The concept of "adaptation"

[Rob Thornton]

I would not say old - that relates too easy to words like "musty" or "dated" - how about I just say say that at 44 years service you have at least twice the institutional knowledge I do - and having seen something come around a time or two, you also have "professional wisdom" - (I don't think I even got any common sense till I hit 30 - now approaching 40 with 4 kids - that is still in doubt

Thanks for answering the question in depth - I wondered how it went down, I think it also has bearing on the problem we are discussing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the 1st ID supposed to be headed into that advisory role???

Yes and no. A BDE is focused on training the advisers, but the taskers still cut across big Army. Its getting better in terms of training I think, but it still has the challenges of an organization built to do one thing, but executing another. The folks running it are doing some great things (the training has improved greatly from when I went through down at Hood), the question is do we want to commit to something permanent and different?

A decently trained Infantry Battalion can do anything a Ranger battalion can do -- and at far less cost; give any Battalion the training time, gear and money a Ranger Battalion has and he'll be close enough in capability for government work.

I agree with you there. I had the good fortune to be resourced extremely well and left alone for a long time as one of the two Stryker rifle companies to do the IOT&E in 2003. Our BN and BDE CDRs had a great understanding on how to extend those benefits to the rest of the BN. Since so much depended on how well we did, we were lavished with time, ammo and personnel - they made sure we had everything we needed in terms of resources to succeed. I took away from the experience that the big difference was that with the right resources, we could damn near do anything! Joe is capable of moving mountains, he just needs training and leadership (and some autonomy and opportunity to succeed!).

Best Regards, Rob

[marct]

Hi Rob,

Marc - could you write a bit more on the relationships between the different types of risk?

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that the key locus of resistance to change is not rooted in financial or societal risk but, rather, in personal risk - a point that Kuhn alludes to, even though he was writing in the neuropsycological dark ages (i.e. pre-1973).

Back in the 1960's there was a rather infamous series of experiments called "breaching experiments". What these experiments did was to"breach" social conventions and see how people reacted to them. According to one story I was told, Garfinkle (not of Simon & fame), was required to stop the experiments in his graduate class after one of his students had her head bashed in by her boyfriend while she was performing one on him. In this case, the experiment was not breaching a social rule but, rather, challenging individual perceptions by acting like a 2 year old always asking "why?".

In order to answer your question, I'm going to have to get into some rather esoteric stuff, so apologies in advance....

Basically, we can say that there are several different "orders" of risk. The range I am using goes from risk to the individual up to risk to the species. So, we have risk to the planet, risk to the species, risk to the general group (e.g. Western Civilization), risk to the specific group (i.e. the US or Canada), risk to "our" faction within the specific group, risk to our personal group (kinship group, "friends", co-workers, etc), risk to our immediate personal group, risk to ourselves that is consciously recognized and risk to ourselves that is sub-consciously perceived. BTW, for those of you who are Heinlein fans, yes, this does parallel his discussion of developing a science of morality in Starship Troopers (book, not movie).

I'm pretty sure that everyone is familiar with all of these levels of risk except the last one, and that is he one that, I believe, is the biggest impediment to organizational change. In order to explain how this operates, I'm going to have to get into the neurophysiology of schemas.

Basically, and I'm taking this from Daniel Levitin's This is your brain on music (at Amazon) which is a fantastic introduction to the area, a "schema" is shorthand for how our brains process sensory information and "make sense" of it. At present, we know a fair bit about these even if it is extremely technical. Anyway, the way it operates is that sensory information comes in through one or more of our senses, gets filtered through a series of parallel processing modules in the brain, and then comes into our "sensorium" (you know, the little "me" that sits behind our eyes and is the "real me"), often triggering actions along the way.

