

Indeed, in recent years there has been mounting evidence that both our society and Its military institutions are facing organizational crises. Far from being purely an academIc exercise, this gathenng brought together milI 2 tary leaders and civilian scientists to discuss C's central pragmatic and conceptual issues-its assumptions, its practices, and its organization. The contributions that make up this book are the product of a June 1998 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) workshop called The Human m Command.


Featuring a holistic, nonlinear way of looking at systems, this book helps readers better organize and structure their thinking of systems in order to solve complex, real-world problems. The text also interweaves the meanings of complexity, paradox, and system to promote the improvement of difficult situations. It uses several contemporary and complex societal issues, such as the Iraq war, the Google phenomenon, and the C2 Constellation, to illustrate the concepts, methods, and tools of a system as well as the meaning of togetherness in a system. In the hopes of initiating critical thinking and encouraging a systems response to problems, the book provides pragmatic mechanisms to understand and address co-evolving systems problems and solutions. Taking an engineering systems view toward systems thinking, the authors place a high value on the thinking process and the things applied to this process.
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Addressing these seemingly intractable systems problems in our society, Systems Thinking: Coping with 21st Century Problems focuses on the inherent opportunities and difficulties of a systems approach. By examining the links and interactions between elements of a system, systems thinking is becoming increasingly relevant when dealing with global challenges, from terrorism to energy to healthcare.
