Sun Tzu and the Art of 11-Dimensional Chess

If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it. -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The debate I identified during the Netroots Nation conference as "process realism versus process idealism" has heated up ever since. There's been a lot of blog-based vitriol aimed at Rahm Emmanuel, Barack Obama, and the White House by progressives. In particular, too much electronic ink has been spilled over conflicting signals about the public option.

But as I said a few weeks ago, mixed signals are a deliberate strategy. Last Friday at DailyKos, Maimonides described this better than I have:

Rumor in DC* is that Rahm has gotten exactly what he wanted: a "Big mess," as Rahm reportedly described it. Formlessness has payed off. There are virtually no Congressional players left whose opinions we do not know, and every option has been talked to death. And now the Administration, rather than having its policies debated to death, has the ability to sweep in and choose among the options presented. The publicly available options one might say.

And they did this by keeping the fight, the mess, largely contained in the Legislature, that hallowed institution where they make the sausage that the President later cooks up in a Rose Garden signing. They get what they want, they get to claim the victory, and they kept their hands remarkably clean, by keeping the American people from perceiving them as having lost the argument. They'll need that for the next issue. And the next one. Because they aren't just interested in delivering quality, affordable health care to every American. They're interested in modernizing energy policy, they're interested in signing bills repealing DOMA and DADT, they're interested in reforming regulation of Wall Street and reducing our nuclear stockpile. They have a lot of work ahead of them.

They are facing an endless series of battles like this one. And from my POV they plan to win them all. (Emphasis mine)

The term "11-Dimensional Chess" has risen in the progressive blogosphere as a dismissive term for Obama's approach. In a Friday post, Booman Tribune questions this canard:

My short answer to this critique is that the health care bill is multi-dimensional and any strategy would have to reflect that. Start with the fact that the health care bill has to pass through three House and two Senate committees, all with their own unique membership and temperaments. That's five dimensions. Then, consider that the three House bills have to be condensed into one House bill and the two Senate bills have to be condensed into one Senate bill. That's seven dimensions. After that, each bill has to pass through its respective house of Congress. That's nine dimensions. Then those two bills have to be melded into one bill and sent back to pass each house of Congress again. That's eleven dimensions (or, maybe, twelve dimensions). (Emphasis mine)

At TalkLeft, the blogger who coined the term "11-Dimensional Chess" responds:

President Obama has been a bystander in the creation of this situation. At this point, that is a good thing. But the persons claiming "He's got it" were obviously wrong and the phrase "11 dimensional chess" entirely appropriate for their analysis, such as it was.

In other words, if health care reform does contain a "public option," it will be because Obama is made to do it by progressives, not because of his superb playing of 11 dimensional chess.

Yet, as I said weeks ago, Obama's biggest challenge has been the mobilization of his own political base. Progressive grassroots organizing was lethargic at best until the August teabagging hit a crescendo. And he was out there the entire time telling Americans about the public option.

Then there was the strange rhythm of my inbox. Every pronouncement of doom for the public option "leaked" from the White House was matched by another email from Democracy For America asking for money and support to build momentum for the public option. A chorus of oh noes would ring throughout the blogosphere and everyone would redouble their efforts to awaken support.

And it worked. Contrary to what some progressives may tell themselves, they were goaded into action by Obama -- not the other way around.

Observers seem to have missed an important facet of Obama's address to Congress: unlike Clinton's disaster in 1993, by that point Congressional Democrats were begging Obama to take ownership of a plan. That would not have happened had he "under-learned" the lesson of Clinton's failed health care push in 1993.

Yet even as Obama made a strong case for the public option in his speech, some progressives still worried that he had not drawn a "bright line in the sand" on the issue. That Obama firmly stood behind the 80% of reform to which Congress could agree, while maintaining some plausible flexibility over a public option, speaks again to this strategy of letting debate play out in Congress.

As Booman says, there are so many moving parts to this story that a simplistic view isn't helpful. Today, Booman recaps the conundrum Obama resolved with that Sun Tzu-like formlessness:

If he announced that he wouldn't sign anything without a public option, the bill would get nowhere in the Finance Committee, and the effort to pass a bill without resorting to the budget reconciliation process would die an early death, with the administration taking the blame for their intransigence. But, if he dropped his support for the public option, the Democratic Party and all their health care activists would lose their enthusiasm for reform. The only solution was to maintain a degree of creative ambiguity. In not insisting on a public option, he could maintain the narrative that he was flexible and willing to negotiate and make concessions to the Republicans. (Emphasis mine)

Let's also remember Obama's debate performances against Hillary Clinton. In almost all of them, he won by deferring to let her go first. In much the same way, his speech coming at the end of the August silly season gave him the last word while the Republicans were on the record as "the party of no" and "death panels."

