HOPPING ON THE BLOGOSPHERIC BOYD BOOK BANDWAGON



Colonel Frans Osinga, PhD, who gave a tour de force lecture at Boyd 2007, managed to prevail upon his publisher to sell a paperback version of Science, Strategy and War:The Strategic Theory of John Boyd at a price non-billionaires could afford.

I will be reviewing Science, Strategy and War in December and - tentatively - organizing a roundtable discussion at Chicago Boyz, most likely after Christmas. If you are a blogger, academic or a current or former member of the armed services and are interested in participating, send me an email at zenpundit@hotmail.com.

Labels: 4GW, boyd 2007, ideas, intellectuals, john boyd, military, military history, military reform, science, strategy, theory, war, warriors

  ¶ 7:05 PM 2 comments

  MORE 4GW

Wolf Pangloss has a series of interesting posts on 4GW and information operations that readers might care to consider in light of the discussion that has ensued in the comments section of the post on the strategic analysis of Fabius Maximus. Wolf's posts are:

Democracies at 4GWar

4GW Jihad and the role of the World Media

Conflict Map of the Counterjihad

Media Cheerleaders for Despair

Labels: 4GW, al qaida, insurgency, islamist, strategy, terrorism, theory, war, wolf pangloss

  ¶ 8:12 PM 7 comments

  A LEGITIMATE QUESTION: 4GW AND POLITICAL LEGITIMACY

The enigmatic M-1 of the lively IO/PSYOPS blog Swedish Meatballs Confidential graced the comment section of the previous post and posed an excellent question:

"Q: Can there per definition exist legitimate* 4GW entities? If so, could you please, at your convenience,name any number of them."

I can attest, from some years of studying diplomatic history, that "Legitimacy" in international relations is a lot like obscenity - hard to define but everybody knows it when they see it. The problem is that scholars, diplomats, jurists and intellectuals tend to see legitimacy most clearly when it happens to accord with their own interests.

For example, Neo-Realist IR theorists, Islamists, Marxist-Leninists, Burkean Conservatives, Lockean classical liberals and Liberal Internationalists will all construct arguments that appeal to the legitimacy, or argue the lack thereof, in certain regimes or institutions. Their premises differ as to the origin of legitimacy but the concept itself is regarded as sound across a wide political spectrum - excepting perhaps the fringe of Gramiscian -postmodernist-deconstructionistic radicals, whose tireless efforts to de-legitimize and dismiss nearly everything in the Western intellectual tradition only emphasizes the importance they really attach to legitimacy (At this point, I'd like to invite Dr. Daniel Nexon of The Duck of Minerva to add anything on academic perceptions of legitimacy, disagree with me or generally put in his well-informed two cents).

That being said, as average people are not afflicted with the abstruse theories of intellectuals, I think the Lockean concept of "consent of the governed" is most useful here in addressing M-1's question. Most people stuck in a conflict zone are going to be pragmatists, interested in the restoration of peace on the best terms possible for themselves. It is for their affinity that the 4GW game is played.

Consent does not require democratic elections. Elections make popular consent visible, quantified and, where society operates under the rule of law, elections are a regular, contractual, but temporary grant of authority from the people to their government. Authority can also be granted implicitly by consensual, popular, deference as with homage given to Shiite maarjas, the King of Thailand, the Pope, the Emperor of Japan and the Supreme Court of the United States, whose powerful judicial role is formidibly augmented by the widespread acceptance of it's moral authority as the legitimate arbiter of the meaning of the Constitution.

4GW entities, like states, can acquire ( and lose) moral authority and thus, political legitimacy, through their actions. We may not find this to be logical or objectively factual when Hezbollah or al Qaida are measured against a theoretical ideal. That however, is irrelevant to most the audience in the conflict zone. What matters is what you are measuring the 4GW entity against in the real world. A corrupt, incompetent, oligarchy? A vibrant, prosperous, liberal democracy? A constitutional monarchy backed by long tradition? A Communist regime? A hated dictator ? A foreign army? What ?

