achieving this standard requires a step-function improvement in the integration of intelligence, diplomacy, and operations, so it will make sense to consolidate these functions in a single body where the controlling function is intelligence.”
Read the entire introduction here.
It would appear that Richards, whose analytical framework is deeply rooted in the ideas of John Boyd, is throwing the 4GW hat into the ring of grand strategy, remediating a frequent criticism that 4GW thinkers are focused primarily upon tactical conflict and the destructive rather than constructive levels of strategic thinking. It will no doubt be an interesting and thought-provoking book that will stampede an entire herd of sacred cows beloved by defense intellectuals off of a cliff. That alone will make it a useful read.
My questions ( and Richards may very well answer them in his forthcoming book) raised by If We Can Keep It, would hinge on several variables:
* The utility of nuclear deterrence, upon which Richards’ strategic transformation seems to depend, in an era when significant power (WMD capacity) appears to be devolving to progressively smaller ( and potentially less accountable, predictable and deterrable) substate and non-state networks. The history of nuclear deterrence and accompanying theory represents a large and complex literature with such thinkers as Brodie, Wohlstetter, Kahn, Kissinger and others who never satisfactorily arrived at answers to the conundrum presented by nuclear weapons.
Eisenhower-Dulles ” massive retaliation” and “brinksmanship” put a brake on defense spending ( as Ike intended) but it was a very risky and blunt instrument. The idea that Washington would “trade New York for Paris” with the Soviets was never entirely a credible one. Nor did America’s massive nuclear arsenal prevent Nasser from closing the Suez or Ho Chi Minh from subverting Saigon or even deter Khrushchev from his nuclear gamble in Cuba (in fact, our lopsided nuclear advantage probably was an incentive in Khrushchev’s eyes to gain parity on the cheap).
* Steady-state assumptions about nation-state behavior in the international arena if conventional American power projection capacity was drastically reduced to levels proportionate to Western Europe. This is a major point to consider when offering a non-interventionist alternative to current strategy – American military power is the focal point of most regional security systems ( or opposition to them). To my mind, statesmen calculate their actions and plan their military expenditures based upon assumptions of American hegemony, welcome or not. The inability to even get to the starting block for military competition with the U.S. – we must think not just in terms of annual military budgets but in the colossal sunk costs of establishing a military-industrial base – is inhibiting regional arms races to a degree. Remove American preeminence from the equation and foreign statesmen are going to arrive at different calculations regarding their interests and security.
I look forward to reading it and entertaining Dr. Richards’ argument in full.
ART SYMMETRY
Something completely different. The youtube clip below (hat tip to Dave Davison)is a stunning visual mash-up of famous female faces throughout the history of Western Art.
What struck me was the consistency with which symmetry was a critical element in the conception of female beauty. This affinity for an even facial structure and large eyes in fellow humans may be more of a “hard-wired” brain preference than a simple cultural affectation of Westerners.
Who should your spokesperson be ? If they are going to be presenting in visual mediums, then it would help your message if they have a symmetrical face. Your vision is framed more powerfully than any words you may hear.
ON CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS
Steve DeAngelis at ERMB recently had an important and thought provoking post that should resonate with anyone who has experienced the imposing conformity of a corporate cubicle. In ” The Tension Between Creativity and Efficiency“, DeAngelis spotlighted an important area of friction as organizations struggle to adapt to macroeconomic shifts created by globalization and the information revolution. While the focus in Steve’s post happened to be corporations, it is a paradigm that applies equally well to public education, the military, intelligence agencies, universities – basically any entity that has a legacy organizational structure from the “mass-man“, ” second wave” era of industrial mass production and Cold War that was so deeply influenced by Taylorist “scientific management“.
Specifically, Steve was looking at an article that detailed the implications for the rate of innovation of Six Sigma type programs. Some excerpts:
“The problem, according to the article, is that the culture created by Six Sigma clashes directly with the culture required for innovation.
