NETWORKED TRIBES

The essence of guerrilla war, according to the late great military theorist John Boyd, is moral conflict. The side that can destroy the moral bonds (those that permit the organic whole to exist) of the other side first, wins. One problem we face is that the moral bonds of our enemies are seemingly opaque.

One potential explanation for this opacity is that the moral bonds of our opposition are often tribal (both traditional tribes and "manufactured" tribes like gangs and al Qaeda). To explore this, let's start with a insightful paper by David Ronfeldt (of RAND) that provides a very useful exploration of tribal organizations (David told me he is writing a book on this subject).

The Tribe

A tribe is the oldest and most successful organizational type ever devised. Its main purpose is to create a sense of social identity that strengthens the ability of the individual and the collective to survive. Traditional tribes rely on kinship ties (families, clans, etc.) and share a common mythology (lineage and place). Manufactured tribes promote brotherhood ("fictive kinship") and create their own mythology (anything that sets them apart). All tribes are based on mutual defense, respect, and honor. They also share common organizational dynamics. Organizationally, tribes are:

• Egalitarian. Every member of the tribe is roughly equal to all others. Order is maintained through mutual respect, ritual, and honor.
• Segmental. Each major section of the tribe is like any other. It can also operate autonomously if needed. Everything the tribe is can be cloned from a segment of the tribe.
• and Acephalous. There isn't a hierarchy. Elders or "big men" are seen more as advisors, brokers, facilitators, and role models than leaders. Roles shift depending on need.

Tribes at War

Tribes fight wars over honor, respect, and encroachment. Once engaged, they do not fight as a cohesive group but rather in segments. Each tribal segment acts autonomously to attack its target (usually with ambushes and raids). Religion plays a strong role in that it can be used to justify and reinforce the tribe's actions.

Networked Tribes

The tribalism we face today is a combination of these ancient mindsets and modern systems thinking (economics, networks, communication, etc.). It's a very dangerous combination made stronger by the forces of globalization -- which has levelled the playing field in the competition between tribes and states. Today, networked tribes thrive economically (particularly as participants in the multi-trillion dollar black economy) and project power globally:

• In Iraq, we don't face a single tribe (either traditional or manufactured). We face dozens. Wholesale systems disruption and violence has forced great many people (particularly young men) into tribal organizations for economic support and defense -- a pattern we see repeated in other failed states.
• In Afghanistan, we see tribes in control of most of the country as well as a multi-billion dollar opium industry.
• Globally we see rapidly growing manufactured tribes like the Mara Salvatrucha (already over 700,000 strong) and al Qaeda in open war with states. The appeal of these tribes -- the sense of belonging they represent -- transcends borders. It is able to motivate young men in the UK and Honduras to undertake acts of extreme violence in the hope of gaining membership.

Until we understand the moral bonds of networked tribalism, there is little hope that we will morally defeat it.

Comments

[mark safranski]

This post was excellent.

I have to add that the " acephalous" nature of tribalism is a dynamic state.

Tribes can shift toward proto-nationhood under particularly strong chieftains when society becomes increasingly complex or external threats of war, causing a natural hierarchy to develop. Within the last few centuries the examples of NW Pacific coast Indians and Hawaiian unification under Kamaehamaeha

[Jeremiah]

I haven't read the paper yet, but I imagine Mr. Ronfeldt comments on the fact that communication networks can allow tribal relationships to form and persist with no respect for distance.

I saw "MSS-13 Playful" spraypainted on a building in my hometown the other night. My hometown in the midwest.

[Jeremiah]

Another thing... instead of saying "segmental" you might say "self-similar," because each individual branch of the network is not only like all the others, but is like the entire organization scaled down.

[Cardenio]

Don't forget genetics. Moral bonds = Genetic bonds. At the end of the day, you're just looking at genes acting against each other in an enviroment. Relegion, Culture, Loyalties, all of it ... it's all there for the DNA. Extentions of the phenotype. ( I think these's a book with that title isn't there ? )

[tim fong]

John,
Have you ever checked out the ethnic studies literature? You might find some insights (in a lateral kind of way) if you did.

[Marty Busse]

It's fiction, but I think Cory Doctorow's book Eastern Standard Tribe (available at http://craphound.com/est/download.php) is worth mentioning. The main chracter in it is part of a manufactured tribe whose bond revolves around being from the North American Eastern Standard Timezone (UTC-5.)

[enrica]

Talking about tribes, tribals and guerrilla/terrorism: what about Nepal? The situation has become worse, if possible, and -- although the country is central to the geo-political equilibrium of SA, nobody here (= Europe) reall talks about it, but Denmark, which is opening a bit its doors to Nepali immigrants and helping out (King Gyanendra, I guess).

Thanks to the civil war, to Bush Administration’s Global Gag Rule, to the usual and generalized corruption of politicians and administrators, to the centenary incacapacity of the king to govern (in democratic ways), to the usual governability crisis -- also due to the youth of democracy, just from 1990-91! -- to the 61 ethnic groups (or tribals), who have no access to power and resource management, to dislocated people also from Burma, poverty is badly increasing.

