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If we look at the larger context, we can realize another disturbing fact. The context in large (outside of the security policy realm) is getting more and more uncertain as well. As Friedman explained in his recent book, Thank You for Being Late,16 2007 was a watershed year for human history. Most of us have missed many upcoming disruptions. It was the year when a thing called the iPhone was introduced and based on Eric “Astro” Teller’s idea (who is the CEO of Google’s mysterious X research center, where he’s dubbed Captain of Moonshots) technological growth has accelerated so quickly that it has now outpaced human adaptability. If this assumption is right, we are permanently behind the curve, struggling to adjust to a changing world, and better embrace uncertainty and ambiguity, because it will be the norm for the years to come.
The only solution to this problem is to enhance humanity’s adaptability, thus (in the case of NATO) restructuring our education and training systems, as well as the way we learn lessons must be revisited and seriously restructured very fast.
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Figure 2.
The adaptation challenge17
The third problem in the 21st century (when constant change has become one of the most important features of our lives) is that many organizations struggle with a complex and dynamic mixture of cultures, a broad range of actors and the fact that the unprecedented proliferation of technology creates
16 FRIEDMAN, Thomas L. Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2016.
17 The figure was inspired by Thomas Friedman: Thank You for Being Late. Friedman has pub-lished a very similar depiction of the strategic problem in his book. FRIEDMAN: Thank You for Being Late.
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an ultra-competitive environment. This results in a lack of understanding, where only those, who are able to lead at the edge of chaos and able to constantly transform their organization beyond traditional means, are able to compete. Today’s complex context creates an unsteady equilibrium where people believe that they cannot regain control and are disrupted to respond to unexpected events. Ever since the Peace of Westphalia we have experienced a period where the number of players on the battlefield was relatively constant. Thus, warfare was complicated, with moving parts, but the security environment was somewhat predictable.18
Most recently, however, we seem to be living in increasing turmoil, where there are no predictable outcomes, the traditional rules do not apply, the number of stakeholders in an operational theatre has increased significantly, and the interactions between these stakeholders (both ally and foe) have increased astronomically, leading to overall uncertainty and ambiguity.
The environment has shifted from complicated to complex, often described as a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) place19 and threats are shape-shifting much faster than it was traditionally the norm. To understand this paradigm shift, I found the Cynefin20 model very useful. The model differentiates between four distinct contexts and in a nutshell, it states that simple and complicated contexts are relatively predictable, while VUCA and chaotic contexts are unpredictable, thus require a different leadership approach.21
Applying this model to the security environment, simple is a context, which is part of the history of the military at an age when the connection between input and output was right in front of you. This was the classical era, when someone could gather forces (resources), and was able to predictably calculate the effect
18 JOBBAGY, Zoltan: “The Social Wave-Front Analysis and the Altering Character of War: An Overview.” AARMS 2011/1; pp. 197–212.
19 Things that are complex (living organisms, ecosystems, national economies) have a diverse array of connected elements that interact frequently. Being complex is different from being compli-cated. Things that are complicated may have many parts, but those parts are joined, one to the next, in relatively simple ways, the workings of a complicated device might be confusing, but they can ultimately be broken down and reassembled to be the same. Complexity on the other hand occurs when the number of interactions between components increases dramatically. This is where things quickly become unpredictable. MCCHRYSTAL, S. – COLLINS T. – SILVER-MAN D. – FUSSELL, C. Team of teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World. New York: Penguin Random House, 2015; p. 57.
20 I am using the Cynefin model by David Snowden to illustrate this. Cynefin is a Welsh word meaning haunt, habitat, acquainted, accustomed, familiar. The model is explained here in detail – http://cognitive-edge.com/, last accessed 21. Nov. 2016.
21 JOBBAGY, Zoltan: “Effects-Based Operations and the Problem of Causality: Simple and Com-plex,” Joint Force Quarterly, 2007/3; pp. 90–95.
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or the outcome of the battle. When the number of actor grew, in a complicated context, after the Napoleonic Era, massive armies with increasingly sophisticated equipment were fielded, and this contextual model has been perfected for generations. With the transition into the industrial age, this was the backbone of scaling large military forces and creating stable nations. This is how the military has been educated for generations: understand enough information about potential threats, analyse them, predictably budget our spending, and get a relatively good assumption to what the outcome might be. This was the mindset/mentality that we brought with us into the information age.
But the reality is that (as it was pointed out earlier) we find ourselves in a VUCA place for the most of the last decade. It seems that in this context our planning-based decision-making approach does not work as promised. At the same time many of the potential adversaries have adapted and developed complex systems.
They don’t play by the traditional rules, yet have the ability (with technology) to scale and fight. Their worldview is an environment that looks like an agile network, in contrast with the traditional systems, which lack the speed and agility that enables the organization to move/adapt like the adversaries.
Finally, in chaos the rule book is out the window. Disruptions are constant, and they are hitting us with increasing frequency and intensity. Our traditional approach and instinct says that we should face these situations head on, and come up with solutions, but the frequency of challenges in this state will not allow us to do this in a way that can be sustained. If we try to stick to traditional methods, they result in burnout.
Overall, regarding the contemporary context, we can conclude that there are two things driving today’s change. The first one is the increase in the number of key stakeholders and the other one is interconnectedness.22 These two forces (fuelled by technological advances in the information age and the fourth technological revolution) have resulted in an unprecedented tempo and changed the context forever. The environment has shifted from being complicated to a VUCA place23 and as a result one can feel that threats are shape shifting much faster than it was traditionally the norm.
22 In population genetics this is called epistatic interactions i. e. conflicting constraints.
23 Things that are complex (living organisms, ecosystems, national economies) have a diverse array of connected elements that interact frequently. Being complex is different from being compli-cated. Things that are complicated may have many parts, but those parts are joined, one to the next, in relatively simple ways… the workings of a complicated device might be confusing, but they ultimately can be broken down and reassembled (to be the same)… you can predict what will happen when one part of the device is activated or altered. Complexity on the other hand
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Big bureaucratic organisations, like NATO, have inherited a complicated mindset, where the predominant view is that, when massive armies with increasingly sophisticated equipment are fielded, you can come up with a predictable end state. This is how the military has been educated for generations. We try to analyse potential threats, and create a plan with a relatively good assumption to what the outcome might be. It was the mindset that we brought with ourselves into the information age.
But the world is not a complicated place any longer! In an increasingly VUCA context our planning based decision-making systems and approaches do not work as promised. Many of our adversaries adapted and developed complex (networked) systems, and created an ability (supported by modern technology) to scale and fight us. At the same time, most bureaucratic organizations remained the same, what we lack is real institutional adaptation. As a result, traditional systems lack the foresight, speed and agility, as well as the reach that enables the organization to adapt like many adversaries do.