Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
I tend to take a more holistic approach to 'systems' (one that wouldn't pass muster with the more technologically-focused systems analysis). To me, the population support for an insurgency is in its own way a system, but one that you have to pressure and adjust in multiple ways. Much of what I've seen in the EBO/systems stuff is more (to me) grasping for a justification to build more fancy stuff and/or use that fancy stuff in a way that might appear to offer a silver bullet solution.

I do agree with Eden that there is some good nestled in the EBO stuff, but it tends to get lost in the technological shuffle (I tend to pin many of our problems not so much on intellectual hubris as I do an over-reliance on technology...and I do think that 'total knowledge' of any battlefield is a myth).
Your point is well taken. Much like Wilf grasping at the closed versus open mechanical system the reality is much broader. Capitalism is an economic system. An HMO is an entity in the health care system. A village will have a social system. Like I said earlier we (collective with mouse in pocket) have a tendency to utilize technological constructs and metaphors and rationalize them regardless of fit or usefulness. Systems theory (even the hyper-technical) is useful for understanding differing entities and relative behavior patterns in the aggregate. Specificity falls off as the relationships devolve towards the individual.

It also seems that EBO was misused as a method to apply scientific method or metric based analysis to a woefully inappropriate task. Much like the meandering discussion on the platoon and fire team the mission changes, the scope is slippery (pun intended), the constitution begs for flexibility, the reality is counter to the evidence. EBO fails in providing leaders ease of understanding in a cognitive effort that is not easy to address. To have the answer to the EBO effort is to in many ways not need the EBO tools.

Awaiting flung stones.