Maoists, who have been declared in 2003 as terrorists by King Gyanendra, are de facto the only hope for the country to overthrow the 200 year old deposticism: by the Ranas for over 104 years, before and now by the Shah family.
After the coup d'état of Feb. 1, 2005 of King Gyanendra, Nepal has been experiencing the highest number of desappearances, extra-judicial killings, gang rape by the Special Task Forces and the Army ever seen. Press freedom has been suppressed and the election postponed. Many free Internet sites, servers, radios and press agencies have been suppressed.

According to Amnesty International, nowadays it is the first country of the world in terms of Human Rights abuses (by the government).

Can we still talk about guerrilla, tribes, and terrorism?

(Excellent articles though!)

enrica

p.s. there is a bond religion/moral/gender, which is not genetic, it's a strumentalization by fundamentalist groups (Hindu in Nepal and India -- see the BJP -- and even Buddhist, and Muslim, Christian, and so on, which justify their politics and polity by using religious/moral/traditional patterns, saying they always existed, therefore, they should be right. And that changing them leds to the disintegration of social cohesion, of families, and to self-oriented societies (vs family oriented societies), such as in Europe and USA.

(Such as maternity and paternity are not genetics, are an attitude towards the world. A genetic maternity is a biological one: too little for the survival of our species! the world is a bit more complex than it was e.g. 1,000,000 years ago!
and a "natural world" does not exist anymore: in fact, we make love when we want and not when it is out monthly Spring time, our pets are fixed, our plants are killed but also cured, and so on...)

[Mark S. Meritt]

There is an entire movement / school of thought that embraces the tribe's identity as "most successful organizational type ever devised," hoping to use this knowledge to actually improve people's lives. This is no endorsement of Al Qaeda -- quite the contrary, Al Qaeda and such other organizations are organized tribally but pursuing goals that are fundamentally rooted in the hierarchical nature of our global society. This other movement I mention believes that an entirely different, tribal / systems-based worldview would lead people toward a completely different set of goals and completely different ways of living in the world. Why attempt to "morally defeat" the most successful organizational type ever devised? Does it even seem possible that one could do so, especially when this structure is rooted in our species' evolution and therefore, in some sense, in our very neurology? Why not acknowledge that this structure work well for people and then implement it toward positive goals?

For more information, see:
http://www.ishmael.com
http://www.potluck.com
http://www.anthropik.com
and, in particular, my masters thesis on the connection between economic unsustainability and hierarchical structures -- http://www.potluck.com/offerings/increase.shtml

[daCascadian]

It takes a tribe to defeat a tribe

excellent piece

"...It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins..." - Benjamin Franklin

[Cardenio]

Maybe we could train leumurs to defeat them ?

[Tom Lord]

I've been using the phrase "loyalty based mafia"
to describe both the tribal aspects al Qaeda and
the dysfunctional aspects of the organization of
Islamo-fascist states. People say "we are not at
war against Islam", which is true, but those
speakers and their sympathetic audience
understand Islam through post-Enlightenment eyes
as an inspirational source of philosophical
contemplation while some of the subjects being
spoken of seem often to understand Islam as the
wellspring of their material support and
personal social context -- just like a mafia is.

The dangerous view of those subjects is further
reinforced when the surrounding environment,
whether an Islamo-fascist state or a western
Muslim ghetto, denies them clearly perceivable,
practically exercisable alternatives. So, I
think my phrase "loyalty based mafia" is nearer
the mark.

Sample conclusion: calling for "fatwah upon
fatwah denouncing terrorism" may be a good
triage step, but it fails to ask people to
reconsider the bonds of loyalty which create the
context in which al Qaeda operates. To the
otherwise *completely* disenfranchised who are
main army/potential-army of the enemy, such
fatwah's, coming from imam's who are irrelevant
to their material support (such as it is) will
only strengthen the army's loyalty to the
radicals who are directly relevant to their
lives.

Two things are needed, in my current view:

1) al Qaeda is assuming godhead through public
demonstration; a demonstrated better "god"
is needed -- one which exposes and
demonstrates the values of civilized nations
and its relevance and accessibility
to disenfranchised people

To win mafia factions to its cause, al Qaeda
doesn't even need to do major harm to the
rest of us (though that is its ultimate aim)
-- it need only make it look as though it is
doing so or eventually will. "Wow. Those
guys are making progress. That's the way
forward" is the message received. [e.g. of
evidence: rumors among their target recruit
populations about the state of the world] As
well known, al Qaeda spins a global,
history-ending yarn to create the shared
vision, punctuated by real events (attacks)
that seem to support the story.

Civilized nations need demonstrations of
superior scope and "positivity": they need a
*better* global, history-ending story to
tell, hopefully one that is true. I'm quite
serious when I say in some contexts that the
new triangular diplomacy among nation states
should invoke simultaneous, loud, joinings of
traditional enemies, each such group focused
on needs which are either global or pertain
to a third party (but at any rate are
distinctly not selfish), with a special
emphasis on faster-cheaper-better approaches
to economic justice and economic plenty.
Mafia's fail when legitimate business is
easier and more rewarding for the rank and
file. Mafia's fail when there is a better
team that can be *joined*.