Since his speech, all the momentum has been with the public option. Twenty-four House Blue Dogs endorsed it Monday. It failed two votes in the Senate Finance Committee, but there are enough votes to pass it in the Senate when it gets reinserted in the sausage-making. Polls now show overwhelming support for it and disapproval of Republican intransigence -- statistics that caused NYT columnist Charles Blow to muse that Obama has "outsmarted us all."

Moreover, this "formlessness" strategy shows up again in other areas. Writing on Afghanistan this Sunday, Frank Rich lauds the way Obama

has temporarily pressed the pause button to think it through while others, including some of his own generals, try to lock him in is not a sign of indecisiveness but of confidence and strength.

Monday morning Defense Secretary Gates was telling us the administration will likely not meet its self-imposed deadline to close Guantanamo. That afternoon, Reuters reported that 75 more detainees have been cleared for release.

Sunday, David Corn reported at Mother Jones that White House insiders were signaling the Copenhagen round of climate change talks was dead on arrival, only to be rebuffed by the insiders he quoted.

Lowered expectations again. How many times will this pattern repeat itself before progressives realize it's a strategy?

 

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Comments

[Chris Weigant - Huffpost Blogger]

Matt -

Even the three-dimensional chess Spock was wont to play seemed too complicated to me.

Now we've got to learn 11-freakin­-dimension­al chess? My head hurts...

Heh heh. Great article.

:-)

-CW

[Matt Osborne - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks, Chris!

(Anyone who doesn't know Chris's writing definitely should.)

[Matt Osborne - Huffpost Blogger]

A post-script:

It occurs to me that there's a test of this article. If I'm right, then we're going to see more mixed signals in all these areas: Afghanistan, cap & trade, and EFCA.

[S1m0n]

While you're perfectly correct with Sun-Tzu's observation about strategy in war, the problem with this approach is that war is only a partial analogue for the legislative process. Making law is half war, & half cooperative venture. The people the president is supposed to be allied with have no idea what, if anything, they can count on the putative ally for, and this is pissing them off more than it is confounding the enemy. We need a leader who will lead, not a leader who follows.

[Matt Osborne - Huffpost Blogger]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but he he who gets there firstest with the mostest wins. That was J.E.B. Stuart's philosophy, and it applies on election day more than any other.

The mistake too many progressives mistake is in misunderstanding the martial model of politics. We are up against culture warriors, are we not? The weapons of politics are different, and that is the only difference.

Campaign organizers must know the terrain and raise troops. They must train those troops and supervise them. Granted, working on a campaign isn't exactly like Basic Training; but boot camp is a pretty good metaphor for a successful campaign.

That the two activities share a great deal of philosophy is no accident. Democracy was born in the militaries of ancient greece, Renaissance Switzerland, and colonial America.

You say "we need a leader who will lead, not a leader who follows." Three questions:

(1) Who is Barack Obama "following"?

(2) There are Constitutional and practical limits to the commander-in-chief role; Obama cannot micromanage or "force" Congress to pass a health care reform bill.

(3) Do you recognize the irony of saying that just after you've denied the applicability of martial philosophy?

[anna1liese]

This piece reminds me, oddly enough, of a poem I wrote in grammar school. We had been told to write a poem and illustrate it. Immediately I was in big trouble. Draw something? I couldn't draw. I began scribbling on a piece of paper and when I looked at it, I saw a squiggly line. I looked again and I saw part of a swan. I managed to draw it again on another piece of paper and them I wrote a poem. Good save, I thought.

Next day I pass it in and our teacher decides to hold up certain poems so that we can see the picture while she reads the poem. When she held mine up, I wanted to turn invisible. Everyone could see my swan. She asked the class what they had heard in my poem. I listened as classmates shared what they thought had been my theme, my inspiration, my reason for linking this with that. Their observations sounded brilliant. I was quite impressed. Their notions of my brilliance had nothing to do with me. The only thing I could draw was a swan. I made up a few lines to go with my picture.

This moment came back to me when I was asked to comment on an author's intention. It comes back to me as I read so many perceptions of Obama's strategies. This is one time when I hope the observations of brilliance are right on target.

