Filippo Dal Fiore Social Scientist at MIT and Austrian Academy of Sciences

1. 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 FioreSocial Scientist at MIT and Austrian Academy of Sciences

2. Starting point: today´s scenario 21st century globalization  free flows of money and information (“one world, one dream“)

3. First implication: empowerment of once peripheral actors(for the principle of communicating vessels)  from dependency to interdependency 

4. …that implies: once dominated actors get in a position to blackmail dominants

5. …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

6. …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

7. (2)  Promotion of a monoculture (3)  Prevention of globalization of the ultime source of power

8. But one problem remains: What if a once peripheral actor refuses to be co-opted in the enlarged global establishment?

9. Then…  either you convert the dissident into a friend… or  …you annihilate the dissident

10. 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)

11. In my view, it is all about the way elements interact Supposedly, IFcomplexity comes into place when we move from dependency to interdependence among elements,ANDinterdependence is revealed by the mutual power to blackmail THEN, The power to blackmail is the first synthom of underpinning complexity

12. 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

13. In the end, something tells me things must be simple…

14. Canterbury, 03.09.08, Conference on Conflict and Complexity Filippo Dal FioreSocial Scientist at MIT and Austrian Academy of Sciencesdalfiore@mit.edu