2) mafia's lose power temporarily by internal
warfare and loss of revenue

Of course, this has been the primary
strategy to date. Unfortunately, as
network theorists seem to implicitly point
out, if the sides in the war are roughly
equally matched in capability, this
degenerates into a *symmetric* war in
which both sides are left with equally
disabled support networks, at which point
(to return to Boyd's terminology),
the more organized tribe, more accustomed
to privation, with coherency over a greater
geographic area, is likely to win.

Since we've got (2) well under way, (1) is the
current highest priority to think about and act
upon, imo. Hanging Iraq out there as the only
example of (1) is simply pathetic.

[enigma_foundry]

Here, I believe we need to introduce a slightly more sophisticated way of modeling networks, and in particular the way networks self-replicate (i.e., reproduce) Essentially, the networks being created are evolving, that is, subject to environmental pressures, they increase their likelihood of survival with each replication. It is important to understand this because it is key to how these networks replication can be interfered with, and how they could ultimately be defeated.

I would suggest that we take a look at cellular automata, in particular. The reason they are useful for this task is not immediately apparent, but please bear with this for just a moment. I think after you begin to see how cellular automata actually work, there relevance will become a bit more clear. First, understand that cellular automata represent a way to illustrate how events propagate in a rule based system. In this case, the rules define how a cell will live or die, depending one what is next to it, how and what it is networked to. Now, take a look at this link:

http://alife.co.uk/eosex/

The network is resistant to any attempts to kill individual members (click on individual cells to kill them--even using the default large stamp which kills many cells at once, it is not possible to destroy the network by killing individual members) but extraordinary changes can occur when the rules of propagation are changed (which you can change at the right)

In particular, change the click behavoir from "kill" to "build walls" and you will see how quickly isolated elements die off.

From this exercise, there are three important conclusions:

1. By killing individual element of a self-propagating network, very little impact will occur.

2. Great impact on how this network will propagate will occur if the rules which define how this network grows can be altered. The rules are the underlieing matrix, another name for this underlieing matrix is the environment.

3. The relative isolation of different parts of the environment is off paramount imprtance in defeating any self propagating network. (Remeber Boyd here)

Now to use these lessons, (that is to maximize our connectivity in Boyd terms) let's jump from the theoretical mathematical world to current trends in Islamic thought.

I would suggest taking a look at the website of Irshad Manji:
http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/
(actually I would go farther than that, I would say that one who is interested at all in terrorism and the Muslim world needs to read her excellent book, The Trouble with Islam) But her website is of particlar interest because it, from the comments and feedback on it indicates that she has created a virtual "tribe", showing all of the elements defining a tribe above that will ultimately (I hope) isolate the tribe of al-Qaida and the Islamic literalists. However, presently, the US is doing next to nothing to ensure the success of this tribe (which may in fact be a good thing because those in charge have shown themselves to be so completely lacking in imagination, that if they tried to help it they would probably do something so stupid they would end up hurting it, but that's a parenthetical comment)

The take away: We need to create and strengthen those tribes that will isolate the Islamic literalists, rather than try to kill individual elements of their networks.

Obviously, the war, as presently being implemented by America, is doing the opposite of this and is is a self-defeating exercise. The French (and the Poles to some degree) had warned us of exactly this development btw, and we really didn't listen.

In short: The entire war needs to be completely re-conceptualized: tribes are the most effective way to fight tribes; the most correct networked tribe will eventually win.

[david ronfeldt]

i'm delighted to come across this topic. what we are up against is not a "clash of civilizations" but something like a "travail of tribalisms." if i'd known about this blog on networked tribes when i wrote the paper, i'd have added it to the references.

i recommend looking at companion paper by retired army officer william mccallister on "the iraqui insurgency: anatomy of a tribal rebellion" at
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_3/mac/index.html .

onward.

[david ronfeldt]

here's a new publication that also bears on the topic, though more as a local than a globalized, networked phenomenon:

Taylor, Richard L., Tribal Alliances: Ways, Means, and Ends to Successful Strategy, Carlisle, PA : Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2005. Available online at http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?PubID=619.

[docsharp01]

Good blog with thought provoking comments and interesting discussion.
http://www.pc-satellite-tv-reviews.com

[Jay Taber]

Tribalism cannot be defeated morally. As political entities of governance, tribal nations are founded on conservation, cooperation, and reciprocity. Modern states were created to steal the wealth of these nations.

Criminal networks arising out of tribal societies, much like criminal networks arising from modern states, can be defeated. Positing tribalism, a system that provides a place for everything and everyone, as something to be defeated, is thus by definition an immoral enterprise.

Imagine yourself speaking to the National Congress of American Indians or the Assembly of First Nations when you say tribalism must be defeated. They would take that proposition to be a fascist initiative.