Opening Postmodern Parachutes
and Landing with the Operational Art of De(con)struction
by MAJ Irvin Lim Fang Jau
"Your mind is like a parachute;
It is of little use, unless it is open." Think about
It
The Resounding Battle-Call
To out-manoeuvre the enemy, one must first
out-think the enemy. The enemy for some these days is the
inexorable speed of change. Change, sometimes bright as
day, sometimes creeping and sometimes like a bolt out of
the blue, can quickly jolt one out of one's sofa of cosy
assumptions and familiar ways of going about one's life
when it occurs and one is unprepared. Not surprisingly,
we are constantly harangued by management experts to politicians
that the status quo is unsustainable. We have to constantly
keep moving forward not to loose sight of our 'moving cheese'1
so to speak; often almost to the point of ad nausuem.
Like it or not, the undeniable truth is that for many reasons
beyond our control, we now live in a fundamentally changed
world. Until recently at least, the globalisation juggernaut
of progress appeared unstoppable as it made its victorious
march into the 21st century with booming technology
stocks and roaring tiger economies. But as the terrible
'shock of the neo' symbolised by the terrorist attacks on
US cities on 11 Sep 2001 had shown on an unprecedented tragic
scale, verti-linear trajectories can be broken, and all
bubbles must eventually burst. Even the best well-laid plans
to reach up towards the skies can be brought quickly down
to earth like a house of cards by suicidal blow-back of
fundamental surprises and dark designs. That said, the pressure
is on us, as individuals and organisations, to gear-up for
the new battle-call. To do this, we need to rethink and
re-organise in order to seek out new opportunities to better
survive, let alone thrive, in a brutally changed world.
With the murderous collapse of the post-Cold war era, the
premature triumphalism of Liberal-Capitalist confidence
has given way to a revived realism and renewed urgency in
tackling the diverse threats that often paralyze the imagination
and strike mortal terror to hearts and minds. Such a new
terror readily transcends global territorial borders, and
is not easily kept out like the conventional enemy of old
amassing at the gates of State. Its networking operatives
are virtually amorphous, and can sink deep roots into cyber
space and established communities, blending well as the
indescript enemy within. This new terror possesses a nihilistic
kinetic force of extreme purpose that transcends global
marketplaces, bio-laboratories, to far-flung battlefields.
No doubt, the on-going battle against the new terror that
is to be joined on many fronts can no longer be a mere rumble
in the desert ala The Gulf War. And it is clear that
the new threat milieu of global terrorism taxes the mind
of national security managers and homeland defence strategists
no end. It appears increasingly salient too that there is
little choice but to concede that "chance favours only
the prepared mind,"2 as Louis Pasteur, father
of bacteriology, once put it. But how best can the conventional
military mind be prepared to deal with sudden changes and
threats posed by the apocalyptic imaginings and asymmetric
machinations like those of the suicidal perpetrators of
the Sept 11 attacks?
For one answer to such a problematic question,
one may well begin by looking at how dominant ways of
thinking and familiar ways of framing or looking
at the world around us can be defamiliarized. Both have
come under radical assault over the past decade by a powerful
critical mode of analysis that has been making significant
inroads into traditional academic fields of art history,
literary studies, cultural/communication studies, and even
international relations theory, particularly since the mid-1980s.
That influential intellectual movement that has been making
its rounds for sometime now, all the way from the ivory
towers of High Theory down to the sidewalks of Popular Culture,
is known as Postmodernism.
Windmills of the Mind
in Postmodern Times
Postmodernism was a term initially used
to refer to certain radically experimental works of literature
and art produced after World War II.3 It has
since evolved into what is now commonly understood as having
three distinct but intrinsically related elements: as a
mode of analysis; as a particular type of practice or style;
and as a cultural context.4 We are concerned
with postmodernism as a mode of analysis in this paper.
It is also perhaps important to note that postmodernism
is not a systematic theory, comprehensive philosophy or
a unified social/cultural movement. As a form of thought,
postmodernism is complex, multiform, and resists reductive
and simplistic explanation. There is in postmodernism's
mode of analysis, a blurring of distinctions between fixed
categories/genres and an emphasis on fragmented forms, discontinuous
narratives, and random-gestalt collages of different materials.
Some would probably want to describe the postmodern approach
as playful kitsch or pastiche. In any case, the overall
tendency is towards reflexivity, or self-consciousness,
about the production of any human discourse or enterprise,
so that each fragment of human craft or communication calls
attention to its own status as a production; as something
constructed and consumed in particular ways. Postmodernism
represents a rejection of elaborate formal modern aesthetics,
in favor of the spontaneity and discovery of creativity
through the notion of irony and play.5 It is
the ironic and contradictory tension which postmodernism
attempts to draw out, believing that it is through a holistic
evaluation of the past, present and future possibilities,
that innovation, newness and novelty are cast into fresh
perspective. Contradictory tensions are not always meant
to be resolved, for it is in contradiction that new spaces
are opened up for the contestation of new ideas and new
creative meanings. For all intents and purposes, postmodernism
in its best manifestation as an analytic method, exemplifies
the sort of dialectical tension inherent in Socrates' dialogues
whereby a thesis when countered by an antithesis, results
in synthesis; of new creative fusion even if not necessarily
definitive in closure. After all, it has been said that
postmodernism is "an art in criticism, with no message
other than the need for continuous questioning."6
Postmodernism as a philosophy, has a rich
intellectual tradition stretching back to the philosophers
from Friedrich Nietszche, Mikhail Bakthin, Roland Barthes,
Michel Foucault to more contemporary ones like, Jacques
Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard,
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. It essentially posits
that all discourse is 'situated' and context-dependent.
