Managing Complexities

The most powerful armed force in the world strikes, destroying everything in its wake, dismantling the perceived enemy regime, and declares victory. It is, however, victory-but—a Pyrrhic one. The natives do not show up with confetti, ululating and cheering in welcome of the “liberators” as envisaged by the architects. Instead, clandestine insurgencies become the order of the day, and will continue with no end in sight.

We have seen Clausewitz’s logic of Schwerpunkt at play: attack the enemy at its weakest point with overwhelming force and victory is assured. But is it?

The eagle glides in the sky, surveying the terrain from a mile away, and sizing up the mark undetected. Then, in an instant, it swoops down at high speed for the catch—it is precise and surgical—no peripheral damages except the dinner object.

A snake stares at the prey as if looking through its eyes and beyond. The prey freezes. It is at a loss and in fear just as the snake strikes. Again, it is precise and surgical.

In living memory the Israelis have always been successful against its Arab enemies. But the recent encounters with the Hizb’allah have been different with many Israelis killed and no definitive victory. This has helped pave the way for a return of the hawkish Netanyahu—probably with the same classical Newtonian Schwerpunkt mode of operation as compared with the Hizb’allah’s quantum mechanical adjusting on the fly as the situation warrants.

The “new” reality of the world is that you cannot tell with certainty what the outcome of an enterprise will be. However, all along that has been the state of nature as revealed by the notion of Chaos Theory, which seems counterintuitive in our yearning for certainty of outcomes.

Taking Whole is a concept attributable to the Chinese sages of antiquity. After endless wars and sufferings somebody had to come up with ideas to manage man’s affairs beyond exhorting and appeasing the gods.

So, you look around, observe and take the enemy at the neural cortex. That is, you win before the battle. You take out the enemy whole with little destruction—surgical and precise—even turning him into partner in mutual survival.

Taking Whole calls for resilience. And resilience calls for adaptability. Resilience asks such questions as: How much disturbance can a system sustain before it breaks down completely beyond repair— a resulting hysteresis—too late to recover? Can the system survive and even win at the jaws of defeat?

The head of the NRM who is the de facto NRM, Mr. Museveni, has often touted his scientific prowess. He has convinced himself that the building blocks he calls “cooking stones” are in place and all will work well for him like a Newtonian clockwork. However, recent chaotic primary exercise seems to tell a different story. Are the negative variables of the contradictions in pretense democracy finally playing itself out? Other than ability for Schwerpunkt, the NRM may not have the immune systems necessary to renew itself, and may have become too brittle to survive unpredictable events.