This is really dumb, and it reminds me of a lot of the problems you notice when you read something that comes out of academia. First off, 'systems thinking' is literally just thinking, but breaking it down to some tiny level where each half-step of a thought needs to be labeled for some reason. This article also spends the first 1/3 talking about how amazing systems thinking is; which makes me think this is some kid who just learned this thing and thinks there is nothing better, or they are just too dumb to see it for what it is.
The labeling of the parts of the system is fine, but you end up wasting too much time tying everything back to this system you made/use instead of just dealing with the reality of what you are analyzing. The point I'm getting to is that you are getting lost in your invented system and you forgot you are dealing with something in reality and not a puzzle to be solved in the study/testing of your system.
He writes, "And there it is, one half of the winning strategy: Roll the dice as little as possible. You can’t lose armies that never fight." This is the exact opposite thing you should do in Risk. Risk is a really simple game. The attacker can roll 3 dice and the defender can only roll 2. The attacker always has the advantage when max dice are being rolled. Even with the defender get the tie-breaker. It is actually dumb to not be rolling the max dice because that would just makes things worse for you. So, even if you have a territory with 3 guys alongside an enemy with 20, you should roll your 3 dice at least once before ending your turn because your odds of killing his guys are better than if you wait to roll 2 defense dice on his turn. Again, Risk is really simple, and over-aggression is the optimal way to play because of the dice roll rules.
My long rant is really because of how widespread this problem is these days. Some system to try and analyze reality gets invented, but then it gets misused--or maybe it is just flawed from its inception--and you wind up thinking you are making progress in understanding because something makes sense in the little system you invented/are using. I'm thinking you are the writer of this, so I hope you see the error you're making. The 'systems thinking' is kind of dumb. But to be fair, the only problems I've seen it get used in are that bathtub example and Risk. Maybe something that is a lot more complicated benefits from systems thinking. What does the breaking down of each step of a process really add to understanding if the steps being broken down are simple to begin with?
He writes, "And there it is, one half of the winning strategy: Roll the dice as little as possible. You can’t lose armies that never fight." This is the exact opposite thing you should do in Risk. Risk is a really simple game. The attacker can roll 3 dice and the defender can only roll 2.
Desu, I spent 5 seconds skimming the article and he very clearly states that the reason to not attack is there are more than 2 players. So yes, A may get a local advantage against B by attacking but in so doing weakens both A and B relative to C. This would be - surprise - SYSTEM thinking.
Your 'system thinking' only works if the people you play against are literal retards. You think they won't notice the second you start to have the biggest army simply because you didn't attack last turn? All of his points about not attacking only work against complete morons. His point 1 is "Consolidate most of your armies on a handful of adjacent countries that are strong enough that no one wants to attack them." No one wants to attack them? How is that suppose to work? His next point is about 'looking weak' as if the opponent can't figure out how to count how many armies you have. His whole argument rests on the idea that his opponents can't figure out he needs to be attacked at some point.
And my point is that he got caught up in his 'system thinking' that he forgot his opponents aren't just going to wildly attack each other and forget his army exists.
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