I think this rule needs to be clarified.
ISE has proposed that states must perform ten critical functions in the modern world in order to serve their citizens and fulfil their international obligations (see Ghani, Lockhart, Carnahan, 'An agenda for State-building in the 21st century,'Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Winter 2006, and 'Closing the Sovereignty Gap,' ODI Working Paper 253, September 2005). The institute has since worked to refine this framework, including through discussions with leaders of post-conflict transitions and in the book, 'Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World,' (Oxford University Press, 2008).
May 12, 2009 Global Guerrillas: BOYD ON AL QAEDA'S GRAND STRATEGY // interesting
“Grand strategy, according to Boyd, is a quest to isolate your enemy's (a nation-state or a global terrorist network) thinking processes from connections to the external/reference environment. This process of isolation is essentially the imposition of insanity on a group. To wit: any organism that operates without reference to external stimuli (the real world), falls into a destructive cycle of false internal dialogues. These corrupt internal dialogues eventually cause dissolution and defeat.
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STANDING ORDER 2: Grow Black Economies
The second standing order of modern insurgencies is to generate economic connectivity in order to manufacture allies and increase the ability of the insurgency to fund itself. It's simple:
...grow black economies...
This requires cooperation with existing criminal organizations within "illegal" economies. This requires a variant on how the nation-state grew via becoming a protection racket -- protection at a rate worth that is worth the value provided and the willingness to expand the business potential of those being protected. Induced shortages, through network disruption, expand business opportunity. Further, broken "legal" economies, generate a plethora of free lancers that populate a self-reinforcing bazaar of violence.
PROTECTION RACKETS
Diving into military theory (again).
A core dynamic behind the emergence of the nation-state was it's ability to run a successful protection business (aka racket). A system that has been growing since the treaties of Westphalia in the 1600s. The protection business is relatively simple:
1. It is a monopoly. It has exclusive ownership over the use of violence. As a monopoly, it must crush all internal competitors.
2. It defends its monopoly from outside interests -- as in warfare with nation-state and non-state competitors.
3. It charges the customers (individuals and businesses) within its geographical areas of control for this service. This isn't optional. Customers presumably benefit from this protection.
Historically Successful Protection Rackets
So what made the nation-state formula for protection so superior to its competitors during its ascent over the last 400 years? It's simple. It delivered value to its customers. Let's dive into this with a paper by Charles Tilly (War Making and State Making as Organized Crime). He cites the economic historian Frederic Lane's simple formula for success:
• The protection monopoly must generate tributes in excess of the costs necessary to maintain it's monopoly.
• The protection monopoly must generate protection rents for its customers. The amount the customers benefit gain from the protection of their interests less the amount they pay for it.
• Both tributes and protection rents must be positive for long term success. Further, the nation-state that minimized protection tributes in favor of maximizing protection rents grew the fastest (historically, that was partly accomplished through economies of scale).
The Status of Modern Protection Rackets
The protection formula broke down in the latter half of the 20th Century as the nation-state became more complex. Key elements of this breakdown include:
• First, the advent of nuclear weapons made full scale war impossible (van Creveld).
• Second, the emergence of a global marketplace with global property rights meant that the commercial interests of the nation-state's remaining customers became more powerful than nation-state's interests. This restricted/limited warfare even more.
• The result has been a slow unraveling of the nation-state's ability to maintain it's monopoly over violence (and much more) within and outside its geographical borders. This has created a gap in protection at the local level into which small violent groups are now quickly converging.
Finally, there is additional evidence that the economies of scale that drove the growth of earlier protection monopolies has broken down.
What this Means
It's likely that small groups that emerge to seize local control (as in, create a TAZ), will eventually converge on the successful protection model (delineated above). In fact, we have already seen this shift with groups as diverse in origin as the Sendero Luminoso to the Taliban to the Zetas to MEND. These groups will be successful in so far as they:
• Stay decentralized and cooperative (re: opposition to the state) to ensure protection efficiency. There are few economies of scale in this environment given the leverage offered by globalization and the presence of legacy nation-states as barriers to growth.
• Generate positive protection rents for their customers. Deliver value. Protection monopolies that expand into the core businesses of its customers will become vulnerable and inefficient. Expand the business interests of customers by eliminating competition when possible and ensuring market access. Charge competitive rates and not monopoly rents (sufficient tribute but not excessive).
• Diversify. To maximize potential tributes while still delivering accelerating protection rents to customers, a protection racket should expand its customer list. This means extending protection from drug smuggling to generic smuggling (across the entire range of potential goods) to generic commercial activity (standard corporate and small business interests). Create a vibrant local commercial environment across the entire spectrum of potential activity.
NOTE: I think this is a nice expansion of the theoretical groundwork laid down in Brave New War, with the goal of laying out the entirely new framework for how 21st Century warfare will work. Of course, since I don't work for anybody exclusively, it is available to everybody. Use as you see fit.
MEXICO'S BAZAAR OF VIOLENCE
The most likely existential security threat to the United States isn't likely to originate from southwest Asian terrorists or a conventional war with China. Instead, it will originate from Mexico's open source insurgency as:
• The Mexican state becomes hollow and unable to maintain any semblance of control over its territory. Fiscal bankruptcy, driven by declining oil revenues and a global economic depression, will eliminate any remaining legitimacy it has with the countryside (already tenuous due to extreme income stratification).
