Analysis and the Innovation Imperative

The defense community is recently (and not-so-recently) awash in calls for innovation to ensure that we are militarily postured to meet future challenges and possess the agility necessary to turn toward those challenges we did not anticipate.

For example, we have the Pentagon's Third Offset Strategy and Air University's call for "Airmen to offer innovative solutions to address problems facing the Air Force in a time of increasingly daunting global and fiscal challenges." We also see what B. J. Armstrong describes as a small movement

... growing across the defense community which realizes that the challenges of the new century are going to require innovative and creative solutions. Parts of this movement, inspired from the junior ranks of our services, look to embrace the ideals of innovation and entrepreneurship from the business world. These dedicated women and men recognize that the budget, manpower, and resource challenges in a post-war drawdown mean that new ways of doing things will be required.

The Red Queen and Alice

The ways in which this small (but growing) movement manifests are legion, including formal organizations such as the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum and  CIMSEC, online venues for the exchange of ideas (The Strategy Bridge, War Council, The Constant Strategist, etc.), and the growth of peer-mentoring communities of practice (whether on the model of Scharnhorst's Militarische Gesellschaft or something less formal). I am a huge fan of these efforts, and I think the powers-that-be should support them in any way they can. They will, I believe, be a critical part of creating innovation going forward.

Why should the powers-that-be support such an effort, though, especially in the face of limited resources? In times of plenty, we have the resources but lack the imperatives for innovation. In times of need, we lack the resources but the necessity is much more clear. This is the conundrum.

That innovation (or at least the ability to innovate) is necessary in the abstract seems self-evident (and if not self-evident then compelling arguments can be made for its necessity). The world changes around us. There are adversaries, potential adversaries, allies, and potential allies all about us who all seek to increase their own relative advantage, and every change they make (whether they intend it or we like it) affects the calculus of our own continuing advantage. We are all trapped in a Red Queen Race, and survival depends upon our capacity to find new solutions to new problems, more efficient solutions to old problems, and the creation of new problems for our competitors.

But innovation for the sake of innovation is a mistake. The folks at the Havok Journal make a fine argument that not all "outside the container" thinking is worthwhile. Paraphrasing egregiously, they claim that the container was built by someone for some reason, sometimes the container is just fine, and those looking to operate outside its confines often "don’t really understand the fundamentals of [their] profession and don’t want to take the time to learn." (The full article is well worth reading, and I highly recommend it. My self-serving paraphrasing does not do it justice.)

Art, Science, and Engineering

There is a real and important tension here, described in the fields of expert systems and evolution as a trade-off between exploration and exploitation. If a particular strategy works, it makes sense to exploit that strategy. But we should also explore the strategic environment for approaches that work better and for changes in that environment that might compromise the approaches we've exploited so successfully. A nice metaphor for this tension has been described elsewhere in this space as the interaction between art, science, and engineering. (I won't lie. The parallel with Clausewitz's wonderful trinity and the chaotic dynamics of the three-body problem add an undeniable attraction to the model.)  The balance between these is the difference between evolutionary success and failure.

So, why post this thought in a forum all about analysis? I thought you'd never ask.

We (analysts, mathematicians, statisticians, modelers, computer scientists, etc.) are a part of this environment, too. Our worldviews and tools must be no less adaptable than those of the doctrine writers, planners, and strategists of the world. More important (and a little frightening) is the possibility of reified and static analytic ideas becoming framing concepts for the rest of the strategic world.

Optimality is a favorite and appropriate example. For what do we optimize force structure? A world and a worldview. What is the consequence if either situation fails to meet our assumptions? Something less than optimal. How do we minimize the probability that failures of optimality (or analysis in general) are catastrophic? Welcome to the problem of framing analysis in a way that supports the decision needs of leadership in a way that meets the needs of today, tomorrow, and the future. And welcome to the need for innovation in our own community.

