Complexity Implications for Defence and C2

Peter Houghton, Dstl

Lt Col Rob Kace, MOD, Defence Futures

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© Crown copyright (2024), Dstl

Complexity and the Operating Environment

• Continuing debate on complexity in the national security context of competition, crisis and conflict
• Is it new or different? Has it increased or stayed the same?

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Proposition

• Complexity is increasing due to multiple and new interactions within complex systems. Drivers that increase complexity include
• Changes in human behaviour
• Changes in the scale and nature of human interactions
• Humans-humans – often mediated by new or evolving technology
• Humans-systems – with natural systems and complex technological systems

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Nature of complexity in the context of C2

• Attempting a definition - perilous territory – a thicket of perspectives, opinions, misconceptions
• Is it in the eye of the beholder?
• Also a dangerous path – suggests complex problems may be readily soluble
• Scientific perspective – distinct difference between complicated and complex
• Complex implies no systematic solutions will ever be possible
• Do scientists agree?
• Some suggest not
• Others suggest that differences arise from mixing up the description of a field of study with more detailed explorations of its parts – and that there is a lot of similarity between views

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Some exemplar and similar definitions

• 1962 – Herbert Simon
• “Roughly, by a complex system I mean one made up of a large number of parts that interact in a non-simple way”.

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• 2021 – Torres et al, 2021
• “a complex system is (a) a collection of objects or agents with high cardinality, which (b) interact with one another in a nontrivial way such that (c) the collective behavior of the system is unexpected or different from, or not immediately predictable from, the aggregation of the behavior of the individual parts.”

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Jackson and Weaver’s challenge for complexity science

• Science can deal with problems of organised simplicity
• Mathematical tools: calculus and differential equations
• ...and with problems of unorganised complexity (large numbers of components exhibiting high degrees of unpredictability)
• Mathematical tools: statistical mechanics and probability theory
• …but there is an obvious gap: organised complexity
• problems are too complex for analytical approaches and too organised for the application of statistics
• Weaver (2003)
• “.....science to make a third great advance, an advance that must be even greater than the....conquest of problems of simplicity or the....victory over problems of disorganised complexity. Science must, over the next 50 years, learn to deal with problems of organised complexity.”

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Is ‘complexity’ sufficient to describe the nature of problems

Future situations will increasingly create problems which are also

• Wicked
• Unstable and resist being solved by classic problem solving
• Messes and Social Messes
• Concern multiple stakeholders with no agreement on problem, or how to solve it, with no single means to address

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Implied challenge for Defence and C2

• More traditional form of C2: concepts, processes and organisation
• Era of mass production: people are machines, with optimised and standardised processes, based on ‘scientific management’
• Linearity of thinking and process: assume world sufficiently understood, problems can be analysed and reduced to component parts, causality determined and predicted, solutions can be found, when applied will resolve “the problem”.
• Assume: B will follow A - but without sufficient rationale – and without considering sufficient variables that are different from previous settings
• Consequence: outcomes will likely be far from those desired/expected
• A challenge for Defence: outdated industrial/scientific management perspective, many implicit derived assumptions deeply engrained in
• the defence institution and its culture
• its concepts and doctrine
• its education
• its selection and promotion of personnel

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The ‘gap’ to be closed

• Not all problems are complex
• Situations will contain problems of all types
• Cynefin suggests that we apply the appropriate approach to the relevant parts of the situation
• Arguably we have workable approaches for clear and complicated – the ‘gap’ is for complex and chaotic

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Confused

Complicated

Complex

Clear

Chaotic

Good Practices

Best Practices

Novel Practices

Exaptive Practices

Cynefin

Sensemaking

Framework

No single systematic approach

• Neither science nor management have developed a commonly agreed approach

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Proposition

• Defence will need to develop its own approach that is
• Workable in a Defence context
• Able to operate without too much friction with more routine approaches
• Adaptable to the changing world – it cannot stay static for decades
• Based on reflective practice and learning
• But – where to start?

