The same way you already do it
Quote:
Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
Slap mate. I want to believe! - the religious side of me! ;)
..but can you give me an example? How does thinking of the IRA or a Soviet Style Motor Rifle Regiment, as "a system" help me defeat him?
I totally get that deep understanding of how something mechanical, cybernetic or even chemical allows me to use the minimum force to sabotage it, but how do I apply that to real world enemies and threats? - which are endlessly "open" systems, are they not?
They must eat, sleep, work, watch their back, find support, find the good guys, create alliances, establish boundaries, conquer ground, address the populous, etc.
If that ain't a system of some sort not sure what is. :D
That doesn't mean there's not some difference in how one is to approach said systems. It is simply to identify that their still the same just trying to use a little tech to help think about them.
Whats the difference between a tape or CD, how about VHS or DVD,
Standard res / HD Its about clarity of perception and understanding not different answers. Hopefully better answers to the same questions.
I'm sure that didn't help:wry: but Oh well I tried
Without answering your first part
;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
wm
Systems thinking usually seems to arise when one is feeling resource constrained. In other words, if you can't rain down tons of steel on your opponent in a rather indiscriminate fashion, you have to be selective about what you target. Since you have to be selective, you want to make every shot count. Rome'e enemies tried to capture the legions' eagles as a way of breaking the legionnaires' will to fight. Modern systems thinking looks at what might achieve the equivalent "biggest" bang for the buck. That, at least, is the theory. But I am not sure that the theory has ever been mapped successfully to practice (in modern warfare at least). From what I've read, "surgical" strikes against Iraqi C2 facilities, e.g., didn't really break the will of the Iraqi Army in OIF I.
Of course some smart guy will tell me that this is not a failure of the systems approach. Rather, we failed to correctly identify the right or critical node in the system which was the Iraqi Armed Forces, Al-Qaeda in Iraq or whomever. I hope this reminds you of the kinds of responses you hear from conspiracy theorists when they are presented with evidence that is meant to disprove their hypotheses about the world takeover conspiracies of the Illuminati, the KGB, the Knights Templar, etc. ;)
I don't think it takes all that smart a guy to figure out that if your right hand doesn't know what your left hands doing and your feet have decided to sit it out things might not go very well. CO-CO-COmmunication