• The narco-insurgency in the northern provinces morphs into a national open source insurgency with thousands of small groups all willing to fight/corrupt/intimidate the government. Many, if not most, of these groups will be able to power themselves forward financially due to massive flows of money from black globalization. The result will be a diaspora north to the US to avoid the violence.
• Economic failure, a loss of legitimacy and economic deprivation in the US creates an environment for the rapid proliferation of domestic groups willing to fight the government in order to advance their economic interests. Catalyzed by connections to Mexico's functional and lucrative bazaar of violence (read "Iraq's Bazaar of Violence" for more on how this works), these groups carve out their own territory in the US. Experience shows that once these groups gain a foothold, they become nearly impossible to defeat (although they can be co-opted).
Sam Dillon, writing for the NYTs, provides us with a good waypoint check on this scenario. Here is a good example of how quickly the infection can spread:
Jerez, a town of 60,000 a few miles northwest of Felipe Angeles in Zacatecas, was until recently a calm place, largely untouched by organized crime, said Abel Márquez Haro, a grocery wholesaler. But recently, scores of men driving Chevrolet Suburbans and carrying automatic rifles established a menacing presence, threatening residents on the street and extorting businesspeople. The identities of the men remain a mystery, but many people in the town say they assume they are traffickers who have abandoned another Mexican state, perhaps to avoid an army crackdown.
The article goes on to explain how these groups are targeting family members of immigrant workers in the US via kidnapping/extortion. The result has been that workers that would have normally returned during an economic downturn, aren't returning due to safety concerns (and many are trying to bring the rest of their families north to safety).
NOTE: IF your are wondering how a global depression might impact national security, this is it (I suspect that the biggest hew and cry will be over how the fiscal crisis has led to the rapid defunding of hideously expensive conventional weapons systems, of no use to this threat). If you want spice, think about the implications of an economic collapse of Pakistan (needs to borrow), Russia (needs $70+ oil), and China (needs growth in US consumer spending).
Duncan Kinder said...
For a case study, read:
"At the center of this case is a hidden bit of history, say prosecutors, of how tobacco smuggling became a state enterprise in Montenegro, a Balkan republic in southeastern Europe bordering Serbia and the Adriatic Sea. Home to just 600,000 people, the country is smaller than Israel and is known for its scenic coastline. But it is also known for its smuggling routes through the heart of the Balkans, which, during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, allowed organized crime to thrive. Italian authorities noted as much in the DIA report. "Montenegro, for a decade, was the real Tortuga of the Adriatic sea," they wrote, comparing the Balkan state to a Caribbean island notorious for its pirates. "A heaven for illicit trafficking; impunity granted to mobsters ...a place where authorities guaranteed the passage of illicitly traded goods." And investigators left no doubt who they thought was behind the billion-dollar racket: "Milo Djukanovic ruled this Tortuga."
....
According to the Italian indictment, from 1994 to 2002, during Djukanovic's long tenure, Montenegro was a haven for cigarette smuggling by two of Italy's mafia syndicates: the Neapolitan mafia, known as the Camorra; and the crime family of the Apulia region, in Italy's boot heel - the Sacra Corona Unita. Both syndicates set up shop in Montenegro. Almost every night dozens of pilots steered a fleet of large speedboats crammed with cigarettes across the Adriatic from the Montenegrin port of Bar to the Italian city of Bari and nearby. According to court records, during those eight years an extraordinary one billion cigarettes per month - 100,000 cases - were smuggled out of Montenegro, most of them Marlboro and Marlboro Light. Once in Italy, the untaxed cigarettes were sold by the mafia on the black market. The judicial papers originally named 15 people. Among them: Djukanovic himself; Dusanka Jeknic; a former Montenegrin finance minister; managers of the Montenegrin company MTT, allegedly set up to control the smuggling; reputed Balkan and Italian mobsters; and a Serbian businessman. In March, noting that Djukanovic is protected by diplomatic immunity, prosecutors dropped him from the indictment"
Reply Tuesday, 02 June 2009 at 10:26 AM
John Minehan said...
"Create new legitimate structures" should be in there. In the Salafist movement it seems to be Sharia Courts.
Reply Tuesday, 02 June 2009 at 11:03 AM
JR said...
John. Good idea. I'll work that in.
Reply Tuesday, 02 June 2009 at 01:22 PM
rickpetes said...
Duncan, it is also my understanding that that level of cigarette smuggling can only be accomplished with the active assistance of the tobacco companies themselves. And, if you google tobacco companies + smuggling, the first hit is:
And there a laundry list of other references.
So, perhaps, JR, Standing Order 8 should be that insurgencies get corporate support for their efforts. Corporations only love the state when they can externalize costs onto the public (absolutely think bailouts, and the pipelineistan wars), otherwise they too have no use for a strong centralized state - it diminishes profit.
Reply Tuesday, 02 June 2009 at 04:22 PM
The Dark Avenger said...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/18/BU9N188GEL.DTL&type=printable
(06-16) 19:24 PDT -- Security researchers
have uncovered a sophisticated online network for buying and selling access to infected PCs, raising concerns that businesses, governments and even home computer users are growing ever more vulnerable to cybercrime.