So, what does this all mean? How are art, science, engineering, innovation, expertise, exploration, and exploitation to be managed? Not surprisingly, I have some thoughts on the matter:

1. Expertise matters. The problems we face as military analysts are trivial in neither their costs not their consequences. If military operations research is to synthesize inputs and techniques from diverse disciplines (math, statistics, economics, computer science, etc.) expertise in those disciplines is important. Destruction and creation can produce positive results by accident, but will produce innovation far more reliably if the agents involved really understand the underlying philosophical and technical principles.
2. Diversity is more than important. Without diversity of experience and expertise, it is difficult to find and exploit the skis, handlebars, outboard motors, and tank treads in our experience to create effective snowmobiles. This is an interesting concept for military operations research. Ours is an academic discipline that is inherently interdisciplinary, but an interdisciplinary field will always struggle with sufficient isolated expertise to facilitate effective interdisciplinary exploration.
3. Tolerance for individual failure is critical. Evolution and innovation are bottom-up processes, and there must be room for both exploration and exploitation. In an ecosystem, failure is fatal, but that is a system relying on chance to create the necessary genetic and phenotypic variations that facilitate adaptation to changing environments at a population level. The loss of individuals is not important, since the adaptation is neither social nor volitional. On the other hand, analytic innovation is a volitional act by rational social agents, and intellectual variation leading to dead ends cannot lead to deadly individual ends (unless the objective is abject conformity). This is the primary purpose of a community/institution in the context of organizational innovation. It exists to exploit the known, incentivize exploration, and protect the explorers from censure. We need to be free to disagree, argue, and explore.

For our community these observations result in some imperatives for action. Simply put, a structure that prizes expertise and diversity in that expertise (not expertise in that diversity) while facilitating exploration of new ideas and analytic approaches is what we should seek. 

Commission for Military
Reorganization at Konigsberg, 1807

This blog notwithstanding, I'm left wondering why there aren't analytic equivalents of CIMSEC, The Strategy Bridge, War Council, The Constant Strategist, the Militarische Gesellschaft, etc. I'm left wondering why so many of our analysts attend the same school (singular) to receive the same graduate education. I'm left wondering if we will find a way to be relevant in the face of a future that looks decidedly unlike the world in which our "discipline" emerged.

Seeking Truth

The last few posts I've penned for this forum (here and here) have danced around the edges--and occasionally jumped up and down on--the notion that we humans are flawed, cognitively compromised, and subject to some intrinsic constraints on our ability to see, understand, communicate, and act on the truth. Though this is not a new soapbox, I hadn't realized that this notion had taken over my writing and become as strident as it had. Then a good friend asked a simple question, and I found myself wrestling with the consequences of the human cognitive silliness on which I've been recently focused and what it means for truth in general and, perfectly apropos of this forum, truth in our analytic profession.

So, what poser did my wise friend propose? He offered three alternative positions based on the existence of truth and our ability to know it:

1. There is a truth and we can grow to understand it.
2. There is a truth and we cannot understand it.
3. There is no truth for us to understand.

(Technically, I suppose there is a fourth possibility--that there is no truth and we can grow to understand it--but this isn't a particularly useful alternative to consider. As a mathematician and pedant by training and inclination, though, it is difficult to not at least acknowledge this.) 

The question is then where I fall on this list of possibilities. It's an important question, if for no other reason than where we sit is where we stand, and it becomes difficult to hypocritical to conscientiously pursue an analytic profession if we believe either two or three is the case. Strangely, though, I found this a harder question to answer than perhaps I should have, but here is where I landed:

At least with respect to the human physical and social universes with which we contend, there is an objective truth that is in some sense knowable and we, finite and flawed as we are, can discover these truths via observation, experimentation, and analysis.

In retrospect, my position on this question should have been obvious. I've been making statements that human cognition is biased and flawed, averring that this is a truth, and I believe it to be one. We can observe any number of truths in the way humans and the universe we occupy behave. I find, on refection, though that there is a limit to this idea. Specifically, we can probably never know with precision the underlying mechanisms that produce the truths we observe. We may know that cognitive biases exist and we may be able to describe their tendencies, but (speaking charitably) we are unlikely to ever have an incontrovertible cause-and-effect model to allow us to interact with and influence these tendencies in a push-button way.

So, the trouble I have with truth is that we apply truth value to the explanatory models we create. Since these models are artificial creations and not the systems themselves they must, by definition, fail to represent the system perfectly. Newtonian theories of gravity based on mass give way to relativistic theories of gravity based on energy. In some ways one is better than the other, but neither is true in a deep sense. Our models are never true in the larger sense. They may constitute the best available model. They may be "true enough" or " right in all the ways that matter." But both of these conditions are mutable and context-dependent. In a sense, I find myself intellectually drawn to the notion that truth in the contexts that matter to us professionally is an inductive question and not a deductive one.

In the end, I'm actually encouraged by this reflection, though the conclusion that models are and must be inherently flawed results in some serious consternation for this mathematician (soothed only by the clarity with which mathematicians state and evaluate our axiomatic models). I understand better what I'm seeking. I understand better the limitations involved. And, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I am more convinced of the need to put our ideas out in the world. This reflection might never have taken place if not for Admiral Stavridis and his injunction to read, think, and write.

