For years, the private sector has been immersed in such works as Thriving In Chaos by Tom Peters and The Fifth Dimension by Peter M. Senge. This book is perhaps the first to directly engage the defense establishment along the same lines.
The theme of this work is that conventional, or linear, analysis alone is not sufficient to cope with today’s and tomorrow’s problems, just as it was not capable of solving yesterday’s. Its aim is to convince us to augment our efforts with nonlinear insights, and its hope is to provide a basic understanding of what that involves.
Murray Gell-Mann, a Nobel laureate in physics, has defined the challenge:
- When dealing with any nonlinear system, especially a complex one, it is not sufficient to think of the system in terms of parts or aspects identified in advance, then to analyze those parts or aspects separately, and finally to combine those analyses in an attempt to describe the entire system. Such an approach is not, by itself, a successful way to understand the behavior of the system. In this sense there is truth in the old adage that the whole is more than the sum of its parts....It is of crucial importance that we learn to supplement those specialized studies with what I call a crude look at the whole.
Tom Czerwinski brings to this challenge his experience teaching nonlinearity to students of the National Defense University. He has formulated an approach which calls for intertwining, or meshing, linear and nonlinear reductionist techniques. His terms are “tools of analysis” for linear techniques and “aids to learning” for nonlinear approaches. The latter are set forth as means to attain Gell-Mann’s “crude look at the whole.” As you will find, these aids to learning are still in the formative stage and very different both in methodology and expectations, requiring new ways of thinking and acting.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that the ability to thrive in nonlinear environments will have to be among the core competencies of the warrior and statesman of the 21st century if the United States is to maintain its position. It may be that attaining that ability lies at the heart of the Revolution in Military Affairs which we seem certain is present, but which has proved so elusive.
RICHARD A. CHILCOAT
Lieutenant General, U. S. Army
President, National Defense University
| Coping with the Bounds Index | Foreword | Acknowledgments | Introduction | Part One Introduction | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Part Two Introduction | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Conclusion | Appendix 1 | Appendix 2 | Appendix 3 | Appendix 4 | Appendix 5 | Appendix 6 | Notes |