Canterbury, 03.09.08, Conference on Conflict and Complexity
Does complexity manifests as
the power to blackmail?
The search for geopolitical equilibrium
and the war on terror
Filippo Dal Fiore
Social Scientist at MIT and Austrian Academy of Sciences
Starting point: today´s scenario
21st century globalization  free flows of money and
information
(“one world, one dream“)
First implication:
empowerment of once peripheral actors
(for the principle of communicating vessels)
 from dependency to interdependency

…that implies:
once dominated actors get in a position to blackmail dominants
…that implies:
dominant actors try to co-opt dominated actors in the dominant cartel
(i.e. the global establishment)
 if you can´t beat your enemy, join him
…that implies:
as the dominant cartel gets bigger, its leadership needs to be
strengthen given the higher risk of centrifugal forces
(1)  USA as World Police
(2)  Promotion of a monoculture
(3)  Prevention of globalization
of the ultime source of power
But one problem remains:
What if a once peripheral actor refuses to be co-opted in the
enlarged global establishment?
Then…
 either you convert the dissident into a friend…
or
 …you annihilate the dissident
Hence, what does all this have to do with complexity?
Complex systems are composed of interacting elements, sometimes these
are viewed as independent agents, in other interpretations these elements are
considered to be nodes in a network. In either case, the important consequence
of the interaction between elements is that the system displays properties and
behaviour that could not be predicted by examination of its component parts.
In other words, “the whole is greater than the sum its parts”
and, in the terminology of the field, complex systems have “emergent properties”.
(http://www.complexityinbe.com/index.html?section=intro&page=intro)
In my view, it is all about the way elements interact
Supposedly,
IF
complexity comes into place when we move from dependency to
interdependence among elements,
AND
interdependence is revealed by the mutual power to blackmail
THEN, The power to blackmail is the first synthom of underpinning complexity
Finally, is complexity (as it has been here defined) a feature peculiar to
the 21st century global world?
Supposedly, not. It existed already before but to an infinitely lower scale
If the number of nodes increase, the opportunities to blackmail skyrocket
In the end, something tells me things must be simple…
Canterbury, 03.09.08, Conference on Conflict and Complexity
Filippo Dal Fiore
Social Scientist at MIT and Austrian Academy of Sciences
dalfiore@mit.edu