Now the brain is made up of neurons which we used to think were connected together and transmitted electrical pulses which were information. We now know, post 1973, that this was a very simple, and incorrect, model. We do have electrical impulses running along the neurons (that's what is picked up by EEGs), but the neurons are not physically connected. What we have instead is a chemical connection between neurons. Basically what happens is an electrical impulse runs along a neuron and tells the "end" of the neuron to release a certain chemical - these are jointly called neurotransmitters, and most people have heard of the big ones like dopamine and serotonin (there are actually hundreds of them).

Now, in addition to acting as ways to transmit a command to send an impulse along another neuron, neurotransmitters also appear to regulate many of our perceptions and emotions. For example, the latest versions of anti-depressants are called SSRIs which stands for Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. In order for us not to be depressed, we actually have to have a certain amount of free floating (technically extracellular) serotonin in our brains, and SSRIs get this by stopping serotonin from being reabsorbed by the ends of neurons.

Okay, another point about how the brain operates: whenever you get really heavy activity along certain neural connections, the neurons tend to be coated in a substance called myelin or myelin sheathing. Myelin acts like a turbocharger on an engine to speed up the impulses that move along a neuron. Loss of myelin slows down impulses and may lead to the dissolution of neural connections - MS is a form of disease that attacks myelin sheathing. Now, neural connections that get "myelinated" (i.e. sheathed in myelin) are about 3 times faster than non-myelinated connections. In order to get a connection myelinaed, you need to use that connection - this is what "training" does so, when you are teaching someone to, say, shoot a rifle, you are actually encouraging their brains to form neural connections that are myelinated.

Here I'm moving out from the totally accepted (it's still just starting to get reported in the literature). Myelinating or demyelinating neural networks changes the balance of neurotransmitters being released in the brain. In many cases, these neural networks also are tied into the amygdala which is sometimes called the "emotional brain" so, in addition to having a lot of influence on the release and reuptake of neurotransmitters, they also tie into a section of the brain that is like a neurotransmitter master switch. Attempting to demyelinate neural networks, i.e. to get rid of one schema and replace it by another, can actually set off all sorts of weird triggers for neuroransmitter production, causing wild mood swings, knee-jerk reactions, etc.

From my own fieldwork, it seems to take about 3 months in a very calm setting to demyelinate one network and myelinate a replacement. That three month mark, BTW, is when the changes in neural networks start to become balanced enough that the individual is able to hold them in their sensorium - St. John of the Cross described this as the Dark Night of the Soul, and his description certainly jived with a lot of the descriptions I got from my fieldwork.

So, to wrap it up, sub-consciously perceived risk is a risk to a neural network that is "protected" by emotional boundaries (i.e. the threat / reward of neurotransmitters) and is the basis for a schema.

I hope I didn't loose too many people and that any cognitive neuroscientists reading it don't freak too badly at the simplistic way I am presenting it .

Marc

[Ken White]

"From my own fieldwork, it seems to take about 3 months in a very calm setting to demyelinate one network and myelinate a replacement. That three month mark, BTW, is when the changes in neural networks start to become balanced enough that the individual is able to hold them in their sensorium..."

A Company or Battalion Commander will constantly express dissatisfaction with the micromanaging and over cautious ways of the Staff of his or her Boss. If moved to that Staff, it takes about 90 days on the button for the former Commander to become totally Staff-ized and thus, as they say, a part of the problem...

Such is the way of the world.

There's an implication in there some where...

[Rob Thornton]

Thanks for answering

90 days seems to be the right number for allot of transitions - I just never associated with the idea of overcoming personal risk - time to bump that one around a bit and see where it leads.

How about the idea of translating rationale for change (based on trends and projections) into a catalyst for change? Or how do we say "this rationale is important enough to the future vitality of the organization to meets its role, that change must occur?" Where is the "tipping point" where an organization commits? What role does external forces play?

I think its worth discussing this in the context of war, grass roots responses/adaptation, social and political forces, etc.

