The Evolution of Conflict & Chaos

[Dan Moore]

The Teaching Company is offering a significantly discounted course on Chaos Theory:


http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=1333&pc=Sc...

Participants in "Boyd Conference 2008" might want to complete this course so some of us have a similar foundation for using it to build and expand on Boyd's previous works.

[Fred]

Has anyone taken this course. If so some feedback on its quality?

Thank You

[Fred]

I bought this program and it is outstanding. For anyone wanting to know more about chaos theory I reccomend this program. It presented so even the non-scientist can understand it. I know because i am no scientist and i got a lot out of it. Great examples from the real world to make there points.

Fred

[Dan Moore]

November 26, 2008

Blindspots, The Financial Panic of 2008, & Fractals

Fred - I'm glad you found this course useful.

Steven Strogatz’s course, “Chaos” -- available from the Teaching Company to include 9 “required reading books” available for less than $150.00US from Amazon -- can help other members of the 2008 Boyd Conference consider complex problems from a shared scientific framework and to provide a shared lexicon for analysis and debate.

This framework could help us decide and act more effectively in ever changing environments through an increased ability to observe and orient more effectively – as individuals and a group. It can also help us detect and correct a variety of blindspots.

BLINDSPOTS

Capable foes search for and exploit our blindspots -- personal, group, institutional, legal, national, global.

Thanks to Ben Gilud’s book, Business Blindspots occur when there’s mismatch between assumptions shared by senior and executive leaders and the environment.

Over time, institutionalized Business Blindspots turn into the ‘Approved Belief’ which is then enforced by systematically ejecting low and mid-level leaders seeking to correct Business Blindspots or expand the ‘Approved Belief.’

Senior and executive leaders seeking to correct Business Blindspots absent a perceived crisis run the risk of ejection and blacklisting as a persona-non-grata or ‘PNG’ by the other senior leaders and executives.

John Boyd, Jim Burton and several on-line members of the 2008 Boyd Conference were ejected for their efforts to correct a variety of institutionalized Military Blindspots© and expand the ‘Approved Belief’ of the U.S. Armed Forces to include affordable, rugged, reliable, and relevant strategies and equipment for U.S. and allied forces engaged.

Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway’s Oracle of Omaha has reportedly cautioned, “Beware of geeks bearing models.”

This is particularly true for multi-million dollar mathematical “war gaming” models increasingly used by senior and executive leaders of the U.S. Armed Forces. Predictably, these models reinforce U.S. Military Blindspots© -- strategic, operational, and tactical.

Five examples in chronological order from the “Evolution of Conflict” illustrate the consequences of U.S. Armed Forces failing to correct Military Blindspots© or to expand the ‘Approved Belief’ regarding counter-guerrilla operations.

++ As described by George Crile in his book Charlie Wilson's War and a number of articles and editorials written when the movie by the same name was released, a handful of members of the U.S. Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency – few if any members of the U.S. Armed Forces -- figured out how a relatively small number Afghanistan mujahedeen could defeat a Soviet Army – helping to accelerate the downfall of the Soviet Union. Underappreciated and not well understood some of the unintended consequences of this war set into motion the forces that empowered Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

++ The well publicized instance of Paul Van Riper pulling the U.S. Navy's shorts down around its knees during the ~$250M dollar Millennium Challenge "War Game." Illustrating how a foe could see and exploit a variety of Military Blindspots© using a handful of warriors in small boats to disrupt and destroy a much larger and vastly more expensive force.

++ The small boat attack on the USS Cole shifted attacks on U.S. Military Blindspots© from “war games” to the real world.

++ The 9/11 attacks may prove to be a definitive case study in U.S. National Blindspots©.

++ 21st Century Pirates – The “Evolution of Conflict" expanded to include 21st century pirates currently operating out of the failed state of Somalia who are attacking several global blindspots – legal, naval, aviation, maritime, commercial.

Relative to the “Evolution of Conflict”, we have an opportunity to use the scientific framework contained in Strogatz’s course to improve our individual and collective abilities to Observe-Orient-Decide-Act more effectively relative to a number of foes effectively attacking U.S. and allied Military Blindspots© and the ‘Approved Belief.’

Initial assessments of the current global financial crisis also provide evidence about how an understanding and appreciation of the scientific framework of Chaos might help us avoid future global disasters. It begins with a cold, hard look at how existing mathematical models help set up the Captains of Global Finance for disaster.

THE FINANCIAL PANIC OF 2008

Initial lessons from the Financial Panic suggest three dangerous traits were in play – expensive mathematical models reinforced Business Blindspots and the “Approved Belief’ with repeated failures to include readily available and well supported insights from ‘Chaos,” Boyd, Edward Deming* and Sun Tzu.