“Now his successors face a challenging question: whether the relentless emphasis on efficiency had made 3M a less creative company. That’s a vitally important issue for a company whose very identity is built on innovation. After all, 3M is the birthplace of masking tape, Thinsulate, and the Post-it note. It is the invention machine whose methods were consecrated in the influential 1994 best-seller Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras. But those old hits have become distant memories. It has been a long time since the debut of 3M’s last game-changing technology: the multilayered optical films that coat liquid-crystal display screens. At the company that has always prided itself on drawing at least one-third of sales from products released in the past five years, today that fraction has slipped to only one-quarter. Those results are not coincidental. Efficiency programs such as Six Sigma are designed to identify problems in work processes—and then use rigorous measurement to reduce variation and eliminate defects. When these types of initiatives become ingrained in a company’s culture, as they did at 3M, creativity can easily get squelched. After all, a breakthrough innovation is something that challenges existing procedures and norms. ‘Invention is by its very nature a disorderly process,’ says current CEO George Buckley, who has dialed back many of McNerney’s initiatives. ‘You can’t put a Six Sigma process into that area and say, well, I’m getting behind on invention, so I’m going to schedule myself for three good ideas on Wednesday and two on Friday. That’s not how creativity works.'”
Does that mean that efficiency and creativity must always be at odds? Can the same company establish efficient processes and foster creativity? The article implies that it may be impossible.
….There are a couple of ways that companies can deal with this conundrum. The first is to separate creative portions of a company from process-oriented portions and apply different rules to the different parts. The second way to deal with the dilemma is to automate processes while leaving the people free to be creative. One of the reasons Enterra Solutions has attracted the interest of big companies is that they see the benefits of relieving people from the drudgeries of routine processes. Not only is process automation efficient and effective, even those who must deal with the rule automation process can be creative in how they approach their job. Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma approaches can be used to drive automated processes without having to change an entire company’s creative culture.”
Read Steve’s post in full here.
I agree with Steve that Six Sigma philosophy has it’s place, particularly in terms of final delivery of a service or good but it is ill-suited for maximizing potential productivity in the sense of generating that which is new. Six Sigma, TQM, ISO 900 and related “zero defects” mentality programs, applied unreasonably and unthinkingly across the board by Jack Welch wannabes, have significant costs. For example:
* The emphasis shifts from finding new opportunities to not making mistakes:
This inculcates a “gotcha” attitude in middle-management and makes employees exceedingly risk-averse, conservative and uncommunicative ( when management is hunting for mistakes that will hurt your career, do you run to the boss with bad news. Or do you keep your head down ?). Moreover, employees don’t actually have to “be” productive so much as they need to “appear” productive, relative to the instruments by which their performance will be measured. This analytically reductionist perspective discourages a systemic approach.
* It creates a focus on the present process, not alternative pathways:
Maximizing the present and applying multiple measurement tools for individual performance leaves little time or resources for ” unproductive” time for speculation, experimentation or planning. People tack to where their incentives are. Moreover, in the hands of middle-management the measurement tools begin to replace common sense in terms of driving the setting of daily objectives and prioritizing the use of time. Independent thought is strongly discouraged.
Creativity required for innovation requires behavior that is inherently “unproductive”. There is an apocryphal story of a woman being led on a tour of the Institute for Advanced Study, who was taken by an office where some old loafer had his feet up on a desk and his eyes were closed, hands serenely behind his head. The woman was indignant until her guide solemnly explained that she ” had been privileged to see the great Albert Einstein at work”. Creativity requires time to explore new things, time to engage in “free play” with co-workers, unstructured time, in other words. In my experience, allowing this to happen is something that appears to cause members of middle-management a significant degree of intense physical pain.
Organizational creativity requires employees who are both autonomous as well as autotelic, which means that their supervisors must be less “managers” and more ” leaders” with a style that emphasizes facilitation, connection, strategic thinking and motivation. A model suitable for flatter, flexible, networked-modular organizations rather than authoritarian hierarchies that implicitly encourages intrinsic motivation to create:
Zenpundit is a blog dedicated to exploring the intersections of foreign policy, history, military theory, national security,strategic thinking, futurism, cognition and a number of other esoteric pursuits.
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