 By Michael Flagg | Excerpted from the June 2010 Socionomist
Originally published under the title “Military and Political Leaders Need a Socionomic Perspective” |
[Ed: Michael Flagg blogs about socionomics at Futurejacked.blogspot.com. He holds degrees in history and nuclear engineering and currently works as a project manager at a nuclear research reactor.
[In this article, originally posted on May 28, 2010, Flagg asserts that even the best military and political analysts tend to commit a cardinal sin of forecasting: They assume that all current trends will continue. He suggests an alternative basis for mapping future probabilities.]
One of the few news service subscriptions I keep up is Stratfor. The site provides some of the best conventional analysis available, certainly more in-depth than mass market websites and magazines and often sourced very well when it comes to high-level strategic decisions made by military and political leaders throughout the world. This group cuts through the partisan haze and gets down to the mechanics of how power is exercised around the globe.
Having a source that is so well plugged in gives us a fantastic window into the minds of Western power elites. In my opinion, that same connectedness hinders them from catching dramatic turns in mass sentiment such as the one we are living through today.
… Looking over the topics on Stratfor’s [then-current] main page, I am amazed by the lack of ongoing attention to potential fracture points in the conventional framework. Scanning the topics this morning, I see:
- a review of an attempt by Palestinian supporters to break the Gaza blockade;
- a discussion of trade tensions between Argentina and Brazil
- a special report on security for the World Cup matches to be held in South Africa;
- an in-depth review of efforts by Hungary to extend citizenship to Hungarians outside the current borders of the country.
So what, you ask?
In the late 1700s, conventional analysis would have been discussing the numerical and training superiority of British troops and how it meant almost sure victory over a dispersed rabble in the North American colonies. A few years later, the same analysts would have stated that the enraged peasants of France stood no chance against a monarchical structure in place since the Middle Ages. I won’t even go into how bankrupt conventional economic analysis has become. This is the kind of analysis that today’s elites in politics are reading and understanding to be accepted facts. The decisions that will be made—or not made—in the coming weeks and months will likely lack recognition that we are at a watershed moment in history. They will be divorced of any grand understanding of the big, changing picture. They will reflect conventional thinking, focusing on the minutiae of tactics and political hustle and treating anger and violence as isolated expressions of local unrest. …
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In the remainder of this two-page report, Flagg explains how socionomics can enable you to “see around the corner” during historic turning points and important times of change.
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