In other words, meaning has no independent reality except
when it is enunciated as a communicative social act, within
a broader historical, social, cultural, economic, theological
and political context. Postmodernism is at its simplest,
an attitude of "incredulity toward metanaratives."7
It therefore challenges the all too-confident assumptions
of the modernist Enlightenment project based on the infallibility
of human reason, scientific logic and objective rationality.
When taken to its extreme negativism, postmodernism as some
would argue postulates that everything is meaningless or
farcical, beginning the descend down the slippery slope
of cynical relativism and nonchalant nihilism. But when
applied as a critical and self-conscious philosophical tool
of productive inquiry, postmodernism seeks to break out
of prevailing paradigms based on formalism and humanist
traditions. The contradictions that characterize postmodernism
reject any neat binary opposition that might conceal a secret
hierarchy of values and dominance which subjugate the re-emergence
of (old) knowledge made new.
Deconstructing Destruction
(in the Aftermath of 9-11)
Not long ago before 9-11, Singapore's Permanent
Secretary (Defence) Peter Ho, had described the main influence
governing the overall development of the SAF as 'deconstruction'.
8 'Deconstruction' was aptly used to describe a constant
process of examining and redesigning the SAF to deal with
new challenges in an era of constant change. The refreshing
use of a term like deconstruction to describe radical developmental
changes taking place in the SAF must have pricked up the
ears of many closet postmodernists familiar with the etymology
of the concept. To be sure, deconstruction may be popular
in management and even military circles as a strategy of
managing corporate organisational change. But as part of
the rich lexicon of postmodernism, the term 'deconstruction'
has a somewhat deeper philosophical meaning.
Deconstruction is one of the key concepts
of postmodernism. The idea of deconstruction was made famous
by a contemporary French philosopher, Jacques Derrida. Derrida
postulated a radical epistemology of philosophical and critical
enquiry. Deconstruction is a strategy of analysis that is
applied primarily to linguistics, literature and philosophy.
Its focus is on the relationship between language, discourse
and power. It involves the close reading of texts in order
to demonstrate that any given text has irreconcilably contradictory
meanings, rather than a unified or logical whole. Deconstruction
seeks to expose the conceit of 'centred' discourses with
close scrutiny of the systemic processes in texts and embedded
discourses where some ideas are subliminated by other preferred
dominant narratives or subjugated by preferred reading regimes.
Derrida also coined the term differance to describe
the condition where words only have meaning in their difference
to other words. The key then to seeing the different possibilities
of meanings is to free one's imagination for complex association.
To push the envelope of existing conceptual boxes (paradigms),
in order to discover first the full dimensional space of
the box, and then to develop new creative canopies as a
way out beyond the mental box to link up with other 'meaningful'
boxes. The postmodernists have another operative word for
this. It is known as intertextuality or hypertextuality.
The idea is that all texts are linked to other texts operating
in differing discourses. If all texts are inter-linked,
meaning cannot be static, and truth can never be one-dimensional.
Texts are always in consonance with some texts while at
the same time in conflict with yet other texts. Deconstruction
then is concerned essentially with appreciating the 'undecidability'
of texts by unsettling familiar assumptions and acknowledging
both the ambivalence and diversity of meaning. The key idea
is to foreground the important role of the differance
in the act of differing or decentring dominant discourses,
which is central to the deconstruction enterprise. We often
tend to simplify uncomfortable issues into comfortable texts
for easy consumption because of our failure to completely
grasp complex reality. In the process we smoothen off contradictory
hard edges with cold logic and neatly parcel the chaos of
the world we live in with reductionist reasoning. Therefore,
seeking the differance in 'deconstruction' is the
act of destablizing the very foundations of comfortable
master-narratives. It seeks to question assumptions by unearthing
the alternative archeologies of human knowledge; which often
become buried over time by the selective exercise of power,
knowledge and interests. The goal is to (re)discover new
imaginings to inspire new realities with the opening up
of new possibilities previously not contemplated or ignored.
Deconstruction is therefore the turn-key to a postmodernist
mindset.
For the thinking soldier or security strategist
interested in translating postmodernist theory into praxis,
deconstruction could, for example, be represented by the
current challenge to move beyond comfortable conventional
frames of references of military offence and defence, to
prepare for unconventional contingencies, well before they
actually thrust themselves upon reality with a force of
de(con)struction, which one's imagination or lack thereof
may ultimately be held culpable.