In the October 13, 2008 issue of the Wall Street Journal, L. Gordon Crovitz’s editorial, “The 1% Panic” linked the Financial Panic and the scientific framework of ‘Chaos:’

BEGIN QUOTE

Yale mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot pointed out the shortcomings of the VaR model in his "The (Mis)behavior of Markets," published in 2004. He noted that bell curves work for, say, disparities in the height of people. In markets, instead of flat tails of rare events at either end of the bell curve, there are "fat tails" of huge upsides and huge downsides. Markets are more complex than the neat shape of bell curves.

Last year's bestselling nonfiction book had a similar theme. In "The Black Swan," former trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb pointed out that extreme outcomes are actually common, warning that financial engineers -- "scientists," as he calls them -- ignore these unlikely outcomes at their peril. But today's credit panic was not entirely unpredictable. Mr. Taleb was prescient in writing, "The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at their risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry: Their large staffs of scientists deemed these events 'unlikely.'

END QUOTE

Crovitz’s opinion piece actually under stated the high level of risk in financial markets and how existing mathematical models and elite MBA courses of instruction could lead to interlinked financial collapse as described by Mandelbrodt in his The (Mis) Behavior of Markets.

Strogatz’s course includes two books about fractals:

Essential Reading

++ Mandelbrodt’s The Fractal Geometry of Nature
++ Schroder’s Fractals, Power Laws: Minutes of an Infinite Paradise

Recommended Reading

++ Taleb’s The Black Swan: The Impact of Highly Improbable.

FRACTAL GEOMETRY AND ORGANIZING FOR CONFLICT

Part of understanding fractal geometry involves a consideration of “irreducible elements” which becomes very powerful when considering what types of leaders and organizational structures are necessary to survive extraordinary force.

A thoughtful appreciation of coastlines and the structure of lungs as fractal organizations capable of absorbing extraordinary and unusual levels of physical and environmental forces led us to consider and field test -- in concert with Jordanian Armed Forces in 2005:

What are the irreducible elements of a combined-arms force?

Put slightly differently:

How could we use the science of fractals to help us design and test irreducible elements of combined-arms force?

As described in the report -- P-4045 post-review6Oct2005.pdf available via download at the bottom of the on-line discussion Expanding U.S. Tactical Aviation’s “Approved Belief,” on the 2008 Boyd Conference website -- an irreducible combined-arms force element is platoon or police size unit with at least two affordable and rugged aircraft organically embedded and deployed.

Dan Moore

Tucson, Arizona

*In 1989, John Boyd received a copy of Edward Deming's Out of the Crisis and spent the next several months ripping it apart. I believe this was because of Boyd's obsession with maintaining and outward focus with a non-linear, highly unpredictable, every changing environment. Deming's work and statistical process control tend to be internally (but in my humble opinion no less significant) focused process of discovery, destruction and creation.

[Rob Paterson]

I think that an understanding of Chaos theory is critical for getting a grip on the complex world we inhabit now Dan. I found James Gleick's Book "Chaos" and Mitch Waldrop's "Complexity" very helpful.

I would go on - Quantum also helps. Especially the ideas of probability vs certainty and how nothing is neutral - the observer affects the observed etc.

I think of our conference as being like the 1927 Solvay Conference of Physics where Quantum put the stake in the ground - also about 25 people

For I think that what we are really about - the Boyd group - is a group that is going to help replace Newtonian certainty - Newtonian cause and effect - Newtonian predictability - in the social, military, and business sphere with a model closer to Chaos, Complexity - a fractal universe.

An area that I find helpful is the Fibonacci Numbers. There must be math supporting this new relational world as there is the mechanical relations of Newton.

The Fibonnaci progression is used in nature as the ideal development track for all things - animate and not.

I see two key things in this curve.

First look at the numbers and how they correspond to those used in the Roman Legions and later in most infantry units. 8 - 13 - 34 - 89 - and later 150 "The Dunbar Number" where we find the limit of trusting relationship. These seem to be the building blocks of healthier unit design - not exclusively in the military either. At Dalhousie we are using these numbers to see if we can create a more cohesive Student leadership body in residence. Mateo will be present at the Conference.

Second Look at the shape of the curve - it shows the image of "Initial Conditions" key to Chaos Theory. You have to get through figure 8 to ensure that the probabalistic full potential of the body can be found. For instance mechanically, a rocket going to the moon has to circle the Earth at the ideal speed to leave orbit and get to the moon. Too slow and it falls back to Earth. Too fast and it escapes into the universe.

Here is how this works with kids

The ideal family environment offers an authoritative relationship - conversation and boundaries. In this ideal, the kid hears much more conversation than kids with authoritarian or permissive parents. The difference aged 2 in the number of words that can be comprehended seems small 150 vs 300 words - but then look at the trajectories!

The 300 word kid cannot be stopped from reaching its potential - the 150 word kid is locked in to sub par - the whole education issue is here.

If initial conditions have this power and are in fact shaped on this curve - then many of our great problems become solvable. We put too much into later intervention and "management" - Nature says find out the ideal environment to set up a system to grow to its ideal potential and it will.

What would it be like to explore this idea and to build on it?