Thomas Friedman’s essay in today’s NY Times, Anxious in America, is a good first step indictment of the failure of the Cold War world view to solve our 21st century problems. It should be no surprise that a world view that despises the role of government, except, curiously, when it comes to spying on its citizens, cannot now produce a government that champions innovation and a multiplicity of diverse and creative options. The simple fact is that the old Cold War world view has become a pathological liability.

As my friend John Mallery points out, the key strategy of the Cold War era was Tit-for-Tat, derived from John Nash’s Game Theory. In the 20th century world where you knew the name and address of your antagonist, tit-for-tat might be claimed to have worked — even with the very negative unintended consequences Friedman enumerates. Today, however, in the era of widely distributed cyber warfare, not requiring state actors, it is impossible to know, in any meaningful time frame, who your opponent is, much less his or her address to which to deliver your tit-for-tat. So how do you respond? Especially if you do not want to let your opponent know you know, much less HOW you know? The answer is probably to use cooperation and collaboration for the common good, values that game theory explicitly denies.

This has the interesting implication that Friedman correctly identifies: vote for the candidate who most clearly rejects the Cold War world view, associated economics and military strategies. Our future success depends on replacing the Cold War world view as fast as we can. We would be much better off, for example, if we displaced the old Cold War world view with a new Peer-to-Peer World View.

Note: For a more detailed analysis of the limits and consequences of the Cold War social, political, and economic dogmas see here and here.

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