The Analytic Profession in One Tweet

Last week, a blog post by an Army strategist appeared on The Bridge (a marvelous blog that I highly recommend to military professionals of all stripes) that posed the following question:

"How would you define the art and science of our profession in one tweet?"

In this case "our profession" referred to the profession of arms, and the author put forward a compact solution with an attendant explication of his reasons that answered the challenge nicely. There is, I think, more than a little value in an effort like this one, and cutting away the chaff and getting to the heart of who we are, what we do, and why we do it is more than just an interesting intellectual exercise. If done well, it provides a clear and memorable vision that communicates to those on the outside what we do and to those on the inside why and how we do it (whatever "it" might be), in this way creating a professional community centered on the vision. This clarity of vision then has any number of second-order effects on prioritization, training, recruiting, etc., and the effort to create it can pay incredible dividends.

As a member of more than one professional community, though, this line of thinking led me to wonder, "How would you define the art and science of our military analytic profession in one tweet?" I frequently use the phrasing below when discussing the career field among the analysts with whom I work, though I can't claim credit for its composition. Those who know Mike Payne will recognize it and have likely been part of the ongoing conversation that led to it, but the words are his:

"Analysts learn how things work and explain it to others, usually in relation to other things and often quantitatively."

This definition (with 22 characters to spare) captures several critical characteristics of the analytic profession. 

1. It is general. In many cases, we don't have the luxury to consider ourselves as ISR analysts, force structure analysts, operational assessment analysts, etc. Rather, our particular skills will be applied to whatever question is relevant to leadership. 
2. Learning how things work is interesting as a standalone activity, but productive of nothing. Communicating the things we learn to those responsible for making decisions is a critical element of who we are as a community. 
3. Not all analysis is quantitative. There are some tools available to the community of military operations research professionals (mathematical, simulation, etc.) that are in some sense unique, but these are not a sine qua non for analysis. Consider, for example, the analysis given by Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow in their iconic book Essence of Decision. Nary an equation is to be found, but it's difficult to dispute that they are seeking to understand a system and explain it to others who will make decisions. Analysis is something done by analysts, and it is independent of the tools used (except for tool between the analyst's ears). 
4. The systems we study are not isolated, and understanding how they are coupled to other systems is vitally important, both to understand the constraints and restraints imposed by the environment and to illuminate non-proximate effects that may result from changes in the system under investigation. 
5. It's worth noting what this definition does not do. The word "answer" does not appear, for example. Most questions of interest, do not have clean and precise answers, for example, or they have multiple answers that each have merits making them equally palatable but qualitatively different. So, it is generally not possible for analysis of an interesting problem to produce a single, incontrovertibly trues, and perfectly optimal answer. Thus, we explain to senior leaders how the system works to help them better understand the decision space before them, but we rarely provide answers and to chase these chimerae is ... problematic.

That's my 140-character contribution.
Merf

PS ... There's a fairly robust discussion of this question on Facebook among some of the participants in this thread. You can find it here.

Physics of the Future and Force Structure

I've just finished Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future.  In this work, Kaku describes the state of science, technology, and engineering in the areas of computation, artificial intelligence, medicine, nanotechnology, energy, space travel, the meaning of wealth, and the future of human civilization.  He then extends this discussion to speculate on the shape of each discipline and the consequences for life and civilization in the long (2070-2100), mid (2030-2070), and near (present to 2030) terms.

I don't want to dwell on the aspects of Kaku's work that bother me, but I can't resist (very) briefly touching on a few.  

• I'm always a little troubled by the inveterate optimism of some folks (especially those with an unshakable faith in science to make the world better).  This is some of my own pessimism and misanthropy coming through, so my judgement should come with a grain of salt.  I'm not asking for dystopic visions of the future, but Kaku is really unbalanced in his approach.
• My teeth always start to ache when physicists start talking about international relations, psychology, economics and other fields in which they are (at best) dilettantes.  (To be fair, I'm similarly troubled when experts in international relations betray their misunderstanding of science.)  Kaku has a lot to say on these subjects and the pedigree of his conclusions sets off alarms in my little dilettante brain.
• Kaku completely ignores a fundamental aspect of human interaction--war.  (Of course, my calling this element of human interaction fundamental betrays my Hobbesian outlook, but "to thine own self be true.")  This gap is filled, to an extent, by others.  (E.g., The Next 100 Years: A Forecast of the 21st Century by George Friedman is a nice look at the interaction of technology, social change, geopolitics, and war.  Robert Kaplan does some of the same things, though with a lens that doesn't seek to see quite so far.  Etc.)  I just wish a survey of science as wide-ranging as Kaku's touched on military science as well.  (Discursive aside...I think it bears mentioning that any discipline using "science" as a noun modified by some discipline-related word--in a quest for the illusion of rigor that only comes from science in our post-enlightenment minds--will never be an actual science.  Just saying.) 

