Patterns of Conflict Slide 2

Patterns of Conflict

Patterns of Conflict Slide 2

Quantico Transcription

With that in mind, then, here’s what I call a “focus and direction.” First of all, to make manifest what I call the nature of moral-mental-physical conflict. We’re just not talking about people out there, it’s bodies, either be killed or kill somebody else, but the moral and mental features as well. Remember what Napoleon said: the moral is to the physical as three is to one. Now whether it’s three to one or ten to one or five to one or two to one, or whatever you want, the point is the moral is much more important than the physical.

And you better understand that, because that’s where you’re going to gain enormous leverage on your adversary. Now what we want to do is, instead of having a statement, let’s put flesh around this. Part of this presentation is to get flesh [unintelligible]. Not only do we want to understand the physical, the mental, and the moral, but how they interplay with one another.

Next, discern a pattern for successful operations. We get back into synthesis, okay, this is a category. Remember these are the three categories: moral, mental, and physical. Categories of conflict [unintelligible]. Back into synthesis, discern a pattern for successful operations, in other words, those kinds of things we can do to gain leverage over our adversaries, and deny him that same thing against us. Not only gain leverage, but what do we mean by that though? And help us in a sense generalize what I call tactics and strategy.

Now, you know you see many people, they got this tactic and that tactic, this strategy, these checklists of tactics and strategy. But it turns out you can subsume them under a more general notion, of a very general notion of tactics and strategy. In a sense, let me dwell on that right now, I’ll give you a very simple way to think of it right now, for now. The way I look at tactics and strategy, some people says means and ends, that’s a way of doing it when you get into it, but basically tactics to me means for the execution, the dynamics of action. Whereas strategy is related to the scheme, the design, the architecture.

Or you can think of the tactics as being the means toward the strategic end. And I wouldn’t get any tighter, because if you make it too tight, then what you’re going to do is eliminate possibility. One thing you don’t want to do is eliminate possibility. Because then you become rigid, [unintelligible] and of course that’s exactly what your adversary wants you to be, rigid, [unintelligible]. But in any case, we’ll show you we can generalize those principles.

And finally, also in the synthesis, find a basis for grand strategy. Now it turns out, because the way I evolved it—you don’t have to do it this way—in a sense I looks at the grand strategy as the connecting link between my destructive behavior on one hand and my constructive behavior on the other. I find certain kinds of behavior destructive and other kinds of behavior constructive. It’s just sort of a fall, I didn’t mean to do it this way. [unintelligible] And the intent’s quite clear. In some sense we want to understand the character of conflict, survival, conquest, [unintelligible] and you don’t have to think of it harshly. You can think of [unintelligible] it softly. As an administrator you have to worry about conflict, survival and conquest too. Or with your peers. So you have to worry about that. We certainly want to address that.

Lightfoot Transcription

Now, this is what I call a “focus and direction" presentation. Kind of give you a quick overview of what I'm doing. You actually [inaudible] what I want to do is manifest this aspect of moral-mental-physical conflict. In other words you can think of these three categories: moral-mental-physical. Make sure you remember Napoleon's famous statement: the moral is to the physical, the moral is to the material, as three is to one. But whether it’s three to one or ten to one or not that's not the point he's trying to make. He said it's more important than the physical aspect, you draw a great deal more leverage out of it.

What we want to do, we see that nice statement, we want to put pressure on it what do we really we have moral strength, we have moral authority, we have moral value. How are we going to use those. We get that moral -- we're going to put pressure up, we're going to work our way to that -- now as it turns out since we started M combat we primarily starting on the mental fighter one working against the other is very much of a mental team then as we start looking back in military history we pick up the physical early military history and then we'll start weeding them together.

Let one -- interact then we get back in category ofct we're going to specifically look at those kind of things and draw out like rather important features you really want to think the next point know what I'm referring to here or we call or not pattern for successful operation what I'm referring to here if we're going to be in a competitive or conflict or relationship here what are those kinds of things that we can do to gain leverage of our adversary or likewise you cry him or deny him leverage against that of course that word leverage is nice what do we mean by leverage. I what we mean by leverage but those things that give you that leverage against somebody or those things you can do in order to minimize or diminish somebody's leverage against we want to understand now that's going to come out fact these three going to show up in this sentence having success opera we can actually lay that down those kind of things are important not the third V the idea of trying to generalize tactics and strategy now if you work out way through you're going to see different tactics. You're going to see different strategies and you -- out of any number of facts and strategy particular situation but you'd like to think you can subsume them under more general notions which you can subsume those specific tactics strategies etc under that and you'll see that we can come up with something like and we can use it before we go into the presentation like just make a couple of comments first of all when we're speaking to package discussing it what are and you think about them in terms of what I call means and end you think of tactics exist execution activity dynamics directed towards some end end being an aim a goal objective whatever it might be so that sense the tactic is a means towards some end means being action of some kind or another on the other hand if you think of strategy you think in terms of means and ends too. Strategy being the design, the architecture, the scheme, the plan, etc. also directed towards some -- once again a go or another way you think of the tactics being a means you dont want to get any TI to keep close because you start closing too down too much definitions then you exclude possibilities that's the one thing you don't want to do in Conflict, you want to be able to entertain many possibilities if you have more in your adosphere you cling tat out then he doesn't know what to do panning chaos disorder start so you don;t want to defend relate solution the other guy understands what that is he's going to be able to leverage you and you'll see in that sense variety is very important particular you have a wider variety your adversary order to deal that very important at the time and that's why you don't want to limit yourself to these definitions once again -- come up with sort of some general impression, general view of -- you subsume the other. Nw and then finally -- here the idea we call a basis for Grand Strategy. Now for the most part these first three bullets here is what I call destructive behavior. -- Parts can't trying to gain we you're trying to put on a confusion disorder what it may so you would like to think that should lead to some kind of constructive and or constructive behavior and in this sense I tend to use a grant strategy as a connecting link between my destructive behavior in one hand and my construct the other doesn't mean you have to do it that way its sort of a Fallout just by the way I want through my investigation and that'll become evidence work and then finding my intent you know why we are doing all -- very simple so you really understand the nature of conflict now when I'm talking about survival--conflict I'm not talking about trying to take -- I'm talking about very soft very sharp it's not just physical-moral-and-mental as well you cope with completive pressure you can deal with that environment okay so that's sort of the character of the presentation with that in mind then let's go to our first point outline.