Thanks, Rob

[Ken White]

In my observation, if one says "this rationale is important enough to the future vitality of the organization to meets its role, that change must occur," one should be prepared for even those in the organization that agree to an extent with one to join together and resist the proposed changes. Only a really strong leader can make that statement and then make it stick. Even such a leader will meet resistance. Witness Shy Meyer's problems with the bureaucracy; he got only about half his agenda in place before he retired.

That -- his retirement -- is another indicator of a problem that is as deadly as bureaucratic inertia. Our political system. Massive changes in leadership every four or eight years (civilian) or two or four years (military) mitigate against long range planning; the old will / will not happen on my watch syndrome. Long range planning is quite difficult in the sense of executing major reforms.

The old tactical dictum "Use two up one back, feed the troops a hot meal and hit 'em in the flank" has utility beyond the tactical realm. It also doesn't state what smart commanders really do, or at least, it gets some things wrong if the situation allows, the better followed rule is -- "Feed the troops a hot meal, hit 'em in the flank using one up and two back..."

Which is a suggestion to lay the ground work, do not make a frontal attack -- and have a really strong reserve to exploit a penetration.

[TT]

Marc,

Thank you. You are to be applauded for your concise and easily understandable explanation (what, no clapping hands icon? ). I confess that I have never thought even in passing to regress the analysis back to the physical working of our brains, and I find your argument intriguing.

It does suggest that when introducing change that efforts should be made not only to figure where the new ‘concept’, or whatever the change is, may clash with organizational cultural traits, but that it would be wise to identify ways that the ‘change’ many challenge or affect individual sense of risk.

As a possible example, one of the sources of resistance to the introduction of maneuver warfare into the Marine Corps was that some individuals (how many? No way to determine) felt that the claim that MW was a ‘better way’ to fight at least implied that that the way they, as officers or whatever rank, had fought in the past (and had done so successfully) was wrong, or was a bad way to fight (I do not think this was a major issue but it seemingly did exist). Thinking about your explanation of ‘subconscious risk calculation’, it makes me wonder to what degree this particular view may have reflected a deeper sense of risk to self that ‘calculated’ that acceptance of the new warfighting concept might in effect make them ‘obsolete’ – or to generalize, that it would put at risk their individual value and contribution to the collective whole (and who knows, possibly their sense of self worth and/or experience?).

Of course, it certainly is impossible to figure how a new concept or innovation will challenge every single members subconscious calculation of risk but even understanding that such a subconscious sense of risk to self could lead to a mediating of the way that change is introduced (ie the story that is woven around the new innovation or selected assurances).

Moreover, your analysis also indicates that there are multiple layers - the ladder of risk assessments that you identify - that we likely consciously calculate risk about, even if only in passing, and each one of these may need to be addressed. My above ‘musings’ assume that the subconscious calculation would be about risk to self – but would I be correct in presuming that this need not be the case? So a question would be whether we have developed a subconscious risk analysis for each of rungs of the ladder you use, and further, if this is suggestion is possible, that this subconscious calculus might be different from what we consciously think (Ken’s example sparked this musing)?

TT

[Rank amateur]

From my own fieldwork, it seems to take about 3 months in a very calm setting to demyelinate one network and myelinate a replacement.

90 days is the "magic number" in rehab too. Does the fact that Iraq isn't "a very calm environment" mean that Iraqis, and our soldiers serving there, are more resistant to change?

the key locus of resistance to change is not rooted in financial or societal risk but, rather, in personal risk

Or, in maketingspeak, "sell them a problem with a built in solution".

It's interesting to me that the people who sold the war domestically understood this so well, "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" while honestly believing that people would be happy that bombs were dropping around them because they were going to receive a democratic society. I guess we're lucky AQI made similar mistakes.

