Air & Space Power Journal

Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security edited by David S. Alberts and Thomas J. Czerwinski. National Defense University Press, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C. 20319, 1997, 381 pages.

Complexity theory is something that business and science have been using for quite some time, but the theory has only recently—since the end of the cold war—been used by national security strategists. Complexity theory is used to investigate systems and the behavior of the dynamics of nonlinear systems. Most Air Force readers will recognize the observation, orientation, decision, action (OODA) loop of John Boyd fame.

This book is a collection of essays presented at a National Defense University conference on complexity theory—or chaos theory as it is sometimes called. The presenters include Alan Beyerchen, an Ohio State University professor who has spent years examining Clausewitz in nonlinear ways and demonstrating that Clausewitz is as valid today as he was in his own time; Zbigniew Brzezinski, who discusses worldviews; and Murray Gell-Mann, the founder and most prolific writer of complexity theory. In all, 11 articles are presented, and the reader gets an excellent understanding and overview of the theory, as well as realistic and current themes that show the utility of the theory.

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s piece, which points out that the world cannot function without the United States, lays out a variety of policy options that all require American leadership. In addition to supporting Russia, he feels that the United States needs to pick two other republics which may not yet be democratic to maintain access and force the Russians to operate in a democratic way. In addition to the Ukraine, these two would be Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan—the latter because it is the core of an independent Central Asia and that is in the interest of the United States, and Azerbaijan because it provides access to Central Asia and the United States should not allow the Iranians and Russians to operate in collusion and prevent the United States that access. While there are other points he deals with, ranging from weapons proliferation to a united Europe, the avoidance of large-scale social collapse raises some real long-term policy problems. Mexico is the country he has chosen, and his arguments seem not only to be sound but based on current reality inside that Central American country. In addition, he urges that the United States government finally (after 50 years) establish an effective, global, political planning mechanism—not another bureaucracy, since national strategy and policy are not being planned at any level within the White House.

After the end of the cold war, James Rosenau writes that if there are enemies to be contested, challenges to be met, dangers to avoid, and responses to be launched, we are far from sure what they are. At the core of the complexity theory is a complex adaptive system—not a cluster of unrelated activities but a system—with unfamiliar feedback loops, and it is here that complete theory helps a participant to grasp the system. The role of the policy maker is not to understand the system—whether it is domestic or international—but to master it, and it is here in the post-cold-war era where most have failed. Steven Mann, writing about the current international system, points out that we are in an environment in which unperfected transformations lead to constant change in the international environment—witness Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Central Africa, and Chechnya.

The cornerstone of this collection of essays is Beyerchen’s work on Clausewitz; the key here is that Clausewitz understood political participation as a stimulus for exercise of, and constraint upon, power. Using his great knowledge of German, Beyerchen examines key parts of On War and points out that politics and military action interact in a complex, continual feedback process. War cannot be a linear system since it does not behave predictably—hence Clausewitz’s reference to the friction of war. This shows that war, even as Clausewitz understood it in his time, was not linear but complex. Thus, complexity theory is the appropriate way to study war. By thinking about this nonlinearity, one can design a more robust system of analysis, allowing the military to adapt to the twenty-first century.

Other writers take up the theme that as the world moves to a knowledge-based society involving the production, dissemination, storage, and use of information, we are entering an era of rapid change. If institutions and business patterns of the industrial era fall to the side, so must national security doctrine and the way the Pentagon prepares for war. One of the more controversial points is to “leapfrog” an entire generation of weapons systems to develop one to fight this new wave of warfare, which currently no one has been able to define—not in this book either. Speed, agility, synergy, information dominance, and lethal, long-range precision strike are cornerstones of this revolution in military affairs. Given budgetary shortfalls, doctrinal differences, and the unlikelihood of a major upsurge in defense spending, leapfrogging is viewed as the only viable alternative to obsolescence of the Department of Defense.

Readers of this book should have some background in complexity theory and its uses in national security, since the essay writers assume some fundamental knowledge. Theories are in vogue in the Pentagon, so staff officers and defense planners may find this collection a useful primer.

Capt Gilles Van Nederveen, USAF
RAF Waddington, United Kingdom

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.