摘要：Opening with a quote from a Mel Brooks movie might be risky for the topic of military strategy. Yet in his sci-fi comedy ‘Spaceballs,’ Mel Brooks lampoons modern military industrial complexes for desiring technology and absolute control of chaotic and complex conditions. In many ways, Brooks is insightful (while inciting) with how our modern military institutions seek to think about complexity and time, as well as how we think about thinking about complexity and time. This article is not about lampooning the military as a proxy of Spaceballs, but an effort to foster serious discourse on how we think about military actions organized in time and space. While the follies of the ‘Spaceballs’ militant organization operates entirely in a science fiction setting, perhaps there are some metaphors that open unorthodox insights into the real foolhardiness of modern military planning and control. Perhaps recent engagements with the Taliban, al Qaeda, al-Shabaab, the resurgence of Russian proxy wars, and the sudden rise of ISIL demonstrate that our institutionalized ‘sensemaking’ strategies are far less prescient than we expect them to be.