In your massive array of cognitive - and other - knowledge do you have any theories/techniques on how soldiers involved in COIN can better perceive the needs of the local population. (As a marketing guy, it seems to me that we're selling what we have have - democracy, political reconciliation, security - when what the Iraqi's want is local autonomy, to settle old scores, homogeneous neighborhoods etc.) More Arab speakers, cultural advisors etc. isn't going to change that. A business that makes that mistake quickly starts producing more desirable products or goes bankrupt. Here the theory seems to be that if the proper tactics are applied long enough the people will change what they want. Of course, it's possible that the majority is right. Marc, do you have theories that indicate basic marketing principles don't apply in a COIN environment and that marketing guys like me should just keep quiet while the pros get their work done?

[Rob Thornton]

RA,

Of course, it's possible that the majority is right. Marc, do you have theories that indicate basic marketing principles don't apply in a COIN environment and that marketing guys like me should just keep quiet while the pros get their work done?

I for one hope you continue to bring your perspective - there is something about the "bottom line" language that we need. Since COIN is about people influencing people for various reasons, a profession that seeks to appeal and sell has a vaild place here as any I can think of.
Best Regards, Rob

[Rob Thornton]

It also doesn't state what smart commanders really do, or at least, it gets some things wrong if the situation allows, the better followed rule is -- "Feed the troops a hot meal, hit 'em in the flank using one up and two back..."

Which is a suggestion to lay the ground work, do not make a frontal attack -- and have a really strong reserve to exploit a penetration.

I'll keep that one in the brain housing group

[Rank amateur]

there is something about the "bottom line" language that we need.

I have been learning acronyms as fast as my little brain will hold them: COIN, TTPs, NCOs, AOOs

RA,



I for one hope you continue to bring your perspective . Since COIN is about people influencing people for various reasons, a profession that seeks to appeal and sell has a vaild place here as any I can think of.
Best Regards, Rob

Thanks. I really believe that the reason American companies are so successful globally is because they are willing to adapt products to local markets. Government polices are more rigid. As a result, you guys often end up being forced to work much harder than let's say a Coca Cola salesperson. You get paid a lot less too. But the toys are much cooler.

[wm]

In your massive array of cognitive - and other - knowledge do you have any theories/techniques on how soldiers involved in COIN can better perceive the needs of the local population. (As a marketing guy, it seems to me that we're selling what we have have - democracy, political reconciliation, security - when what the Iraqi's want is local autonomy, to settle old scores, homogeneous neighborhoods etc.) More Arab speakers, cultural advisors etc. isn't going to change that. A business that makes that mistake quickly starts producing more desirable products or goes bankrupt. Here the theory seems to be that if the proper tactics are applied long enough the people will change what they want. Of course, it's possible that the majority is right. Marc, do you have theories that indicate basic marketing principles don't apply in a COIN environment and that marketing guys like me should just keep quiet while the pros get their work done?

I for one would submit that in a COIN operation (I was originally going to say "fight" but thought better of it, due to the connotations associated with "fight."), marketing guys are at least as, if not more, precious than operations guys (that is "operations" in the business sense).

You made a point that I thought should have been intuitively obvious since the days of the Edsel. If you do not give the people what they want, they will stay away in droves from your offerings. Of course, the real good marketing work is to get the potential customer base to want your products before you ever put them out on the street. Hollywood does a great job at this with its promo trailers. The corollary here is that getting people to change their preferences after your product is out on the shelves often is a very tough row to hoe. (Remember the new Coke/classic Coke debacle?)


Seems to me that we didn't do either one of these things--find out what the people really want (intel) or get them to want what we planned to offer (Psyops/IO)-- before we opted back in 2003 to start an operation that we believed would make Iraq better for the Iraqis, and the world a better place for all of us. Any one remember how long it took Ford to recover? (I think it wasn't until the Mustang came along.)

[marct]

Hi TT,

I confess that I have never thought even in passing to regress the analysis back to the physical working of our brains, and I find your argument intriguing.

I realized a long time ago that every social theory had an implied theory of consciousness underlying it or, if not a theory, then an assumed stance. This really made me wonder why we didn't build our social theories on the latest available material on consciousness. Why toss it in a black box when we can actually track changes in it? Then again, a lot of my work was aimed at understanding rituals, so the linkages and effects were always "top of mind" with me.

