THE DARK SIDE OF THE LONG TAIL

Chris Anderson has done some excellent work on the economics of the Long Tail (weblog and presentation).  The concept of the Long Tail is that globalization, new tools of production, and the Internet have made it possible to radically increase the supply and demand of niche products (in certain product categories).  In traditional markets, based on scarcity of shelf space and limited product diversity, the vast majority of revenues are derived from a very limited number of products.  In long tail markets, a diversity of products made by new entrants (via newly democratized tools of production and globalization), in combination with unlimited low cost shelf space (the Internet), and an accelerated word of mouth (the Internet) have radically expanded the supply curve.  Additionally, this newly diverse supply has energized demand for niche products that meet specific needs. 

In a traditional market, hit products often get 80% of the revenue.  In a long tail market, hit products get 50% of the revenue while the other 50% is shared by a plethora of niche producers.  Niche demand and supply shifts the revenue to the tail.

The long tail has applicability to my work here on Global Guerrillas.  Traditionally, warfare (the ability to change society through violence) has been limited to nation-states (except in rare cases).  States had a monopoly on violence.  The result was a limited, truncated distribution of violence (a power law).  That monopoly is on the skids due to three trends:

• A democratization of the tools of warfare.  Niche producers (for example: gangs) are made possible by the dislocation of globalization.  All it takes to participate is a few men, some boxcutters, and a plane (as an example of simple tools combined with leverage from ubiquitous economic infrastructure).
• An amplification of the damage caused by niche producers of warfare.  The magic of global guerrilla systems disruption which turns inexpensive attacks into major economic and social events.
• The acceleration of word of mouth.  New groups can more easily find/train recruits, convey their message to a wide audience, and find/coordinate their activities with other groups (allies).

The result:  a long tail has developed.  New niche producers of violence have flourished.  Demand for the results these niche suppliers can produce has also radically increased.  Big concepts (such as a struggle between Islam and the US), not championed by states, has supercharged niche suppliers like al Qaeda and its clones.  In some cases, the niche producer creates its own demand (see Transnational Gangs) or through its activites create demand for other niche producers (see Primary Loyalties).  I have taken liberties with a very small portion Chris' presentation to describe how the tail developed (Download warfare's_long_tail.ppt ). 

This new distribution shows a balance of power between nation-states (and their proxies) and non-state producers (global guerrillas).  In warfare, a 50/50 distribution of power is the recipe for an epochal conflict.  As always, please feel free to post a critique and thereby improve my effort here.

Comments

[Fred Schoeneman]

John,

Excellent work.

f

[Marcello]

"Traditionally, warfare (the ability to change society through violence) has been limited to nation-states (except in rare cases)."

Guerilla warfare (and the others asymmetrical tactics) has been in succesful use for quite some time before the invention of internet.
Are we sure that internet is really that crucial? Is internet much more important than,let's say, the new arab sat TV channels?
Are we sure that others development (social,economical etc) do not play a more important role?
Are we sure that less sophisticated forms of communication aren't the key? Do the iraqi insurgents exchange informations on the web or do they have chats among them at the equivalent of the local bar?

Just some points for a start.

[John Robb]

Guerrilla warfare has been less than dominant in the last century. Further, the guerrilla wars we had were mostly accomplished through nation-state sponsorship. Non-state groups were extremely rare. See chart.

The central role of the Internet is for the white world economics described by Chris Anderson.

[John Robb]

By the way, every trend we see today has its roots in something that came before. However, this often misses the point. For example: to say that the Internet was merely an evolutionary extension of previous work in networking technology would have understated the magnitude of the change. The same is true with guerrilla warfare and 4th generational conflict. There are factors at work today that will convert these historical methods into something that is globally transformative.

[Cardenio]

" democratized " isn't really a good synonym for " broadly avalibe "

[Anonymouse]

I prefer the term "decentralized" to "democratized". This seems to capture the distributed, non-hierarchial | un-structured nature of the systems | technologies being discussed.

