SWARM: System disruption in action in UK blast?

A start of systems disruption in earnest?

7/12/05: Zawahiri video posted to the Internet: "I call on the holy warriors to concentrate their campaigns on the stolen oil of the Muslims, most of the revenues of which go to the enemies of Islam. The enemies of Islam are exploiting such vital resources with incomparable greed, and we have to stop that theft with all we can and save this fortune for the nation of Islam." (this is a follow up to bin Laden's earlier call for systems attacks)

11/12/05: The Bruncefield Total/Texaco oil depot northwest of London exploded. The explosion was so intense, there is very little likelihood that any cause will be found. 400 tankers offload everyday at the facility which stores 4 million gallons of gasoline, diesel, kerosine, and aviation fuel. As one of the top 5 facilities in the UK, it supplies 5% of the country's energy needs.

NOTE: If so, this attack was probably due to the same community dynamic we saw in the London subway attacks. Also, if this attack is not claimed it doesn't mean that this wasn't terrorism, it might mean that the threat has evolved to a more effective form. Anonymity is a weapon.

NOTE2: Here's some more from Zawahiri on al Qaeda's focus on oil production from Jamestown.org. Again, this development is a strong confirmation that al Qaeda is aligning itself with the Global Guerrillas approach to systems disruption.

In particular, he called on the mujahideen to "make every effort in your power to stop the greatest theft in history of the natural resources of both present and future generations." To do this, they should "focus operations on [oil production], especially in Iraq and the Gulf area, since this will cause them to die off." The gravity of these statements was graphically demonstrated last September when Saudi security forces, after a 48-hour armed confrontation at al-Dammam, uncovered a stash of forged documents aimed at providing militants with access to some of Saudi Arabia's principal oil and gas facilities. Since this time, forum traffic has kept the "U.S. thirst for oil" theme at the fore as an explanation for American strategy in the region, and, accordingly, has highlighted the vulnerability of the superpower, as illustrated by the episodes of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Comments to this effect populate the forums passim.

Comments

[Doug N.]

Can you offer a theory for the unwillingness of Western populations to recognize & address infrastructure vulnerabilties?

[Shloky]

If is indeed an attack - another kudos to you sir.

An unrelated question however - do the race riots in Cronulla Australia fit into your framework?

What role do these reverse riots - natives attempting to remove the perceived threat - play into open source warfare or system disruption?

Or are these just actions of a group of very drunk Australians?

[John Robb]

What concerned me about those riots is the number of people involved (measured in the thousands). I haven't looked into Australia's cultural landscape, but it looks like a cultural fault line.

[Adam Shostack]

Hi John,

When you say 'anonymity is a weapon,' it cuts both ways. Anonymity is an effective defense. To tie to the open source methods you discuss, I have a post, Planespotters vs the CIA http://www.emergentchaos.com/archives/002098.html about how a community of planespotters has allowed effective tracking of the CIA's rendition program. If airplanes were more anonymous, the CIA would be less vulnerable to this sort of thing.

[dunxd]

No one has come forward and claimed this yet (or it has been surpressed if they have) - since it happened on a blue sky day and filled the skies with black clouds over London it would have been most effective for a group to claim it while Londoners could walk outside, look up and behold.

Another Texas City?

[Adam]

A side effect little noted was that it means that alcohol is going to be tougher to get in the London area this Christmas. Scottish and Newcastles spirits bond warehouse was damaged. And M&S's sandwich distribution arm was also affected.

This could be the end of Western civilisation as we know it...

[paul]

Perhaps OT, but these events alway call to mind a quote from Frank Herbert's Dune: "He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing."

It seems obvious that the people committing these attacks are prepared to destroy as much oil and oil infrastructure as it takes to reach their goal (easy to do if you don't own the thing you're mucking with). That ties in with the idea of disruption that has been mentioned here before.

