JOURNAL: Exporting Disruption to India

To find the latest in system disruption and open source warfare, let's jet to the rural state of Assam in the northeast corner of India. Assam is a net oil exporter. It produces over 50% of India's domestically produced oil (it was also one of the first places in the world where oil was found). Despite this oil wealth, Assam's 26 million citizens have fared poorly economically and unemployment runs high. Ongoing neglect by the central government has spurred a widespread movement for independence. However, like Iraq, a diverse set of over two dozen guerrilla groups (ULFA, NDFB, BLT, UPDS, DHD, KLO, HPCD, etc.) have formed along the state's numerous social fault lines.

Last weekend, the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) turned to systems disruption in its war with India. System disruption has been proven to be a more effective means of coercing nation-states than body-count centric terrorism. The development of this increasingly popular method of warfare has been catalyzed by the war in Iraq. In a single day, ULFA disrupted a broad range of strategic and tactical targets (an impressive operation):

• Two Oil India oil pipelines (huge fires and the subsequent repairs have shut down operation of the 1,150 km pipeline system used to carry oil to the refinery in Bahir),
• a gas pipeline (which fed a power plant),
• power installations (2 transformers that caused a blackout),
• and railway tracks (used to carry oil to the rest of India).

ULFA now has the opportunity to create a community of groups that will wrest control of the state from India. With this attack, it has decisively demonstrated to the other groups in Assam that large scale disruption is not only possible, but effective. This makes these attacks a plausible premise for cooperative open source warfare. Additional attacks will prompt a harsh government crackdown (a common enemy) and provide the requisite economic distress (which drives people towards primary loyalties and into the arms of guerrilla gangs) necessary to fuel the war. If our experience with Columbia and Iraq serve as a guide, this may become the next major failure of nation-state control. All the elements are there.

Comments

[joe]

Right on the money John.

[GregB]

Very interesting, John. I like trying this as a predictive model, it should help refine thinking about what's going on. For what it's worth, I think you've got a good change of being correct on this.

As far as I can tell, Assam is inside Barnett's Core. If this is the case, a sucessful prediction here will pretty much blow his thesis out of the water on a magro-geographic level, as well as the points we've previously made about micro-geographies.

[John Robb]

That geography thingy he did was cool, but it didn't reflect reality. Globalization melts the map. For example, Nuevo Laredo is as close to the core as can be, but it is also a full blown free fire zone.

[chad]

what seems the most interesting to me, as a casual observer, is open source war-fare seems completely onesided. these communities of gueurrillas have no vital infrastructure to attack. futhermore, the infrastructure they use was built by their enemies. in short, how can we use open source warfare on relatively small, non-nation enemies?

[Jeremiah]

Chad,

I think what's happened here is that for hundreds of years, the west has at best given short shrift to the peasant classes, and at worst has sponsored brutal dictatorships over them for the sake of political expediency.

This has resulted in huge numbers of individual geographically dispersed groups all over the world.

The drastic increase in communications technology in the last ten years has allowed these groups to realize one anothers' existence, and to join hands in common cause against a common enemy.

We don't have the dispersion or the desperation required to engage in this type of warfare. Further, our military establishment is gigantically invested in cold-war command-and-control warfare, which does not work at all against distributed low-technology groups.

The type of warfare we use on small, non-nation enemies is overwhelming implacable force, with no negotiation.

In short, I don't think OSS is "for" us. I think it's for them.

[chad]

i'm just asking if OSS is available, and if so, what would be viable targets. in short, i think moral relevance equating and its mindset keeps us on the defensive. our enemies suffer from no such discriminations.

[gmoke]

Jeremiah mentions the marginalization of the peasant class. I think this may be a key point. If the peasantry can participate in a standard of living rather than a slow, futile dying, then the "sea of people" may dry up for the violent.

Perhaps food, water, warmth, light, health, education can be provided by open source communitarian methods.

[Bruce Sterling]

"Globalization melts the map." Wow! There's
a keeper. I want the T-shirt!

PS: here's the map:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_julyaug_2005/fsindex/majormap.html

[Jeremiah]

Hi Bruce. I've got a better one for you:

"No net is an island."

[Jeremiah]

"Perhaps food, water, warmth, light, health, education can be provided by open source communitarian methods."

Gmoke, I think that's the key right there. Perhaps by open-source methods we can enlist marginalized classes in efforts that will make them more self-sufficient.

But first we need to do something about the juntas that don't want this to happen. Ceasing to bankroll them would be a great start.