John: I am still anxious to hear your approach to complex network analysis. Graph theory applied to infrastructure systems is a diverse field of interest. How do you select relevant data points? What types of tools do you use to mine these datum? High node(vertex) degree is a common indicator of vulnerability, as are links at the top of a power law capacity / volume distribution. What else do you look for?

Can you discuss these topics?

[Rikkert]

Excellent post! I wonder whether the transition from a "20/80" to a "50/50" distribution is a one off, internet induced shift or a continuing process. If the latter is the case we should seriously rethink our current top-down strategies when dealing with non-state violence. In a "50/50" world a top down effort combined with some moderate bottom-up support could stand some chance of success, but if the long tail becomes truly dominant a significant paradigm shift is unavoidable. That would have wide ranging repercussions throughout society. If states cannot provide security, people will increasingly wonder what they're use is.

[James Acres]

I'm not sure I like the Long Tail analogy for GGs.

Let's take Amazon -- they get more than 50% of their sales from the bottom 50% of titles. This means that each of the books supplying sales in the Tail has a very small impact on the total overall supply. Lots of small additions make a big deal -- but each unit is still fairly unimportant.

GGs on the other hand are small groups with the means to supply State killing violence. This makes any supplier of potentially critical importance.

Put another way: A book in Amazon's Tail is merely one part of an economic order that is replacing a previous one. But a GG in the Tail of Organized-Violance is more than just a unit in a new economic order. It is also a potential motor for the destruction of that new order.

----

I understand what parts of The Long Tail you want to use for explaining GGs. But I feel like The Long Tail misses some very important concepts.

The GG theory is important and coherent enough for its own rigorous statement without needing to rely on analogies to other economic fields.

[John Robb]

James, you are probably right that this analytical model may not be perfect for GGs. I am still trying to determine its fit.

[Kevin Williams]

John, your piece was well crafted and enlightening. The only question is do we have enough time and resources to prevent the crippling effects of yet another inexpensive attack? And if so, what would be a viable strategy?

[elberto]

does anyone still believe that whole "a few men, some boxcutters, and a plane" story anymore?

there's plenty of evidence available now to say that 9-11 was state-sponsored violence.

[Mitya K]

Well done. I've viewed this site several times and as an investor in companies across the globe, I find your remarks quite valuable. I've posted some modifications, or at least, another way of looking at Anderson's work, on my site. Generally though, I feel you and Anderson both emphasize technological innovation as catalyst to change ahead of the latent demand for the ends of the organization: profit in the business context, power in the political. What do you think? Thank you though for the post and this site, it is wonderful to see such studied opinion openly expressed.

[Gordon Housworth]

Regarding your comment that, "A democratization of the tools of warfare. Niche producers (for example: gangs) are made possible by the dislocation of globalization. All it takes to participate is a few men, some boxcutters, and a plane (as an example of simplicity)."

I would submit that the key is not the simplicity of the box cutter but the richness and patience of the sustained surveillance that preceded the attack, a surveillance trajectory that went through a process of broad information gathering, target evaluation and selection, advanced target surveillance once selections were made, et al. Their asymmetrical surveillance process is designed to gather actionable information while reducing discovery prior to putting the attack into motion. They did not use an assault rifle because they were able to determine that a box cutter would suffice, i.e., they used no more complexity than the task demanded.

Nice datum: In a discussion of supposedly low-tech highjackers using box-cutters, the authors of "Safe: The Race to Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World" cautioned against such simplistic thinking, punctuating it with an example of the terrorists paying close attention to US airline procedures and airframe peculiarities. They say that they are the first to document that the hijackers found that the collision avoidance systems could be turned off in a Boeing but not in an Airbus, thus they only hijacked Boeings.

In their surveillance, they were anything but simplistic, and it is that surveillance maturation that I submit that we are not now attempting to detect and counter. Such a failure will only guarantee the arrival of one or more shooter teams.