Much like time, legitimacy is entirely relative. The people might yearn for steak but if one side is providing nothing but crumbs and the other promises chicken - and can come across with a drumstick now and again - the side with the chicken wins.

ADDENDUM:

Soob weighs in as well with an appropriately timed taxonomy.

Labels: 4GW, COIN, international law, legitimacy, Soob, Swedish Meatballs Confidential, theory

  ¶ 7:06 PM 6 comments

  A TIMELINE FOR 5GW THEORY

Props to Curtis for his altruistic act of blogospheric historiography in creating an online 5GW Timeline. It will be highly useful to know exactly who said what/when before writing any more 5GW posts. Thanks, Curtis!

Dreaming 5GW is on a roll lately. Check out Shane Deichman's "xGW Evolution: Purely Reactionary" and Subadei's "Hammes 5GW Redux:Via Phil" ( original post by Phil at Pacific Empire is here, plus Phil's previous "“Fourth-generation warfare expert to speak in Wellington on Monday”).

Great work, gentlemen.

Labels: 4GW, 5GW, dreaming 5gw, pacific empire, theory, war

  ¶ 8:08 AM 4 comments

  ADDED TO THE BOOKPILE

Labels: 21st century, book, cognition, education, futurism, horizontal thinking, howard gardner, insight, intellectuals, intelligence, psychology, theory

  ¶ 10:15 AM 6 comments

  DEFINING OUR TERMS ON 5GW

"Super-empowered individuals are practitioners. Fifth Generation Warfare is a doctrine

....It makes sense that Super-Empowered Angry Men are most likely to choose the most violent and destructive doctrine within their means. I do not think the essential nature of Fifth Generation Warfare with its long-term planning horizon fits that description. For super-empowered individuals with a strategic mindset, 5GW may be an attractive doctrine and super-empowered individuals may prove to be 5GWs most effective practitioners."

Nice distinction and clear thinking by Arherring at Dreaming 5GW, where the conversation continues in successive posts.

Labels: 5GW, dreaming 5gw, superempowered individuals, theory, war

  ¶ 8:09 AM 0 comments

  GUEST POSTING AT DEMOCRACY PROJECT

My friend, Bruce Kesler was gracious enough to offer me a guest posting opportunity on the topic of 4GW at the well-respected group blog Democracy Project. Bruce's only proviso was that the piece should be aimed at the general reader and not the academic specialist or military professional and I have endeavored to comply.

With far more patience than I deserve, Bruce waited for me to finally get my post together and he has put it up this evening:

"4GW Primer"

Much thanks to Bruce Kesler for allowing me to expound on this topic for DP readers!

Labels: 4GW, COIN, Democacy Project, insurgency, kesler, theory, war, william lind

  ¶ 9:41 PM 2 comments

  WHAT WOULD A 4GW CAMPAIGN BY THE USG LOOK LIKE ?

Lexington Green asks this question at Chicago Boyz.

Labels: 4GW, America, chicago boyz, COIN, Ic dreaming 5gw, lexington green, strategy, theory, war

  ¶ 8:01 AM 2 comments

  BRIEF MUSINGS

I'm preparing to leave town on another trip and find myself overstretched in terms of time but I have to note that Kent's Imperative had some intriguing posts up ( hat tip to Michael Tanji) , about which I'd like to offer a few comments:

"Life at Google from an outside perspective"

Aside from seeing how uber-techies live and making me nostalgic about past years of reading defector-dissident Soviet bloc lit, I'd like to highlight this passage regarding a KI suggestion to the IC for personnel reform:

"A chance for line level workers to do the kind of intel they want to do (versus the latest crisis they have been thrown into), at least part of the time? Or to contribute to the literature of intelligence? (Modeled along Google’s 20% time.)"

