On Maskirovka: the dynamics of delay in threat recognition

Abstract

Across military Zweikampf and public health, error, blindness, and incompetence carry singular burden. Here, we adapt methods developed for the analysis of pandemic mismanagement to the study of armed conflict. Stability of control during such conflict depends on prompt recognition of, and response to, rapidly changing events. In addition to “conventional” Clausewitzian fog and friction, there are almost always inherent or induced delays to threat recognition. For a system to be stable without such delay, there will be a critical lag at which control fails, as it similarly does if institutional cognition sufficiently degrades. In such cases, tactical thrashing becomes manifest. In a military context, there is no way around such dynamics, which are routinely—often brilliantly—exploited.