5 Mental Models of Military and War
Decision Making plays a crucial role in military operations. One wrong step and things can go haywire—absolute chaos in a matter of seconds. The stakes of military decisions are higher than any personal or professional decision. Countries and even continents can vanish because of a small misjudgment. Failing to speculate dangers is costly.
Keeping all of this in mind, it is fair to conclude that militaries know a thing or two when it comes to decision-making.
Let’s learn from them. Let’s learn from the best of the best. Let’s learn from the ones who have been through the most challenging situations—both physically and mentally.
Without further ado, here are five mental models of military and war that you can use to improve your decision-making.
1. Asymmetric Warfare
The asymmetric model leads to an application when one side seemingly “plays by different rules” than the other side due to circumstantial reasons. This model can be applied in situations where you have a lack of resources.
Unable to outmuscle their opponents, asymmetric warriors use different tactics. They play the same game, but with their own rules. They do so to outsmart their limitations.
Terrorists use this model the best. They create fear that is highly disproportionate to their actual destructive capabilities. The atrocities they enact are more symbolic in nature, to dramatize the political and ideological threat they can cause.
2. Two-front War
In World War II, the Soviet Union had the biggest army. Once Germany and Russia became enemies, Russia surrounded Germany at different fronts, which forced Germany to do the same to defend their land. Since the latter had a smaller army, it weakened their impact on all the fronts. And we all know how WW2 ended.
Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the greatest military leaders to ever exist on the face of this planet, did something similar in 1805. He faced an attack by Austrian troops led by Karl Mack. In response, Napoleon divided his troops and sent them into battle with specific instructions of surrounding the enemy. The Austrian troops surrendered.
When you attack your enemy, attack from all sides, and with maximum force. For a better use case in real life, your enemy can be anything— a relationship problem, a professional obstacle, a bad habit, etc.
Understand, that a specific problem can be solved via multiple solutions simultaneously, and it is probably a more efficient way to solve it.
3. The Last War
There’s a saying which goes: “Generals always fight the last war.”
The idea is that a portrait of what the enemy is like and what tactics work best against him is created in the previous conflict, and then codified and turned into dogma.
But when the next war rolls around, culture and technology have altered the landscape, so that when a fighting force initially attacks its new enemy using old approaches, it suffers great losses and defeats.
With time, problems evolve, which is why their solutions need to evolve as well. This is a call for you to update your worldview and acquire new skills and ideas as you move forward in life.
Miyamoto Musashi is one of history’s most dangerous samurais because he used to switch his fighting patterns, changing his tactics regularly.
What has worked in the past may not work again. Forget the past. Change your strategies. Adapt.
4. Seeing the Front
One of the most valuable military tactics is the habit of “personally seeing the front” before making decisions. You cannot rely on advisors, maps, and reports, all of which can be either faulty or biased.
The Map/Territory model illustrates the problem with not seeing the front. Leaders of any organization can generally benefit from seeing the front. Not only does it provide firsthand information, but it also tends to improve the quality of secondhand information.
5. Mutually Assured Destruction
Quite paradoxically, the stronger you and your rival become the less likely you will engage in a fight. You both have an equal potential to cause destruction. In the end, no matter who wins, the destruction will be catastrophic on both sides.
Alfred Nobel (founder of the Nobel Prize and the inventor of dynamite) recognized this too, saying:
The day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops.
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