Volume 4, Issue 1, Summer 2014
Infinity Journal
Page 33
The premise of this article is that popular culture’s
demonstration and understanding of strategy is deeply
flawed.This matters, perhaps to a greater degree than many
realize.The reason is that it influences the way in which people
perceive how violence is used for the gaining or sustaining
of a political behaviour or condition, which is to say, policy.
Storytelling usually seeks to advance or challenge ideas
about morality and ethics, thus has a strong influence on
shared beliefs and ideas as to how violence or force should
be used.The argument here is that most of the more popular
storytelling forms have such a simplistic view of these issues
that they exercise a generally less than useful influence on
what many have come to understand about strategy.
The majority of what we see and read essentially leads to
a popular view of real strategy; that it is somehow a form of
negative activity, done by the bad men. It is worth noting that
two of the most successful novel and film combinations of
all time, “Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter”, take a grossly
simplistic view of what would be termed “strategy” in their
storytelling. Harry Potter would have been on thin ice if the
Dark Lord had advanced some quite reasonable ideas or
had Harry’s parents been radical extremists advocating
violent means. In Lord of the Rings, the enemy is quite literally
demonic; so much so that his actual extermination will be
the only thing that delivers a tolerable end state. The real
world only rarely, if ever, mirrors these conditions.
The majority of what we see and
read essentially leads to a popular
view of real strategy
The fundamental premise of strategy is the use of violence
to gain a political condition or behaviour. All good strategic
theorists understand that only certain “policies” will accept
the use of violence; what varies massively is when and why
that will be the case. In storytelling the answer is always
obvious: what is “evil” or “wrong” has to be stopped, and
what ever it is, it is so wrong or so evil that violence is clearly
justified. Only very rarely does the opponent in a story have a
reasonable policy to which he may well be entitled.Thus, the
opposing polices sought by the bad men are always grossly
unreasonable; for example world domination, a criminal
empire, and/or possession of something they are clearly not
entitled to. Popular storytelling thus conceives the very basics
of policy in black and white terms, whereas real world policy,
and thus strategy, is in fact many shades of grey. A notable
exception is perhaps the story of the Native Americans,which
has seen a complete reversal from the films of the 1940s to
the “Dances with Wolves” of the 1990s.
The Kobayashi Maru
The much discussed on-line Star Trek fleet training simulation,
“The Kobayashi Maru” shows just how odd pop-cultures’
view of politics actually is. The simulation basically sets a
Star Fleet captain on a mission where the civilian star ship,
the Kobayashi Maru, with 300 passengers, is floundering as
the result of hitting a mine in a “neutral zone,” and all will be
lost unless the Star Fleet captain moves swiftly to the rescue.
The problem is that in doing so he violates the neutral-zone
and risks sending the Federation to war with the Klingons.
For real world strategists, this is so simple it almost defies the
description of being a problem.Simply put,saving 300 people
is clearly not a cost worth starting a war over, in the same way
that the populations of Rwanda, Srebrenica, and today Syria,
are simply not worth the cost. If 300 dead is worrying to a Star
Trek captain, then he should probably seek life elsewhere,
because a Federation tax payer expects decisions to be
made in line with policy and not based upon a course of
William F. Owen (Wilf) is co-Founder and Vice President
of the IJ Infinity Group, Ltd., the Editor and co-founder of
Infinity Journal
and the co-founder and Deputy Editor
of
The Journal of Military Operations
. Wilf is a military
technology writer, defense writer, theorist, and consultant
currently pursuing a Masters by Research at Cranfield
Defence and Security, part of the Defence Academy of
the United Kingdom. He speaks and presents to military
audiences on a wide range of subjects. He served in both
regular and reserve units of the British Army.
To cite this Article:
Owen, William F.,“Strategy Is For The Bad Guys: Why Modern Pop Culture Struggles to Understand Ends and
Means,”
Infinity Journal
,Volume 4, Issue 1, summer 2014, pages 33-36.
Strategy Is For The Bad Guys: Why Modern Pop Culture
Struggles to Understand Ends and Means
William F. Owen
The IJ Infinity Group
Israel