How much will it take and if too much -- to where there is none to trade with -- what next? You can't eat it, so when life in the middle east becomes untenable without revenue to import food, do we then look for an old fashioned war of conquest for food and arable land?

[John Robb]

Paul, here's an exploration of that issue:

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2005/11/partial_vs_comp.html

[dan]

The converese can also be true, and if the incident is "claimed", it doesn't mean that it wasn't an accident.

Propaganda is a weapon - and if it's done well it forces the misallocation of finite, and these days overstretched, state-security resources.

My guess is that there will be a claim of responsibility for this, in the same way that AQ claimed responsibility for the big East Coast power outage of a few years back.

[AoT]

"Perhaps OT, but these events alway call to mind a quote from Frank Herbert's Dune: "He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.""

I think it is dead on topic. That whole damn book was about oil in the middle east. Spice was just a nice metaphor.

[Alex]

Meh. No sign of any terrorist involvement, and most of the systems disruption so far has been due to the industrial park next door being damaged or just sealed off by cops. Includes DSG, Kodak UK and Epson UK, as well as the booze warehouse mentioned above, a big server farm, and an online clothes retailer.

[John Robb]

Alex, the best sign of terrorist involvement on an incident like this is a claim. There is little likelihood that there would be forewarning of an attack by a small external community cluster (in a fashion similar to the London subway attacks) with aspirations of al Qaeda endorsement. Of course, if this cluster is evolved, which means it is doing the work of the community (as articulated by bin Laden and Zawahiri) without the gratification of endorsement, then we won't get that claim. If this is the case, the only indication of the cluster's existence are additional systems attacks.

[paul]

Thanks, John. I think I saw your original post but didn't have enough context for it to register (my knowledge of middle eastern geopolitics encompasses Lawrence's Hollywood-ized adventures with some, but not a lot of, additional reading.

I'm struck by the idea that by synthesizing this idea -- of a commodity that props up a society -- and Jim Kunstler's Long Emergency notion gives an enemy, stateless or otherwise, a good blueprint to knock the West off its feet. Oil goes into everything, from our food (via fertilizers) to the packaging, preservation, and distribution of it to heating and cooling, communications, etc.

How much disruption would someone have to cause to disorient a technologically-sophisticated (read: oil-dependent) society?

[John Robb]

Paul, since all states are in aggressive global economic competition, systems disruption is most coercive if aimed at the end point (local disruption of the target state's infrastructure). General disruption at the producer end, can enable coercion of the producer state. However, the effects (as we have seen with $60 oil), are spread out among all global participants.

So far, due to the window of vulnerability in the oil market, even small disruptions can cause large price movements. It can't, stop the flow completely. If this is scaled, to beyond the current capability, we may see prices (~$100 ++) that will slow down the global economy. This slowdown will have a disproportional impact on the developing world. The slowdown will also greatly reduce demand and therefore lower the prices -- and it will drive a major effort to find replacements (which are on the horizon).

Real coercive power requires selective disruption rather than general disruption.

[so many names]

"Anonymity is a weapon."

Or as Charles de Gaulle would say - "Silence is the ultimate weapon of power."

[Andrew P]

Apparently the explosion was caused by a truck driver firing the starter switch in his engine - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1930067,00.html

Nothing like human error for screwing things up.

[Barry]

"Can you offer a theory for the unwillingness of Western populations to recognize & address infrastructure vulnerabilties? "

Posted by: Doug N.

Because it'd cost a huge amount; 99% of which would be pure waste. In a tight competitive market, that'd be giving profits away to one's competitor. Now, it could be done via gov't subsidies/tax breaks, but I predict that that would immediately be corrupted.

[Jim S.]

Scaremonger

[Staff Monkey]

Could the attack on a facility that deals primarily in North Sea oil be a way to drive demand towards Middle East oil? In this way, it could increase the hammer lock the Islamists seek over the rest of the world and make the situation even more dire when they do the same in the Middle East?

Now we have a system disruption.