Nation Reconciliation and
Reconstruction
Resources for the Concerned Activist
Section 1
Dynamics of a Nation Among Nations
Dynamic inputs to a nation include both internal and external forces. ➀
A nation may be constituted (constructed or organized) in a rigid way
or in a flexible
way.➁
Rigidity of power relations creates the likelihood of fractures and
of damaging internal structures (for example, Iraq under Saddam
Hussein).➂
Fluidity of power relations permits maintenance of a dynamic balance
among all of the factions, interest groups, ethnicities, etc.➃
Flexibly organized nations may be better able to resist efforts of
other
nations to fracture them as part of a process of conquest.➄
In warfare, one strategic goal can be to physically drive a wedge
between two regions of a target country.➅
It is also possible to drive a wedge between religious groups,
ethnicities, etc. that have not separated off into several regions.➆
Fluidly organized nations recognize the various factions, accord to
each its rightful importance, and preserve according to constitutional
provisions
the rights of minorities against oppression by majorities.➇
There is a form of group intelligence at work in the interactions of
factions in a well-constituted nation. The number of individuals and
the fervor of individuals in each of two or more factions can increase
or decrease depending on how the interests of individuals in the nation
are currently met or assessed. For instance, a harsh penal code may be
enacted at one time because of the weight of public opinion reacting to
perceived increases in crimes, in the destructiveness of crimes, etc.,
and the penal code may later be made less harsh as bad results of harsh
punishments become impossible to deny. ➈
The effectiveness of this group intelligence may be decreased due to
shortcomings in public education, success in programs of
indoctrination, etc. ➉
Free nations are interactively complex. The interactions among
components of the system cannot be predicted in the way that, e.g., the
speed of rotation of an electrical motor is related to the position of
its speed dial. The components of an interactively complex system are
not tightly linked. In a loosely linked Rube Goldberg machine, moving a
lever a certain amount at one time will produce one effect, but moving
the same lever the same amount at a different time will have a very
different type of effect. In a more sophisticated example, place three
magnets in a triangular array under a pendulum with an iron bob, and
set the pendulum into motion. It is impossible to calculate the motion
of the pendulum.* It is an example of the three-body
problem. Pattern
recognition is the way that animals, including humans, handle such
situations, and in computer science the management of complex systems
can best be handled by neural net computing. The
application of this insight to making leadership decisions in an
effective way is explained in a lecture by General Paul van Riper which
can be viewed here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1S2AFuwvVg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7B5pFSq7XA How to be in Command
and Out of Control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZucN4jbmJ7E
Some ideas for consideration:
To change the course of a nation it is necessary to
change the forces
exerted by some of that nation's interest groups. A leader must be able
to
guide an interest group to a course that is both more favorable to
itself and also more favorable to the nation, or, failing that, the
leader must be able to improve the strength of the interest group that
opposes the group that is pulling too strongly in the wrong direction.
Leaders provide inspiration and guidance to
groups
of people. If a number of people constitute a group then they no longer
stand as isolated individuals. A leader may emerge from a group of
people that have been thrown together by some contingent influences,
and after that leader dies the group may be perpetuated with the
emergence of another leader. Conditions of life may later become poor
when the nation that once functioned well suffers some kind of a
reverse and loses its cohesiveness. Fragmented nations often are
involved in civil wars, or they may form smaller nations that fight
among themselves or that are picked off one by one from the outside. If
leadership is not up to challenges, a nation can falter and eventually
fail.
A talented person with high aspirations may wish for
the capacity to rescue a faltering or failing nation so that its
citizens
can once again enjoy good lives. To be successful one must cultivate an
objective attitude toward the society and understand its components and
how they interact with each other. A nation is rarely if ever
constituted of individuals who have no organizational features below
the nation scale. In some nations family, super-family (clan) groups,
or tribes
may receive the primary allegiance of individuals. In other nations one
or another religion may receive each citizen's primary allegiance. In
modern Western societies individuals typically belong to religions,
political parties, labor unions, ethnicities, the so-called races,
gangs, militias, hate groups such as the KKK,
etc. An interest group of
this kind that will not subordinate itself to a national government or
that refuses to accord legitimacy to any other interest group is
anomalous, something like an arrowhead that has lodged beneath the hide
of a still-functioning animal. If U.S. citizens left Guantanamo and
wandered around in Cuba as uninvited guests, then not acting to
imprison or deport them would require extreme tolerance on the part of
the Cubans. It would be bad enough even if these wandering invaders did
not
consume any of the resources of Cuba. In the limit case of such
insubordinate and uninvolved minorities, they would co inhabit the
territory,
would not consume any of its resources, would never impede the movement
of citizens on the roads or sidewalks, etc. A slightly more plausible
second population would be something like other primates that share
different ecological niches in a human territory. Interest groups that
will not subordinate themselves properly to a national government,
e.g., a militia in modern USA, are major problems for national and even
international order.
Putting aside the possible existence of
non-interacting populations (perhaps of hermit monks), individuals who
hope to reorder a failed or failing nation must understand the
motivations and capabilities of whatever sub-populations or interest
groups of one kind or another may comprise that nation. If clans
(super-families) are the predominant form of social organization in a
nation, then ignoring them and trying to organize guilds, labor unions,
associations of manufacturers, or some other kind of groups probably
will not be effective. Rather than beating around the bush, it would be
best to say directly that it would be futile to act on the notion that
a nation previously ruled by a king and his dukes can now be ruled by
giving individuals the right to vote for a president superior to members of
a
newly constituted parliament. The individuals will have no way to know
what to look for in a leader and little hope of finding out enough
about candidates to make a rational choice. On top of that, these
individuals will still be giving their primary loyalty to their clan or
whatever other sub-unit had their allegiance under the old system of
rule.
