SCENARIO: CHECHEN INDEPENDENCE (Part 3)

This brief could be alternatively titled, "how to coerce a major state for less than one million dollars."

How could global guerrillas fight on the strategic level? To explore this, I crafted a potential scenario that pits Chechen (or more precisely now, Caucasian Front) guerrillas against the Russian state. Part 1 provides an overview of the scenario. Part 2 explains how the moral center of a state has shifted to the markets it participates in (and how traditional symbolic terrorism can put the state on the horns of a dilemma). Part 3 (below) examines some of the mechanics of systems disruption necessary to accomplish the desired moral effects.

Pipeline Disruption

Russia's energy exports is the main thread that ties it to the world's markets. Internally, the energy industry is directly responsible for 25% of the country's employment and 50% of the state's tax revenues. It is the single most important strength of the Russian state. In order to defeat the Russian state strategically, Chechen guerrillas turned this strength into a weakness. This was done through systems disruption. It turned the moral sentiment of global markets against the state (via uncertainty, menace, and mistrust).

On the face of it, the disruption of the Russian energy transportation infrastructure was straight forward. There wasn't any need for deep systems analysis to determine systempunkts (points of greatest vulnerability). The pipelines of Transneft's oil and gas transportation system are concentrated into two major conduits (see diagram of the gas pipeline system). These lines were both easy to access and disrupt using simple homemade thermite and propane tanks (DIY, or do-it-yourself, explosives that are very effective against infrastructure). An effects-based operation with the goal of causing immediate losses would make frequent small attacks against those lines to the east of Moscow. In many cases, these attacks impacted both oil and gas exports due to co-location vulnerability.

Expansion of the Effort to Maintain Effects
However, the campaign got more complicated when it was forced to move beyond attacks on the main lines due radical increases in defensive efforts (which were only partially effective). To maintain the desired effect (a reduction in Russian gas/oil exports of 50% or more), Chechen guerrillas developed and exploited systempunkts in the rail, communications, and electricity systems. Since the disruption of these system exceeded the ability of a regional open source movement to accomplish, it opted to expand through a market-based approach. Guerrilla entrepreneurs sent into the field with financing hired participants from easily accessible criminal networks to provide target selection, bomb manufacturing, and emplacement services. Since these attacks didn't involve body-count terrorism, these participants were easy to recruit. The fluid marketplaces that developed emerged much more rapidly than the government could react to. Here's how these systems were disrupted:

• Rail. Transneft's oil transport capacity is limited to ~four million barrels a day. The rest is transported by rail. The Russian rail system exhibits many of the sparse network problems of the pipeline system. There are several links and hubs to the east of Moscow that provide a complete system shutdown capability. In order to immediately impact rail system performance, the Chechen guerrillas began to cut the fiber connections of the rail systems Unified Main Digital Communications Network (which follows the route of the tracks). These attacks disconnected the central routing and management system from downstream customers, trains, and stations. The ongoing disruption of these links made subsequent attacks on the tracks themselves more effective (since it slowed rerouting efforts and attempts to mitigate the disruption).
• Electricity. Systems analysis revealed the Russian electrical system, although more complex than the rail and pipeline infrastructure, had several key systempunkts. Attacks on only three high voltage substations was able to force the system into a cascading failure that collapsed electricity delivery in the central area north of Kazakhstan. Ongoing attacks on regional high voltage lines of 500 KV and above delayed repair efforts. This ongoing regional blackout complicated the repair of pipeline and railway disruption.
• Communications. To amplify the moral distress of markets in Russia's continued ability to participate in the global economy, Chechen guerrillas opted to focus their communications disruption on Moscow. To do this, the guerrilla began to systematically dismantle the cell phone tower infrastructure that supplied the city with robust communications capability. The high volume of calls routed to the remaining towers caused overloads and drops in service for the vast majority of subscribers.

Epilogue
(See Part 1 for a more descriptive Epilogue) The effect of this disruption campaign was a sustained reduction, by 50%, of Russian oil and gas exports for three months. Market reaction was fierce. The ruble fell precipitously (50 to 1), contracts with Russian oil and gas firms were embroiled in legal wrangling, and the cost of debt soared. Additionally, domestic opinion turned against the government which it blamed for the current problems. The Russian government was assailed from all sides. Facing collapse and major unrest at home, the Russian government offered Chechnya independence. Other provinces in the Caucasus would soon follow.

Comments

[Duncan Kinder]

Note that the ability of global guerillas to disrupt a society is a function of how highly integrated that society is.

