A Framework For Understanding The Recurrence Of Middle East Conflicts: A Ceasefire Is Not a Solution; It Doesn't Change The Structure Of a System That Reproduces Itself
A group of friends from Organizational DNA Labs (see note) meets from time to time to experiment with different models, explore how they can explain real-world problems and common ways of thinking about them, and assess whether the framework could help us formulate predictions. Since March, we have been using Steven Strogatz’s Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos to examine the Middle East conflict, guided by George Pólya’s four-step problem-solving method: understanding the problem, devising a plan, carrying it out, and looking back. Strogatz’s framework suggests that when people or groups interact through feedback, they can produce unexpected patterns and sometimes trigger large, hard-to-predict changes. That led us to ask whether Strogatz’s framework was sufficient on its own or needed to be combined with other theories to address the conflict’s historical, ethical, legal, and political-economic dimensions. This article shares what we found. Overvie...