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Adapting to Shorter Time Cycles in the United States Air Force Proceedings of a Workshop Series (2021) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix D: Uncertainty, Stability, Instability, Military Affairs, and Time: Some Thoughts and Conjectures
Pages 103-106

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From page 103...
... Might this quest for preserving or restoring stability be nothing more than a distracting fiction, much like the alchemists of the Middle Ages sought a "philosopher's stone" to transmute base elements into gold, or like the 19th century's "natural philosophers" (i.e., prototypical physical scientists) unquestioningly accepted the concept of cosmos-filling "aether" and who wasted much time in trying to seek and define it?
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From page 104...
... • A longue durée of two global World Wars interrupted by a two-decade breathing spell, leading, overall, to a century of global conflict with at least 200 million dead. • Continuous and poorly damped lower amplitude departures and excursions, of which recent instabilities in the Crimea, southwest Asia, South China Sea, and Arctic are only the most recent.
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From page 105...
... Think ancient Greece from its height in the Hellenic and Hellenistic period to its position at the time of the rise of Carthage and then Rome; the collapse of Spain even as, much like an exploding supernova, it had blown off its creative energy, capital, and resources to organize, train, equip, and deploy vast forces around the world; the collapse of the British empire and Britain's larger role in global affairs; and the collapse of the Soviet system. In all of these cases, national leaders were less successful at reacting to change -- in other words, "mastering time cycles" -- than their contemporary and future opponents.
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From page 106...
... Nobody, however, would argue that these were "stable" in the sense, say, of the West versus the Soviet Bloc after 1948. The Islamic world was constantly rent by internal factions, fighting, wars, insurrections, and the like, and the European world was as well (e.g., the rivalry between the Byzantine and Holy Roman empires, the dual Popes of the early Middle Ages, and the religious wars of the Reformation-Post Reformation era)
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Key Terms

  • middle ages
  • uncertain world
  • national leaders
  • holy roman
  • poorly damped

  • time cycles
  • fluid dynamics
  • breathing spell
  • organizations exhibit
  • american revolution

  • constantly rent
  • prototypical physical
  • grand unifying
  • unstable world
  • own existence

  • own unanticipated
  • defensive strike
  • disparate kingdoms
  • senior leadership
  • religious wars

  • control theory
  • cataclysm leading
  • inquiry expand
  • accepted gods
  • future opponents

  • tremendous internal
  • exhibit classic
  • forces military
  • dual popes
  • south china


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