As opposed to highly centralized power systems and transportation networks, a society could, instead emphasize locally autonomous units, powered by solar cells and other items intended to make each unit self sufficient.

If a society were so emphasized, then damage to any given unit would have relatively little impact on other units.

To use an extreme but useful illustration, the Amish appear to be well configured to withstand a massive global guerilla attack.

[Marcello]

Too many things our technology need require centralization.The chinese tried decentralized steel production and we all know how it ended.Microprocessors factories were rather expensive last time I heard and so on.Economy of scale just does not go away.

[Steve Thomas]

Marcello--

Yes, "too many things our technolgoy need require centralization." Given that centralization proportionally increases our vulnerability (to environmental as well as human threats; see Katrina, also, having the most efficient system for extracting a finite resource is not a good idea in the long), that would seem to argue for adopting a different set of technology.

[Steve Thomas]

Jeff Vail also had a few good points re. economy of scale recently-

http://www.jeffvail.net/2005/10/anti-economies.html

[Marcello]

Centralization does indeed increase our vulnerability but that is a unavoidable price to pay.

"that would seem to argue for adopting a different set of technology."

Like Star Trek style replicators and miniaturized fusion generators?

"Jeff Vail also had a few good points re. economy of scale recently"

No, he does not.Economy of scale is not just an invention of some evil economist, it is a reality of fact which is constantly verified in everyday economic decisions.Yes there may be some counterweights but in practice the advantages usually vastly outweight the benefits.
Power companies do not build a 1000 Mw power plant instead of 100 units with 10 Mw each because some economist told them that this was a good idea in abstract.They do that because the 1000 Mw unit is vastly cheaper to build and more efficient to run.This should be self evident.
And yes, it applies to chickens too (been there, done that).
Some diversification may be beneficial and can indeed be observed in the economy, with companies expanding their area of operation beyond a single narrow field and so on.
And state whose economy is based on the export of one commodity has an obvious problem.
Beyond that however specialization and economy of scale are simply too convenient.

[Marcello]

Further example
Everyone probably has mobility needs which are at least slighty different from everyone else.One person more or less to trasport, more or less distance to travel and so on.
What is cheaper: buying a car chosen from a variety of standardized models or having someone designing from scratch and custom build one specifically for you?
Yes, the custom built one might save some gallons of fuel during its life but we all know that the difference in the pricetag would vastly outweigh any saving.

[Steve Thomas]

Marcello--

I don't disagree. It quickly comes down to a question of values. Decentralization increases security and liberty/autonomy at the expense of efficiency. Efficiency is not a value for me, but self-determination is.

In any event, how would you propose to ensure security for a centralized system? Would you be willing to accept decentralizing *some* areas of the economy, but keeping others intact? Could you live in a society where people used passive-solar or wood to heat homes built with locally-available materials (like earth or straw), and in which no one was permitted to own a car--but which also possessed a functioning rail system and computer network?

[Marcello]

It is probably possible to increase the system resiliency without going broke with a more widepsread use of solar power and such, as well as adopting others measures.
Such improvements however would only be marginal.The system would still be reliant on complex trade networks,standardization, centralization and economies of scale (BTW the rail network is so vulnerable to sabotage that it is not even funny).

The only way to really achieve something along that way would be going back to an agriculture based economy supported by technologies which can, if not be built, at least be mantained locally to a large degree.For some country this might not even be theoretically possible, as the population might have exceeded massively any sustainable output coming from the local agriculture.

I could do away with cars, as a matter of fact I prefer to travel by bycicle,train or ship rather than by car or plane.But then, I do not consider myself normal and I live in places where it is actually feasible.

For the average american I bet the answer would be along the lines of:
"They can have my car keys when they pry it from my cold, dead hands"

"Decentralization increases security and liberty/autonomy at the expense of efficiency. Efficiency is not a value for me, but self-determination is"

Inefficiency means inability to compete in a global economy and lower standards of living (less consumer goods etc).You can argue that those standards are defined by a consumerist point of view but it is precisely those standards that people in the second and third world aspired and continue to aspire.
And first worlders would aspire to go back to them should they be deprived of them.

[Joe Katzman]

Glad to see someone else has seen the obvious in Russia. My only question is why the Chechens haven't gone after the pipelines more directly. Given their immense length, it should be possible to keep them out of action more or less indefinitely.

I'd say "I wonder what the Russian response will be if these attacks manage to put a real crimp in Russian oil/gas exports"... but really, I don't wonder.