It's this last that brings me to the reason for my post here.  (The questions that follow are not new, I suppose, but in the interest "read, think, write"...)  What are the implications of the radical changes Kaku foresees and military science, warfare, and therefore the force structures we project and for which we plan?  These changes include: quantum leaps in expert heuristics and expert systems enabled by advances in artificial intelligence and computation; widespread use of driver-less cars, with implications for all sorts of remotely piloted, semi-autonomous, and autonomous vehicles; nano-machines performing medical miracles (and, as Kaku does not note, acting as weapons); profound changes in sources of energy (including the side-effect of nuclear proliferation); expansion of space programs (manned and unmanned...with implications for the military domain, something not noted by Kaku); etc.  Note that he predicts these changes in the near term (by 2030), the first period of his speculation (the mid and late century predictions are much more extreme); this period obviously falls squarely in line with our Air Force long-range force structure timelines.

So...1) Can we meaningfully incorporate these speculations into force structure analysis?  2) Should we do so?  3) If so, how would such speculative force structure analysis work?

Merf

Free Soloing

The feature article in the May 2011, National Geographic is entitled, “Daring, Defiant, Free”. I believe these same three words characterize the essence of what is required to be on the front end of a scientific revolution. In his April 4th blog, Merf gives us a passage to read on scientific revolution taken from the book, “Chaos: Making a New Science”, by James Gleick. Gleick has applied his words to tip of the spear activities that were going on with the creation of chaos theory more than two decades ago. But his passage is timeless and applies to any worthy endeavor that must first overcome a mountain of resistance in order to succeed. It is within the words “mountain of resistance” that I see the parallels to the National Geographic article and begin this essay.

Seated in his office to my left is Alex Honnold. When he was 23 years old he climbed Half Dome in Califorina’s Yosmite Valley…without a rope. In this picture he is relaxing on what they call “Thank God Ledge” during an encore climb he executed, also without a rope. It’s important to understand that I am ghastly afraid of heights. As I stare at this picture I become physically ill. I experience vertigo while sitting in my padded  chair. I want to scream out in fear. I want to look away, turn the picture over, or otherwise remove the image from my mind. Alex is clearly a daring, defiant, and free individual. Some might also say…and here it is…that he is crazy. That he is stark raving mad, a lunatic, and belongs in a padded cell vice a comfortable chair. Sound familiar? But he has overcome gravity to climb a mountain as free and effortlessly as we ascend a flight of stairs…well maybe not as effortlessly…but certainly with no strings attached.

I cannot walk out onto a hotel porch above the fourth floor without backing myself up against the wall…even though I know the probability of me plummeting to my death is zero. These completely irrational fears must be deep seated in my psyche perhaps as an over manifestation of a survival instinct. Individuals without those instincts plummeted to their death and were removed from the gene pool of my linage. However, my direct ancestors survived, apparently by backing up against the wall when they walked out onto their cave balconies. Alex Honnold’s ancestors must have not only walked out on their balconies, but climbed higher in search of food. Those who stayed at home with their backs against the wall were the ones who perished. But it was a slower death, one via starvation rather than a fast decent to the rocks below. I am definitely in the slow starvation camp. Nevertheless some of my ancestors must have survived as well so living with your back up against the wall must have worked out in some cases. In fact, in the main, living life conservatively definitely increases ones chances of survival in most cases.

The same is true with most things we humans do. But if most of the scientific community is staying at home with their backs against the security of their cave walls, how then are we to discover the improbable? How do the scientists that start the revolutions become daring, defiant, and free individuals? I don’t think it’s magic. I think it’s through hard work.

As improbable as his feat may seem it didn’t just happen. Alex works unbelievably hard at his sport. All world class athletes do. It would be easy to dismiss Alex as a crackpot with a death wish. But that’s the furthest thing from the truth. In order for him to climb Half-dome without a rope he climbed Half-dome many times before. He has climbed the route so many times he has memorized the moves and holds necessary. In fact they are so ingrained in his brain; he can, as so many world class athletes do, visualize his movements ahead of time. He didn’t just show up at the granite wall of Half Dome and begin his ascent, free of ropes. So too is true with all great genius. The foundations for genius are set through hard work and discipline. Mandelbrot could visualize the equations in his head because his head was full of the math he needed to see a fractal in the clouds. That doesn’t mean that everyone with equations jammed in their head can be Mandelbrot…or with climbing acumen can be Honnold for that matter. It takes more…much more. And equations are not even the science. Equations form the discipline behind the science.