My unqualified guess is that this would increase the productivity and prescience of the IC by roughly the same proportion that expanding private farming helped the Chinese economy under Deng Xiaoping. People typically generate their most valuable insights about those subjects which they are both curious as well as passionate - i.e. earlier in the learning curve than the status of graybeard authority ( once you think you know everything, you tend to stop learning).

The bar to doing this is not a manpower shortage but a middle-management fear of subordinate autonomy. Forcing a talented subordinate to do irrelevant busywork confirms a manager's authority and power. Autonomous subordinates who do self-directed productive work tend to confirm the irrelevance of middle-management. Few managers have the psychological wherewithal to be adept facilitators, mentors or coaches of gifted employees as an efficient "management" outlook is an inimical perspective to generating creativity and sustaining " unproductive" exploration.

"Regional versus functional issue accounts"

From a historian's perspective, a cool post ( perhaps less interesting to others). Some historiography, lots of methodology. Money quote/conclusion:

"As for our opinions on the great divide between the two kinds of houses, we find ourselves veterans of uniquely transnational issues, having been subject to every manner of surge and task force and working group and crisis cell, in the most unusual of niches. We prefer to see small, aggressive, ad-hoc structures comprised of both analysts and operators from a wide range of issues and regional desks with interests and equities in the same target which overlaps their accounts. Only then, by throwing everything against the wall in a structure short lived enough to avoid its own bureaucracy, and disconnected enough to be (at least partially) immune from the day to day politics within a given agency or office, have we found the kind of answers we sought regarding the great questions of process.

We strongly believe such radically unstable and short lived environments are most effective because they are the very manifestation of Schumpeter’s process of creative destruction. It is certainly no way to create a sinecure, nor even to build a long term career path – but it is the best way we have found to generate new and innovative approaches and answers to hard target problems, and to the problems others have not yet begun to identify let alone address."

Hear, Hear! Very strong agreement in a John Arqilla-esque vein.

It will happen but not until after several more disasters force that kind of transformation or an unusually bold and subtle visionary implements it on the quiet. There is far too much bureaucratic inertia because the vested interests prefer paralysis in which they hold the reins to successful action where they become recognized for the marginalized support staff they really are.

In my turn, if any KI gents happen upon this post, I suggest they look here. From this acorn of an idea, an oak will grow. Mark my words.

Labels: analytic, CIA, haft of the spear, IC, ideas, innovation, insight, intelligence, kent's imperative, networks, social networks, synthesis, tanji, theory, visualization

  ¶ 8:25 PM 3 comments

  A 4GW QUESTION



This will delight some, intrigue many and annoy others but I found it to be a good counterintuitive question worth considering.

Ahistoricality, posting at ProgressiveHistorians regarding the latest Failed States index, wonders about applying the criteria for state failure, used by Foreign Policy, to the linchpin of the global Core, the United States:

"The annual "Failed States Index" is out. The concept is an interesting one, indicating our very recent idea that national governments are supposed to be stable, almost eternal, and that society is supposed to manage all its conflicts with policy, that all land and people deserve stable governance. I'm not criticizing the ideas, I'm just pointing out that they are recent conceits, not eternal verities, and up to the end of WWI the most likely response to a failed state was imperial takeover.

The headlines regarding the index are highlighting Iraq's precarious position as the second most failing state in the world, but it was a tight finish between the Sudan, Iraq, Zimbabwe and Somalia for the top spots. The only two non-African nations in the top ten of this list are Iraq and Afghanistan. Two things come to mind immediately when I look at this list: first, our imperial interventions are clearly short-term disasters, and; second, the history of failed post-colonial states suggests that they might well be long-term ones.

The full list of 177 states is interesting reading. The top thirty-two (the most critical, by their reckoning) are dominated by post-colonial African and Asian states. The rest of the top sixty adds some Latin American and Central Asian governments. Russia and China are tied with Azerbaijan and Lesotho for 62nd place.

The US ranked 160th, or 18th from the top in terms of state stability. I wonder, though. I'm including the list of factors they considered: do you think we're as safe as all that?

