The Utility of History

Avril Lavigne said it well, "Its all been done before." Technology does change, presenting the appearance of change, but the basic vices of man have been with us as long as man has walked the earth. The goodness as well as the baseness of men has been with us all along. Man's innovations, meanness, sources of joy, and good acts vary little over time.

The more one reads the less surprise there is in the world around, it is inhabited by men. It is the sameness of behaviors, thoughts, actions, motives over time.

That very sameness is sustained through the fabric of culture. It influences our every waking moment, though invisible. We don't often think why we do what we do, but our cultural learning, indeed our language guides our behaviors. The very notion that we have the capacity to change another culture is sheer fantasy. You might just as well try to lever the world off its orbit.

Citations Made Easy

Documenting the research process, taking notes, making page notations, establishing tags for focused information filtering, all made easy with Zotero (zotero.org). I was introduced to this Firefox Add-on application several years ago while a student at George Mason University. I learned the fundamentals in concert with my Education Research class, meshing the automated tools with the analog explanations of the research method. It is cost free and is well worth the time and effort to learn.

Making a Positive Difference

When in an academic environment it is often the case that we take pause and enter a luxurious environment where we can slow down and reflect. Bridging the gap between that reflective state and the pressure packed work environment later on gets to be a significant challenge. While we can’t always control the environment created by our senior leaders, we can in fact control the environment for those we lead. It is choice. Developing our subordinates tends to be challenging. It takes time, often time we think we don’t have. It requires that we take the time to speak to others. How we engage matters, and it matters a great deal. It doesn’t cost us anything to be civil to others. A smile or a laugh costs little but tends to produce an improved environment. We get to decide how we engage with and how much we shield our folks from external influences. We also decide if we will take the time to develop our team members. That’s what we get paid to do. It is more important than personal recognition. It is much more important to the future of our great Army!

How I Learn

I don't know about you, but I learn on a very individual basis. In receipt of new information I must turn it over in my mind, wonder about it, evaluate it, consider the future applications of it. This is a lengthy and laborious process. In receipt of new related information I'll refresh the process. Never in a hurry to go from receipt of information to task execution.
How about you? How do you learn?

Teaching Systems Theory at ILE

The ILE course instruction describing a combat system (systems theory) is critically flawed for teaching COIN +stability operations. The improper application of systems theory will lead to operational design flaws which will prevent achieving strategic victory.

There is a stark difference between a closed system (the one taught at ILE class 411) and an open system. Closed systems are isolated from their environment, while open systems rely on infusion of resources and people from the environment for its survival. The slides and instruction depicted a closed system, which gives the impression that defeating one of the four named subsystems (combat, reconnaissance, support, and command) would defeat the terrorist/insurgent combat system. In contrast, terrorist and insurgent groups accept inputs from societies, cultures, identity groups and the surrounding environment, making them open systems.

Open systems include the four subsystems of closed systems but expands upon the simplistic closed system model. Open systems’ six most important characteristics are: (1) Importation of energy from the environment (resources, people, etc.); (2) Throughput (transform resources available to them); (3) Output (export some resources to the environment for example a terrorist); (4) Negative entropy (the ability to reproduce which prevents destruction); (5) dynamic homeostasis (a tendency toward growth to ensure survival); and (6) Equifinality (many paths to same end). These six traits allow terrorists and insurgents to adapt and overcome the temporary defeat of one of the four subsystems. Defeating an open system requires destroying the four subsystem components (the current fight) and disrupting its ability to replenish its losses creating entropy (future operations).

Efforts 2003-2007 against Al-Qaeda Iraq (AQI) demonstrate the flawed logic of closed system thinking. AQI continued to prosper despite combat operations that killed or captured thousands of fighters, suppliers, reconnaissance, and command elements. On the other hand, applying open system theory reveals AQI’s force provider (input) was the Sunni population. The tipping point in the COIN fight was the Sunni rejection of AQI which induced entropy into AQI system. This prevented replenishment of subsystem losses that eroded its combat capability leading to its defeat.

The closed system model taught at ILE fails to identify the inputs into the system creating a Groundhog Day attritional warfare effect in which subsystems are attacked daily instead of the terrorist/insurgent group’s center of gravity. Application of open systems theory into COIN and stability operations enables the critical thinking necessary to achieve strategic victory.

If interested, Troy Thomas and William Casebeer’s Violent Systems: Defeating Terrorists, Insurgents, and other Non-State Adversaries, found at http://www.usafa.edu/df/inss/occasion.cfm provides a more detailed explanation of open systems theory.

The views expressed in the above blog are of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.