More Technology
* HLTH and WebMD to merge in all-stock deal 06.18.09
* A daily dose of postings from The Chronicle's technology blog (sfgate.com... 06.18.09
* Computer-makers fight China's filter order 06.18.09
* Dungeons & Dragons handbooks subject of lawsuits 06.17.09
Called GoldenCashWorld, the network acts as a one-stop shop for people who seek to acquire, sell or trade infected computers and Web sites. Infected PCs can be used to send spam or collect documents and personal information or inject new Web sites with malicious code that can in turn be passed on to fresh PCs.
The network also includes tools for creating malicious code and stolen credentials for about 100,000 Web sites. Although it appears to be in Russia, about 40 percent of the computers compromised through the network belong to individuals or companies in the United States.
"This is the most advanced network we've found," said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, the chief technology officer of Finjan, a venture-funded security company based in San Jose that found the network two months ago. "They're trying to combine all the elements together and enable more people to participate in this crime."
Other security researchers said that sadly, they were not surprised by Finjan's discovery, which the company announced today. "It's the best way for criminal organizations to pick your pocket without walking next to you," said Samantha Madrid, a product manager at Cisco Systems.
Sorry, wrong link.
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STANDING ORDER 3: Virtualize Your Organization
Modern insurgent groups don't require cohesive groups of "soldiers." They can and often virtualize through the use of contractors/freelancers. The standing order for this is simply:
...virtualize your organization...
Optimally, the bulk of a insurgent group's attacks are virtual. This means that the organization that is assembled for an attack is hired specifically for that job. They do the job and go away. This works best with non-kinetic operations (which should be the vast bulk of any group's attacks). This is self-reinforcing with network disruption -- the more system disruptions that occurs, the greater the number of freelancers available. In a short period of time, specialization of skill sets emerge within the bazaar of violence, as participant freelancer work to enhance their marketability/rates (this in turn enables high levels of productivity).
THE GUERRILLA BAZAAR: Lessons from Phishing Networks
Christopher Abad, a research scientist at Cloudmark (a spam filtering company) has done some amazing analysis on the phishing marketplace. Phishing is a method of identity theft that uses fake e-mails and bogus websites to entice unwary consumers to disclose financial information (account details, credit card numbers, personal data). This data is captured and used in financial fraud. It is a big business. To deconstruct a phishing network Christopher used an automated data collection system that monitored chat rooms and activity on compromised servers. He found that the network consisted of loosely affiliated groups with lots of horizontal specialization rather than vertically integrated gangs. He proposed the following structure for the phishing micro-economy (see diagram for more detail):
• Automated unregulated chat rooms. This network, often controlled by bots (code that automates activities and allows remote management), provides the basis for marketplace. It provides an efficient and secure method for discovering information and conducting transactions.
• Specialists: Mass e-mailers. Those individuals that specialize in sending large volumes of e-mail (sometimes through worm enabled bot networks). These e-mails initiate contact with the consumer. Template providers. Design specialists in creating the look and feel of financial institution e-mails and websites. Server managers. Individuals that can compromise Web servers and operate them remotely without detection. These servers collect information from consumers.
• Cashers. Buyers of financial information that can use it to generate bogus ATM cards and other financial frauds.
Global Guerrilla Economics
The 21st Century criminal economies like the phishing economy seen above demonstrate the same degree of decentralized self-organization we see in the market for IED (improvised explosive devices) manufacture/deployment in Iraq. Both markets aren't controlled by any single gang, or even a collection of gangs. Instead, they consist a large network of individuals (and or small groups) that trade, sell, share, and collaborate to make money and generate desired effects. Additionally, both networks exhibit strikingly high levels of:
• Efficiency. The costs for component services are low and very competitive. Financial information can cost as little as $0.50 a record. Emplacement of an IED can cost $50.
• Innovation. New methods of attack and new target sets are constantly being discovered. Both groups rapidly leverage open Internet information to refine their target set. For example: In the case of phishing, the security community's chatter provides insight into corporate vulnerabilities and exploits. Iraqi guerrillas use Google maps to plot ambushes and IED emplacement.
• Resiliency. Able to resist discovery and network-wide collapse. One major factor in their resilience is their ability to transcend national boundaries and leverage a lack of local organic control (street level enforcement).
What This Means
The arrival of these "black" networks have the following ramifications:
• Network wars. These networks are not a single entitiy. They can go to war. For example: Russian bot farmers recently attacked (denial of service) Chechen web sites in retaliation for terrorist activity against Russian targets.
• Generic networks. Skill sets from one network type can transfer to the other. The same technologies and techniques used for phishing and other criminal networks can be used to improve the efficiency of terrorist networks and provide a means of self funding. Generic networks that combine criminal enterprise and terrorist/guerrilla activity are growing. We see this in Iraq today with the fluid market for hostages.
• Rapid Growth. As global connectivity increases, the Gap increases faster than the Core (or non-state vs. state). A growth of a global community of virtual TAZs (temporary autonomous zones) will use technology to rapidly expand gaps generated transnational barriers to coordination and areas of local chaos. The lowest common denominator applies and these autonomous areas can be rapidly exported globally, including to those areas currently under state control.
GLOBAL GUERRILLAS AND TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONES
Like pirates of the past (particularly those of the 1st century BC and 18th century), global guerrillas operate from geographically dispersed locations. These locations are sanctuaries of convenience on a global scale. Examples include:
• Failed and collapsed states. GGs are able to establish mobile operations centers (Sudan and Afghanistan) and generate new sources of funding (opium in Afghanistan and oil "bunkering" in Nigeria) within these vacuums of authority.