[antonymous]

While I also like gmoke's idea of using the open-source model to provide basic necessities, I think the main problem this runs into is that it rubs up against the role of the government to provide such services. While I won't claim to be anywhere near an expert on warfare, it seems to me that an easily adaptable model (OSS) fits better to these smaller insurgent groups whose goal is to disrupt the current scheme.

Anyway, I'd like to hear more concrete ideas (or links) regarding the application of open-source models to more "state-building" (I use the term loosely) activities...

And not to ramble on, but it seems to me that some parallels could be drawn between these OS guerrilla groups and the OS software model? While both have made baby steps towards mainstream legitimization, neither OSS group has made a significant dent in the monopoly of the ruling power, let alone a challenge...any thoughts on this, anyone?

[antonymous]

By the way, I just discovered this blog recently and love it, keep up the excellent work!

[Jeremiah]

"I think the main problem this runs into is that it rubs up against the role of the government to provide such services."

That's the point. Solutions like Habitat for Humanity are for places where the government has ceased to function in that capacity. In many places, the role of the government is not to provide such services at all. In fact, from a functionalist perspective, you could say that the role of the government is to prevent those services from existing.

[GregB]

John - re Barnett's map - yes, we already know why it's not relevent on a micro level. But urban-level discontinuities can be dismissed as "abberations". A relatively large territory having the same problems in a so-called "stable" country presents a challenge to his entire thesis - a good thing, IMO.

Bruce - I'm plotting the t-shirt. Can't be too careful about them copyright issues, or something. BTW, are you still getting Turkish anti-terror spam?

[gmoke]

Two possibilities for open source action to aid people directly about are an affordable rechargeable reading light and an all media literacy program.

The image I have of the rechargeable reading light comes from a walk I took one night in 1988 in Guangzhou, China. I saw men standing in the doorways of closed stores behind small folding tables. They were fixing, refurbishing, and selling "disposal" lighters. I'd like to see a rechargeable light built to similar specs - affordable, ubiquitous, and repairable with simple tools on a folding table. A tiny PV chip with a blocking diode, a rechargeable button or AA battery, and an LED strong enough to read with is one way to go. Or how about a solar/dynamo flashlight/radio? I've had a couple modified so that they can charge AA batteries in the battery bay so now I have a source of low voltage DC power day or night, as long as the sun shines, I have strength to turn the dynamo's crank, and the batteries can hold a charge. Or how about a bicycle generator that recharges dry cell batteries from AA up to 12 volt? There's a lot of different ways to go based upon basic current tech.

The open source, all media literacy campaign comes from _Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill_ by Jessica Stern (HarperCollins, 2003):

(page 230) "Asked about the biggest threat to their groups' survival, a militant says that 'free secular education for all' leading to an 'increase in the literacy rate' is the gravest threat to the survival of the jihadi groups in Pakistan."

"Free secular education for all" should be available in all media - face to face with trained teachers and tutors, books, radio, TV, on the Net, over cell phones, and any other way we can think of. Blanket trouble areas with basic literacy education and you may help cut terrorism at the roots as well as stimulate imaginations in ways that we may never know.

[Phil]

The Naga insurgents in Manipur have blockaded parts of the state.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/nscn/

Also interesting was the attack by Maoists on a Hindalco mining camp in Chattisgarh recently.

It's inaccurate to describe this wave of attacks as ULFA turning to systems disruption - they've been attacking infrastructure for years, particularly pipelines. This wave of attacks was expected since they usually attack before the Indian independence day.

"how can we use open source warfare on relatively small, non-nation enemies?"

-Decentralize command and control down to the smallest denominator. (tactical corporals)

-Expand commo network at the fire team level.

-Issue flexible orders that only state the "commanders intent" and rely on initive and ingenuity to fill the gaps.

ect...
(read anything by Gunny/LTC H J Poole)

"our military establishment is gigantically invested in cold-war command-and-control warfare, which does not work at all against distributed low-technology groups"

Like eating soup with a knife......

[Jeremiah]

I like Arquilla's analogy of hitting a ball of mercury with a sledgehammer. The action is the actual cause of the dispersal.

I try to explain that stuff to neocons and they just don't get it. It's really strange because they're otherwise fairly intelligent people. The rigidness of mind that might have been so helpful in prosecuting old-style war efforts is only a liability here.

[Mark]

"The rigidness of mind that might have been so helpful in prosecuting old-style war efforts is only a liability here."

