Design Thinking and Operational Art: The Understanding of the Relationship Between International Security and War

Abstract

In order to uphold the architecture of international security, most countries are committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. In case diplomatic efforts fail, most of them have the military power to settle disputes by the use of military force. The outgoing 20th and the unfolding 21st century have clearly displayed that conflicts can degenerate into asymmetric, irregular and low intensity wars with the involvement of non-state actors. It has also become clear that these actors take advantage of the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, or in short VUCA environment posed by globalization. The social wave - front theory provides a useful narrative to this environment as it regards human history as a succession of three waves of changes and every time the waves clash, bloody wars break out as tensions between the representatives of different waves accumulate. Tensions can feature macroeconomic and geostrategic forces, risks on a regional and global scale that pose challenges of a various kind to humankind. In this paper the author argues that this requires a new lexicon and a special approach that have their mark on operational art. Integrating ends, ways and means to align forces and actions in time and space meaningfully is very much needed for the successful conduct of military operations to get a grip on the dynamics of the VUCA environment.