The unprecedented terrorist stab at the
heart of continental America on 11 Sep 2001, reveals how
conflict in a postmodern era can reach the heights of a
thousand plateaus of unspeakable human loss within the span
of a few surreal minutes; well beyond one's most harrowing
nightmare or wildest imagination. For too long, weapons
of mass destruction like chemical biological, radiological
and nuclear (CBRN) agents have preoccupied much of the literature
of terrorist analysts9 and captured the imagination
of Hollywood directors. Even the tragically prophetic initiative
the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
undertook earlier in 2001 called 'Dark Winter' - which simulated
the consequences of a cataclysmic terrorist incident on
a U.S. city - did not quite envisage the way rudimentary
skills combined with revolutionary zeal could have impacted
with such profound ferocity on that 9-11 Terrible Tuesday.
Hindsight is always 20/20 when tracing dots backwards. Foresight
is in contrast blurry when looking into the future. If only
someone had been attentive and imaginative enough to pick-up
on and trace carefully the trajectory from an earlier terrorist
hijack in December 1994. Back then, the Armed Islamic Group
(GIA), an Algerian-based terrorist band hijacked an Air
France Airbus with 171 passengers onboard. The plan: to
plunge the plane into the Eiffel Tower. The problem: none
of the hijackers could fly. Projectile interruptus,
the Air France pilot safely landed in Marseilles instead,
and French police stormed the plane. It was not too long
afterward that the first terrorists began quietly enrolling
in flight schools in Florida.10 In the aftermath
of 9-11, a more tragic requiem than the following would,
in my opinion, be hard to find:
"the inability of the [US] government
to even guess that 19 suicidal terrorists might turn four
jetliners into guided missiles aimed at national icons was
more than a failure of intelligence. It was a failure
of imagination."11
The nightmarish terrorist attacks succeeded
in part because they were simply unimaginable. To counter
such invidious postmodern threats and to prevent a repeat
failure of the imagination, conventional military forces
premised on 'force-on-force' set-piece scenarios against
an external threat, must now reorganise to integrate with
home front agencies to tackle security threats within and
beyond national borders. It is clear that the enemy with
the shadowy face of global terror cannot be perfectly fitted
into the matrix of conventional threats knocking at the
doors of States. It can no longer be easily excluded, and
the battle can no longer be readily joined. It is now well-acknowledged,
if somewhat belatedly, that "[w]e need a paradigm shift
in how we organise the defences of a state."12
The call is for a holistic re-look at the conventional military's
primary missions and roles. New national security strategies
will have to be developed. And they may well entail new
and even radical thinking that flies in the face of orthodoxy
and complacency. For the military, the test of a new operational
art of de(con)struction would, for example, be in the ability
to discern new operational silver linings in the dark clouds
of strategic confusion spewing from the rubble of the horrific
11th Sept attacks. Alas! This is often easier said than
done. Epiphany can be elusive.
And the 'Archimedian moment' of Eureka!
is often lost on fire-fighting day-to-day problems of the
mundane with bureaucratic red-tapes, text-book regimes
all too often sorry excuses for little effort made in thinking
through complex problems creatively and strategically.
Slaying the Dragons of Doctrinaire
For the professional soldier, military
hierarchy, culture and ethos form an inalienable part of
his or her social construction of institutional reality.
The tendency is for one's mindset to become fixated by prevailing
ideas which one had imbibed and taken for granted - whether
it is through formal drilling, military doctrines or manuals
of standard operating procedures. While following the rules
is an important step of learning, bending or breaking the
rules, all too often painful and costly, can also be important
ways to effect vital change. In this respect, the conservative
chains preventing change Dogma, Diktat or Doctrinaire
- have generally earned a bad name for providing little
practical understanding of the real interests and ideas
of opposing parties; of differing value-laden concepts in
a dynamic environment of complexity, contradictions and
conflict. In other words, the failure to see 'systemic contrarieties'
in systemic logic. More detrimentally, doctrinaire has the
downside of constraining the free spirit of imagination,
initiative, innovation and independent thought. It can snuff
out the bright-spark of Clausewitizian genius and what the
German military strategists call auftragstaktik13,
when it is required most in the heat of battle. As has been
well-noted by military historians - "Unthinking rigid
attention to a principle of war can sometimes be unfortunate."14
To forestall fundamental surprises on the hyper-exposed
battlefield of the postmodern era, there is a need to re-look
at fundamental suppositions or first principles.
This is to allow the strategist/decision-maker to make the
necessary fundamental shifts in thinking and action in good
time; albeit not post facto or when a fait accompli
has been presented. The dragon of doctrinaire lurks
in a dark cave ready to close the mind to contradictory
evidence and more illuminating realities beyond the dungeons
of dogma. Postmodernism therefore takes critical aim at
all forms of doctrinaire, even science, in an attempt to
demystify our 'dragons'; showing them up as cultural constructs
and as potential tools of constraining ideologies.