• Zones of chaotic organic order. Negotiated relationships with tribesmen in Waziristan (Pakistan), have provided security, intelligence, and supplies for GG groups. In Fallujah (Iraq), GGs have used a collapse of state authority and the subsequent rise of organic Islamic order to provide cover for cells.
• The Internet. The size and structure of the Internet provides virtual sanctuary. The Internet provides the glue that links groups that operate within the ancient modes of organic order -- religious, tribal, etc. -- that form the backbone of the physical world sanctuary, with the modern world's operational environment. However, the Internet is more than merely a communications medium, it is a place of sanctuary in itself.
The TAZ
Global guerrillas do not require extensive logistical structures. Their units are small, fleet, and adaptable. Despite this, they are able to inflict extensive damage by leveraging the power of networks and markets. Most GG activity is accomplished within the confines of "controlled" areas (that's where the targets are), however, much of the long term planning and training occurs within temporary autonomous zones (TAZs) -- areas beyond the control of the global nation-state system. GGs can "manufacture" TAZ sanctuaries as needed from any location that exhibits a vacuum of global order. These places provide staging grounds for offensive operations in "controlled" areas. The elimination of TAZs will be a long-run problem for nation-states. Unfortunately, military solutions can work against progress by creating a TAZ where none existed before (example: Fallujah). Here are some ideas on how to approach the problem:
• Rapidly shifting locations. Entrepreneurial guerrillas are quick to take advantage of new opportunities for sanctuary when they arise. A partial solution is to avoid the creation of power vacuums via failed or collapsed states whenever possible (example: Iraq). A failed/collapsed state is worse than a rogue state. Economic and other non-military support structures need to be strengthened to prevent state failure.
• Locations that resist interdiction. Remote, hostile territory makes rapid response difficult. Nation-states require significant periods of time to work through the complexities (mostly political) necessary to neutralize these locations.
• Diversity. Again the theme of "strength through diversity" is apparent. There isn't any single formula for eliminating TAZs. Each location requires an unique effort.
Comments
engie said...
This is actually more akin to 'hosted services' than virtualization.. Need an IT job done, connect to a remote cloud server, run your application on their cluster for x $/hour, done, disconnect, you don't need to buy and maintain a cluster of your own.
Replace IT job with security, cloud server with PMC, cluster with security force.
Eeben Barlow was onto something, shame everyone else booed him and everyone else out and left the state to have monopoly in security as well.
Reply Tuesday, 02 June 2009 at 09:01 AM
JR said...
Engie, that new use of the term "virtualization" bastardizes it. Virtual organizations and corporations have been terms of use for far longer than this new usage. Think ad hoc teams rapidly assembled and disassembled.
What you are describing is "platform leverage" when you describe how hosted services work. I'll get to that soon.
Reply Tuesday, 02 June 2009 at 09:36 AM
slapout9 said...
Hi John, very important concept close to somehting I am working on. Colonel Warden asked me to me think about a changing the 5 five rings (this was relative to LE) I was thinking of changing ring 2 to services. Example: Stalking as a crime is often done with the yellow pages (no computer)and a few friends who may not even know they are involved in a crime. Point being when you map your system as to how you want to form it for an attack by just listing the services needed as opposed to processes or system esentials it is much easier to do in the real world....one step away from the virtual world. Like your standing orders stuff.
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STANDING ORDER 4: Repetition is more important than Scale
The ability to repeat disruptions targeted on specific groups generates changes in behavior (economic, social, and psychological) akin to an excessive tax. This is in contrast to large, one-off, attacks that cause massive disruption and then quickly dissipate as the targeted system returns to equilibrium. The standing order for this is:
...repetition is more important than scale....
Simple, low cost, easy, and repeatable (in that nobody is caught) attacks are both sustainable and generate the greatest potential returns. This doesn't mean that these attacks don't have a significant impact. Network effects from disruption almost always guarantee and outsized return
-- the great is the enemy of the good enough.
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STANDING ORDER 5: Coopetition not Competition
All insurgent groups, regardless of their motivation, are allies by default. Every group that joins the insurgency, makes it stronger, even if it is ideologically antagonistic. The approach should be:
...coopetition not competition...
Coopetition is a term that encompasses how rivals can compete for market share but cooperate to grow the market and speed up combined growth. In commercial coopetition, this is done by rivals sharing common platforms (a very important concept) that enable them to reduce costs (as in firms that share suppliers), widen variety, increase flexibility, etc. For example, coopetition is the basis for Internet standards and the Web. Vertical integration is an anathema to successful coopetition.
THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY: Malcom's Platform
Resilient communities aren't built through one-off projects/efforts, good will, and lifestyle changes. Instead, they are a vibrant ecosystems of activity, that are innovative, robust, and efficient. The key to growing ecosystems that exhibit these qualities is to build platforms that span everything from electricity to food to security. Here's a short story about Malcom McLean to get your head around the idea of what a platform is (this is for my upcoming book on Resilient Communities) and why they are so powerful:
___________
Malcom's Platform
In 1937, during a commercial delivery trip carrying North Carolina cotton bales to the port in Hoboken, New Jersey, Malcom McLean became frustrated at the wait he experienced to unload his cargo at the port facility. He later remarked, “I had to wait most of the day to deliver the bales, sitting there in my truck, watching stevedores load other cargo. It struck me that I was looking at a lot of wasted time and money. I watched them take each crate off the truck and slip it into a sling, which would then lift the crate into the hold of the ship.” This thought was carried forward seventeen years, when at the helm of a company with 1,776 trucks and 37 transport terminals (on the Eastern Seaboard) he gravitated to the idea that long haul routes would be better accomplished through sea transport.
