Without you knowing about it, Stanislav Petrov has been a part of your life. He has saved the world as we know it by the decisions he made all the way back in 1983. On 26th September, 1983, Petrov was the duty officer at the command-center for a nuclear early warning system near Moscow in Soviet Union. That night, he faced one of the biggest decisions of the 20th century – a decision that could have precipitated an inevitable chain-reaction of events to culminate into the destruction of the whole world. Hard to get what this means into our gut and that is part of our collective challenge – but that’s beside the point. How did a low-ranked duty-officer come to bear such a huge responsibility? After all, we expect this to come to the desks of country leaders & top generals. And what made it such an agonising decision? In the eighties, the then superpowers, the United States & Soviet Union, were in a state of MAD ( Mutually Assured Destruction) This is even now the case. MAD means both superpowers had enough…
Leadership this month : Taking time-out
The volatile Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte was asked about his response in an anticipated meeting; should Barack Obama, the US president, talk about rampant human rights violations and extra-judicial killings under his regime. In his native tongue, he said he would call Obama, ‘son of a bitch’. Obama’s response? All he said was that given the less likelihood of a productive and constructive conversation, he would call off the meeting. Which he did. No grand riposte. No grand-standing as the President of the United States of America. The Srilankan cricket team won their Test cricket series against the mighty australians 3-0, a whitewash. In the process, Australia lost their Test no.1 ranking. The Australian cricket captain, Steve Smith was sent back to Australia during the one-day series on the grounds of rest and preparation for the upcoming South African series at home. Of course, the decision was criticised as a sign of weak leadership. How can the captain of a beleaguered team go home like that? Well, he did. Under new captain, David Warner, the Australians won the one-day series…
Leader-ship : Lost at Sea
We live in a turbulent age. The democratic system of the world’s most powerful country, the United States, is being trumped up by a dangerous demagogue. A continental community ushered in to unite a continent ravaged by two world wars is being torn asunder. We have the highest ever number of refugees sequestered in camps because the countries they wish to enter have shut their doors on them. We have a terrorist group that wields state power in terms of – the territory it holds,the scale of violence it can unleash, and the identity it provides to its adherents. And we have a fragile environment that is breaking down to the point of no return, thanks to human depredations and excesses. First, the United States. To imagine Donald Trump having access to the nuclear button is a most fearful exercise. And this concerns the whole world, not just his country. The world’s most powerful democracy, the place where the world’s best intellects choose to live and work; this very place has seen the rise of a dangerous and manipulative demagogue. The world’s…
The Pathankot terrorist attacks – learning points
The January 2016 terrorist attacks at the Pathankot airforce base offer many thought-provoking points, especially by melding two perspectives , namely that of an organizational analyst & a strategic analyst. Defining Success How does one define success? If damaging precious military hardware and inflicting heavy casualties was their definition of success, do we count it as our success if we thwart this specific plan? The underlying question is, do we let terrorists and their masterminds decide the name of the game? Or do we flesh out a different definition of success? This question has larger implications. An impactful terrorist attack is used by terror sponsors to radicalize and recruit people to their cause. Every plan to counter such an attack must seek to nip such a possibility in the bud. We can create such a plan only if we have a strategic definition of success, in addition to the tactical one being used in foiling the specific terror attack. When you define success in strategic terms, you think about how you can bolster capability for the long-term. You think about how…