Dialectical Daydreaming
and Rhizomatic Reframing
Daydreaming has been acknowledged - though
somewhat frivolously by some and grudgingly by others -
to be a good way of breaking through the snares of dogma
and doctrinaire. Fiddling between fact and fantasy can sometimes
lead to moments of uncanny serendipity and deadly surreality;
as Tom Clancy's fictional scenario of a suicidal passenger
airliner attack on the White House in his book - Debt
of Honour - had ironically foreshadowed.15
In another development, it has been reported that Hollywood
screenwriters and directors had been brainstorming with
US army officials to help the army dream of terrorist scripts
involving possible plots and counter-plots. For the
past two years, 'daydreaming' sessions, organised by the
Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) at the University
of Southern California, had been helping to merge the worlds
of the army and Hollywood by creating virtual reality training
for soldiers. It is possible that such virtual war-gaming
scenarios may have helped US commandos prepare for their
highly demanding anti-terrorist forays into the unfamiliar
and harsh Afghanistan terrain.16
Understanding this need for freedom to
daydream or brainstorm, I would argue, is the essence in
the spirit of a new Operational Art in de(con)struction;
albeit a postmodernist spin on the reorientation of strategic
thinking about warfare as we know it today. In what form
such an operational art of de(con)struction will lend itself
to the creation of new operational knowledge and paradigms
for a conventional military force remains to be seen. But
its familiar rumblings in academic circles are only just
beginning to be translated into new operational waves in
certain more progressive and advanced military circles around
the world.
Other ways to breakthrough the mental cages
may well involve parody and play. By parodying the obvious,
one gets to recast the familiar, reorder the improbables
and reassess the imponderables. Through play one can generate
new perspectives by turning 'common sense' on its head.
In fact, Mnemonic learning aids like the mind-maps developed
by Tony Buzan17 in the late 60s can be described
as 'artful' or even playful note-taking/exam-taking skills
that have more in common with the postmodern analytic method
than many would think. For example, the visual emphasis
on using mind maps to liberate the mind from linear thinking
allows for easier cross-referencing and untidy linkages
between different elements on a map. Such mind maps, I would
argue, represent a rudimentary exemplar of the postmodernist
method and mental-frame for creative envisioning. They encourage
free association, radiant thinking and leaps of creativity,
besides enhancing memory. Postmodernist philosophers like
Deleuze and Gattari in their oeuvre, A Thousand
Plateaus propose that we conceive of the 'rhizome' as
a fitting metaphor for the postmodern analytic mindset and
method.18 The rhizome shows how grass-like associative
thinking can like a ginger resist inertia by having a natural
growth momentum which aggressively generates new shoots
of fresh perspectives. Other writers cut from a different
cloth, like management guru Gareth Morgan, also extol the
'rhizomatic' reframing model; albeit in different guises.
In his 1993 proposal for 'Imaginization', he advocated the
need for mental reframing to create new momentum for change
in the way we think about organisation and process to break
free from the control culture of micro-management. As he
puts it, to promote flexible and decentralized modes of
operation, we "can imaginize alternatives to mechanical
blue-prints."19 The way to do this, he argues,
is to visualize the hybrid spider plant as a metaphor
for creative change by overcoming the uniformity syndrome
of groupthink. This again is a useful concrete image for
helping organisations to understand the role and need for
different models of organisation, in order to lead and manage
change in a world of constant flux. Morgan's work also attempts
to make the point that: "Imaginization shows how management
is as much an art form as a science, providing many useful
ways to tap the most important resource for competitiveness;
brainpower."20 Perhaps Albert Einstein
said it best when he linked the creative art of imagination
with the discipline of science in knowledge creation - "Imagination
is more important than knowledge. To raise new questions,
new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle,
requires creative imagination and marks a real advance in
science."21 For a society and organisation
such as ours where we are known more for our ability in
solving problems post facto rather than identifying/defining
new problems, there is certainly much to ponder over in
that regard.
Operational Analysis/Art
Complex
It is well-acknowledged that postmodernism's
influence on Operational Analysis (OA) development is not
new, but its influence on military Operational Analysis
and Military Science is more recent. Well before 9-11, a
growing group of military analysts had noted the changing
nature of warfare and the consequent demands on analysts
which require a radical paradigm shift towards a more holistic
rather than traditionally powerful reductionist stance taken
by Operational Analysis to address new emerging issues.22
One of these issues concerns the Operations Other Than War
(OOTW), where the traditional military missions of defence
and attack are being blurred with new ones like the restoration
of peace or the preservation of the status-quo. The ambivalent
scope of OOTW problems forces analysts to move beyond modeling
for a purely force-on-force battle situation to take into
account dynamic and unpredictable challenges on the ground.
New kinds of messy operations like in the Balkans and the
latest U.S. war on global terrorism beginning with Afghanistan,
throw up new kinds of operational demands which have outmanoeuvred
the conventional war-fighting templates of the Cold War
OA. The importance of 'situatedness'(the logic of the situation)
and inter-subjective aspects like personal interpretation
and cultural environmental factors in any local area of
operation must be taken fully into account. This is a shortcoming
where existing methods of Operational Analysis are "simply
unable to cope with social variables that are, in their
very nature, subjective and culturally embedded."23
Therefore, the call for a new postmodern craft in Operational
Analysis is timely. It is both a critique and an
attempt to supplement - not necessarily supplant - "the
pure adoption of a viewpoint that presumes the existence
of an absolute, empirically based, and objective reality"
that has become "increasingly inappropriate."24
While traditional Operational Analysis principally resorts
to number-crunching to cough out a solution based on statistical
probabilities, the postmodern craft, I would argue, tends
toward a more Operational Art (Op Art) trajectory, whereby
positivist objectivity is complemented by a more fuller
appreciation of the subjective interplay of oftentimes non-linear/irrational
forces. In this sense then, both Operational Analysis and
Operational Art are not mutually exclusive but are inherently
symbiotic cousins of complexity thinking processes. The
combination promises to be powerful thinking tool indeed
for overcoming increasingly complex threat scenarios.