It does suggest that when introducing change that efforts should be made not only to figure where the new ‘concept’, or whatever the change is, may clash with organizational cultural traits, but that it would be wise to identify ways that the ‘change’ many challenge or affect individual sense of risk.

Yupper. That certainly becomes clear in the management literature on restructuring, corporate culture change and the mergers and acquisitions stuff. In a lot of ways, I have come to view "culture" as a field phenomenon, i.e. a "field" generated out of individual schemas taken together. So changing the organizational culture then becomes a process of changing the individual schemas. I suspect that this is one of the reasons why having a change Champion and massive dense communications are so important in organizational change ventures. Certainly without these two, the failure rate on corporate change initiatives is 90+%.

.... Thinking about your explanation of ‘subconscious risk calculation’, it makes me wonder to what degree this particular view may have reflected a deeper sense of risk to self that ‘calculated’ that acceptance of the new warfighting concept might in effect make them ‘obsolete’ – or to generalize, that it would put at risk their individual value and contribution to the collective whole (and who knows, possibly their sense of self worth and/or experience?).

Probably a fair bit. I suspect that the emotional protections surrounding the neural networks is an evolutionary response that had a positive selection effect on the whole. Of course, we've also had the "technology" for reprogramming these neural networks for at least 50,000 years (rituals), and I was just fascinated how closely some of the corporate "rituals" I've seen parallel those in hundreds of other cultures. I have a feeling, and that's all it is, that around 85% of people can shift schemas or build new ones in the right setting (that's based on my Ph.D. fieldwork, but the number is de facto anecdotal).

The key is in developing successful rituals (and I'm using that term in a rather technical sense of a "social" setting aimed at producing an environment conducive to internal symbolic change). You not only have to logically show why the new schema is better, you have to tie it in emotionally and reinforce that over that 90 day period - that's probably one of the reasons why initiation rituals last so long.

Moreover, your analysis also indicates that there are multiple layers - the ladder of risk assessments that you identify - that we likely consciously calculate risk about, even if only in passing, and each one of these may need to be addressed. My above ‘musings’ assume that the subconscious calculation would be about risk to self – but would I be correct in presuming that this need not be the case? So a question would be whether we have developed a subconscious risk analysis for each of rungs of the ladder you use, and further, if this is suggestion is possible, that this subconscious calculus might be different from what we consciously think (Ken’s example sparked this musing)?

I think hat does happen. There's a very interesting phenomenon that shows up when we look at how people think. Often we seem to "know" the answer before doing any conscious analysis on it - I think that that is tagging into the sub-conscious calculations of a neural net. I would assume that that includes a risk calculation as well.

Would it be different from our conscious thinking? I fully expect that it would be. From the stuff I have been reading recently, it looks like schemas operate using a "fuzzy set" approach to membership rather than the "crisp set" theory that a lot of logical thinking uses.

Marc

[marct]

Hi Rob,

How about the idea of translating rationale for change (based on trends and projections) into a catalyst for change? Or how do we say "this rationale is important enough to the future vitality of the organization to meets its role, that change must occur?" Where is the "tipping point" where an organization commits? What role does external forces play?

This is, in some ways, the $64,000 question. My gut guess, and that's all it is, is that such a translation could be built in as a schema itself given sufficient desire and resources (okay, and skill in actually designing it!). I would suggest that they way to do it is to build a schema for "trend - reaction" plotting where the response of the schema is to adopt the change.

Creating such a schema, especially at the institutional level, would be very tricky but, I think, it could be done. I think we can see the basis of such a schema already operating in the USMC for example, but crafting one for the US Army wold be hard. I would require that everyone over, say, O2 and E4 have a certain sill level in trending and projecting. It would also require the creation of some extremely dense communications networks within the Army.