Social Indicators

1. Mounting Demographic Pressures
2. Massive Movement of Refugees or Internally Displaced Persons creating Complex Humanitarian Emergencies
3. Legacy of Vengeance-Seeking Group Grievance or Group Paranoia
4. Chronic and Sustained Human Flight
Economic Indicators
5. Uneven Economic Development along Group Lines
6. Sharp and/or Severe Economic Decline

Political Indicators
7. Criminalization and/or Delegitimization of the State
8. Progressive Deterioration of Public Services
9. Suspension or Arbitrary Application of the Rule of Law and Widespread Violation of Human Rights
10. Security Apparatus Operates as a "State Within a State"
11. Rise of Factionalized Elites
12. Intervention of Other States or External Political Actors"

Naturally, I disagree that the United States is in danger of imminent or medium term state failure though such things are not impossible. The secession crisis before the Civil War was an event of critical state failure. Late 1932 and early 1933 saw at least symptoms of state failure and delegitimization amidst the economic implosion of the Great Depression and the collapse of the banking system.

What do you think ?

Labels: 4GW, America, counterintuitive, foreign policy, national security, state failure, theory

  ¶ 5:46 PM 5 comments

  RICHARDS ON STRATEGIC TRANSFORMATION

Dr. Chet Richards of DNI has posted the introduction to his forthcoming book, If We Can Keep It. From what I have gathered, this book will be an extension of the radical military analysis Richards began with his previous work, Neither Shall the Sword: Conflict in the Years Ahead . An excerpt:

"Three national myths

The first is that “terrorism” poses the most serious threat to our survival and our way of life. In fact, the physical damage that terrorism does is small in comparison to other threats to our national well-being, and there are means available to reduce it even further. The greatest threat of “terrorism” is the damage we do to ourselves in sincere but misguided attempts to deal with it.

The second national misperception is that we still require a military establishment whose cost exceeds not just that of the next most powerful nation or even the next three, but of all the rest of the world, combined. Most of this expense goes into conventional (non-nuclear) forces that are no longer needed or even useful. The reason for this is not that world brotherhood has broken out, as earlier generations of pacifists mistakenly assumed, but that nuclear weapons have made wars between major powers impossible. States that are not nuclear powers, on the other hand, are either U.S. allies or are far too weak to pose any kind of military threat, and our attempts to use military force against non-state opponents, such as the “terrorists” mentioned in the previous paragraph, have not proven particularly successful.

The third, and perhaps the most dangerous because it seduces us into thinking that we can make military force into a normal tool of policy, is the notion of counterinsurgency theory. The problem is not that insurgencies cannot be defeated, but that proponents of this theory sometimes fail to distinguish between different meanings of the term “insurgency.” Several observers, recognizing this limitation, have proposed classifications. Biddle (2006) distinguishes between “people’s wars,” in which groups try to overthrow the government, and “communal civil wars,” where groups are fighting to avoid genocide. Metz (2007) classifies insurgencies based upon whether a legitimate government exists or can be created. These are both valuable and help explain why some insurgencies succeed where others do not.

....In the specific area of national defense policy, I recommend that the Department of Defense be gradually downsized to roughly the current U.S. Marine Corps plus special operations forces and supporting tactical air. This is more than adequate to deal with any future military threat. Concerning strategic – nuclear – forces, 10,000 weapons are more than we need to preserve the proven doctrine of mutually assured destruction (Blair, 2007a). Some reduction in this arsenal is clearly feasible.

Such a reordering of priorities towards our real problems implies a restructuring of the federal government. We should immediately disband the terrorism bureaucracy, particularly the Transportation Security Administration and its parent, the Department of Homeland Security and should review the roles and functions of the other agencies and departments.

Over time, as the Defense Department assumes its natural size, as has already happened with most of our European allies (Bacevich, 2006), intelligence will assume a more important function. Although military operations in the future will be rare, it becomes more important than ever that they be perceived by our friends and allies as justified, and when they do occur, they must be rapid, daring, and successful. Achieving this standard requires a step-function improvement in the integration of intelligence, diplomacy, and operations, so it will make sense to consolidate these functions in a single body where the controlling function is intelligence."