The Analytic Migration
to Operational Art
The traditional approach to Operations
Analysis is generally characterised by 'lab-work simulations'
carried out by civilian statisticians and surrogate military
advisors. But it has become difficult, if well-nigh
inadequate in many cases, to identify and formulate problems
and propose solutions in terms of straight-forward measures
of effectiveness through physical and abstract mathematical
bases of modeling that may bear little relation to the real
world in operations. It is increasingly recognised that
enervating infusion of humanities and social science can
serve to enhance the Operational Analysis modus operandi.
Influenced by contemporary management science
and business consultancy practices, Operational Analysts
have sought to do this by moving towards capturing the more
eclectic or 'Artful' aspects of complexity thinking without
sacrificing the level of systemic rigour which Operational
Analysis premised primarily on statistical science traditionally
demands. Efforts have been underway over the past decade
to build upon the principles of hard systems thinking by
constructing new soft systems problem structuring methods25,
premised on network-based enabling tools with descriptive
interactive components set in opposition or conflict, to
address complex scenarios/problematics. The populating of
networks with IT-based decision-support systems accessible
to the decision-maker is another way of conceptualising
and envisioning new ideas. The move is away from a purely
game-theory Operational Analysis of the situation to a more
play-oriented praxis of Op Art appreciation of the complex
world we increasingly find ourselves in. In fact, enterprising
research strategists like Zvi Lanir and Gad Sneh, have even
extended postmodernism's deconstructivism into a 'reconstructive'
call for their brand of 'Systemic Reframing Thinking' and
'Complementary Divergence' to advance a new affirmative
epistemology for successfully confronting complexity, chaos
and change. They claim, rightly, that while "theory
provides coherence, practice provides relevance". The
belief is that "people continuously create new worlds,
new alternatives for thought and action, by the power of
interpretation and re-interpretation." They go on to
argue for what they call a "post-postmodern praxis"
to overcome the "conceptualization crisis"
caused by post-postmodern man's inability to re-conceptualize
material objects when confronted by the accelerated fundamental
technological and social changes. The universal problem
as they see it is the pressing issue of "conceptual
survival" and "we must all learn to participate
in the language of concept construction" to better
capture the diversity of organisation that exists in the
world.26 The impetus is to break free from the
inertia of 'what we see depends on where we stand' by adopting
different stances to mentally reframe 'in here' the full
range of perspectives 'out there'.
Whatever its many guises or re-conceptions,
I would argue that the basic analytic mode by which such
systemic reframing or conceptual 'reconstruction' is to
be achieved, is essentially via the same dialectical praxis
inspired by the spirit of the Socratic dialogue and informed
by postmodernism's deconstruction project. In this important
sense then, "OA is being forced to recognise conflict
as a social interaction between diverse organisations of
people rather than the clash of opposing technological titans."27
The operational art of war in the realm of ideas cuts across
all forms of diverse human organisations. Indeed, diverse
organisations of people require that the soft realm of opposing
interests, ideas, ideology and identities be factored into
any conceptual computation of an operational dialectic that
not only makes sense, but makes strategy simple, salient
and ultimately successful. The call for a new postmodernist
turn in Operational Art is not intended to restrict but
expand the military's operational field-of vision with wider
strategic application.
Before Casting Creativity
Off into the Wind
Nevertheless, some healthy pause may be
in order before an overly exuberant adoption of postmodern
or - what some prefer to call - a post-postmodern praxis28
of operational art premised on a systemic and strategic
re-framing of thinking to put a handle on complexity and
change.
First, there is a still a pressing need
in our technophile society to move away from persistent
'statistical envy' which plagues the operational analytic
community eg. the view that 'if it doesn't have statistics,
it ain't science!' Statistical validity is often regrettably
held up as a sacrosanct indicator and determinant of empirical
reality. To be sure, the problem with such a narrow view
of science is that it may prematurely stymie other more
fluid interplay of ideas which border more on the realm
of 'artful' discourse. It is not the Op Art project of deconstruction
to be dominated by the ideal of a singular procedure or
method, but instead, it should be 'dynamized' by a plurality
of analytic processes at play. As an alternative way out
of dominant strictures of thought, Art, as reframed historicism,
may yet have some of the answers where the methodology of
Science is silent. As Richardson et al have suggested,
"significant benefits might be realised through a reframing
of the community's methodological position."29
That reframing swept by the winds of strategic change,
may well entail the conceptual opening of 'postmodernist
parachutes' to launch a new praxis of Operational Art in
military affairs. And this I would argue represents a crucial
challenge for today and tomorrow's militaries.