The aspiring leader must understand the nation as an
assemblage of interest groups (some would call them "factions," but
that word now has a negative connotation). The several interest groups
vary in power and each exerts its power along a certain direction.
Sometimes interest groups are directly opposed, and if two of them are
of equal power they cancel each other out. Nevertheless all of the
interest groups influence the general course of action of the nation.
One way to make this idea more concrete is to consider the analogy of a
steel ring, which represents the keel of the ship of state, and many
ropes attached to its circumference at different points. Each interest
group pulls on one of the ropes. As time passes conditions in the
country may change and in that case some interest groups may gain
strength and others lose strength, which will make a course correction,
a change in the way that the nation acts. In more formal language, the
strength of each of the interest groups can be represented as a
vector,* and the sum of all vectors will indicate the
course for the
nation to take.
Representing the influences exerted by interest
groups has usually been confined to describing a single interest group
by a single vector, but real polities are steered by many interacting
vectors. For instance a vector representation of the United States
would include a stronger pro-gun vector and diametrically opposed to it
a gun-control vector. Addition of these vectors would leave a single
shorter vector in the pro-gun direction. The representation would also
have a pro-law and order (authoritarian) vector opposed by a shorter
anti-authoritarian vector. These four vectors are linked but not in any
obvious way because many of the people who are in favor of not having
legal restrictions placed on gun possession and gun use may also be in
favor of strong legal controls on other behaviors such as trespass,
larceny, etc. Similarly, many of the people who are in favor of strict
legal restrictions on the kinds of permitted guns and the scope of
legal use of those guns may also be generally opposed to authoritarian
government. The balance points in this system will necessarily be very
fluid. Quantifying single vectors would require immense resources.
Calculating the resolution of four vectors would be mathematically
extremely challenging to say the least.
Accurately computing the sum of two vectors is
merely challenging, but accurately summing many vectors that are all
cross-linked is impossible. The mathematics are well beyond the scope
of this discussion. Suffice it to say that such a calculation would be
analogous to what is known as the three-body problem in classical
physics. Systems that cannot be described by linear equations have the
confounding feature that large changes are produced in the
solution value of the equation because of small changes in one of the
equation's variables. This
sensitivity has been called the butterfly effect. The large and
unexpected changes in
results, depending on small fluctuations (perhaps even too small to
measure), produces the appearance of chaos, so the general field that
studies these non-linear equations is often called chaos
theory.
Anyone who deals with policy issues must deal with
the unpredictable results of volatile vector balances. It is a paradox
that the only thing that will change the course of a nation is a change
in the forces, internal and external, that act upon it, yet the result
of such a change can be known only by watching the system works itself
out and form a new balance.
A polity can be roughly compared to a building in a
hurricane or an earthquake. Rigid structures can snap. One important
goal of architectural design in hurricane or earthquake territory is
the construction of a building that
will shift components on pivot points or bend without breaking and then
revert to its equilibrium position when external forces have ceased.
It should be clear that navigation will be impaired
if any interest
vector is frozen out of action. At a time when surgery was generally
performed under septic conditions, it would have been a tragic mistake
for someone in power to have frozen out the group of physicians who
were pushing for the new idea of performing operations only under
sterile conditions.
Discussion in the Federalist
Papers concerning
the power of factions
leaves aside an important consideration. Assume that there are two
factions, one orange and one violet. A senator might be elected by the
votes of (mostly) orange faction members, and another senator might be
elected by the votes of (mostly) violet faction members. In the US, the
Senate might consist of slightly more orange senators than violet
senators. In the event that these two factions are locked in
irreconcilable conflict there may be no way forward. If the violet
faction feels deeply about its factional interests, it may do many
things to get its own way. If they cannot get their way, then they may
create obstacles to the orange faction getting its way. In a completely
hierarchical organization there would be a higher organ over the
Senate, an office that would decide these deadlocked issues. The
problem is exacerbated when the senators become mere extensions of the
corporate will of a faction of the general population. Senators who
have no autonomy cannot make
compromises with each other. The President of the U.S. Senate can only
decide tie votes, and, being the Vice-President, normally does not
strongarm senate factions to form a compromise. The U.S. House of
Representatives has a Speaker, one who can play the function of forcing
compromises. A Speaker of the House can only work effectively if s/he
gains sufficient personal power to be able to stand above his/her own
party.
Important documents:
Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan
and Iraq edited by Francis Fukuyama.
The Origins of Political Order: From
Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama.
Political Order and Political Decay:
From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy by
Francis Fukuyama.
Sources of Power: How People Make
Decisions by Gary Klein
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
related
video
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Science of the Artificial by
Herbert Simon
It would be helpful to find academic sources that apply vectors to the
courses taken by nations. See:
"Vectors."
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008.
Encyclopedia.com. 2 Sep. 2014, for information regarding the
application of vectors to a narrower field.
Although his examples are primarily military, the work of Lt. General
Paul von Riper is instructive in regard to the way that one change in
the network of interlocking activities of the various interest
groups in a country (or on a battlefield) can tip balances of other
parts of the web, resulting in changes that one wouldn't have guessed
just from looking at what was done. Check here for materials, primarily videos, by Gen. v0n
Riper.
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Latest revision: 15 August 2016.