Read the entire introduction here.

It would appear that Richards, whose analytical framework is deeply rooted in the ideas of John Boyd, is throwing the 4GW hat into the ring of grand strategy, remediating a frequent criticism that 4GW thinkers are focused primarily upon tactical conflict and the destructive rather than constructive levels of strategic thinking. It will no doubt be an interesting and thought-provoking book that will stampede an entire herd of sacred cows beloved by defense intellectuals off of a cliff. That alone will make it a useful read.

My questions ( and Richards may very well answer them in his forthcoming book) raised by If We Can Keep It, would hinge on several variables:

* The utility of nuclear deterrence, upon which Richards' strategic transformation seems to depend, in an era when significant power (WMD capacity) appears to be devolving to progressively smaller ( and potentially less accountable, predictable and deterrable) substate and non-state networks. The history of nuclear deterrence and accompanying theory represents a large and complex literature with such thinkers as Brodie, Wohlstetter, Kahn, Kissinger and others who never satisfactorily arrived at answers to the conundrum presented by nuclear weapons.

Eisenhower-Dulles " massive retaliation" and "brinksmanship" put a brake on defense spending ( as Ike intended) but it was a very risky and blunt instrument. The idea that Washington would "trade New York for Paris" with the Soviets was never entirely a credible one. Nor did America's massive nuclear arsenal prevent Nasser from closing the Suez or Ho Chi Minh from subverting Saigon or even deter Khrushchev from his nuclear gamble in Cuba (in fact, our lopsided nuclear advantage probably was an incentive in Khrushchev's eyes to gain parity on the cheap).

* Steady-state assumptions about nation-state behavior in the international arena if conventional American power projection capacity was drastically reduced to levels proportionate to Western Europe. This is a major point to consider when offering a non-interventionist alternative to current strategy - American military power is the focal point of most regional security systems ( or opposition to them). To my mind, statesmen calculate their actions and plan their military expenditures based upon assumptions of American hegemony, welcome or not. The inability to even get to the starting block for military competition with the U.S. - we must think not just in terms of annual military budgets but in the colossal sunk costs of establishing a military-industrial base - is inhibiting regional arms races to a degree. Remove American preeminence from the equation and foreign statesmen are going to arrive at different calculations regarding their interests and security.

I look forward to reading it and entertaining Dr. Richards' argument in full.

Labels: 21st century, 4GW, America, chet richards, COIN, defense, deterrence, dni, foreign policy, insurgency, john boyd, military reform, national security, nuclear, small wars council, strategy, theory, war

  ¶ 7:01 PM 5 comments

  WHAT IF A MAJOR ASPECT OF OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNIVERSE IS WRONG?



A Harvard physicist proposes " Unparticle physics".

Dr. Von, you were there for the top quark, what's your take on this ?

And as long as we are on the frontiers of theoretical physics, experimental geneticists have reached the point of designing artificial life. Top that, I say.

Labels: futurism, physics, science, theory

  ¶ 9:16 PM 6 comments

  THERE'S A FINE LINE BETWEEN AN ACT OF PIRACY AND JUST SIMPLY TAKING SOME INITIATIVE



A fascinating economics paper sent to me by Fabius Maximus (hat tip accorded) that took me a few days to get to reading. Wish I had looked at it earlier:

"An-arrgh-chy: The Law and economics of Pirate Organizations" (PDF) by Dr. Peter T. Leeson

Peterson argues that historical pirates, far from being Hobbesian outlaws, governed themselves with rule-sets that minimized conflict and maximized cooperation and profit ( albeit at the expense of civilized seafaring states). Looking at broad principles of functionality, Leeson's work is applicable to other violent non-state actors - Latin American drug cartels, 4GW insurgencies and terror networks, warlord and sectarian militias, Bunker's 3 Gen gangs, TOC groups like Chinese Triads and Russian mafiya and so on.