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Sources of inspiration

• Ideally
• Treat systems as wholes – borrowing ideas from critical systems thinking
• Accept uncertainty and unpredictability – use ideas from complexity science
• Current examples of sources
• From the multi-methodologists: take the view that we apply theories, concepts and approaches appropriate to particular problem types (Midgely, Jackson, Flood),
• Systems of systems methodologies – which attempt to classify methods and approaches according to a good fit with a problem type
• Classify using two dimensions – (1) simplification of Cynefin – simple and complex types and (2) whether problem resolution is unitary, pluralist, coercive
• EU Field Guide for dealing with complexity and chaos (Snowden and Rancati)

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However: disagreements

• Contrasting views
• ‘Systems thinking’ and methods are entirely appropriate
• New thinking and methods based on ‘complexity science’ are what is needed

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• We need to avoid an abstract and academic debate
• A viable approach may be to create some diversity
• Try multiple approaches and variants, and gradually learn our way towards what appears to work better
• Potential for adaptation should always be primed, as the operating environment continues to change

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Summary

• Change in the future operating environment will likely continue along already observable trends along with some surprises (including some we consider absurd)
• Significant debate about the nature of complexity, but also considerable agreement about its primary features and implications
• Future competition, crisis and conflict will most likely reside in the complex and chaotic domains, where cause-and-effect relationships are unclear and unpredictable
• Relying solely on traditional C2 methods that are based on theories and concepts which no longer apply, especially in these types of situations, is likely to lead to failure
• Need to recognise that we can no longer assume an ability to effectively ‘control’ what is happening in the environment
• Crucial to embrace the required change in C2 very soon and develop, adopt and evolve new approaches – places to start already exist

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Success will enable Defence to maintain effectiveness in the face of new threats and challenges, as they emerge

Discussion

• How should we characterise the nature of change in the operating environment relevant to challenge for C2?
• Are the current conceptions of complexity, wicked problems and social messes appropriate and sufficient?
• Do we agree with Jackson and Weaver about organised complexity problems being unresolvable using traditional approaches?
• Do you agree that relying solely on traditional C2 methods is likely to lead to failure?
• If so, how might we blend the new with the traditional that may be appropriate in many circumstances?
• Do you agree with the following proposition? That Defence will need to develop its own approach that is
• Workable in a Defence context
• Able to operate without too much friction with more routine approaches
• Adaptable to the changing world – it cannot stay static for decades
• Based on reflective practice and learning
• Do you have any other sources of inspiration that you believe we should be considering and folding into any developed approach?

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© Crown copyright (2024), Dstl. This information is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

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Additional Slides

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Contributing macro-level trends

• No single primary trend is driving complexity – a confluence of multiple interacting factors with unpredictable interactions and outcomes, including
• Increasing pace of technology change – digitisation and AI
• Increasing and faster interconnectivity between systems
• Climate and biosphere degradation – increasing instability
• More multi-polar world – not constrained to state actors
• Continuous global hyper-competition and hybrid conflict
• Instability in political systems
• Globally dispersed influencing communities outside of traditional media

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“Complexity is a core feature of most policy issues today; their components are interrelated in multiple, hard-to-define ways. Yet governments are ill equipped to deal with complex problems.” (OECD, 2017)

Jackson (2019)

• What help can decision makers expect when tackling the messes and wicked problems that proliferate in this age of complexity?
• They are usually brought up on classical management theory that emphasises the need to forecast, plan, organise, lead, and control.
• This approach assumes: a predictable future environment in which it is possible to set goals that remain relevant into the foreseeable future; enough stability to ensure that tasks arranged in a fixed hierarchy continue to deliver efficiency and effectiveness; a passive and unified workforce; and a capacity to take control action on the basis of clear measures of success.
• These assumptions do not hold in the modern world, and classical management theory provides the wrong prescriptions.

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