However, to accomplish this, he needed to remake the shipping industry from the ground up. In other words, he needed to build a shipping platform for the shipping industry. What is a platform? At a high level, a platform takes related activities that are complex, unique, and variable and turns them into activities that are simple, universal, and standard. Here's how Malcom built his (and now our) shipping platform:
• First, he created a shipping container that could be detached from a truck and stacked on a ship without unbundling the contents.
• He followed this with new wheel systems to quickly attach containers to trucks.
• Finally, he developed container ships that allowed easy roll-on/roll-off and container stacking.
The new containerized system he developed simplified shipping by pushing the complexity of packing and unpacking cargo to the edges of the shipping network. Second, it made interconnection with the network easy, since containers were inexpensive and of a standard set of sizes. Finally, it lowered/standardized costs, reduced theft, and limited damage.
The debut of his new system was with the maiden voyage of the Ideal X, a converted oil tanker that loaded fifty-eight containers at Port Hoboken, New Jersey and unloaded them in Houston, Texas to his waiting trucks for delivery. The success of this innovation led him to radically expand his business into a powerhouse called SeaLand Industries that had twenty seven thousand containers and thirty-seven container ships by the end of the 1960s.
Obviously, it didn’t end there. The advantages in speed, cost, and flexibility were so compelling that the entire shipping industry was transformed as companies, ports, and governments adopted his containerization process. By 2000, nearly 90% of the world’s shipping was accomplished using containers in support of a vast global ecosystem of manufacturers and retailers made possible by Malcom's shipping platform.
____________
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STANDING ORDER 6: Don't Fork the Insurgency
There is a tendency, among subgroups in an open source insurgency, to increase local cohesion at the expense of whole. Usually this is done by disrupting social networks to create antagonism between member groups. The order is:
...don't fork the insurgency...
Social network disruption is nearly as easy as disrupting physical networks, but it can be very dangerous. Social network disruption should only be used if it cleaves the nation-state into non-cooperative centers of gravity without sacrificing open source cohesiveness. In contrast, social network amplification is almost always good.
NOTE: This is grand strategic mistake of al Qaeda in Iraq (unlikely to be repeated). As I mentioned in my 2005 NYTimes OP-ED entitled The Open-Source War: "there are few visible fault lines in the insurgency that can be exploited." That was true until attacks on Shiite civilians and ultimately the Golden Mosque attack forked the insurgency.
The Open-Source War
By JOHN ROBB
Published: October 15, 2005
IN September, the Defense Department floated a solicitation for a company to build a "system of metrics to accurately assess U.S. progress in the war on terrorism" and make suggestions on how to improve the effort. As a software executive and former Air Force counterterrorist operative, I began thinking: how would I build this system and what would I recommend?
Tim Lane
My first task would be to gauge our progress in Iraq. It is now, for better or worse, the epicenter of the war on terrorism. By most measurements, the war is going badly.
Insurgent attacks have been increasing steadily since the invasion, and the insurgents' methods are growing more sophisticated. American casualty rates remain high despite an increasingly experienced force and improvements in armor. The insurgents have also radically expanded their campaign of violence to include Iraqi troops, police officers, government officials and Shiite civilians. Since the American military's objective is to gain a monopoly on violence in Iraq, these developments indicate that it has sustained the commercial equivalent of a rapid loss in market share.
Despite this setback, the military and the Bush administration continue to claim progress, though this progress appears to be measured in the familiar metric of body counts. According to the military, it kills or captures 1,000 to 3,000 insurgents a month. Its estimate of the insurgency, however, is a mere 12,000 to 20,000 fighters. Something is clearly wrong. Simple math indicates we have destroyed the insurgency several times over since it started.
Perhaps Iraq's insurgency is much larger than the Defense Department has reported. Other observers estimate that up to 20 percent of the two million former Baathists may be involved in the insurgency. This estimate would partly explain the insurgency's ability to withstand high losses while increasing its market share of violence.
The other likely explanation is one the military itself makes: that the insurgency isn't a fragile hierarchical organization but rather a resilient network made up of small, autonomous groups. This means that the insurgency is virtually immune to attrition and decapitation. It will combine and recombine to form a viable network despite high rates of attrition. Body counts - and the military should already know this - aren't a good predictor of success.
Given this landscape, let's look at alternative strategies. First, out-innovating the insurgency will most likely prove unsuccessful. The insurgency uses an open-source community approach (similar to the decentralized development process now prevalent in the software industry) to warfare that is extremely quick and innovative. New technologies and tactics move rapidly from one end of the insurgency to the other, aided by Iraq's relatively advanced communications and transportation grid - demonstrated by the rapid increases in the sophistication of the insurgents' homemade bombs. This implies that the insurgency's innovation cycles are faster than the American military's slower bureaucratic processes (for example: its inability to deliver sufficient body and vehicle armor to our troops in Iraq).