[Matt Osborne - Huffpost Blogger]

I'll say two things about that, anna1liese: (1) we are often at our most creative when we are completely in the moment. Your grammar school experience is like a Zen koan. (2) If I am wrong, then we are the luckiest people in the world because what they're doing seems to be working.

[DaveVentura]

"President Obama has been a bystander in the creation of this situation"

The thing is that Obama hasn't been a bystander. He, Baucus and the healthcare industry got together behind closed doors and in violation of his campaign promise to secretly decide what HC "reform" would look like. Obama has been working ever since to deliver on the deal he cut (which I might add Obama took boatloads of cash from the HC industry per OpenSecrets).

[Matt Osborne - Huffpost Blogger]

Have you ever heard of "divide and conquer"? Yes, Obama made a deal with PhRMA -- one that Congress is free to break -- that separated them from their allies in the insurance industry. Obama set about wooing the doctors and providers. And it has worked quite well, especially once progressive Congress members hstarted hammering the insurance industry in floor debate.

Like it or not, presidents must prioritize. That "backroom deal" may cost $80 billion. It might also get you the public option. Which was more important?

[Susan L. Travis - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for this one, Matt - so many people are despairing that Obama is not what we had hoped. To my mind, it's all much harder than it looks and we should be prepared for a difficult battle. Obama needs the chance to employ a strategy, the support of those who voted for him, and a little faith given that he so brilliantly won the election, demonstrating his keen understanding of complex strategies. I really like this article - and I'll love seeing you proven right. Once again - well-spoken. Plus a little optimism on a Wednesday morning is always a good thing!

[Matt Osborne - Huffpost Blogger]

Optimism is great, but a public option is better. This article shouldn't be taken as a sign of raving Obamamania -- at all.

[Susan L. Travis - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for the reminder - I'm not advocating blind Obamamania, but just as the right has embraced an incoherent negative energy, if others get caught in that same energy regarding Obama's ability to effect the future of our country, strategy is all the harder to implement. The "woe is me, he's not what I thought, he can't, he just can't" energy isn't what made this country great. The road to a public option (or to the erstwhile single-payer) really needs a new energy, which I think your analysis helps to buoy. It's an energy born of reason and keen observation, and for that, it's much needed.

[BobKincaid]

True enough, Matt, and I've been on the "Obama Wan Kenobi" bandwagon a few times. One should remember, however, that even liberals like a little push back, a little fight back once in awhile, even in a political jujitsu match. Witness the overwhelmingly positive response to Rep. Grayson's blistering of the hides of those godless, soulless, motherless cretins of the GOP.

The essential problem with the current strategy, if, indeed, it is one, lies in the fact that it presupposes almost infinite time in which to accomplish some (laregely unstated thusfar) goal. That time doesn't exist. The administration and the ostensibly democratic majority in Congress have dithered the better part of a year away with very little to show for it. Where, for instance, is that Employee Free Choice Act American workers were promised? That, of course, isn't the only issue, but it's worth mentioning because of the profound impact it could have on the healthcare debate. The point is that 2009 is fast waning and nothing of substance will be accomplished in 2010, the MidTerm election year. 2011 will be no better, with the lead up to the president's reelection effort. The time is now, the moment is upon them. The quesiton is whether the Democrats in either branch understand this.

Sun Tzu also said "Invincibility lies in the defence; the possibility of victory in the attack." Until the Administration and the Democrats in the Congress go actively on the attack, there will be no possiblity of victory.

[Matt Osborne - Huffpost Blogger]

Bob, to some extent all of that pining for action doesn't take into account that Obama is very much not the stereotypical angry black male. And really, it's not his place to do what Grayson did. I am very much in favor of Grayson maintaining his unrepentant attitude, but that's not what Obama's there for.

[PlaceboStudman]

We've gone from futuristic talk of 11 dimensional chess to quoting military philosophy from an ancient chinese military strategist?

Sheesh, at this rate, we'll be quoting General George Custer (slaughter at Little Big Horn) next

[Matt Osborne - Huffpost Blogger]

Some things are always true, even when the Chinese say them.

[PlaceboStudman]

THis is true. Sun Tsu is The Master

I just have a sneaking suspicion that Star Wars 3D battle chess was not what Sun Tsu had in mind when he wrote The Art of War

Just makes for an interesting cultural image is all

Obama as Luke Skywalker