Second, the trend towards management change
and organisational design via facilitation has to be managed
with some care. In the true spirit of Art, which the namesake
Op Art aspires towards, a more participative and creative
style of brainstorming consultancy has become a popular
norm. Such brain-storming consultancies have been making
heavy use of auxiliary IT decision support systems and groupware
to free up discussion as opposed to more conventional model-based
analyses which enshrine hierarchical direction and expert
oversight. After all, the emphasis on 'art' in Op Art is
more akin to the free spirit of participation, voluntary
contribution and the democratic impulse to speak one's mind
over more repressed impulses concerned with biting one's
tongue and 'minding the boss'. Nevertheless, the inescapable
fact of any human enterprise is that groupthink30
may still rear its head. And it would take no small amount
of intellectual courage and professional integrity for one
to speak out (even if out-of -step and beyond one's rank/pay-grade),
on polemical issues. As Foucault had warned us in Power/Knowledge,
the discourse of power emanates all around us and cannot
be wished away.31 And especially for a military
organisation, we not only cannot escape it, we operate principally
by projection through it. At best, we can acknowledge the
pervasive 'disciplining-effect' of 'top-down' power, and
ameliorate atmospherics by working around it. In my view,
the critical movement should be away from that of 'exclusive
consultancy' to 'empowering facilitation' in problem identification,
problem elucidation and problem-solving. This is crucial
for 'exclusive consultancy' conjures up pedestal notions
of a subject matter expert directing over an 'expert-based'
system; of which the Op Art process, in its true postmodernist
spirit, is not. Empowering facilitation gets the deconstruction
process quickly down-to earth and is entirely in keeping
with a more modest and realistic expectation of the postmodernist
Op Art project and deliverables. The key to Op Art success
is not expert knowledge or even experience per se,
but more importantly, enlightened stewardship and ownership
of the Operational Art deconstruction process. That process
of analysis should endeavour towards a more democratic character
which acknowledges the 'rights' and value of a range of
perspectives 'expert' or ordinary. Given the often
demonstrated degree to which analysis is power, the measure
of Op Art success may unfortunately fall squarely on the
shoulders of the facilitator who influences the kinds of
questions that may be asked about any given issue, and not
necessarily on the participants per se. In other
words, the one who controls the way questions are framed,
also influences the kinds of answers participants might
be reasonably expected to deliver. If this were indeed to
occur in a less than empowering and equivalent fashion,
the Op Art deconstruction process, far from being an emancipating
project, may prove pejoratively to be an emasculating one.
Clearly, Op Art, in its ideal postmodernist manifestation,
should neither be esoteric nor 'expert' in an exclusionary
sense if it is not to short-circuit its potential benefits.
But having said that, for effective Op Art deconstruction
of issues related to military strategy, a deep understanding
of strategic history and fundamental strategic concepts32
must, assuredly, form an invaluable part of the mental arsenal
for operationalising the art of war in radical postmodernist
thinking in military affairs.
Third, there is the issue of IT-driven
decision support systems or thinking tools, especially given
their increasing marketability and popularity in enhancing
the Op Art process. As much as we may find them to be useful
for helping identifying problems, clarifying complex issues
and difficult scenarios, we should also not fetishize the
postmodernist-inspired praxis manifest in the new military
think tools/aids. Operational Art inspired by postmodernism
is no silver bullet. Creative imagination enabled by the
Op Art deconstruction process is in itself not enough. To
forestall irrational exuberance, it must be translated into
concrete action with operational initiative and ingenuity
in areas where it counts as a decisive cognitive force multiplier.
It is in the end, only as good or useful as its operators/users
would allow it to be in praxis. After all, there will always
be inherent systemic shortcomings as in tragic human/random
failure when even parachutes fail to open as designed. IT
groupware or thinking/reframing tools can never substitute
for a thorough understanding and flexible application of
the very important postmodernist principles and philosophy
that can allow every user to maximise the full potential
of reframing IT tools enabling cognitive operational manoeuvre.
Fourth, there is the dread common
place in an Age of Information Overload -that analysts may
become 'freeze-framed' by the plethora of possibilities
that the paradigmatic freedom of Op Art offers. This can
result in the familiar syndrome of "paralysis by
analysis."33 In other
words, the Op Art deconstruction process often throws up
more problems than it has answers for. This highlights the
inherently problematic nature of 'free-for-all' context
recognition, problem definition and 'solutioning'. Ultimately,
in the true spirit of strong exploration offered by the
postmodernism-inspired Op Art deconstruction process, military
analysts will have to carefully prioritize, for example,
the specific type of scenarios/threats to guard against
and strategies/capabilities/force structures to develop.
To be sure, scenario-formulation and operational brainstorming
through reframing mental maps can be mentally taxing and
time-consuming. But they are willy nilly the easier
parts. Narrowing down the multiple options for actual decision-making
and selective implementation after the Op Art process will
often prove to be even more challenging given the very real
and practical limitations in time and resources at hand.
In other words, imagining every possible wild-eyed scenario
and then following up on some of the more credible ones
with a clear head requires a healthy sense of discipline
and focus to overcome potential conceptual schizophrenia.
Op Art can then perhaps provide meaningful guidance for
resource allocation.
Last but not least, there will also be
a need for constant iteration of the Op Art process by frequent
revisits as context changes or when new information becomes
available. One should therefore never confuse our mental
maps for the actual territory. Physical reality changes
in time and space. This means that mental maps can quickly
become obsolete or lose their fidelity with reality. In
addition, our thoughts and beliefs are but human ideas and
constructs fallible and subject to error of perception
and prejudice. Fixation with pet ideas and stagnation of
the imagination should not be allowed to set in. Constant
reframing can help prevent reactive thinking. In the end,
framing, re-framing and re-re-framing mental maps ad-infinitum
must be the order of the day for any protracted Op Art
deconstruction process.