Second, there are few visible fault lines in the insurgency that can be exploited. Like software developers in the open-source community, the insurgents have subordinated their individual goals to the common goal of the movement. This has been borne out by the relatively low levels of infighting we have seen between insurgent groups. As a result, the military is not going to find a way to chop off parts of the insurgency through political means - particularly if former Baathists are systematically excluded from participation in the new Iraqi state by the new Constitution.
Third, the United States can try to diminish the insurgency by letting it win. The disparate groups in an open-source effort are held together by a common goal. Once the goal is reached, the community often falls apart. In Iraq, the original goal for the insurgency was the withdrawal of the occupying forces. If foreign troops pull out quickly, the insurgency may fall apart. This is the same solution that was presented to Congress last month by our generals in Iraq, George Casey and John Abizaid.
Unfortunately, this solution arrived too late. There are signs that the insurgency's goal is shifting from a withdrawal of the United States military to the collapse of the Iraqi government. So, even if American troops withdraw now, violence will probably continue to escalate.
What's left? It's possible, as Microsoft has found, that there is no good monopolistic solution to a mature open-source effort. In that case, the United States might be better off adopting I.B.M.'s embrace of open source. This solution would require renouncing the state's monopoly on violence by using Shiite and Kurdish militias as a counterinsurgency. This is similar to the strategy used to halt the insurgencies in El Salvador in the 1980's and Colombia in the 1990's. In those cases, these militias used local knowledge, unconstrained tactics and high levels of motivation to defeat insurgents (this is in contrast to the ineffectiveness of Iraq's paycheck military). This option will probably work in Iraq too.
In fact, it appears the American military is embracing it. In recent campaigns in Sunni areas, hastily uniformed peshmerga and Badr militia supplemented American troops; and in Basra, Shiite militias are the de facto military power.
If an open-source counterinsurgency is the only strategic option left, it is a depressing one. The militias will probably create a situation of controlled chaos that will allow the administration to claim victory and exit the country. They will, however, exact a horrible toll on Iraq and may persist for decades. This is a far cry from spreading democracy in the Middle East. Advocates of refashioning the American military for top-down nation-building, the current flavor of the month, should recognize it as a fatal test of the concept.
John Robb is working on a book about the logic of terrorism.
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STANDING ORDER 7: Minimalist rule sets work best
In many cases, modern insurgencies find themselves managing local autonomous zones (as in autonomy from nation-state governance due to inattention, weakness, mendacity, etc.). This management often requires the establishment of rule sets. The simple order is:
.
..minimalist rule sets work best...
Global guerrilla insurgencies, by design, aren't a replacement for the nation-state. Maximal, heavy-handed, and corrupted rule sets of the nation-state should be replaced by minimalist rule sets that are fairly applied to encourage the rapid growth of black economies, reduce resistance (among local populations), and ensure order.
Comments
Moon said...
Minimalist rule sets still require some sort of macro environment within which they will fire. What is the structure and environment-level rule set in play when you replace the top-down nation state rule sets with the minimalist?
Reply Tuesday, 02 June 2009 at 02:19 PM
JR said...
The macro environment is an increasingly interconnected global system. A flexible and highly competitive rule set that maximizes gains and minimizes costs, while increasing "profitable" connectivity to global system is the goal.
Reply Tuesday, 02 June 2009 at 02:38 PM
IrregularWarrior said...
I would agree that Global Guerrillas should be minimal in design to prevent the insurgenct group no matter its form from being bogged down in day to day governence issues. The rule sets should be designed to promote the primary function or goal of the insurgency should it be political, economic, religious or idealogical. Safety and security of the populace inside the autonomous zones should be the primary concern. Since this benefits both the population and insurgency's goal or belief system.
Reply Tuesday, 02 June 2009 at 04:36 PM
Just An Australian said...
But this is where an insurgency falls down - when it comes to the hard business of being better than the other turkeys they replace. Inevitably the pigs turn out to be just like the farmer, and Orwell gets the last laugh.
Reply Tuesday, 02 June 2009 at 04:47 PM
JR said...
Australian: Ah, that's classic insurgency. And you are right, that is where it falls down.
Modern insurgency punts on most political goods and relies on external sources of services. Take the PCC in Sao Paulo as an example.
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STANDING ORDER 8: self-replicate
This is a hard point to grasp, but it provides a substantial amount of leverage for small groups. It's important to manufacture copies of yourself that can advance your goals whenever possible. In short:
...self-replicate...
This can take a direct physical form in the case of technological copies -- this includes everything from software bots (which can reach millions of "hacked" computers) and genetically engineered contagion. These technological copies will only get smarter and more responsive as technology improves.
Another method is to create socially engineered copies of your organization through the use of social media. Basically, this means providing the motivation, knowledge, and focus necessary for an unknown person (external and totally unconnected to your group) to conduct operations that advance your group's specific goals (or the general goals of the open source insurgency). All forms of self-replication will rapidly improve with advances in technology and connectivity.
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STANDING ORDER 9: share or copy everything that works
In open source warfare there is no pride in exclusive ownership. Everything that can be shared, should be shared. Everything that can be used, should be used. In sum:
...share or copy everything that works...
