THE OPEN-SOURCE WAR

I wrote a New York Times Op-Ed on this.

UPDATE: Tom Barnett writes a critique of my article. Here's my rebuttal. I agree with Tom that globalization will win in Iraq, eventually. Our dispute is solely on how we get there. It isn't a contest of light (light) and dark (pessimistic) views. We are both optimistic about the future.

Where do we differ? Tom views our future through the lens of the state. I don't. I view the world as a complex network of dynamic flows that only begrudgingly heed the dictates of the state (and often treat those dictates as damage to be routed around if they are not in alignment) -- in short, Friedman's flat world. This viewpoint translates into our approach to solutions. He's sees Iraq as a non-attempt at state-sponsored nation-building and I see it as the best attempt that this approach could muster.

In the long view, everything will likely work out. However, the path we take to get there matters. A short-term, heavy-handed approach will put us into unworkable situations. This is precisely the case with Iraq. We have boxed ourselves into a very difficult situation that may end in a Pyrrhic result. It may be inconvenient to point this out, but that is the reality of the situation.

Change in the future requires a decentralized approach and success will be measured in small steps that mitigate risk and improve system function. It will not come from reckless system shocks and grand schemes of reconstruction -- these only serve to fuel the workable but sub-optimal solutions posed by our open source competitors. Remember, in this networked-world both states and guerrillas gain power through their influence on global supply chains. Let's not give them the window of opportunity to do so.

Comments

[Adam]

John,

Congratulations on the publication of the op-ed. Its short and brutally frank.

I wonder what the letters pages of the NYT will come back with?

[Greg Burton]

Barnett's view is interesting in some ways, not so much in others. His perception that OSW is still an "IT analogy" is telling in that regard, as his insistence on a state-focus. The Core/Gap model definitely implies his prescription for "growing the Core".

It fails, again, to deal with melted maps as an inevitable implication of the globablization he sees winning. Core and Gap are not evenly distributed within geographic borders, and with a statist orientation that becomes very difficult to see.

We do have two models here, neither one of which the US seems to be engaged with. The most interesting question is which model will yield the most accurate predictions. To this point, I'm betting on OSW.

[Thomas P.M. Barnett]

I would just say, go easy on Flat World. Freidman never argues the irrelevancy of states. As Martin Wolf points out, as does every economist on globalization, the most globalized economies feature the biggest govs, highest tax rates, and most regulation. OSW flourishes, as opposed to OS software itself, in nonglobalized environments only, where govs are weak. In good states it's just crime and lone wackos and LEA a plenty. Inside my Core, OSW remains a nuisance to be managed, not a defining threat. So to win ultimately, we expand that reality while shrinking the enemy's operating domain.

Yes, fight fire with fire in the weeds (the 10k terrorists we estimate we must manage, along with thw 80-90k at-risk pop), but that struggle alone never becomes an organizing principle for DoD. Instead, reformatting the Gap does. So "no flavor of the month," but inescapable reality. C-terror remains niche, otherwise we risk losing all by engaging weaker enemies symmetrically, throwing away all the economies of scale our magnificently networked economy provides.

[John Robb]

Thanks for the feedback Tom.

Just a clarification, I am not saying that states are irrelevant either. I do think that they are diminished in this century and should be much more careful about how they utilize the resources they have available. Moderation is the key to long-term survival.

Your old core isn't vulnerable to OSW yet, but your new core is. It's right on its doorstep. How long before it hits? I wouldn't discount this as a nuisance.

[mark safranski]

"Your old core isn't vulnerable to OSW yet, but your new core is. It's right on its doorstep. How long before it hits?"

Hmmm. India is a different kettle of fish from Ukraine, Indonesia is not like Slovakia.

India which contains a mosaic of ethnic and sectarian divisions including a vast Muslim population and extreme poverty has proved itself a durable deomcracy. Ukraine has yet to do so and is riven with mafiya networks but could conceivably " pull ahead" of India economically very quickly on a per capita basis and stabilize in a short span of years.

New Core states seem to have less in common with one another than Old Core or Gap states do so I would expect that category to produce more " wild cards" in regard to OSW. States we think are weak may prove more resilient than we expect as well as the reverse.

We need to remediate vulnerabilities *before* these states undergo an attack rather than afterward.

[DJPR]

John and Tom,

I really don’t see these two ideas as exclusive to each other. Indeed, both are using the idea of a network; albeit, in very different ways and levels.

Tom seems to be taking the macro strategic view of Iraq as state, specifically the need of a different type of network: building connections to bring Iraq to the core.

John is talking about employing a strategy to fight a network (the Insurgents, for lack of a better term) that wants to destabilize the nascent Iraqi state with a counter-network.

I think at some level both you guys are saying this and agreeing on this – all things being equal.

As an effective counter-insurgency strategy, I think John is right in suggesting "renouncing the state's monopoly on violence by using Shiite and Kurdish militias as a counterinsurgency". But, I don’t think it serves the ultimate end goal: securing a new and viable Iraqi government and state, which I would assume includes monopoly of violence by the state.

Indeed, there is a question regarding how an “El Salvador” solution would work in Iraq, where there are so many political, religious and ethnic groups at work. Flipping what John mentions in his NYT article on the Iraqi insurgents, if the militias and the Iraqi government win, wont they simply turn go after each other’s throat?

Questions to ask re: John’s “El Salvador” Solution:

1. Wouldn’t employing militias undermine the ultimate authority of the Iraqi government? Isnt that one of the paramount goals?
2. How would the world respond, if the Shiite and Kurdish militias conducted massacres? If such a thing was to occur, imagine to comparison to Ariel Sharon to Bush and the Shiite militias to the Maronite Christians?
3. What happens once the counter-insurgency ends? What role would the militias be given? What incentives would they have to accept? Would all accept this role?

Additionally, I pessimisticly disagree with Tom’s suggestion that “Time is on our side.” How long will the American public accept this war – in lives and costs? If the Republicans face defeat in 2006, where would the political atmosphere tilt?

Just to be clear, I really respect both Tom and John’s thinking and approach to these issues. I’ve seen Tom speak at the San Francisco World Affairs Council. (self-promotion warning) Indeed, I’ve written some papers in my undergrad years using Tom’s Core-Gap State and John’s Global Guerilla approach. Even one, mixing in Tom and John’s idea and Clash of Civilization.

[boz]

Being that I can't get trackbacks to work from Blogger, here's my take on what I think is an excellent op-ed, even if I disagree with the conclusion. Short version: Counter-insurgency in Iraq is only part of the fight against terrorism and will have consequences to our credibility in the longer war. How we win in Iraq is as important as winning, and building militias is a shortcut to victory not worth taking.

[boz]

Sorry, link didn't work. Let me try that again:
http://bloggingsbyboz.blogspot.com/2005/10/open-source-warfare.html

[Valdis]

"Remember, in this networked-world both states and guerrillas gain power through their influence on global supply chains. Let's not give them the window of opportunity to do so."

In the networked world the mantra is...

"It's the Connections, Stupid!"

[SteveL]

View of an Iraqi network

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1118370,00.html

[Nils Gilman]

Great news, John. I wonder if I might comment more explicitly on the open source analogy.

One of the primary differences between closed-source development and open-source development is that closed-source developement, in exchange for being closed, usually tries to guarantee its customers a higher quality of service and lower degree of bugginess than open source alternatives. Moreover, closed-source organizations promise that someone specific will be accountable if the application experiences difficulty, in contrast to open source, where project risk and high rates of failure come with the territory.

The problem for closed-source organizations is that getting the last bugs out of any system is immensely (indeed, often prohibitively) expensive. This is a crucial point for expanding on your open source warfare metaphor.

Part of the reason why the open source warfare approach works well for the enemy in Iraq is that the enemy is willing to tolerate a buggy product: if even 80 percent of its attacks fail or are foiled, that's OK, as long as the successes are sufficiently spectacular. In short, the open source promise is as you say of rapid innovation, but not of consistent and smooth success.

By contrast, what the hyper-expensive, closed-source approach of the American command-and-control military promises is a bug-free system: specifically, in the case of Iraq, a low-casualty war which would result in a pacified and democratic Iraq state -- in short, a close to bug-free outcome. In fact, it's not clear that people living in wealthy democratic polities (who are used to relatively bug-free products), would be willing to accept the open-source warfare offering.

But as anyone who has done any selling (or much thoughtful buying) knows, customer satisfaction is intimately related to expectations. Part of the reason the U.S. is F'd in Iraq is that our closed source warfare was coupled to a closed sourced political agenda which promised that the war would be quick, easy, and massively successful. And today, the American people bought it like a Siebel customer in 1999.

The only good news is in all of this is that in many markets closed source has actually managed to hold off open source. It might be worth pondering what those kinds of markets have in common, and what sets them apart from markets where open source has succeeded. My own cursory reading is that open source does will when it comes to horizontal, generic offerings (e.g. Islamic "salvation" vs. "democracy"), but that closed source tends to do just fine in specific, narrow "application" segments, where specialed local knowledge is what is really decisive. No doubt it would be worth exploring this topic in more detail