This chart/slide/tangled web of spaghetti does not fill me with confidence about Afghanistan:
It is all too reminiscent of this one:
The magical realism of the latter Powerpoint was going to make the occupation run smoothly, with the aggressive arrows on each side funneling the Iraqis into modernity: peace, democracy, and Starbucks. The former seems similar in its optimism that depicting the complexity of the situation will somehow make it better. But it does not explain or clarify that complexity, it simply duplicates it; Afghanistan’s dynamics as the smudged rendering of a slightly askew copy machine.
The Edge of the American West 
18 comments
December 11, 2009 at 9:23 am
Anderson
I think these charts are really just Pentagon-sponsored performance art.
December 11, 2009 at 10:02 am
Erik Lund
I take this as vindication, Silbey. My vision of the United States Army as a trade school in camou may not achieve many progressive foreign policy goals, but it does produce heavy duty mechanics, as opposed to Powerpoint whizzes.
And if there is one single way to not win the hearts and minds of mountaineers, it has to be putting more trucks on the road. There’s nothing that focusses the mind on hating flatlanders than sitting at the back of a convoy of heavy vehicles crawling up the pass at 15mph, especially when you’re trying to move livestock.
December 11, 2009 at 10:17 am
Sandie
You must check out Stephen Colbert’s use of that graph last night for a board game he created called Afghanistaniland. Very funny. If I know how to embed links, I would do so. Alas, I cannot.
December 11, 2009 at 11:13 am
Prof B
This, my friend, is one reason why I’ve barely looked back since I left the Army in 2005. To borrow a Nixonism, let me say this about that — what you’ve got there is the tip of the Powerpoint Obfuscation iceberg. And make no mistake — if you can’t generate one of these, navigate one of these, and brief one of these, you’re just not taken seriously in the high corridors of military power.
December 11, 2009 at 11:23 am
kid bitzer
i only today encountered steffi lewis’ relevant aphorism:
power corrupts. powerpoint corrupts absolutely.
December 11, 2009 at 11:57 am
JPool
But it does not explain or clarify that complexity, it simply duplicates it
Yeah, this. I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me what we’re going to be doing differently, other than putting 30,000 more troops into
endlesseightteen more months ofendless war. But, of course, if you explain your strategy to the American public, then the terrorists have won.December 11, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Russell60
Lest we forget….chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken.
December 11, 2009 at 1:34 pm
ari
Here you are, Russell.
December 11, 2009 at 1:54 pm
kid bitzer
very glad you linked to that, ari.
because as funny as the video is, b’s contributions to that thread are even funnier.
comedy gold, b. comedy gold.
December 11, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Ben Alpers
Don’t you see that the top chart, produced by the Obama administration, is thoughtful and morally serious in its consideration of the complexities of war, while the bottom chart, despite a certain moral clarity, is simplistic and kneejerk? Whoever is fighting the war illustrated by the top chart surely deserves some sort of prize!
December 11, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Russell60
Thanks, ari.
December 11, 2009 at 8:23 pm
dilbert dogbert
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/12/afghan-polity-venn-diagrams-adam-silverman.html
Another try at untangling the mess.
December 11, 2009 at 8:25 pm
jvhillegas
When I first read this post and these comments, I didn’t see it in terms that Ben points out: “Don’t you see that the top chart, produced by the Obama administration, is thoughtful and morally serious in its consideration of the complexities of war, while the bottom chart, despite a certain moral clarity, is simplistic and kneejerk?”
This is an intriguing interpretation. I see it now. The bottom graph is very much a phallic, thrusting, dominating, approach to diplomacy, whereas the top graph is all about complexity, non-linearity, etc. To paint with a broad brush: Here we have an example of the drastically divergent Bush II neocon simplified view of the world as they want and need it to be and the Obama era’s refreshing engagement with the complex world as it actually is.
Bravo!
December 12, 2009 at 6:10 am
Russell60
I think both of these Powerpoints have roots in psychedelia. The “Fish Game” enclosed with the second Country Joe and the Fish LP, was actually impossible to really play, much less complete, as was the “maze” in the foldout of the Rolling Stones “Their Satanic Majesties Request” LP.
December 12, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Matthew Ernest
Private industry would never produce slides like these. ::cough::
December 12, 2009 at 10:13 pm
jvhillegas
Private industry would never produce slides like these.
That’s why there’s more to this world than private industry — because there are more facets to reality than the capitalist worldview.
December 15, 2009 at 4:21 am
Walt
Matthew Ernest is right. Honestly, this Powerpoint slide is the best argument for turning everything over to private industry that I’ve ever seen.
December 15, 2009 at 8:17 am
Charlieford
Silbey, I don’t think the two graphs are similar at all, and I think folk are missing the implications of that (unholy) thing.
The second is linear, it predicts a succession of phases with a narrowing of the difficulties along the way. That narrowing or diminishment is the result of distinct and identifiable pressures brought by the coalition upon the situation.
‘The first shows no such implications. Looking at it, and asking, “What’s the take-away point?” you’d have to answer, the problem is endlessly complex, everything’s connected to everything else, and there are just too many potential combinations of factors to predict what’s going to occur or to develop an abstract set of tactics that will apply to and solve developing problems apart from a close and empathetic attention to actual developments as they occur.
And, in fact, isn’t that what Kilcullen, Mansoor, and FM 3-24 (and others) have been arguing? That you need to be relentlessly empirical and adaptive, study-up, think hard, study more, think again, and always be prepared for the unexpected?
That the situation you are engaging isn’t just bloody, but bloody complicated?
Now, I’m not a Powerpoint guy (ask eric), and I’ve never seen a point made by a visual that couldn’t be better explained by a nice block of prose. So I’d rather read Kilcullen than look at that thing.
But that’s not where most people, especially in the military, are. (There was an article somewhere awhile back where somebody asked a roomful of officers on their way to Afghanistan how many had read FM 3-24, and the results were not heartening.) These people get what information they get by Powerpoint. That’s their language.
And if you needed to get the above described concepts across to these kinds of learners, and you can’t get them to read, won’t that graph pretty much do the trick?