Recently I was privileged enough to hear Zbigniew Brzezinski speak on the War on Terror and the Middle East. Whilst listening to Carter’s National Security Advisor systematically calibrate foreign policy situations and prescribe solutions I was reminded of an article in Scientific American this month.
“Mental processes of grand masters reveals clues to how people become experts in other fields.” By Philip E. Ross (Scientific American August 2006).
In brief, Philip Ross describes how skill at chess can be measured. Evidence has been found that “grandmasters rely on a vast storage of game positions… which are quickly retrieved from long term memory.” Contrary to my previous understanding, grandmasters are not born but made. To accumulate this vast knowledge base a grandmaster “engages in years of effortful study, continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond their competence.”
With numerous foreign policy options available to deal with
each of the