This argument struck a chord with me on two points. First, it mirrors the historical experience of traditional Russian banditry where robber chieftains ruled over there fellows according to "Thieves Law", something Solzhenitsyn discusses at length in The Gulag Archipelago.

Secondly, network theory research indicates that small systems that seem chaotic or "noisy" actually develop emergent rule-sets that bring the system into an orderly pattern, even if the rules and patterns are very simple ones. A pirate ship, even a fleet, much like a terrorist network, is simply a small, complex, social network. Rules accepted on a consensual basis cut down on " noise" and allow the network to become more efficient.

A must read.

Labels: economics, fabius maximus, navy, network theory, networks, non-state actors, piracy, social networks, terrorism, theory, transnational criminal organization

  ¶ 7:25 PM 2 comments

  THE COMING OF AFRICOM: THE DEPARTMENT OF EVERYTHING ELSE VS. EMBRACING DEFEAT*



* image and title shamelessly "liberated" from the multidisciplinarily creative Dan of tdaxp who previously posted an excellent series by the same name.

Two articles with diametrically opposed worldviews of American intervention overseas.The path to error lies in the simplification of both approaches:

"Africa Command: The Americans Have Landed" in Esquire by Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett
(This article is currently only available in dead tree format)

"Rethinking Insurgency" (PDF) at Strategic Studies Institute by Dr. Steven Metz (hat tip to Danger Room)

Tom Barnett's Esquire article on the newly created AFRICOM is one of his best pieces in "journalist" mode and it demonstrated the dire need for establishing true ( and not primarily "kinetic") "operational jointness" in interagency cooperation in Africa. This means accepting the inherent complexity of the Gap and answering with synergistic connectivity to globalization in order to engage in societal-building and state-building .

AFRICOM



Dr. Metz also accepts the complexity and interconnectivy of globalization but prescribes defusing conflicts by disengagement, accepting the co-option of aggrieved insurgencies into the national power structure even when they are resolutely hostile to American interests. A graceful retreat does less damage, in Metz's view, than would sustained conflict fueled by American aid enhancing the power of states to resist insurgencies.

Unsurprisingly, I am in favor of Barnett's approach but recognize that it is best employed judiciously, with an economy of force and minimalist platforms where aid gives the biggest bang for the buck. Likewise, while I see the Metz approach, if raised to a general rule, as a prescription for strategic erosion of American primacy and the decline of globalization, used with discretion, it is a useful "means-test" for evaluating the strategic importance of failing states and avoiding of the waste of American blood and treasure.

Malawi is not as important as Pakistan, even if al Qaida can be found in both countries. That doesn't mean ignoring Malawi but that we engage it differently than we do Pakistan.

ADDENDUM:

Steve DeAngelis is also discussing AFRICOM at ERMB

Labels: 4GW, barnett, COIN, counterinsurgency, insurgency, national security, PNM, resilience, SSI, state building, state failure, steven metz, strategy, system administration, tdaxp, theory, war

  ¶ 7:56 PM 0 comments

  THE STRATEGIKON

An interesting paper about an obscure military classic of the Byzantine Empire (hat tip to TROUFION )

Labels: byzantium, classics, history, military, military history, small wars council, theory, war

  ¶ 10:03 AM 0 comments

  INTELLIGENCE, PUZZLES AND MYSTERIES



Gregory F. Treverton writing in the latest issue of The Smithsonian:

"Risks and Riddles"

"During the cold war, much of the job of U.S. intelligence was puzzle-solving—seeking answers to questions that had answers, even if we didn't know them. How many missiles did the Soviet Union have? Where were they located? How far could they travel? How accurate were they? It made sense to approach the military strength of the Soviet Union as a puzzle—the sum of its units and weapons, and their quality. But the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of terrorism changed all that. Those events upended U.S. intelligence, to the point that its major challenge now is to frame mysteries....