Small insurgent groups don't have the capacity to advance and innovate, over the long term, solely through internal efforts. They must rely on other groups to advance the ball for them. To continue to improve the group must be quick to copy improvements that appear to work regardless of source. Further, since the success of a single group increases with the success of the whole open source insurgency, every innovation must be shared the moment it is put to use.
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STANDING ORDER 10: release often and early
Innovations, from tactics to weapons, should be released as soon and as often as practicable. Perfectionism, sclerotic planning processes, excessive secrecy, risk aversion, and other plagues found in hierarchical organizations are the enemy of success. The rule is:
...release early and often...
Make the attack to demonstrate the innovation and generate the coverage (media). Let the other members of the open source insurgency advance the ball. Remember, with many minds looking at the problem, no bug/deficiency/defect is too difficult to overcome.
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STANDING ORDER 11: co-opt, don't own, basic services
On a roll with a Roger's Rules or Sun Tzu approach to post-industrial insurgency. Probably will roll these up when I'm done, expand the discussions for each, and put them into a PDF. Refinements and critiques are always welcome.
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Open source insurgencies typically don't supply basic services (within the nation-state context, political goods) or assume any responsibility for their delivery, to controlled autonomous zones and their resident populations. Instead, they parasitically ride on a degraded form of the global/national economy's corporate and public services -- from electricity to water to food. Within controlled zones, the objective is to:
...co-opt, don't own, basic services...
Co-option of basic services enables a steady stream of income from taxation/theft. The ongoing flow of these services enables a relatively normal functioning of the underlying social construct. It also enables global guerrillas the flexibility to focus exclusively on member/group enrichment and its ongoing war to hollow out the nation-state. In the event that broader disruption has forced the creation of black market services (as in an alternative power grid, as we saw in Baghdad), this alternative service is operated within the confines of a protection racket and is not owned directly.
Alternative services, that are owned and operated by the insurgent group, are typically not advisable unless no other alternative exists -- as in, a completely hollow or deeply failed nation-states.
Roger’s Rangers Rules or Plan of Discipline
Major Robert Rogers - 1757
(Commander of Roger’s Rangers)
This is the original version —
1. All Rangers are to be subject to the rules and articles of war; to appear at roll-call every evening on their own parade, equipped each with a firelock, sixty rounds of powder and ball, and a hatchet, at which time an officer from each company is to inspect the same, to see they are in order, so as to be ready on any emergency to march at a minute's warning; and before they are dismissed the necessary guards are to drafted, and scouts for the next day appointed.
2. Whenever you are ordered out to the enemy's forts or frontiers for discoveries, if your number be small, march in a single file, keeping at such a distance from each other as to prevent one shot from killing two men, sending one man, or more, forward, and the like on each side, at the distance of twenty yards from the main body, if the ground you march over will admit of it, to give the signal to the officer of the approach of an enemy, and of their number, & c.
3. If you march over marshes or soft ground, change your position, and march abreast of each other, to prevent the enemy from tracking you (as they would do if you marched in a single file) till you get over such ground, and then resume your former order, and march till it is quite dark before you encamp, which do, if possible, on a piece of ground that may afford your sentries the advantage of seeing or hearing the enemy at some considerable distance, keeping one half of your whole party awake alternately through the night.
4. Some time before you come to the place you would reconnoitre, make a stand, and send one or two men in whom you can confide, to look out the best ground for making your observations.
5. If you have the good fortune to take any prisoners, keep them separate till they are examined, and in your return take a different route from that in which you went out, that you may the better discover any party in your rear, and have an opportunity, if their strength be superior to your, to alter your course, or disperse, as circumstances may require.
6. If your march in a large body of three or four hundred, with a design to attack the enemy, divide your party into three columns, each headed by a proper officer, and let these columns march in single files, the columns to the right and left keeping at twenty yards distance or more from that of the center, if the ground will admit, and let proper guards be kept in the front and rear, and suitable flanking parties as a due distance as before directed, with orders to halt on all eminences, to take a view of the surrounding ground, to prevent your being ambushed, and to notify the approach or retreat of the enemy, that proper dispositions may be made for attacking, defending, & c, and if the enemy approach in your front on level ground, form a front of your three columns or main body with the advanced, guard, keeping out your flanking parties, as if you were marching under the command of trusty officers, to prevent the enemy from pressing hard on either of your wings, or surrounding you, which is the usual method of the savages, if their number will admit of it, and be careful likewise to support and strengthen your rear guard.
7. If you are obliged to receive the enemy's fire, fall or squat down, till it is over, then rise and discharge at them. If their main body is equal to yours, extend yourselves occasionally; but if superior, be careful to support and strengthen your flanking parties, to make them equal with theirs, that if possible you may repulse them to their main body, in which case push upon them with the greatest resolution, with equal force in each flank and in the center, observing to keep at a due distance from each other, and advance from tree to tree, with one half of the party before the other ten or twelve yards. If the enemy push upon you, let your front fire and fall down, and then let your rear advance thro' them and do the like, by which time those who before were in front will be ready to discharge again, and repeat the same alternately, as occasion shall require; by this means you will keep up such a constant fire, that the enemy will not be able easily to break your order, or gain your ground.
8. If you oblige the enemy to retreat, be careful, in your pursuit of them, to keep out your flanking parties, and prevent them from gaining eminences, or rising grounds, in which case they would perhaps be able to rally and repulse in their turn.
