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Apropos "Burying Clausewitz"...

Ori Brafman offers a different take on the subject - supportive of throwing over Clausewitz, but with a different analogy: Spiders versus Starfish.

Cut off a spider's leg, and you'll have a seven-legged cripple. Cut off its head, and you'll kill the spider. But cut off the starfish's arm, and not only will it regenerate, but the severed arm will actually grow an entirely new body. Starfish can achieve this remarkable feat because, unlike spiders, they lack central control—their organs are replicated across each arm. Starfish are decentralized.

Just like in nature, there are also starfish on the battlefield. Starfish forces don't have a leader, clear structure, or defined hierarchy. These seemingly chaotic qualities make Starfish unexpectedly resilient.

Read the rest here.

H/t, CSM M.

2 Comments

Flip a starfish upside down on the beach above the tide line. Keep water from reaching it and it dries out and dies. Isolate the terrs from the people who are presently providing their support. Protect those people from retribution and make it more lucrative for people to betray terrs than befriend them. Then invite every wahabist imam in every madrassa in the Middle East to a meeting with Allah...
 
Make the new starfish enemy of the original.