....Puzzle-solving is frustrated by a lack of information. Given Washington's need to find out how many warheads Moscow's missiles carried, the United States spent billions of dollars on satellites and other data-collection systems. But puzzles are relatively stable. If a critical piece is missing one day, it usually remains valuable the next.

By contrast, mysteries often grow out of too much information. Until the 9/11 hijackers actually boarded their airplanes, their plan was a mystery, the clues to which were buried in too much "noise"—too many threat scenarios. So warnings from FBI agents in Minneapolis and Phoenix went unexplored. The hijackers were able to hide in plain sight. After the attacks, they became a puzzle: it was easy to pick up their trail. Solving puzzles is useful for detection. But framing mysteries is necessary for prevention. "

This article, though written for a general audience, struck a number of chords with me. Specifically:

* "Noise" is an important consideration in an era of attention scarcity economies. Eliciting a surge in " white noise" by unrelated third parties ( say disinformation that sends pro-lifers off on a media campaign and in turn, energizers their pro-choice enemies to respond, diverting the attention of the general public to "X" degree) is useful camoflague. Purpleslog had a deservedly well-received post at Dreaming 5GW on " the Puppetmaster" as a "5GW Archetype". Such a mentality would cultivate media noise the way the KGB once set up and subsidized endless Communist front groups in the West.

* Uncertainty is relative. Some "mysteries" are more decipherable with a change of perspective, scale or temporal framework; others represent questions of deep uncertainty. Imaginative scenario planning exercises can help pattern recognizers familiarize themselves with latent possibilities ( Neo-Eurasianism ? Pan-Turanism ? A derivatives-driven implosion of globalization? Eco-extremist bioterrorists longing for planetary genocide?).

We need radical thought experimentation.

UPDATE:

IT security expert Gunnar Peterson has already covered this base well but from a different angle:

"Vulnerability Puzzles and Mysterious Threats"

"Risk differs from uncertainty in that risk may be measured and managed whereas uncertainty may not. Risk management efforts hinge on this important distinction because it highlights differences where a team may be more proactive. For instance, many vulnerabilities are known, hence they may be measured and managed whereas the threats to a systems contain a greater degree of uncertainty in that the threat environment contains numerous elements such as threat actors that one’s organization can not directly control."

Labels: 5GW, analytic, cognition, Ic dreaming 5gw, intelligence, theory, uncertainty

  ¶ 9:15 PM 3 comments

  TANJI INTERVIEWS ROBB

Michael Tanji, the IC veteran at Haft of the Spear, interviewed John Robb about his new book, Brave New War over at Tanji's MSM gig, The SPOT Report ( have to add that to the blogroll...).

"Brave New War Interview (Part I)"

"Brave New War Interview Part II"

NEW! "Brave New War Interview (Part III of III)"

The interview is excellent. Tanji gets beyond the usual superficial questions into the meat of Robb's analytical worldview. A sample:

" TANJI: In The Long Tale of Warfare Emerges you take an Occam's razor through the fundamentals about the size and capability of the insurgency. We can kill with precision and to any scale, but apparently cannot get the basic math right. Is dogma driving us to perform data-free analysis or are we just not preparing our strategists and planners to address complex or asymmetric problems?

ROBB: The problem may be whether or not we operate on best case data or worst case. If you always select the best case data in order to bolster the moral cohesion at home, then you are really lying to yourself -- essentially, breathing your own exhaust. Another reason may be that that our intelligence system can't handle the level of complexity involved within a closed environment (locked down by artificial barriers of secrecy). It's not tapping into the vast pools of talent outside the organization effectively.


TANJI: Let me ask you a question that I get asked a lot: Why no major attack in the US since 9/11? Is it a question of difficulty in setting off systemic cascading failures? If major attacks suffer from diminishing returns and small attacks ratchet up the "tax" on targeted cities, why haven't we seen IEDs on Wall St. or Main St.?