Still the Real Tip of
the Spear
In opening postmodern parachutes of the
mind, the battle-call in my paper has essentially been for
a discursive move beyond techno-simulations to thinking
stimulations. In other words, we need more dialectical and
less deterministic approaches to conceptualisation in order
to illuminate the infinite universe of ideas governed by
the dynamic laws of chaos and complexity. The more practitioners
or participants we have in the Op Art de(con)struction process
with an astute understanding of postmodernist precepts,
the better off we will be as a military force and as a people
confronting the new diverse challenges of a truly postmodern
age. We can then perhaps have the 'conceptual confidence'
to lessen the fear of sudden change and embrace the uncertainty
and freedom that comes with being blown adrift in the clouds
of still undiscovered paradigms. In taking such breezy risks
with suspended flights of fancy, we can then better reframe
the challenges of change and complexity from new vantage
points. We would also stand a better chance of being amongst
the very first to parachute into new and exciting mental
landing-zones - motivated by the calculus of intelligence,
the courage of initiative and the creativity of imagination
to absorb any operational shocks or overcome any crash-course
in fear. But there are no easy 'golden' parachutes of quick-fix
solutions in the realm of postmodernist de(con)struction
where the threats are more real than imagined. For example,
Bio-Chemical and Radiological threats these days are no
longer hypothetical hazards. We now live in an era where
war is the expression of terrorism by any means. In
order to successfully crack our brains on such dire operational
nuts, we will need considerable intellectual sang-froid
to push our thinking beyond tentative steps with bold leaps
off the comfortable plane of the knowable and 'do-able',
free-falling into sometimes dark clouds of the unspeakable
and imponderable. The battle of deadly ideas fought in the
realm of imagination demands nothing less. In an age of
asymmetric contests, technology and hardware can only provide
so much by way of solutions and secret-edge. Cutting-edge
weaponry and derring-do notwithstanding, the creative and
critical ability to out-think the enemy conceptually and
operationally will still be the real tip of the spear!
Endnotes
1 Spencer Johnson,
Who Moved My Cheese?, (New York: Putnam Publishing,
1998).
2 cited in Henry Miller,
'Bio Weapons: It's Not The End of the World' in The Straits
Times, (1 Oct 2001), p. 14.
3 Ross Murfin & Supryia
M. Ray, The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary
Terms, (Boston: Bedford Books, 1997), p. 297-99.
4 See Sylvia Morgan, 'The
Postmodernist Possibilities of Computer-Based Instructional
Simulations', available at http://hagar.up.ac.za/catts/leaner/smorgan/
postmodernism.html .
5 See Mary Klages, 'Postmodernism',
available at http://www.colorado.edu/English/
ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html.
6 Charles Russell (ed.)
The Avante-Garde Today: An International Anthology,
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981) p. 58.
7 See Jean-Francois Lyotard,
The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge,
(Minnesota: University of Mieesota Press, 1997, 11th printing),
p. xxiv.
8 See Robert Karniol,
'Singapore-Deconstruction Forges Ahead' in Jane's Defence
Weekly, (27 Jun 2001), Vol. 35, No. 26.
9 See Frank J. Cilluffo,
Sharon L. Cardash & Gordon N. Lederman, Combating
Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism:
A Comprehensive Strategy, (Washington DC: CSIS Report,
May 2001). See also Michèle A. Flournoy (ed.) QDR
2001: Strategy-Driven Choices for America's Security,
(Washington, D.C.: National Defence University Press, 2001);
Paul Wilkinson, 'Enhancing Global Aviation Security?' in
Terrorism & Political Violence, Vol. 10, No.
3 (1998), pp. 147-168; Maria Do Céu Pinto, 'Some
US Concerns Regarding Islamist and Middle Eastern Terrorism'
in Terrorism & Political Violence, Vol. 11, No.
3 (1999), pp. 72-93; Joseph W. Foxell, JR, 'The Debate on
the Potential for Mass-Casualty Terrorism: The Challenge
to US Security' in Terrorism & Political Violence,
Vol. 11, No. 1 (1999), pp. 94-109.
10 See 'The Road to September
11' in Newsweek, (1 Oct 2001), p. 45.
11 Ibid.
12 Prof Ramesh Thakur,
cited in Shefali Rekhi, 'Think People, Not Borders, for
Security, Conference Told' in The Straits Times,
(13 Oct 2001), p. 22.
13 The concept of Auftragstaktik
or 'mission tactics' made it the responsibility of each
German officer and NCO to do without question or doubt whatever
the situation required, as he personally saw it. Omission
and inactivity were considered worse than a wrong choice
of expedient. Even disobedience of orders was not inconsistent
with this philosophy. See Capt M.M. O'Leary, Auftragstaktik,
available at http://www.ducimus.com/Archive/
auftrags-oleary.htm; See also William Lind, U.S. Manoeuvre
Warfare Handbook citing J. R. Boyd, briefing on Patterns
of Conflict. Boyd is well-known for developing the OODA
(Observe-Orientate-Decide-Act) cycle. For a robust argument
on how the concept of Auftragstaktik can be applied
to the SAF, see LTC Tan Kim Seng, 'Initiative As The Fighting
Power in the Army 21 Vision', in Pointer, Vol. 27
No. 3 (Jul-Sep 2001), pp. 56-71.
