Today we look at a bottom-up approach that uses networking principles versus a top-down hierarchical control approach.

The example is the Millenium Challenge, a $250 million war game run by the United States Joint Command in 2002, prior to the invasion of Iraq. I first read about this in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink, last week. I found it on the book shelf in the small library at work, and read it during an evening shift.

This article from the Guardian (UK) tells the story of the defeat of the Blue team (US forces), by the Red team (the bad guys) commanded by Lt Gen Paul K Van Riper on the first day of the exercise that involved 13,000 troops and was four years in preparation.

After the first day, where 16 ships of the US Navy fleet were sunk by the Red team, including an aircraft carrier, the exercise was suspended for two days, then resumed as a scripted operation that validated the US Joint Command’s operational doctrines.

It was the clash of two leadership ideologies. Blink is a book about decision-making, and it was in this context that I first heard of Millenium Challenge and Lt Gen Van Riper. The US military is currently developing Network-centric operational methods, as I’ve discussed in previous posts dealing with the developments of Network-centric warfare. However, at the strategic level their doctrine is still very much hierarchical, and it was at this level that Van Riper was able to defeat them.

I looked into General Van Riper some more, and found this wonderful presentation that he gave last year, entitled: “How To Be In Command and Out of Control“.

I’ve uploaded the presentation slides and the presentation itself in mp3 format (it’s in Real Audio on the linked website):

Presentation slides
Part One
Part Two

Here are a few gems gleaned from this presentation.

First of all, Van Riper is talking about uncertainty. It’s not possible to eliminate uncertainty except in a very small system - never in real world conditions. Real world conditions, whether we’re talking weather, relationships, or more complex situations like yatras or battle spaces, are chaotic. Technically they are called non-linear systems. With non-linear systems there are many interacting elements. Each one influences the others in a cascading fashion. This means that a small change disturbs the equilibrium and the result is unpredictable. The weather is the classic example. It’s not possible to predict the weather more than five days out, nor will it ever be. It’s simple too complex. Even though all the elements are understood, the cumulative effect of their cascading interaction creates a non-linear system of such depth that the complexity exceeds the computing power of all the world’s computers combined.

In nature complex systems are built up from simple fundamental principles.

How do you deal with these complex non-linear systems? The approach of the US Military High Command mirrors that of modern Western science - as Van Riper puts it: “the futile quest for certainty”. They become obsessed with the idea that with enough data and enough analysis they can reduce the situation again to a state of certainty. In the meantime, Van Riper has wiped them off the map. How did he do it?

Van Riper argues that uncertainty is a natural feature of complexity, and that it’s impossible to get rid of it. Instead of trying to get rid of it, we need to learn how to operate within it. Rather than using a top-down systems oriented approach which tries to create a master plan that controls the situation, he approached it using simple principles to build his system from the bottom-up.

In the articles that talk about the exercise much is made of unconventional tactics, such as using signalling lights ala World War Two to get planes off the ground, rather than the radio signals that otherwise would have been intercepted and warned the US forces of an impending attack. Messengers were sent via motorcycle and messages were broadcast from mosques rather than being sent by cellphone or other means that would have been overt in a world of global electronic surveillance.

These tactics, while not what the US forces were expecting, all demonstrate the power of a network. Communication between the nodes is a characteristic of a network. Many elements doing a little each is another feature.

Van Riper also devolved control and responsibility. Without sophisticated communications ability, each commander on his team had to take decisions based on their perception of the local space. In order to synchronise the network, Van Riper explains that each node in the network, responsible for the local situation, must be purpose-driven.

Here is where we start to cross over. Remember Rick Warren, the author of the phenomenal best-seller The Purpose-driven Life and The Purpose-driven Church? He is the pastor of a church of 10,000 people in California, Saddleback. He dispells the myth that his church is driven by growth by stating: “You won’t grow if that’s all you care about”. The focus in his model is on the individual and on their purpose. By instituting purpose at the unit level as the DNA of the network, and applying network principles of organization, his church has been able to grow to a formidable organisation.

Here’s another cross-over: this method of loose control through communication of purpose and decentralized decision making is the Auftragstaktik, or Mission-type tactics, of the German Blitzkreig method of warfare.

When we align our actions and organizations with fundamental principles of the universe we tap into powerful harmonics and synergies.

Purpose is the DNA of the network that makes it harmonious. Just as the different cells in our body do not have the complete picture of what is going on everywhere but somehow manage to work together, similarly in a large complex system individual units in the network synchronize by being purpose-driven.

Van Riper also talks about comprehending chaos through higher order synthesis. The way to grapple with complex situations involving uncertainty and non-linear dynamics is by telling a story.

Here is where I give an example from my bag.

Here in Brisbane we’re still in this drought. Madan told me the other day that it’s because the dams have been built in the wrong place, and not because there is a lack of rainfall. Someone else said that the council let out so much water because the meterologists predicted a massive flood like that of 1974. Whatever the causative factors, the situation now is that the council is considering a plan to pump 110 million liters of recycled sewage water per day into the dam to top it up.

Councillor Jane Prentice took a recent trip to Singapore to taste some recycled sewage water there, and gave it the thumbs up. The levels of pollutants in the water are so low that they are within acceptable ranges, and in some cases, practically indetectable.

Now I am going to first of all give some top down analysis by reducing the situation into quantifiable units, ala Western science, but I’m going to use some tools that are not really accepted mainstream science yet.

In homeopathy (wikipedia article: homeopathy) medicines are created by taking an active ingredient and diluting it in water, then shaking it, then diluting the resulting solution further, then shaking that, and repeating to a point where it is statistically unlikely that a molecule of the active ingredient remains. The resultant solution works on a subtle causative level, rather than a gross physical level.

My Ayurveda teacher explained to me that with each successive dilution the effect of the active ingedient is moved further out from the gross physical body to the subtle energetic body.

Kirlian photography is a photographic technique that captures images of energetic fields surrounding objects. With this photography sickness can be detected before it becomes overtly manifested, as it is observed to enter and affect the energy field before it manifests in the body.

Researcher Masaru Emoto (featured in the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know?“) discovered using high speed photography of frozen water, that the crystalline structure of water is altered by consciousness. He observed that:

(n)ot all water samples crystallize however. Water samples from extremely polluted rivers directly seem to express the ’state’ the water is in.

and

that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward them. He found that water from clear springs and water that has been exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns. In contrast, polluted water, or water exposed to negative thoughts, forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors.

(source)

My point in relating this is that according to these observations, admittedly on the cutting edge of mainstream science, recycled sewage water is highly likely to affect the consciousness of the people who drink it, and also their health in a very subtle way that will not be traceable in terms of cause and effect using present conventional scientific instruments and methodologies.

What the long term effect of this will be is unknown.

It’s a complex situation filled with uncertainty. Computing the outcomes is beyond the ability of present-day science. Who thought at the time that “smoking causes cancer”? What will people say about cellphones in 20 years time?

These all show the weakness of relying on a top-down reductionist approach to life, which is based on an inherently complex non-linear dynamic and is an uncertain situation.

Now let me share something else with you. It’s a story. A very simple story, and it demonstrates the power of story as a higher order synthesis for dealing with chaos.

Varuna is a powerful personality who is the presiding deva, or demigod, of water. Passing urine or stool, or spitting in water is a great offense to him, and he will punish anyone who does it, so it should not be done.

Such a simple story, the kind of thing that would be laughed off by modern scientific proponents as the superstitious ramblings of a primitive culture….

I leave it to the reader to make the connections between this simple story and its powerful and natural ordering of chaos to a level beyond that of present day science with its empirical, top-down, reductionist approach.

The stories of the Vedas, especially the stories about Krishna, give a higher order synthesis that automatically aligns those who live within those stories with the complex systems that arise from the simple fundamental principles of the universe.

Our journey continues as we build on this to understand how to construct the network using this approach, rather than attempting the reductionist approach that our Western-trained minds might initially consider….