ROBB: Here are a couple of reasons. First is the diminishing returns of symbolic terrorism A big attack like 9/11 is hard to top. Anything less would hurt the al Qaeda brand and fail to return fear to anything near the levels of 9/11. Second, al Qaeda was severely damaged when we invaded Afghanistan. Those resources it had left were spent on staying alive and helping launch the operation in Iraq. Remember, a major reason for 9/11 was to get the US into a guerrilla war in Asia and repeat the experience of Russia's Afghanistan. In terms of systems disruptions, this method has only recently emerged from the experience in Iraq. Not everyone gets it yet, but the insight is spreading quickly in an organic fashion. You could conclude that the attack on Abqaiq and the Golden Mosque were examples of systems disruption (the latter being social systems disruption) that al Qaeda didn't have to project power to the US to accomplish. "

I found the section in BNW on Urban Takedowns problematic as well. I liked Robb's concept of a " terrorism tax" on targeted cities because that jives with a systematic understanding of applying market forces to societal analysis. I think, on the margin for certain important, narrow, questions, this idea works very well.

OTOH, historically, all cities were essentially death traps that could only be sustained by a daily influx of migrants ( usually peasants fleeing rural poverty) that exceeded those dying from disease, violence, fire and malnutrition at a rate that vastly exceeded the toll taken by today's terrorism. Only in advanced states, with the creation of modern sanitation and water systems, public health, police and fire services has this dynamic changed for the better. Many cities in the Gap and a few in the New Core are still in this " feral" state. The point being that as a complex social and economic networks, cities may have greater resilience than we realize, which makes estimating terror effects problematic.

Labels: book, brave new war, haft of the spear, john robb, military, military reform, SPOT, tanji, theory, war, warriors

  ¶ 9:41 AM 1 comments

  SINISTER WISDOM



Carl Schmitt was one of those brilliant German intellectuals who, in the anti-democratic traditions of elite European authoritarianism and illiberalism, lent their prestige and moral authority to Fascism. Like his contemporary, the philosopher Martin Heidegger, Schmitt became an enthusiastic Nazi and an academic bully. Unlike Heidegger, who in his malice or dotage fellated the radical New Left, Schmitt never recanted his National Socialist past.

That being said, Schmitt's deep learning and insights about the state, the struggle for power and war should not be ignored lightly because of his wicked politics any more than we should eschew learning from the writings of Mao ZeDong, Franz Fanon or Sayyid Qtub. Only a fool ignores the ideas of the enemy.

With that caveat, I recommend Schmitt's " The Theory of The Partisan".

A major hat tip to my friend and fellow blogger Marc Schulman who I suspect unearthed this link in his own research into Alexandre Kojeve.

Labels: europe, history, insurgency, intellectuals, military, philosophy, schulman, theory, totalitarianism, war

  ¶ 8:04 PM 2 comments

  CURRENTLY READING...

Ok, just started the first chapter in each, so I have little to say - but here they are!



Wikinomics



Medici Effect



Wealth of Networks

They have reinvigorated my interest in a currently moribund collaborative project with Dr.Von (hmmm...his blog seems a touch moribund as well- political office must be eating up all his time LOL!) Perhaps, if I can get some serious momentum going on it this summer, he'll hop back on the bandwagon.

Labels: book, business, complex systems, complexity, consilience, creativity, economics, horizontal thinking, medici effect, networks, social networks, theory, wikinomics

  ¶ 10:18 AM 3 comments

  IT'S A RARE AUTHOR OF MIL BOOKS WHO CAN BRING THOMAS BARNETT AND WILLIAM LIND TOGETHER

John succeeded though, garnering thoughtful reviews of Brave New War from Dr. Barnett and " The Father of Fourth Generation Warfare", William Lind, both of whom lauded Robb's work ( albeit from starkly different perspectives).

ADDENDUM:

Chet Richards has his review posted now too.

Labels: barnett, book, brave new war, john robb, lind, military, theory, war

  ¶ 7:31 PM 0 comments