Why is it so hard to even have a debate? For surely nothing I say will convince many and what many say will not convince me.

I think there is an answer to this “failure to communicate”. Chet Richards, the holder of the flame for the thoughts of John Boyd talks today about the issue of Orientation.

The second O, orientation-as the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural tradition, and previous experiences-is the most important part of the O?O?D?A loop since it shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act. (Organic Design 26)

People, you and I, actually live in different realities.  The challenge is this I think for all of us. There are deep underlying problems confronting the world today. Many of them can be seen in Iraq.

If we all just fall back on our Orientation – blame and accuse the other – then nothing can be learned or then solved. Here is Chet’s concern:

If your conception of the situation is something like: “All the major parties are beginning to accept the advantage of decreasing the level of communal violence and cooperating with US forces to rebuild Iraq” then you probably see a long presence in the country to help them do it.

If, on the other hand, your assessment is more like: “The various militias, including the Iraqi army, are taking whatever they can get from us while they prepare for the big civil war to come” then you might favor an immediate drawdown of US forces or perhaps even a complete withdrawal.

We can live with this difference of opinion for a while. Given the uncertainty in the situation, some difference of opinion is healthy. But over time, and with an election coming up, differences of opinion can escalate into “many non-cooperative centers of gravity.” This is taking us out of mere uncertainty and over into the very nasty realm of ambiguity, competing impressions of events as they may – or may not – be. If it reaches this stage, we will have no national orientation worthy of the name and so no hope, other than dumb luck, of effective actions.

One of the new realities of conflict is that contractors will likely play a permanent role. Especially in training and in logistics. In the Messy World – States don’t want to commit to much but still want to act. IE how will the force in Darfur be supported or who will supply NATO in Afghanistan?

How contractors become properly integrated into how things are done is one of the really hard issues that we all have to deal with – hence this blog.