Items of interest re surveillance:

The defender's dilemma: common threads in exploiting commercial supply networks
http://spaces.icgpartners.com/index2.asp?NGuid=92BA4EF3868A47FCA585E3624258F6A6

An American Bhopal by conventional means
http://spaces.icgpartners.com/index2.asp?NGuid=AA51F9E203E74E0C946ECE81362C9533

Regards, Gordon Housworth
Intellectual Capital Group LLC

[John Robb]

Gordon, I agree. Terrorists are increasingly able to substitute thinking for weaponary. This is done by transforming civilian systems into weapons. In this new model low tech weapons + good planning + complex civilian systems = an attack on par in damage with the best weapons systems of the western world.

[Gordon Housworth]

John

Agree with the concept of "transforming civilian systems into weapons" as it offers maximum efficiency at minimized cost and risk of disclosure and execution. For your readers, however, I would like to substitute "least tech" or "most efficient tech" in your equation of 'low tech weapons + good planning + complex civilian systems = an attack on par…' as we cannot lull ourselves into believing that adversaries will only use low tech solutions (augmentations) in order to achieve their aims.

11 September is an excellent example in identifying generic control of a flight deck for terrorist aims as the critical path to success, not necessarily a low tech process. Box cutters were only a means to gain access to, and control of, the flight deck. Following is a snippet from an earlier "Low risk terrorist access to the flight deck":

"Terrorist supply chains, or asymmetrical attacker Supply chains, are not built for commercial efficiency but for detection avoidance at least until the attack is in progress. The terrorist risk calculus is not based so much on survival as on mission success. In terms of using aircraft as weapons, the critical path in the terrorist chains has been access to, and control of, the flight deck. [The] plan that matured into the 11 September airliner attacks started as the attempted purchase of light twin aircraft that were to be modified for aerial spraying (but in this case the liquid tanks were intended to transport flammable materials onto the target rather than spraying). Only when that plan failed, did the attackers turn to airliners. Control of the flight deck remained the critical path element.

Post 11 September, airline passengers are now alert to the fact that they will be part of the missile, rather than being held for some form of ransom, and so are much more likely to resist the hijackers. Given that risk to mission success, where is the next least defended flight deck? Three that come to mind are: Freight and cargo aircraft, Bizjets and executive jets, and Medivac and executive helicopters.

In such cases there are no passengers with which to contend, only the desired flight deck crew. Such flights do not have to emanate from US soil to create a threat to targets here… Cargo flights inbound from Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and Canada are potential candidates as are "airliners transiting near or flying over the continental United States, but not destined to land at U.S. airports" until hijacked… In the above cases, hijackers have to take over a lightly manned aircraft, but in bizjet and executive jet air charter, timeshare or fractionally owned aircraft, the terrorist is invited aboard as a pampered guest."

In closing, readers should note that this is not a scenario-based analysis but a risk-based process analysis. Scenario planning is consumptive of resources, ultimately paralytic as to 'protect everything is to protect nothing,' yet usually misses the scenario that delivers the payload. Your global guerrilla expects us to behave in such a manner and not like a Van Ripper.

Regards, Gordon Housworth
Intellectual Capital Group LLC

[Brian]

Excellent posting, John. Personally, I don't buy the notion that 9/11 was "state-sponsored violence", as mentioned in a previous comment.

[larry]

John,

I just came across this after reading the Thomas Friedman interview in Wired, and missing a talk by Chris Anderson at IDEO in Palo Alto and coming to the same question about the long tail and it's 'dark side' as you call it.

I havent read thru your blog yet so maybe you've come accross this already, but Friedman's idea that Al Qaeda is fed by a global supply chain has an interesting implication when coupled with a long tail: an inexhaustable, global resource pool for any (or all?) niche groups.

I put a teaser of this post on my blog, hope that's OK.

I look forward to reading more of your work. Maybe you should come over to IDEO to talk about your book!

thanks -larry

http://thisislarry.blogspot.com/2005/05/long-scary-tail.html