Marc

[marct]

Hi A,

90 days is the "magic number" in rehab too. Does the fact that Iraq isn't "a very calm environment" mean that Iraqis, and our soldiers serving there, are more resistant to change?

That would be my guess. There is some indication that stress acts to reinforce existing neural networks by inhibiting the development of new ones. Again, let me point out I'm certainly not an expert in this area - I ust use other people's research in cognitive neuroscience .

In your massive array of cognitive - and other - knowledge do you have any theories/techniques on how soldiers involved in COIN can better perceive the needs of the local population.

Sure, live with them . Seriously, though, this is the best, in the sense of tradeoffs between knowledge, resources and time, and we are certainly seeing its effect in current operations.

Marc, do you have theories that indicate basic marketing principles don't apply in a COIN environment and that marketing guys like me should just keep quiet while the pros get their work done?

Not theories per se, RA, but a couple of observations. BTW, I suppose that I should also mention that part of my consulting work is in marketing (Market Research, mainly in tourism, to be specific). Okay, some observations...

There are a couple of old marketing saws that you tie intothat are, IMO, quite applicable:

1. find a need and fill it;
2. create a need and fill it.

I think this would operate best in a pre-kinetic situation; say Iraq before the war. The "need" was pretty evident, but there were a lot of problems with creating other needs. I suspect that fully half of the "battle" could have been "won" before kinetic operations began.

When we get into an active COIN environment, say current Iraq or Afghanistan, we are in a somewhat different situation. I think that marketing and market research skills are very applicable, but not at the level most people seem to want to apply them - i.e. the "national" level. I think they could be far better employed at the local level.

Are you familiar with the Human Terrain Teams? One of the things I found fascinating about them is the skills training they were given before deployment: interviews, focus groups and surveys. These are exactly the same methodologies used in market research.

Marc

[TT]

Marc,

Many thanks for elaborating. There is considerable food for thought in what you say, with respect to how best to approach introducing change that is intended, at bottom, to alter the organizational culture, or at least would impact on the organizational culture. I think it is fairly straightforward that a holistic approach that encompasses a well thought out programme of initiatives would certainly enhance the prospects of success, but this adds at least another layer (or more) to what actually constitutes a ‘holistic’ approach.

This points to the question of marketing, though in a different context than is being discussed. Marketing skills would be very useful when introducing change. I am reflecting on a military organization engaged in ‘transformation, which will remain anonymous, where a better grasp of how to market their product(s) would go (or maybe it the tense is now ‘would have gone’) a long way to solving some of the key obstacles they face. I was invited to attend several of this orgs conference (aka marketing events) and, as I told them afterwards, sitting in the audience and participating in the caffeine and nicotine refuelling breaks, it was clear that far too many of their ‘customers’ did not understand why they were developing many ‘products’ (aka new concepts), what some of the products were, or simply did not get it as they could see any hardware anywhere. This apparent disconnect between the producers and the product, and the consumers perception was quite remarkable (and admittedly even entertaining at times). So, in sense, a holistic approach should include a well thought out marketing campaign (or a well thought out ‘information campaign’).

Cheers

TT

[Rob Thornton]

I came across this description of a River Crossing by Union Forces under Grant during the Vicksburg Campaign. At his point Union Forces had recently defeated a Confederate force on Champion's Hill, and had pursued them to the Big Black River and was trying to get across toward Vicksburg. The Confederates had abandoned their defensive works on the banks of the Big Black River, but not before destroying the bridges. Grant's Army is left to get across the river as quickly as possible in order to maintain pressure on the Confederates and prevent them from consolidating forces and strengthening their works at Vicksburg.