9. If you are obliged to retreat, let the front of your whole party fire and fall back, till the rear has done the same, making for the best ground you can; by this means you will oblige the enemy to pursue you, if they do it at all, in the face of a constant fire.
10. If the enemy is so superior that you are in danger of being surrounded by them, let the whole body disperse, and every one take a different road to the place of rendezvous appointed for that evening, which must every morning be altered and fixed for evening ensuing, in order to bring the whole party, or as many of them as possible, together, after any separation that may happen in the day; but if you should happen to be actually surrounded, form yourselves into a square, or if in the woods, a circle is best, and, if possible, make a stand till the darkness of the night favours your escape.
11. If your rear is attacked, the main body and flankers must face about to the right or left, as occasion shall require, and form themselves to oppose the enemy, as before directed; and the same method must be observed, if attacked in either of your flanks, by which means you will always make a rear of one of your flank-guards.
12. If you determine to rally after a retreat, in order to make a fresh stand against the enemy, by all means endeavour to do it on the most rising ground you can come at, which will give you greatly the advantage in point of situation, and enable you to repulse superior numbers.
13. If general, when pushed upon by the enemy, reserve your fire till they approach very near, which will them put them into the greater surprise and consternation, and give you an opportunity of rushing upon them with your hatchets and cutlasses to the better advantage.
14. When you encamp at night, fix your sentries in such a manner as not to be relieved from the main body till morning, profound secrecy and silence being often of the last importance in these cases. Each sentry, therefore, should consist of six men, two of whom must be constantly alert, and when relieved by their fellows, it should be done without noise; and in case those on duty see or hear anything, which alarms them, they are not to speak, but one of them is silently to retreat, and acquaint the commanding officer thereof, that proper dispositions may be made; and all occasional sentries should be fixed in like manner.
15. At the first dawn of day, awake your whole detachment; that being the time when the savages choose to fall upon their enemies, you should by all means be in readiness to receive them.
16. If the enemy should be discovered by your detachments in the morning, and their numbers are superior to yours, and a victory doubtful, you should not attack them till the evening, as then they will not know your numbers, and if you are repulsed, your retreat will be followed by the darkness of the night.
17. Before you leave your encampment, send out small parties to scout round it, to see if there be any appearance or track of an enemy that might have been near you during the night.
18. When you stop for refreshment, choose some spring or rivulet if you can, and dispose your party so as not to be surprised, posting proper guards and sentries at a due distance, and let a small party waylay the path you came in, lest the enemy should be pursuing.
19. If, in your return, you have to cross rivers, avoid the usual fords as much as possible, lest the enemy should have discovered, and be there expecting you.
20. If you have to pass by lakes, keep at some distance from the edge of the water, lest, in case of an ambuscade, or an attack from the enemy, when in that situation, your retreat should be cut off.
21. If the enemy pursue your rear, take a circle till you come to your own tracks, and there form am ambush to receive them, and give them the first fire.
22. When you return from a scout, and come near our forts, avoid the usual roads, and avenues thereto, lest the enemy should have headed you, and lay in ambush to receive you, when almost exhausted with fatigues.
23. When you pursue any party that has been near our forts or encampments, follow not directly in their tracks, lest you should be discovered by their rear guards, who, at such a time, would be most alert; but endeavour, by a different route, to head and meet them in some narrow pass, or lay in ambush to receive them when and where they least expect it.
24. If you are to embark in canoes, bateaux, or otherwise, by water, choose the evening for the time of your embarkation, as you will then have the whole night before you, to pass undiscovered by any parties of the enemy, on hills, or other places, which command a prospect of the lake or river you are upon.
25. In paddling or rowing, give orders that the boat or canoe next the sternmost, wait for her, and the third for the second, and the fourth for the third, and so on, to prevent separation, and that you may be ready to assist each other on any emergency.
26. Appoint one man in each boat to look out for fires, on the adjacent shores, from the numbers and size of which you may form some judgement of the numbers that kindled them, and whether you are able to attack them or not.
27. If you find the enemy encamped near the banks of a river, or lake, which you imagine they will attempt to cross for their security upon being attacked, leave a detachment of your party on the opposite shore to receive them, while, with the remainder, you surprise them, having them between you and the lake or river.
28. If you cannot satisfy yourself as to the enemy's number and strength, from their fire, & c. conceal your boats at some distance, and ascertain their number by a reconnoitring party, when they embark, or march, in the morning, marking the course they steer, & c. when you may pursue, ambush, and attack them, or let them pass, as prudence shall direct you. In general, however, that you may not be discovered by the enemy on the lakes and rivers at a great distance, it is safest to lay by, with your boats and party concealed all day, without noise or show, and to pursue your intended route by night; and whether you go by land or water, give out parole and countersigns, in order to know one another in the dark, and likewise appoint a station for every man to repair to, in case of any accident that may separate you.
Such in general are the rules to be observed in the Ranging service; there are, however, a thousand occurrences and circumstances which may happen that will make it necessary in some measure to depart from them and to put other arts and stratagems in practice; in which case every man's reason and judgment must be his guide, according to the particular situation and nature of things; and that he may do this to advantage, he should keep in mind a maxim never to be departed from by a commander, viz. to preserve a firmness and presence of mind on every occasion.
— From JOURNALS OF MAJOR ROGER ROGERS (as published in 1765)
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