VUCA

Biological Parallel

The US Army War College coined VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) to describe post-Cold War challenges. Every organism lives in VUCA environments: predator encounters are volatile, weather is uncertain, ecosystems are complex, and sensory signals are ambiguous (is that movement a mate or a threat?). The organisms that thrive evolved strategies for each: redundancy buffers volatility, bet-hedging handles uncertainty, modularity manages complexity, and Bayesian inference resolves ambiguity. VUCA isn't new; it's the default state of life.