I wouldn't call it a rigidness of mind so much as a focus on finding a solution. I've been reading comments on this site and elsewhere, and it seems that every "neo-con" is frustrated by these analyses of 4G warfare because there is usually nothing presented that resembles a solution. And when they ask what we should be doing, they get vague explanations that usually amount to "We can't win." Once a "neo-con" gets a whiff of defeatism like that, they tune out. If 4GW's best analysts think it's hopeless, they're going to look for a solution elsewhere.

I know, not all analysis ends with defeatism, and you need to discover the methods before you can devise a solution, and there are some who give suggestions to counter attacks as well. But until these analyses start to actually yield results, "neo-cons" will consider them, but will probably become too frustrated with the more pessimistic takes on the situation...

[cgreedle]

I know! Let's try armored warfare!

[Adam]

Alternatively surely clicking our heels together and shouting that "theres no place like home" would be a solution.

Bluntly who cares whether neo-cons consider solutions? Like Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland for the IRA the neo-cons are the best recruiting sergeant the terrorists have got. The sooner we're rid of the neo-cons the better.

[John Robb]

Indo-Asian News Service. ULFA guerrillas continue their disruption operations in Assam India:

...militants blew up a gas pipeline belonging to the state-owned Oil India Limited near village Lankasi in the eastern Tinsukia district, about 570 km from Assam's main city of Guwahati. The incident took place inside a thickly forested area around 9 p.m. Tuesday.

"There was a massive fire soon after the blast and since it was located in a remote area it took some time for fire fighters to reach the spot," an official from the police control in Tinsukia who wished not to be identified said. "The blaze was brought under control after about two hours."

[GregB]

Mark - I'd say the problem isn't "defeatism" as such, but the radically different worldview that open source conflict requires. Boyd pointed out that you need to first be able to win on a moral level, then intellectual, and finally on the ground.

The problem here is that when most people think of a "moral" level, they immediately think of their own morals first. And in an area that is potentially destablizing, you need to look first at the populace's standards and morality, not yours. It sounds absurd, but starting from a marketing perspective - what does the customer want? - is the first step in dealing with potential conflict situations.

And that is a very alien mindset to most strategic planners - not just the neocons. It's been said that when you've got a (shiny hitech) hammer, every problem looks like a nail. That's pretty much where we stand with the use of our military today.

[John Robb]

Here are some updates that are interesting:

1) Police claimed the bombs used were Chinese-made
2) The oil pipeline attack destroyed a section of the pipeline that passed over a river which will be difficult to replace (good planning)
3) Other groups have joined the fray (an attack on a truck convoy)
4) ULFA has stated that it has renounced traditional terrorism in favor of systems disruption (and attacks on military targets) -- this is a classic switch that we will see more of

[John Kelsey]

I think understanding the mechanisms underlying 4GW ought to be helpful in understanding how to fight against someone using its tactics. But I think there's another source of cognitive dissonance for many neocons here--4GW implies that the decision to go into Iraq was not all that well thought out, because we sure weren't ready for what we got. Perhaps if Gore had done the same thing (completely plausible, post 9/11), we'd see neocons very interested in 4GW, and hawkish liberals denouncing such talk as defeatism.

[Kevin]

"The problem here is that when most people think of a "moral" level, they immediately think of their own morals first. And in an area that is potentially destablizing, you need to look first at the populace's standards and morality, not yours."

....too ethnocentric to even care or much less comprehend their morals, norms, and values.

[gmoke]

" It sounds absurd, but starting from a marketing perspective - what does the customer want? - is the first step in dealing with potential conflict situations."

In Iraq what they reportedly wanted was electricity, clean water, and jobs. We haven't been able to provide any of them up to the level of what they had under sanctions let alone do anything better. Now they have violent authoritarian anarchy on top of everything with infidel occupiers sitting at the controls.

Kevin Drum put up a chart at washingtonmonthly.com which shows that worldwide oil demand now outstrips supply. Cascading systems disruption anyone? Glad I bought my solar lights a couple of months ago (www.kansaswindpoer.net).

[kevin]

"worldwide oil demand now outstrips supply"

This is where the armed confrontation with China will occur. Since day one, I have always considered them as the real culprit behind our problem in the ME.

[Jeremiah]

One approach to resolving the coming resource competition with China and India would be a massive cooperative effort to develop clean, alternative energy technologies. Everyone benefits, and we avoid a source of friction between superpowers.

Instead, we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars, innumerable tons of fossil fuels, and precious time on a war that does not come near solving the root causes of insurgency, global warming, or the coming collapse of the oil economy.

Where does China get most of their oil and gas?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1093747,00.html