14 Ronald E.M. Goodman,
'Military Strategy and Tactics', (1993) available at http://www.molossia.org/milacademy/strategy.html
15 See Tom Clancy, Debt
of Honour, (US: Berkley Pub Group, reissue edition July
1997; orig 1994); See also Harshvadan Trivedi, 'Fiction
Fires Imagination of Reality', available at http://www.ahmedabad.com/cgi-in/refer.cgi
16 Screenwriters from
Die Hard, MacGyver and Delta Force One,
among others, had previously brainstormed in at least two
teleconference sessions with the Pentagon from the University
of Southern California; See Louise Branson, 'Hollywood Helps
Army Dream of Terrorist Scripts', in The Straits Times,
(11 Oct 2001). See also Sylvia Morgan, 'The Postmodernist
Possibilities of Computer-Based Instructional Simulations'
available at http://hagar.up.ac.za/catts/learner/smorgan/
postmodernism.html.
17 See Tony Buzan, The
Mind Map Book, (London: BBC Worldwide, 2000), Millenium
edition.
18 A rhizome is a system
of roots and tubulars that extends both below and under
the ground, connecting other plants in one entire living
network. The rhizome can be described as a weed in that
it pOp up everywhere, filling in the gaps. It is a chaotically
distributed network (the rhizome) rather than a regular
hierarchy of trunk and branches. See Félix Guattari
& Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism
and Schizophrenia, (Minnesota: University of Minnesota
Press, 1987), translated and foreword by Brian Massumi.
(orig. 1980).
19 Gareth Morgan, Imaginization:
New Mindsets for Seeing, Organising and Managing, (London:
Sage, 1993), p. 63. Imaginization = Imagination &
Organisation (a portmanteau word).
20 Rosabeth Moss Kanter,
review cited in Morgan, ibid.
21 cited in ibid.
22 See Kurt A. Richardson,
Graham Mathieson & Paul Cilliers, 'The Theory and Practice
of Complexity Science: Epistemological Considerations for
Military Operational Analysis', available at http:www.concentric.net/-kurtar/Bert2/Comp/milcomplexity.pdf
23 Ibid, p. 28.
24 Ibid, p. 25.
25 See Jonathan Rosenhead
& John Mingers (eds.), Rational Analysis for a Problematic
World Revisited: Problem Structuring Methods for Complexity,
Uncertainty and Change, (New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 2001).
26 Zvi Lanir & Gad
Sneh, The New Agenda for Praxis, (Tel-Aviv: Praxis,
2000), pp. 12-14. It is important to add here that there
are many other 'creative leadership and learning' consultants
out there who are advancing similar conceptual diagramming
systems ranging from Peter Senge's "systems thinking
mental models", Sandidge & Wards' "reframing",
Clare Grave's "Spiral Dynamics of Humpty Dumpty Effects"
to Hall & Bodenhamers' "Conversational Reframing,
Outframing, Mind-Lines and Meta-States of Neuro-Semantics.".
See Peter Senge, Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice
of the Learning Organization, (New York: Currency Doubleday
1990); Peter Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Rick
Ross, George Roth, and Bryan Smith, The Dance of Change:
The Challenges of Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations,
(New York: Doubleday/Currency, 1999); Robert L. Sandidge
& Anne Ward, 'Reframing and Systems Thinking' in James
F.Gardner (ed.), Quality Performance in Human Services
Leadership, (Baltimore: Paul H Brookes Publishing,1999);
Don Edward Beck & Christopher C. Cowan, Spiral
Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change, (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1996); Michael Hall & Bobby Bodenhamer,
Mind-Lines: Lines For Changing Minds, (New York:
E.T. Publications) 2000), Third Edition, orig 1997.
27 Richardson et al,
Op. Cit., p. 30
28 Lanir & Sneh,
Op. Cit.
29 Richardson et al,
Op. Cit., p.26.
30 For an excellent account
of how Groupthink works at the highest level of bureaucratic
politics, see Irving Janis, Groupthink: Psychological
Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1983).
31 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge,
(Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980). See also Michel Foucault,
Discipline and Punish, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979);
the concept of 'Hegemony' in Antonio Gramsci, Selections
from Prison Notebooks, (New York: International Publishers,
1971), Quintin Hoare & Geoffery Nowell-Smith, (trans.).
32 Strategic concepts
like centre of gravity, critical vulnerabilities, end-state,
sequencing, tempo, culminating point, operational pause
amongst many others.
33 Richardson et al,
Op. Cit., p. 45.
MAJ Irvin Lim Fang Jau is an Assistant
Director in the Defence Policy Group. A Principal Warfare
Officer by training, he has served various operational tours
in the Fleet. He holds a BA (First Class Honours) in Communication
Studies from Murdoch University, an MBA from Leicester University
and an MSc (Strategic Studies) from IDSS-NTU.
