Whenever there’s a geopolitcal crisis the e-mails start pouring in—“What does confrontation analysis recommend?”

Unfortunately these e-mails are never from Barack Obama or David Cameron. And, as Decision Mechanics is not a government-funded think tank, we tend not to be analyzing confrontations just for the hell of it.

However, a cursory analysis of the current situation in Crimea does raise some interesting points. The immediate confrontation doesn’t seem to be the US-EU versus Russia. Reports suggest that the US and EU have different positions. The US wants a return to the pre-defacto annexation situation while the EU merely wants to prevent an escalation of the current situation.

Becasue no one is suggesting a muilitary response, the West’s primary weapon appears to be sanctions. US trade with Russia is minuscule. The real threat comes from EU sanctions (although that’s a two-way street).

Before Russia can be confronted, the US and the EU need to complete their own confrontation. The West rarely seems to be coordinated in these situations which is probably its biggest failing. Russia, which seems to hold most of the cards at present, will continue to benefit from that lack of clarity.

There is an argument that the US should say it’ll walk away from this battle if the EU doesn’t step up. The US could assert a position of strength by reaffirming its commitment to Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty (an attack on one is an attack on all). That reinforces existing borders and boosts NATO at the expense of the EU. Surely positive result, regardless of how the EU decides to proceed.

Of course, the real consequences of Russia’s military intervention will play out over the long-term. The Russian central bank has already had to support the rouble to the tune of $12 billion. Also, it’s possible that annexation of Crimea would push western Ukraine into the arms of NATO—maybe even inspiring a radical conversion that would allow the US to base anti-ballistic missiles in the territory.

At the end of the day, politicians have to be seen to be taking action—and meetings with Russia look more dynamic than debates between Washington and Berlin.

This week’s Economist (2 November 2013) has a review of military strategy historian Sir Lawrence Freedman’s new book, “Strategy: A History”. The Economist says that

“[strategy] is about employing whatever resources are available to achieve the best outcome in situations that are both dynamic and contested”

In the book, Freedman himself writes,

“It is about getting more out of a situation than the starting balance of power would suggest. It is the art of creating power.”

Both quotes highlight the central role of other stakeholders. This is often ignored in corporate “strategy”, resulting in strategies being no more than plans.

The review also quotes Mike Tyson who has a pithy update of von Moltke’s comment that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Tyson’s version is

“Everyone has a plan ’til they get punched in the mouth.”

The article ends by saying that Freedman concludes,

“it may be better to look at strategy as a form of script […] which attempts to anticipate the interactions of many players over a long time and which is open-ended.”

This fits well with one of my own interests—confrontation analysis. Confrontation analysis sees strategy as changing intentions to resolve sequences of (potentially endless) confrontations between stakeholders. Confrontations are “both dynamic and contested”, as they involve multiple stakeholders with potentially conflicting objectives who transform confrontations in pursuit of their own goals.

One of the major flaws in corporate “strategic planning” is the idea that it is a one-off activity. Annual strategy meetings and crisis meetings mistake plans developed in a the context of a single moment, often ignoring the likely reaction of other stakeholders, for strategy. Strategy needs to be an ongoing activity and, as such, tools designed to support it need to be lightweight and flexible, allowing existing work to be reviewed and updated on a regular basis.

Strategy tools that require senior staff to “down tools” for a few days are fundamentally incompatible with the maintenance of an organization’s strategy. Hence the tendency for managers to update strategy “on the fly”. Tools like confrontation analysis, on the other hand, are designed to support regular, rapid reviews and focus attention on the key strategic challenges.

Of course, all this means that I’ll now actually have to read the book.

The UK’s Operational Research Society has published “When spreadsheets go bad” in the October issue of their OR Insight magazine.

This week The Economist published an article (“This spreadsheet is different”, 21 September 2013) apologizing for a earlier article that was based on erroneous analysis. The problem was caused by a spreadsheet model that

…pulled data […] from the wrong place in the spreadsheet, changing the results.

We’ve written about the problems with spreadsheets before. They are opaque, brittle and difficult to test. We’ll continue to see these kinds of embarrassing errors until analysts move to more robust tools.

Confrontation analysis provides a framework for understanding complex interactions. Its formality brings structure to the unstructured.

Over the past week I’ve been using it to think about the Syrian crisis—i.e. the US’ intention to bomb Syria in response to Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons. One thing stands out from this casual analysis—where’s the confrontation?

The US isn’t threatening to bomb. It’s not attempting to exert pressure on Assad so that he complies with some US objective. Instead, it’s effectively stating that it’ll bomb Syria regardless of what Assad does. This doesn’t make much sense. If the US isn’t making a threat, what is it doing by striking Syria? There’s no suggestion that they intend to destroy chemical warfare facilities, so bombing can only be a means to an end. But what end?

Is there an implied confrontation that says that if Assad uses chemical weapons in the future he’ll be bombed and the current proposed action is to make that threat credible? If so, I’m not sure that’s an effective strategy. Assad isn’t threatening to use chemical weapons. So, the US has a trust dilemma with Assad. Bombing your way out of a trust dilemma would require the bombing to be so devastating that it would pretty much put paid to the regime anyway. There are more palatable options available to the US.

This is why the proposal put forward by Russia today makes sense. All chemical weapons facilities will be put under international control or the US will launch its strikes. Simple. There’s the confrontation.

For those who are interested in the subject, Decision Workshops have a more in-depth confrontation analysis of the Syrian crisis on their site.