Whaling, Protestors, and Strategy Part II

I received quite a response to the post on Whale Wars and the Sea Shepherd’s effectiveness.  I am going to attempt to answer all the comments, questions, and criticisms brought up by readers.

First things first: the corrections dept – or let’s call them updates.  In my original post I stated that the Bob Barker was unable to keep up with the Japanese whaling fleet.  In a later episode, the Seas Shepherds (SS) were able to tweak the engine enough to get some additional speed, and thereby keep up.  Second, it turns out Pete Bethune was not disowned after all – the SS simply told the Japanese judiciary that Bethune would no longer participate in SS operations.  After Bethune was released, the SSs indicated they had no intention of following through on that promise.  I’m not going to debate the idea of lying; deception is a viable strategy.

Now then, the most passionate opposition to my post came from David Comarow.  Here is a summarized list of his points (not including the updates listed previously):

• The appearance of incompetence is largely a function of television editing, which shows the most compelling (not necessarily significant) moments.
• The number of whales killed compared to the quota is a good measure of effectiveness
• The SS have made millions of people aware of the horrors of whaling.
• The tactics of the SS are setting the stage for a political solution
• There is a growing mountain of [uneaten] whale meat in Japan.  (I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I presume this is an indicator that SS tactics are changing the minds of Japanese consumers about whale meat).

Thanks again David for the comments.  To begin to address these comments, let us first start by mapping the Japanese whaling ecosystem as it pertains to the SS and their strategy:

This is a simplified systems diagram for how the whole system functions.   It shows the multiple variables in the system and the effect they have on each other (increase or decrease, represented by the plus and minus signs).  What can this tell us about the best way to attack this system?

First of all, let’s consider the SS strategy; to make whale meat too expensive, causing a drop in demand and subsequent drop in profitability for the whalers.  You can see in the diagram the SS actions cause an increase in whale meat cost.  David contends they also cause a decrease in whale meat demand.  I can’t say if that is true, so I put ?? next to the +- indicator.  What the diagram allows us to see is that it is irrelevant! Why?  Because of the missing “invisible hand.”  In a normal economy price is coupled to supply and demand.  But not here (this is shown by the dotted arrow).  There are only two factors that affect the cost of the meat; SS actions and Japan Government subsidies, and the SS actions to increase the price are easily offset by the subsidies which decrease the price.  This is why the SS strategy can’t work. It doesn’t matter how expensive you make the meat – the cost is underwritten by government subsidies.

Now, lets take a look at the other two outputs from SS actions.

First, it increases Japanese support for whaling.  Importantly, this may or may not result in increased whale meat demand.  Why?  Because in Japan the SS are seen as terrorists.  Even if you don’t eat whale meat, that doesn’t mean you are going to ally yourself with a terrorist ideology.  This popular support translates to political support for government subsidies, which in turn regulate the price of whale meat, keeping it affordable.  You can follow the loop all the way around and see how the SS undermine their own strategy!

Second, it increases public awareness (outside Japan) and by extension, increases anti-whaling sentiment.  While there is no doubt that the show increases awareness and anti-whaling sentiment, it is a dead end.  The Japanese are a very homogenous, high context culture.  That means that they are very sensitive when it comes to “in” groups and “out” groups.  It also means they are sensitive to “losing face.”  For our purposes, it means that public sentiment outside Japan has little or no effect on Japanese sentiment (and by extension, political support) because foreigners are an “out” group.  In fact, the more you tell the Japanese what to do, the less likely they are to comply.

There is another show on Animal Planet now about a gentleman trying to stop the dolphin hunt.  In an interview he talks about how the Japanese will “have to” stop the hunt when the international pressure becomes to great.  It is tragic how culture-centric we are as westerners.  We think that everyone sees the world as we do and responds to stimulus as we do.  Remember the words of Sun Tzu: Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.

In any case, what does all this tell us about strategy?  In my view, it says that the key to the system, or the weak link if you will, is the government subsidies.  Without those, the whole system collapses.  Yet, the SS actions increase support for government subsidies.  This dynamic is not unique to SS.  We (humans) are programmed to think in linear, cause and effect terms.  But, the world is really more complex – more like a spaghetti bowl of inter-related variables.

Now that you see how I view the system, you can see why I reached the conclusions I did.  Going back to David’s points, let me answer them in turn:

The appearance of incompetence is largely a function of television editing.  Maybe so, but the resemblance of Watson and Hammarstedt to The Skipper and Gilligan is eerie, don’t you think?  Kidding aside, appearances are secondary to the strategy, which I still say is failing.

The number of whales killed compared to the quota is a good measure of effectiveness.  I guess we’ll just disagree on this.  I reiterate – you can say that the Japanese fell short of their quota, but what does that really mean?  If last year they took 100 whales out of a 100 whale quota, they took 100% of quota.  If this year, they took 100 whales out of a 200 quota, then they took 50% of their quota.  But really, is that a 50% decrease?  Or a 50% increase in SS effectiveness?  Watson is playing with numbers.  While that is good strategic communications (the message is “we are winning” because retired game show hosts don’t donate $5 million to a loser), but we shouldn’t confuse spin with actual effectiveness.

The SS have made millions of people aware of the horrors of whaling.  True, but I don’t think it matters as explained in the systems model.

The tactics of the SS are setting the stage for a political solution.  As long as the Japanese view SS as terrorists, this is like saying that 9/11 set the stage for political reconciliation in the Middle East – not really.

There is a growing mountain of [uneaten] whale meat in Japan.  Yet the price of whale meat remains unaffected.  I go back to the model – supply and demand is not regulating price, which is why the SS economic attack is bound to fail. I’d like to finish up this post by addressing the question from Shah, who asks if SS, or perhaps alternative strategies, would be effective to combat over-fishing by nations in their economic exclusionary zone (EEZ; waters from 0 to 200 miles off the coast of a sovereign state in which that state has exclusive rights to economic activity, such as fishing, oil drilling, etc…)The answer is, I don’t know.  My advice would be to first map the ecosystem as I have done above for the whaling economy in Japan, then find the weak spot where you can apply pressure.  The answer is likely to be different in each case because the politics, economics, and socio-cultural factors will all be different.  I go back to the basics of strategy – it is a balancing of strategic outcomes/goals (ends) with the ways (tactics/methods) and means (resources) to accomplish them.