Posted by Surferbettle,
Read something recently in an unclassified SOCOM publication related to your comment that prompted an aha momement, since it brought a lot of thoughts together coherently (something I can rarely do without help).Heh...the military is all about controlling and minimizing variables in the pursuit of defined objectives while the World has always and ever been about 'complexity'.
Apparently it was extracted from Francois Jullien's book A Treatise on Efficacy: Between Western and Chinese Thinking:http://www.amazon.com/Treatise-Effic...9687314&sr=1-4 . He writes a truly skilled strategist makes a careful study of a complex situation to ascertain the natural inclination of the system (that will make slapout happy), then uses this knowledge to put himself in a position of strength. They use a river analogy to describe: Identify how the river naturally surges and moves and then use these powerful forces. Once others seek to act further downstream, the flow of the situation and power of the river becomes irresistible.
The Chinese supposedly seek to transform the situation and not act to reach goals, as western thinking does. We definitely try to achieve goals/effects, and spend a lot time trying to measure if we're succeeding, when in reality the trend is the trend (or the river is the river) and we're only fooling ourselves with our efforts to "force" change. Chinese logic states to continue any effect DO NOT link it to force, force is temporary in nature, as compared to the natural tendency of the situation. The more one merges with the natural proclivity of the situation, the more effective one is.
No truer words were ever written, and we have demonstrated that our attempts to force change have almost always failed. There are limits to military power (as most of us know, unfortunately our politicians don't get it). We can and should use force to kill terrorists that threaten the homeland, if removing Saddam was really in our interest, then using force to do so was appropriate; however, using force to transform the Iraqi, Afghan, and Vietnamese societies was and is a futile effort, we were rowing against the tide.
This gets to Bob's point about not using control as a strategy (I think); however, population control for temporary periods of time can be an effective tactical tool to achieve limited objectives. The key to clear, hold, build being successful is enabling the trend, if we're pushing against the trend we'll only clear and hold as long as we apply force, as soon as we stop, the trend will assume its course.
Funny how people with Phds, Graduate degrees, etc. can't grasp this. Higher education is effective for those that can liberate their thinking from the assumptions others have proposed and can think independently, for others it is a piece of paper that checks the block.
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