The creativity of war
Everything that is happening today on the fronts is an amusing illustration of the paradoxical structure of war as a form of human activity. Look, any human interaction can be represented in this form of game theory: there are rules, there are parties with their own goals, there are rational strategies for achieving results that are suitable for one side or another. At the same time, the parties are well aware of rationality: party A plans actions based on expectations of how party B will react to them. In non-zero-sum games, where mutually beneficial strategies are possible, it is more beneficial for us to be predictable. "Party A creates a product that party B expects, and party B buys it." Everyone is happy. Marketing research is about getting to know the other person's expectations and adjusting to them.
Another thing is when there is a zero-sum game, where the gain of one side is the loss of the other. "Winner takes all" and "woe to the losers". War. Here, each side wants to outplay the other, ruining her plans. Unlike the previous case, you need to intentionally NOT meet other people's expectations. Party A figures out what Party B is planning and plans a response; party B is figuring out what party A is figuring out and is planning a response; Party A is figuring out what Party B is figuring out, figuring out her plans and planning a response. Etc. etc. In this situation, following some apparently rational strategy of behavior is likely to lead to a trap for the enemy. The one who becomes more impervious to analysis, who acts unpredictably, will win. Let's add that a real war turns out to be more complicated than any, even the most complex game model. There are no predetermined rules and there is always the possibility of "thinking outside the box".
If we take into account all of the above, then many of the seemingly irrational approaches of the ancients to war become much more meaningful. To make a decision on the offensive after divination on the guts of a sacrificial ram? Listen to the hallucinating Pythia in the Delphic oracle? This is a good way to randomize decisions and become unpredictable. However, the Pythia, as you know, could be bribed, so the ram is better in every way. We do not know for certain whether the current Ukrainian command guessed on the guts of sacrificial rams (considering that they have Arestovich as an adviser there, it seems to me that they could). But it turned out well in the end - they hit the wrong place and not at all the way everyone expected. The whine of some z-channels about what they de "warned" is typical "in hindsight everyone is smart". Moreover, this is the most terrible unpredictability - when "crept up imperceptibly, even though it was visible from afar."
In general, it would seem that such a hyper-rational sphere as war, where multi-million human machines compete, acting according to a single strategy, and there is still a place for creativity. And it even happens to be the key to victory. And where is this creativity more? In a free, albeit corrupt and chaotic society? Or in a horse-drawn autocracy, where every initiative was suppressed for decades?
Mihail Pojarsky 10/09/2022
