Your Brain on War
“War is so complex it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate.”—Robert S. McNamara, architect of the Vietnam War.
Reading the obits of McNamara today, I am struck by his (atrociously belated) assessment of the brain’s limitations when it comes to modern warfare.
It is a view shared by many people who study risk, as well. Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent 20 years as a trader in New York and London. He is an author and a professor now, in addition to holding a large stake in a hedge fund.
Taleb and I met for tea in Washington, D.C., a few years ago, and I interviewed him for THE UNTHINKABLE. That afternoon, he had come from the Pentagon, where he had briefed officials on his theories about uncertainty. The Pentagon was a strange place for him to be, since Taleb is a self-described pacifist. “I am a peace activist simply out of rationality,” he said.
Taleb grew up in Lebanon, a country haunted by war’s unintended consequences. He has concluded that human beings are unable to handle
war in the modern age. “We’re not really able to assess how long wars will take and what the net outcome will be.” The risk is too complex for our
abilities. Once upon a time, we were better at war. “In a primitive environment, if someone is threatening me, I go kill him,” he says in his
clipped, matter-of-fact way. “And I get good results most of the time.” He calls this environment “Mediocristan,” a place where it is hard to kill many
people at once; a place where cause and effect are more closely connected. Homo sapiens spent hundreds of thousands of years living in Mediocristan. We rarely needed to understand probability because, most of the time, life was simpler, and the range of possible events was narrower.
But today, we live in a place Taleb calls “Extremistan,” subject to the “tyranny of the singular, the accidental, the unseen and the unpredicted.” Technology has allowed us to create weaponry that can strafe the planet in minutes. Lone individuals can alter the course of history. People kill each other every day without much physical exertion. And, at the same time, we have become ever more interdependent. What happens on one continent now has consequences for another. World War I, Taleb points out, was expected to be a rather small affair. So was Vietnam. In fact, the twentieth century was, and now the twenty-first century is, characterized by wars of unforeseen results.
Risk is often counterintuitive in Extremistan. Our old tricks don’t work. Survival may ultimately depend on understanding our brain’s limitations.
craig henry said on July 08, 2009 at 10:07 am
So it turns out that Clausewitz is a better guide to war that the accounting theories of the Harvard Business School.
Who would ever have guessed that?
EN said on July 08, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Craig, I’ll better your Clausewitz. Sun Tzu was writing about war’s uncertainty 2500 years ago. War has always been thus. Nothing has changed. We kill more because there are more. At it’s civilized height, Afghanistan was denuded of humanity by the Mongols. How’s that for Mediocristan? Anyone every heard of the “Thirty Years War”? People may be able to kill me “without much physical exertion”, but I can defend myself without much energy expended… if the government allows me. I agree with Talib on most things, but not that history has changed. Humanity has always been ruled by uncertainty.
Bruce Elmore said on July 08, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Wow. This guy (Taleb) either hasn’t studied history or he was born just plain old stupid.
We live in the only time when one person could alter history with an act of violence? I guess this guy has never heard of Alexander, Hannibal, John Wilkes Booth, Napolean, Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, or Mr. Jesus H. Christ himself.
Why do people like this guy get quoted as some kind of expert on the human condition? People kill each other without much physical exertion? Has this twit ever heard of a sword or a spear? How about poison?
What does he mean by ‘physical exertion’? Weapons cost money last time I checked. In the 16th Century a good sword cost nearly a months wages and required the work of dozens of skilled artisans.
These days a quality firearm costs nearly a months wages, and requires the work of dozens of skilled artisans. Is none of that ‘physical exertion’?
Or does this fool mean it doesn’t take a lot of work to pull a trigger? Is that his point? If so he’s worse than stupid, he’s ignorant. And ignorance is a worse human failing than stupidity.
After all, ignorance is curable if one puts forth the effort. Stupidity isn’t curable under any circumstances.
Lan Cawthon said on July 09, 2009 at 1:52 pm
i am not sure exactly what this gentleman is trying to communicate. as a retired military officer, i can tell you that we ‘warriors’ are taught far differently than those of 50 years ago…or 150 years ago…or 1500 years ago. i have witnessed the excruciating pains taken by tactical planners to ensure that ONLY the enemy is killed in our engagements, and the innocents are spared…even at added risks to our own soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. in the past, decision-making in war was left (primarily) to the commander in the field. that actually started to change in WWII to some degree. now, while those civilians in power over the military may state to the contrary, critical decisions are carefully weighed in dc before being carried out. i am not saying that is good or bad…it just is. sometimes it can actually prolong a confrontation. sometimes civilians make stupid decisions regarding military affairs. but we live and we learn.
EN said on July 10, 2009 at 7:43 pm
It also should be pointed out that the Rwanda Genocide was carried out with Machetes. Mediocristan in the extreme.
Amanda Ripley said on July 20, 2009 at 12:51 pm
You’ve all got me thinking. I suppose it’s true that it is too easy to blame technology for all of our problems. War has been complex since there has been war. If there is a place called Extremistan, it shares a long and open border with Mediocristan.
But I also think that over the long arc of history, it is getting easier for people to acquire the kinds of weapons that can inflict mass casualties. That’s not to say that people never inflicted mass casualties before. But it is to say that nuclear bombs are different than machetes.