In rock climbing the engineering behind the sport is found in the discipline of the equipment. The devices that are used to secure climbers safely to a smooth granite surface, the knots and the rope which serpentine through high strength aluminum carabineers, and of course the tight fitting rubbery climbing shoes that when smeared cross a granite face stick like glue. And then practice...a lot of practice.  Mind numbing repetition of these same skills over and over again.  After the foundational basics become routine then more advanced studies can proceed.  The science is in the experimentation and discovery of new tools for the rock climber’s arsenal as well as the techniques of movement and conservation of movement. If you get tired lifting your 180 lbs carcass up a flight of stairs consider climbing a ladder that’s 1300 feet straight up. Years of climbing science came ahead of the current generation of modern climbers that now enable what comes next…the artistry.  Until Honnold first climbed Half Dome with all his equipment, and then free climbed Half Dome with minimal equipment, he was not ready to create his free solo masterpiece.

With the final package comes the inspiration and creativity to do something new with the foundation and legacy of what came before. Sometime that path leads to incremental changes in the status quo. Occasionally, a revolutionary leap can be made. Typically, when a revolution is at hand, there is no shortage of the old guard screaming about the impossibility of it all, telling the few that might see a better way that they are crazy, and laying before them a mountain of resistance that is the hallmark of a shallow thinker.

Now that is not to say there is no risk involved. There is huge risk involved. And the penalties for miscalculation, as Clausewitz has said, as are the miscalculations that lead to war, could very easily lead to death. Certainly a physical death for rock climbers ascending a stone face without safety gear, but they could also lead to the death of a publication, a reputation, or a career. But for those brave few, those that can be daring, defiant, and free from the gravity of the ties that bind a revolution awaits. Just make sure when you begin your free solo of your granite mountain you have nerves of steel and have prepared as well as Alex Honnold.

Science, Art, and Engineering

Thus far this has not been an exactly optimistic comment on truth. I actually do have a much higher opinion of human nature and believe that the vast majority of us are, in fact, in favor of the truth. Why then have I been so negative? I fundamentally believe that there is truth to be found. There are so many examples of things that were not don’t properly, they are unfortunately never really reported and heralded as something that was done right. We really only primarily here about the things that have gone wrong. It's typically said that that one ah shit erases a dozen or so atta boys. And this is true. Here is an example.

How many suspension bridges does the world have in place? These numerous spans are both beautiful and are the epitome of engineering marvels, but they are more than engineering. Most of us can name the more significant ones in our country, Brooklyn, Golden Gate, Verizono, but very quickly the list gets shorter. There are more, many more world wide. But if you are an engineer you also know the name of the Tacoma Narrows bridge. Has that mistake ever been repeated? But we still hear about it today and it is used to describe an engineering mistake. At the time, however, I think it was probably more of a scientific mistake.

I use the suspension bridge as an example since more than anything, a project of this immense scale epitomizes the combining of three areas, namely science, art, and engineering. All three were necessary in order for the bridges, as we know them, to be standing therefore giving us functional examples of the success of truth, as we know it. When man first undertook construction of these grandiose extremes, the Brooklyn bridge, for instance. There were many things that were not understood. Steel and its properties had to be examined to get the cabling right. Significant additional work was necessary in order to understand how to get the foundation for that structure correct, let alone how to construct it. Yet throughout, there was a need to construct something aesthetically appealing. All three disciplines played together to get it right - John A. Roebling got all three right despite the efforts of many to throw him off.

What I would like to present is an understanding that when seeking the truth in our profession as well, a commitment to all three is vital in the search for the truth. True analysis, as is the case with a bridge, is a convergence of all three disciplines. Most often analysis is treated as an engineering problem, something to be solved by formula and repeated over and over. Formulaic analysis ignores 2/3’s of the true potential of analysis. It is not the analyst fault necessarily. This too was learned in school, which is most typically aligned with an engineering discipline and certainly not aligned with the school of science or art. This is not to suggest that a case could be made for creating an analysis curriculum in the other places, it is definitely in the right school. It is an understanding that analysis and engineering should not be done in isolation.