Essays on Strategy and Public Health: The Systematic Reconfiguration of Power Relations

ISBN-13: 9783030835804 / Angielski

Rodrick Wallace

Spis treści

1 Wicked strategic problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.2 The Data Rate Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.3 Scalarizing driving parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

1.4 Tactical/operational engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1.5 Strategic wickedness and institutional cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

1.6 The tyranny of time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

1.7 The tyranny of resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

1.8 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

1.9 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2 The enemy gets to vote on the outcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

2.2 The dynamics of uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

2.3 Conflict is a cognitive relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

2.4 The control theory illusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

2.5 Lamarckian punctuated equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

2.6 From probability models to statistical tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

2.7 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

3 Fog and friction as resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

3.2 Interacting information sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

3.3 The basic model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

3.4 Determining g(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

3.5 Uncertainty, friction, and noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

3.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

4 Strategic Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

4.2 Analytic and holistic streams of strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

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4.3 Third streams of strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

5 Agribusiness vs. Public Health: Disease Control in Resource-

Asymmetric Conflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

5.2 Stochastic sterilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

5.3 Disease control failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

5.4 Asymmetric conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

5.5 John Boyd’s OODA Loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

5.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

6 Power relations and COVID-19 in New York City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

6.2 Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

6.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

6.4 Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

7 Tuberculosis, the Marker of Abusive Power Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

7.2 The Examples of Stop TB and the Gates Foundation’s Global Fund . 153

7.3 Primary and Secondary Prevention: Which is True Strategy? . . . . . . 154

7.4 Basics of TB Biology and Outbreaks from Upheavals . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

7.5 Control Problems from Authorities in Denial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

7.6 Social Fabric and Ebbing of TB Outbreak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

7.7 Hierarchy, Toxic Power Relations, and Upheavals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

7.8 World War II and the Post-War Era: Unity First, Then Hierarchy . . . 160

7.9 Stress Physiology and TB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

7.10 Unreliable Resources for TB Control and Prevention . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

7.11 Anti-TB Drugs: Necessary Tactic But Not a Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

7.12 Northern Industrial Revolution and Southern Agrarian Economy:

Social Mobility vs Feudalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

7.13 Countervailing Forces and Social Mobility to Stop US Feudalism

and Caste System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

8 Literacy and public health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

8.2 Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

8.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

8.4 Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

8.5 Appendix A: Data and sources for 39 developing countries . . . . . . . . 182

9 How policy failure and power relations drive COVID-19 pandemic

waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

9.2 Control system dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

9.3 Infection dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

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9.4 Distributed delay – cognition rate models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

9.5 Multiple delays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

9.6 Dreams and schemes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

9.7 ‘Dear Leader’ malevolence is synergistic with delays . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

9.8 Reconsidering COVID-19 dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

9.9 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

10 Strategic counterpoint and fugue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

10.2 The Data Rate Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

10.3 Scalarized resources and interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

10.4 Arousal and Distraction I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

10.5 Fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

10.6 Arousal and Distraction II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

10.7 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

11 Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

O autorze

Rodrick Wallace is a research scientist in the Division of Epidemiology at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, affiliated with Columbia University’s Department of Psychiatry (US). He has an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a PhD in physics from Columbia, and completed postdoctoral training in the epidemiology of mental disorders at Rutgers. He worked as a public interest lobbyist, including two decades conducting empirical studies of fire service deployment, and subsequently received an Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In addition to material on public health and public policy, he has published peer reviewed studies modeling evolutionary process and heterodox economics, as well as many quantitative analyses of institutional and machine cognition. He publishes in the military science literature, and in 2019 received one of the UK MoD RUSI Trench Gascoigne Essay Awards.

Blurb

This book is a collection of essays that explore commonalities and contrasts between strategy in armed conflict and strategy in public health, disciplines linked by the devastating consequences of strategic failure. The formal sections use the asymptotic limit theorems of information and control theories to study strategy as an exchange of messages between adversaries, in the context of underlying power relations. The ‘messages’ to be exchanged are constructed from an ‘alphabet’ of tactics available to each contender, in a large sense. The formal development is interspersed with a number of case histories from this perspective, ranging across agribusiness-generated pandemics, through tuberculosis and COVID-19. The final chapter attempts a strategic synthesis applicable more specifically to public health than to the remarkably – and disturbingly – close parallel of armed conflict. Taking a unique approach to public health tactics and strategy this volume will be of interest to social epidemiologists, public health economists, public policy scientists, as well as public health researchers and practitioners.