Today's quote is from pages 136-38 of Edward Luttwak's The Pentagon and the Art of War: The Question of
Military Reform, 1985.
“The divide between
efficiency and effectiveness is at its deepest in combat. What are the most
effective military operations? In very general terms, they are operations in
which the enemy is not outfought by
greater firepower, greater numbers, greater bravery, and greater sacrifice of
lives, but instead surprised and then outmaneuvered and disrupted, and thus
never given a chance to fully employ his fighting capacity in the first place.
“And what is the
common denominator of such operations? Inefficiency
“Consider surprise. How is it achieved? By
deception – unless the enemy is merely apathetic or unobservant, and therefore
outclassed to begin with. And how is deception achieved? By doing the
unexpected. And what is the unexpected? Something other than the sensible,
normal, and efficient."
Luttwak connects the strategic concept of inefficiency to weapon system acquisition:
"But conflict is not like
civilian business and efficiency is the wrong goal to pursue: efficiency in
making a radar or refueling a ship, of course; efficiency in making radars, or refueling ships, no, for efficient economies of scale in purchasing radars lead
to a single mass-produced radar that will be more easily counter-measured, and
efficient refueling leads to a few large fleet oilers that are more easily
intercepted and destroyed by the enemy. (Each of our majestic aircraft-carrier
task forces is now dangerously dependent on a single, very large, very
efficient resupply ship.) Conflict is
different.”
The concepts do not just apply to conflict, but to all dynamic systems. Certainly the market economy, itself a dynamic system, fosters inefficiency due to competition and redundancy. Like handling the uncertainties of war, perhaps local inefficiencies produce overall effectiveness of the market system to adapt and progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment