Tag: Gerold Yonas

Terrorism is a wicked problem

On By gyonasLeave a comment

Seventeen years ago, I was invited to give a presentation to a group of intelligence analysts at the Joint Military Intelligence College. At that time, I was managing the Advanced Concepts Group at Sandia National Labs, and my group was focusing much of our attention on emerging threats. A current issue was what was called “the global war on terrorism.” This war began in Afghanistan in 2001 after the Al-Qaeda attack and continued for 20 years. During that period, it expanded to include Iraq in 2003 with one justification being the belief that Iraq was linked to Al-Qaeda.

The threat of terrorism was very much a major national security issue, and my presentation attempted to address these issues based on my perceived needs for intelligence analysis. I had been increasingly interested in dealing with current complex challenges, and I studied the literature of systems engineering approach to solving relevant problems. What I learned was that most of my career as an engineer and physicist had been dominated by what were called tame problems, and the national security issues of the time were best described as wicked problems that would be long in duration.

I was convinced that the current military issues were best described by a timeline beginning with a long period of increasing threat, and short period of conflict, and a much longer post conflict period of managing the threat. I thought the key to success of this challenge would be in the hands of intelligence analysts that knew how to deal with wicked not tame problems.

Tame problems had been the focus of my training and career, and are the typical challenge for analysts, engineers, and convergent thinkers. Such problems have a well-defined problem statement. For example, a tame problem is figuring out how to build a bridge. A wicked problem includes planning for the bridge, obtaining permission from the community and elected officials to build it, acquiring funding and scheduling, and working with the various individuals and agencies required to build that bridge. The bridge builders know what, where, and how to proceed with a well-defined end point of the task. They can learn from the records of other similar bridges already built and can easily try out various paper designs and choose the one most appropriate approach. They have an orderly approach to analysis, design, and implementation, but do not have the divergent thinking approach that is actually needed to complete all of the tasks involved in building the bridge.

The typical tame approach can lead to disaster if the problem is really wicked. If the problem is defined incompletely, prematurely, or influenced by desperation, ambition, fear, greed, hatred, or other emotions. Being driven to a hurried solution can lead to oversimplified solution options and an early and false belief that the problem is solved. The different perspectives, backgrounds organizations, and prejudices can lead to escalating confusion, conflicts, and paralysis.

A symptom of a wicked problem that is treated as tame is when the leader says, “Let’s get organized, put the right person in charge, get on with the solution, and get it done.”

The tame problem approach is a satisfying and coherent method of increasing knowledge.  Wicked problem solving, on the other hand, can often be characterized by frustrating alternating periods of euphoria and utter depression. So, are wicked problems just another worthless activity that is in the end a hopeless mess?

Well, maybe, but if you know the problem is truly wicked, a wicked engineering analyst can make real progress by spending a great deal of time and effort to comprehensively formulate the approach as a nonlinear spiral instead of a ladder of subsequent steps. The key is also to share the complexity with a group of creative thinkers and communicators that have a diversity of views. It’s important to share ideas frequently as the context of system issues changes and avoiding a focus on the detailed piece of the problems. Since premature belief in success will turn out to be the devil preventing group productive cooperation, the participants need to trust each other as the game changes.

I concluded that without active counterterrorism intervention, the level of terrorist violence will be low until a triggering threshold is passed, and, at some point, conflict will demand increased security emphasis.  If successful, counterterrorism actions can be taken that will lead to a cessation of combat operations. This period will be followed by a long period of stabilization and reconstruction. During the active combat period, the adversary may apply such irregular methods as assassination of leaders; hostage taking; cyber, bio chem, and infrastructure attack. The adversary may also introduce social and psychological methods such as induced chaos, exponential migration, financial attack, and race wars. The symptom of terrorist success would be a disruption of societal stability and stimulation of self-destructive behaviors.

A strength of the wicked engineering group could be the application of ubiquitous information technology, but in the hands of the terrorist, could also accelerate instabilities, so it will be necessary to take advantage of advances in complex computer modeling and simulation as well as the application of neuroscience to enhance cognition and group problem solving.

By gaining a neuro advantage over the adversary, methods of deterrence and dissuasion will become apparent. The advances in the neuro science spectrum can enhance the psychological armor, accelerate learning, cognition, and memory. Use of such methods applied against the terrorist can create confusion, fear, and loss of understanding of the rapidly changing environment. The adversary’s use of such psychological and information warfighting tools can lead to our early failure in dealing with the threat. The positive and negative implications must be understood.

At the time of my presentation, I believed that neuroscience advances in the hands of the adversary (which won’t have the same legal and moral constraints that we have) would have an important impact on the outcome. I also believed that the challenge of dealing with terrorism was open ended and there would likely never be a last move in this contest, so the happy ending to the story was not obvious.

My new novel, The Dragon’s C.L.A.W., also tackles a wicked problem. The protagonist realizes that his breakthrough invention, which has the ability to transform the world by providing clean, affordable, unlimited energy, can also be used to create a deadly weapon. I called upon my understanding of how to wrestle with wicked problems as I described how the character dealt with the conflict the dual nature of his work. Wondering how he resolves the problem? You’ll have to read the book!

Have you ever dealt with a wicked problem? How did you approach it? Did you resolve it? Comment below.

The Costanza Defense

On By gyonas2 Comments

Special Counsel Jack Smith recently presented an indictment of Donald Trump accusing Trump of attempting to overthrow the 2020 presidential election using techniques that Smith described as:  dishonesty, fraud, and deceit. Trump’s legal defense was immediate, namely that Trump was not lying and really believed what he was saying. This can be called “The Costanza Defense” from the comedy Seinfeld, namely “if you believe it, it is not a lie.”

This defense is rather clever since it requires that the prosecution convince the jury that Trump was not sincere about his belief in the stories told to him by his legal team—individuals that the indictment labeled as coconspirators. So now the arguments are all about the sincerity of the defendant. The opportunity for the defense attorneys is to claim that Trump was really sincere in his claim that he was not lying, but he really believed what he was told by the very reputable attorneys that he was paying with big bucks.  And I think his defense is going to win, or at least persuade one member of the jury, if the prosecutors do not understand the difference among truth tellers, liars, and bullshit artists. I learned about this subtle distinction from the 2005 book “On Bullshit” by the Princeton philosophy professor Harry G. Frankfurt.

Frankfurt explained that both truth tellers and liars know what is true and what is false, and they really are sincere in their beliefs.  On the contrary, he explains that BS artists could care less about the truth, but only care about telling stories to win over their audiences.  Frankfurt explains that a really accomplished bullshit artist is able to tell the false story often enough, consistently enough, and forcefully enough that the audience can be totally convinced, and no argument would convince them otherwise.

The loyal followers of Trump really believe that the BS artist is sincere in the believability of his story, and they will defend the false arguments even if they contradict simple logic. I am sure a really good BS artist can convince at least one member of the jury that Trump really believes the story that he is innocent of any crime. Frankfurt explained that the capability of the accomplished BS artist “does not reject the authority of the truth ……he pays no attention to it at all,” but if he convinces the audience, namely in this case, the jury, or at least one member, that he is sincere in his BS, they won’t convict him. Frankfurt ends his book with the disturbing conclusion that “sincerity itself is bullshit.”

As it is said in TV commercials, but wait there is more……and there are lots of highly paid defense lawyers working on adding to the BS. The latest is that Trump’s claims were only aspirational and not really serious lies. One lawyer even said no reasonable person would even take such claims seriously. Maybe Trump was just kidding? So, for completeness, let’s review the
BS arguments that I am sure will be repeated often enough:

1.If you believe it, it is not a lie. 2.But what about that laptop? 3. My lawyers told me. 4. The deranged Special Council is really out to get you, not me, and I will protect you, and 5. I was only kidding.

So what I am suggesting is that the prosecution will have a very tough time convincing the jury that one of the most accomplished BS artists of all time is not sincere when he claims, “But what about somebody else, and that laptop…..I am just a gullible victim of despicable advisors, and I believed what my lying lawyers told me, so convict them,  not me, and you can believe every perfect thing I tell you…..believe me…..and I am sincere….believe me….I am not a liar…..trust me.”

Heraclitus, QMU, and Laser Fusion

On By gyonas8 Comments

Heraclitus had many famous quotes, but the one I often remember is, “No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” My take away from this is relevant to many of the complex problems I have worked with over my 50 odd years of dealing with various science and technology problems. Also, I can claim without contradiction that my career has never been blemished with even a single success.

For some reason, I always seemed to be interested in really challenging problems that were limited by not just engineering and physics, but also by constraints of politics, economics, and human decision making. I have written about this general class of problems that are best described as “wicked.” They are characterized as not having any closed form solution. Working on such problems provides the participants with alternating experiences of euphoria and utter depression. Maybe that is why poor Heraclitus had a problem crossing a river.

People in charge of maintaining the United States’ nuclear weapons stockpile are facing a particularly wicked problem. Their job is to assure that the weapons are safe, secure, and reliable… but without the ability to fully test them by detonating any of these weapons. This approach is called Quantification of Margins and Uncertainty (QMU).  It is a process of highly diagnosed but sub critical experiments and comprehensive computer simulations to allow decision making about the risk involved in the performance and reliability of the stockpile.

An extremely important and challenging aspect of this program is the use of lasers to ignite fusion ignition in the laboratory. The recent experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) recently demonstrated fusion ignition with more energy output than delivered to the target by the lasers. This is the first time that actual “fusion ignition” has been achieved in a lab.

In my Feb.23 post “Fusion Fact or Fiction,” I explained the seemingly “miraculous” achievement involving many tradeoffs on nonlinear variables adjusted over years of complex experiments and calculations requiring continuing political support with ever-increasing budgets. I stated then (and as far as I know now) the achievement has yet to be repeated. The lab director explained recently, “We haven’t had the kind of perfect capsule that we had in December.” Perfect capsules will require a “perfect” budget.

An additional issue is the performance of the laser. Pushing the laser to its limits causes damage to the optical system that is expensive and time consuming to fix. There is also the political pressure created by the association of fusion research with the desire to develop the ultimate clean, cheap, unlimited source of energy.  

So, how can leaders deal with this wicked problem? I think the methodology that will be useful is QMU that focuses on establishing the needed margins of performance of all the components of NIF experiments that will have uncertain outcomes. Each experiment will be a different man stepping into a different river.  Heraclitus would certainly get his feet wet, but he might get swept away.

Truth versus Fiction

On By gyonas11 Comments

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction is more fun.

At the end of 2022 when Lawrence Livermore Laboratory achieved a major fusion breakthrough, my novel, The Dragon’s C.L.A.W. was already at the printers.  This struck me as amusing, since the book tells the story of a fictional clean energy breakthrough. In the novel, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory create a compact clean low-cost energy source using electron beams to trigger a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction that generates electromagnetic energy and then directly convert that into electricity.

Russia’s 1975 electron beam fusion reactor

The fictional breakthrough discovery is an accident that generates one thousand times more energetic output.  In addition to intended entertainment, my book’s basic messages are first that surprises happen in research when one’s imagination, creativity and enthusiasm is as important as careful well-founded analysis. My second theme is that discovery of new science is like a knife. A knife can be used to butter your bread or slit someone’s throat. Technology is a literal double-edged sword. I believe that there will always be applications of scientific achievements that are both civilian and military—that can be used for peaceful innovation or for weapons of war. I also believe that there will always be people who can invent and stimulate ideas as well as people who know how to stand in the way of progress. The path to scientific innovation often involves the sort of characters that appear in the pages of The Dragon’s C.L.A.W. 

I spent much of my career striving to achieve a breakthrough that could lead to clean, unlimited energy. Now, as an author I have created a fictional breakthrough that reaches that goal. So, naturally that begs the question—will scientists achieve that fusion goal in real life? When it comes to recent fusion breakthroughs, the rhetoric is exciting and invigorating. Examples of recent not too specific government fusion statements are “a game changer for efforts to achieve President Biden’s goal of a net-zero carbon economy,” and “new ways to power our homes and offices in future decades.” When I read such announcements, I cannot but help remembering Reagan’s Star Wars speech in 1983 that the goal of his missile defense program would make “nuclear weapons obsolete.” The outcome of the Reagan initiative was not technical but a strategic/political event that took place at Reykjavik Iceland in 1986 as told in my Potomac Institute article, It’s Laboratory or Goodbye.

Another famous president’s call for action was Kennedy’s 1962 challenge to “land a man on the moon” by 1970. In my first year as a grad student, after I listened to a detailed Caltech colloquium after the Kennedy speech, I was convinced that the technology was already well developed, the achievement was not that far off and a race with the Soviets would provide plenty of political support for the program. Kennedy’s words shaped public enthusiasm for the space program. Words can change the way people think about science. Words can change the way governments fund science.

This approach to imagining and planning for a very distant future suggested to me a story that begins with “it was dark and stormy night.” The story is about two cave men who sat in the cold, dark, dampness of their cave when a bolt of lightning struck and ignited for the first time in the history of human development, a pile of wet branches at the mouth of their cave. The pile of wet wood was ignited into a growing fire rather than just a thin whisk of smoke they had previously experienced.  One cave man could hardly believe that a lightning bolt could create a roaring fire in wet wood. He was astonished, warm, happy, and started to roast a small rodent on a stick, but the other, probably one of the first human engineers spoke up, “What if the lightning bolt ignited a new reaction that transformed the wood into new materials and created a way to make cheap, clean, inexhaustible energy?”

If you want to spend more time thinking about the scientific process, the quest for inexhaustible energy and the unavoidable connection between peaceful innovation and military applications, pick up a copy of The Dragon’s C.L.A.W. at your local bookstore or order online: