Should we or shouldn't we?

At the time of writing this post, members of the international community are considering military action against Syria in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.  The UK government`s intention to support a US-led initiative has just been defeated following a debate in the House of Commons.  All week I have tried to follow the various arguments, for and against action, on the media and I do not intend to continue that debate within this post. I am more concerned by the judgement processes employed by those who have real influence on issues affecting mankind's well being and survival.  For example, why do two supposed intelligent individuals, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, have entirely different views on the role of the international community in respect of the Syrian conflict?  Specifically, on the issue of military intervention, Barack would say ''we should'' whereas Vladimir would say ''we shouldn't''.  And of course, David Cameron would say ''we should but my country won't support me''.  Why does David Cameron have a different opinion to the majority of MPs and, according to recent opinion polls, the majority of the UK's population?

In previous posts, I have banged on about the benefits of systems thinking and I am about to do it again.  Systems thinking is all about looking at things in their totality rather than as the sum of the parts.  It requires an understanding of not just the component parts of the system but also the interdependencies.  In the words of Peter Senge:  ''Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants''.  One of the ways that NON-systems thinking can manifest itself in, for example, international affairs is when a solution to a problem can lead to greater problems than the one that was supposedly 'solved'.  Or put another way, and again quoting Peter Senge: ''Today's problems come from yesterday's 'solutions' ''.  In my opinion, most of today's leaders either demonstrate a complete lack of systems thinking or their differences of opinion result from differences in what constitutes 'the system'.  Returning to the example of Syria, there is little doubt that Barack Obama  and Vladimir Putin do have different views on Syria, within a systems context.  The USA's interests in Syria and the Middle East are quite different to Russia's interests in Syria and the region.  So if the interdependencies are different, 'the systems' are different.  That said, in my opinion most political leaders have a myopic view of problems.  It's normally double myopia, in space and time.  Spatially, they tend to think territorially, focussed on their national interests.  Temporally, the thinking is very short term, usually dictated by their period in office.

So what's the solution?  Well, in my humble opinion and in the words of a former non-systems thinking UK politician, Tony Blair, it's ''education, education, education''.  The teaching of systems thinking does not feature prominently in schools, colleges or universities and I think it should.  But it's not easy because there are not many people who are truly proficient at systems thinking.  So if you don't have the teachers, you can't attract the students and you don't develop tomorrow's teachers.  Also, systems thinking should not be regarded as an adjunct to curricula but embedded, like a language, in all disciplines.

I'm not an educationalist, I don't pretend to know right or wrong ways of teaching, but I do know that the world appears to be suffering from poor thinking, which is a systemic problem.  At least if we recognise that problem then maybe we are on the road to knowing the answer to ''should we or shouldn't we?''................even if the answer is ''maybe''!!