Warning Analysis for the Information Age - Higgins Counterterrorism ...

From Targeting Objects to Targeting IndividualsNewtonian Assumption: The world is continuous.New Science Assumption: The world is digital.Complementarity Condition: When the world is viewed at a level of granularitythat is too large to detect individuals, the strategy will reflect only an “average”response that neglects differences among individuals.Example 1: If one thousand honeybees can collect one thousand grams of pollenin one hour, in the same time how many grams can half-a-honeybee collect?In the Newtonian world, the answer is calculated to be half-a-gram; in the biologicalworld the answer is zero grams because half-a-honeybee is dead. Therefore,Newtonian thinking only works under conditions where individuals don’t matter.Example 2: If two percent of the female population is pregnant, and weselect twenty-five females from that population, how many of them will bepregnant? In the Newtonian world you will find half a pregnant female; in thebiological world all you can say is each individual has a two percent chance ofbeing pregnant, but in each case the answer is either yes or no—one cannot behalf-pregnant. Newtonian thinking ignores individuals and can, therefore, onlydescribe an “average” individual or theoretically, one individual in a populationwhere all are identical.The take-home message here is that in biological—and human—systems, thewhole is not just the sum or the average of the parts. Individuals matter! Thereare properties and behaviors that are characteristic of an individual that cannot besubdivided any further. The New Science must, therefore, be able to account forindividuality within populations.From a Two-Player Zero-Sum-Game to a Multi-Player Non-Zero-SumGameNewtonian Assumption: All organizations are identical.New Science Assumption: All organizations are individuals in their own rightwith differing characteristics dependent on the individuals that comprise them.Complementarity Condition: When organizations are so simple that the individualswho comprise them can be ignored (either because they are all identicalor because only a single individual speaks for the entire organization), then theorganization will have only a single “center of gravity” which defines all itsactions and vulnerabilities.39