From Grant's Memoirs - The Investment of Vicksburg - pg. 208

"As the bridge was destroyed and the river was high, new bridges had to be built. It was but little after nine O'clock A.M. (ed. - on the 17th) when the capture took place. As soon as work could be commenced, orders were given for the construction of three bridges. One was taken charge of by Lieutenant Haines, of the Engineer Corps, one by General McPherson himself and one by General Ransom, a most gallant an intelligent volunteer officer. My recollection is that Haines built a raft bridge; McPherson a pontoon, using cotton bales in large numbers, for pontoons; and that Ransom felled trees on opposite banks of the river, cutting only one side of the tree, so that they would fall interlacing (ed. - an abatis) in the river, without the trees being entirely severed from their stumps. A bridge was then made with these trees to support the roadway. ...... By eight O'clock in the morning of the 18th all three bridges were complete and the troops were crossing"

I am constantly finding these types of examples in History where armies when well led, will find a way to make it happen. Leadership fosters Innovation and Adaptiveness - without it its likely that Grant's Army would have just halted. Today its just as relevant as then, without leaders who provide the environment for risk, adaptation and innovation will find small purchase.

Best Regards, Rob

[Rank amateur]

That would be my guess. There is some indication that stress acts to reinforce existing neural networks by inhibiting the development of new ones.

That's not encouraging, but it is consistent with experience in rehab/relapse.

There are a couple of old marketing saws that you tie intothat are, IMO, quite applicable:

1. find a need and fill it;
2. create a need and fill it.
   

When we get into an active COIN environment, say current Iraq or Afghanistan, we are in a somewhat different situation. I think that marketing and market research skills are very applicable, but not at the level most people seem to want to apply them - i.e. the "national" level. I think they could be far better employed at the local level.

I agree entirely. (Nice to see there's some academic basis for my argument.) To use some of my buzzwords, they are many different "target markets." Each one needs to be understood. Each one has different needs. Each one will buy a different solution. On the plus side, that means that an individual can be much more successful in their sector than the overall mission.

On the negative side, what's the overall objective of working with all the different "target markets." In business, it's to make money, so you don't care what they buy. If in Iraq, it's to "reduce violence" than we're not really building a nation, and arguably doing nothing than delaying what's probably inevitable.

The other marketing/psychological thing that we haven't discussed to date, that I believe is is relevant, is self-identity. Self-identity is extremely powerful. It's almost impossible to change, but it can be an extremely effective lever. (You don't sell computers to people who think they're cool by trying to make them think that they're geeks. You convince them that cool people use computers to do cool things and hire geeks to do the maintenance.)

How do we get Sunnis and Shia to identify as Iraqi? How do we get soldiers to identify themselves as salesmen? I'd suggest that you can't.

You can get people who believe they are good soldiers to believe that good soldiers are COIN experts/practitioners, but if you look at how much time and effort it takes to change the mindset of a relatively cohesive group, I'm not optimistic that we can leverage the beliefs of the different Iraqis into any cohesive political framework.

The only success we've had is convincing people who consider themselves loyal tribe members that loyal tribe members need to fight AQI. Arguably we didn't even do that: the shieks did. And I heard one of them say on CNN that they'd never cooperate with the Shia and they still hoped for an end to the "Occupation."

Many Iraqis believe that co-operation with us is defeat. They don't see themselves as losers. We can't convince them that they are losers. How do we convince them that cooperation isn't defeat? It's pretty hard when we define cooperation as victory.

[marct]

Hi RA,

I agree entirely. (Nice to see there's some academic basis for my argument.) To use some of my buzzwords, they are many different "target markets." Each one needs to be understood. Each one has different needs. Each one will buy a different solution. On the plus side, that means that an individual can be much more successful in their sector than the overall mission.

That is essentially what current COIN doctrine argues - in fact, I'm sending copies of Kilcullen's 28 articles to my associates to review <evil grin>.

On the negative side, what's the overall objective of working with all the different "target markets." In business, it's to make money, so you don't care what they buy. If in Iraq, it's to "reduce violence" than we're not really building a nation, and arguably doing nothing than delaying what's probably inevitable.

Actually, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this. I think that way too many people in the West have this idea, actually it seems to be an axiomatic assumption, that States can be built top down. Honestly, I think that's a load of hooey and I would point to all of the successes that that idea has produced: Iraq, South Africa, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, the Congo, etc. ad nauseum.

I think what we are seeing in Iraq is a real example of state building - bottom up construction that drags the "national leaders" kicking and screaming (or whining and b*%&@ing) into building a real state. Will it succeed? No idea, but the odds go down a long way if the emergentist propeties of state construction are ignored.

The other marketing/psychological thing that we haven't discussed to date, that I believe is is relevant, is self-identity. Self-identity is extremely powerful. It's almost impossible to change, but it can be an extremely effective lever.....

How do we get Sunnis and Shia to identify as Iraqi? How do we get soldiers to identify themselves as salesmen? I'd suggest that you can't.

Why assume that they don't identify themselves as Iraqis? One of the problems I've seen with identity construction/politics is how so many people assume that it has to be monolithic - that certainly doesn't match anything in the psychology literature! I think we are better, in marketing terms, to concentrate of situational identities rather than self-identities. This also works better in market research as well (BTW, I'm just finishing several MR reports that use that type of analysis).

Not only does it produce better actionable intelligence in marketing terms, it actually gives more leverage in grass roots political terms. If you know the situational identities of a target market, you are more easily able to figure out how to exapt semantic components from one situational identity to another.

Many Iraqis believe that co-operation with us is defeat. They don't see themselves as losers. We can't convince them that they are losers. How do we convince them that cooperation isn't defeat? It's pretty hard when we define cooperation as victory.

The simplest way to do so is to change your message: non-co-operation is defeat - that's the message hammered home by the Al Anbar sheiks and backed up by AQIs stupidities. In marketing terms, you aren't so much selling the virtues of your product so much as pointing out the defects in your opponents product.

Marc

[tequila]

Actually, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this. I think that way too many people in the West have this idea, actually it seems to be an axiomatic assumption, that States can be built top down. Honestly, I think that's a load of hooey and I would point to all of the successes that that idea has produced: Iraq, South Africa, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, the Congo, etc. ad nauseum.

I think what we are seeing in Iraq is a real example of state building - bottom up construction that drags the "national leaders" kicking and screaming (or whining and b*%&@ing) into building a real state. Will it succeed? No idea, but the odds go down a long way if the emergentist propeties of state construction are ignored

Interesting idea. Is it really true? I think there are actually many examples of "top-down" states --- very few nation-states have emerged through local consensus, I think, and there is very little of the former in Iraq at the moment. Rather more states have been formed when a single actor conquers or unifies a territory and legitimates itself through a national founding myth. Even the United States only congealed as a true nation-state when the Union crushed the Confederacy.

[marct]

Hi Tequila,

Interesting idea. Is it really true? I think there are actually many examples of "top-down" states --- very few nation-states have emerged through local consensus, I think, and there is very little of the former in Iraq at the moment. Rather more states have been formed when a single actor conquers or unifies a territory and legitimates itself through a national founding myth. Even the United States only congealed as a true nation-state when the Union crushed the Confederacy.

That's certainly a good point, but I'm not sure if calling western nation states top-down is appropriate, at least in terms of their formation of a national identity. The nation founding myth is a very important point, and one worth following up. In the case of Iraq, we certainly don't have an ethno-culturally homogeneous group, so we may be better off looking at founding myths from multi-cultural states that have succeeded.

I think Switzerland may be a moderately decent analogy in some ways, especially since the foundation myth for any emerging Iraq will be a war story. It will also need to minimize coalition involvement and maximize local (and national) Iraqi involvement.

While I certainly agree that most states have been established and/or maintained by some type of warfare, I disagree with any simplistic conquest model (actually, I don't think you are proposing that, but I need a strawman ). If conquest and myth building where all that was required, then we would still see the existence of dynastic, multi-ethnic states, which we don't really (except for India and China).

Marc