Complexity, chaos and the art of war

Abstract

The research object of the paper is the application of theories of  Complexity  and  Chaos  to  the  use  and  organization  of  the  Armed  Forces.  It  proposes  that  the  concept  of  combining  theories  (here  called  “caosplexidade”)  may  be  the  common  denominator  to  many  forms  of  collective  manifestations  that  are beyond the common sense of cause and effect. From a brief study  of  its  theoretical  basis,  this  study  proposes  to  evaluate  some  phenomena  of  modernity  in  this  light,  especially  those  in  which  complex  adaptive  behaviors  emerge  from  a  group  of  actors. These are phenomena in which certain groups, without counting  on  a  central  control,  organize  themselves  so  as  to  constitute a community with new patterns of behavior and use that  information  to  learn  and  improve.  The  behavior  of  these  groups follows a logic of non-linearity and it is very sensitive to small variations of the parameters that rule them. This concept is used also to analyze the evolution of the Art of War and, in particular,  seeks  to  associate  it  with  the  content  of  the  work  of Clausewitz.