Blog #2 - Problem Articulation

Political Unrest in Russia

                 Anti-government Protests in Russia [1]

Problem Narrative:  With Russia's next presidential election coming up in March, protests against government corruption have broken out in Moscow over the last several months.  As concerns about government corruption and voting fraud have been repeatedly ignored, the Russian people's discontent with Putin and his party, United Russia, has grown.  Tensions increased with Putin's acceptance of his party's nomination to run in the 2012 presidential election and with United Russia's 50% majority in the parliamentary elections (exit polls reported United Russia only won 43% of the vote). [2]

"No Voice" Protests Against Government Corruption [6]

Prior to this up-surge, "Russia's political landscape has been relatively calm and consolidated for the past decade under former President and current Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin." [3]  In 1999 when Putin came into power, Russia, still recovering from the disbandment of the Soviet Union, was suffering from severe political and economic instability.  During his presidential term he was able to implement political, social, and security reforms that helped put Russia back on the track to becoming a global power and gave him the title of "Russia's 'savior'." [4]  After serving two consecutive terms he was, by law, forced to step down but took his place as prime minister and hand picked Dmitri A. Medvedev to secede him allowing Putin to stay in power [5].  In recent years, however, Putin has lost much of his support and is criticized for his manipulation of the Russian electoral system to stay in power.

Behavior Over Time:  To best understand how political stability in Russia is changing overtime, it is important to look at two "dashboard variables."  The first variable to look is the nature of the protests themselves.  As discontent among the people has risen there has been an increase in the size and frequency of protests in Moscow[7].  While violence has stayed at a minimum so far, it is another important indicator the tensions are rising.  The second variable to look at in the "fairness" of the different elections.  This can be measured by comparing exit polls with the government-announced election results.  This addresses the concern of whether the people are actually getting a voice.

Relevance of a Systems Perspective:


Evidence of a Long-Time Horizon:  Political instability in Russia has been a major issue throughout its history, particularly in the last 150 years with the fall of its monarchy, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and the recent emergence of a more democratic Russian Federation.  Even with what seemed like a stabilization over the last decade, recent accusations of voting fraud and the increase in protests prove that political  corruption and instability still very much exist.  While protests are likely to pressure the government to make short-term changes, Putin still holds a lot of power and influence.  Even if the protests were successful in forcing Putin to not run for re-election, there still remains the question of who would take his place.  As was seen with Medvedev, though Putin was not officially in power, he was able to maintain control.  Additionally, there is currently no other one party that has any sort of majority of the vote.


Multiple Actors with Differing Mental Models/Competing Goals:  The two major competing actors when looking at the stability of the situation are Putin, along with his United Russia party, and the protesters.  Putin believes that the instability is caused by the protests[8] and US instigation[9].  His focus is on appeasing the protesters in such a way to stop the protests without giving the perception of Russia or of himself being weak[10].  The protesters collectively believe that the problem is rooted in government corruption, particularly that surrounding Putin.  Their focus is to have fair elections and remove Putin from power.


Study Objective and Questions to be Addressed:  The objective of this study is to look at what has been the cause of the protests and the uproar against political corruption.  This study will look at how political stability can be restored and how it could spiral out of control, picking out indicators for both scenarios.


[1]http://www.praguepost.com/news/11929-region-russia-tense-ahead-of-election.html
[2]http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/russia/index.html
[3]http://stratfor.com/analysis/russias-shifting-political-landscape-part-4-putins-challenges
[4]http://stratfor.com/analysis/russias-shifting-political-landscape-part-4-putins-challenges
[5]http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/russia/index.html
[6]http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2011/12/11/1226219/130219-russia-protest-moscow.jpg
[7]http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/russia/index.html
[8]http://stratfor.com/analysis/russias-shifting-political-landscape-part-4-putins-challenges
[9]http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/russia/index.html
[10]http://stratfor.com/analysis/russias-shifting-political-landscape-part-4-putins-challenges

Blog #1 - Your personal challenges to using systems thinking

Question 1: What is the most important distinction between a systems-oriented approach to analysis vs an event-oriented approach?

From what I understand, the two most important distinctions between a systems-oriented approach to analysis and an event-oriented approach is their differences in focus and linearity. However, these two concepts are very inter-related.

By focus what I mean is to what level outside factors are brought into understanding a problem. In other words, it is the difference between looking at a problem from a small vs a big-picture point of view - or even strategic vs tactical. The event-oriented approach tends to look at, as it's name suggests, isolated events and trends. In this approach we look at event "A" and ask ourselves, "how can we keep event 'A' from happening?" Well, from what we understand, if we implement policy "x" it should cause event "B" which should keep event "A" from happening. Clean, simple, easy. This approach is very short-term and very tactical in the sense that it is very narrow sighted; we see a problem and work to fix it without taking the time to understand how our decision might impact other factors related to the initial problem. The systems-oriented approach takes a step back from the problem and, instead of looking at a the individual events, it looks at the problem as it exists among a network of inter-related systems. This approach takes a big-picture, long-term, strategic look at the problem. Instead of looking at event "A" and asking what was its cause and how can we keep it from happening, the systems-oriented approach to analysis looks at the environment in which event "A" exists in the form of cycles or "systems." From here you can ask, "is event 'A' really something we want to stop?", "if we implement policy 'x', how will that impact the rest of the system/other related systems?", "how can we stop event 'A' while minimizing negative consequences that are produced by the other systems?"

The second distinction that I felt was most important was the difference in linearity especially in relation to polarity. The event-oriented approach to analysis looks at any one event as a product of a series of events whereas the systems-oriented approach to analysis looks at an event as a product of a system(s) of causal factors. Instead of looking at an event as a product of a series of events, the systems-oriented approach links together existing non-polar causal factors that help to form the causal forces (loops/systems) present in the situation in which the problem exists. From there, an analyst can assign a polarity to the causal factors to play out how the problem came to be. The ability to look at the situation without polarity is important because it allows an analyst to see in what other directions the system can go and how that could impact the other systems.


Question 2: What do you think will be the greatest challenge to practicing systems thinking as an intelligence analyst?

I see a couple different challenges in practicing systems thinking as an intelligence analyst. The first and I feel, the most obvious, is the challenge of time. Systems-thinking requires a fuller, deeper, and overall better understanding of not just the problem but the environment in which the problem exists. This level of understanding is going to take time, at least more time that getting a more brief understanding of the problem. While this level of understanding may produce a more useful product, if that product is not able to be produced within the time-frame in which it is usable then it is useless.

The second challenge is simplicity. Being able to tell someone that policy "x" will produce event "B" thereby stopping event "A" is much simpler than trying to describe a system of causal forces. If your product is over-complicated and therefore incomprehensible to the consumer, it is once again, useless.

The third challenge deals with coverage. When looking at a situation how do you decide what systems/causal forces you include and which one are more or less irrelevant. A great characteristic of the systems-thinking approach to analysis is that it is expandable and can be refocused to get a more or less broad view of the situation. However, the question then becomes how can you judge when you've zoomed in too much or zoomed out too far.

First Post!

 Being a former mathematics major and growing up with a mother who is an algebra teacher, I naturally love math jokes:)

My apologies to all you math haters out there.