JOURNAL: Thriving in Nigeria

Here's a classic description of open source warfare by a Nigerian general named Gbadebo, “We are no longer facing one group, we are now facing so many factions." As the government is slowly realizing, the open source war in Nigeria is flying under its own power now. One of the reasons for this is that the criminal economy -- oil bunkering (smuggling stolen oil), arms trafficking, corporate warfare, corruption, etc. -- gets positive feedback from disruption. This criminal "economy," which I call the bazaar, is an economic platform that connects transnational crime with local global guerrillas. The more the state hollows out, the faster the transactions (due to less friction) in this economy occur. Their strategy of combining warfare, disruption, and criminality makes it not only possible for these groups to survive, but to thrive. It's a classic sign of a dynamically unstable system.

As this movement spreads towards the fields and pipeline infrastructures around Bonny (see map on previous post, in the eastern delta), rich targets await: Gbadebo, "If you blow up a flow station in Bonny, the entire place will cease to exist. It could take more than six months to quench the fire." Meanwhile, ongoing attacks on corporate psychology are devastating the legal economy in the western delta. For example, the construction in the western delta has ceased which throws currently employed workers into the arms of insurgents: Meanwhile, Wilbros Offshore Nigeria, employers of the hostages, has signified its intention to close down operation(s) in the Shell Western Division following the continued incarceration of the three workers. Wilbros, a pipeline construction and maintenance contracting firm in charge of Shell’s Focardos terminal projects, has told its sub-contractors to withdraw their equipment from the Western Division comprising Bayelsa, Delta and Ondo states. One of the contractors whose barges were hired by Wilbros said over 10,000 Nigerian workers will be affected by the evacuation.

Comments

[Cardenio]

So what happens next ? Does the UN try send blue hats there ? Does Libya move up on them ? Does a corporation like Exxon-Mobil move in some non-employees in there to get some of the action ?

[Duncan Kinder]

"Unlike the discredited ideological movements of the 20th century, these groups don't care about global or national political change, they don't owe anything to anybody. They only care about their own survival in a harshly competitive global system. Benefits only accrue if you participate."

This is an interesting statement but should not merely be asserted but rather proven. Groups like Al Qaeda and the IRA quite obviously have an ideology - and I find it intuitively questionable that covert type operations can be sustained for any period of time unless there is some sort of ideology to sustain it - be it the thugs of India, neoNazism, Trotskyism, the Jesuits in Elizabethan England, the desire to restore the Merovingians, or whatever.

In any event, who, precisely and empirically, the global guerillas are and what motivates them should be a top level question. Much of the reason why we are in so much trouble in Iraq is because we ignored this fundamental point. We need to deal with them as they actually are and not as we would like them to be.

[John Robb]

Duncan, I have over two years of posts on this weblog that prove the point made in this post. Nuff said.

Also, here's a general note. I really don't care about influencing policy makers nor will I waste any time trying to convince them. All I can do is provide individuals with what little I can offer as insight into what is going on.

[Cardenio]

An ideology is what you get when you have self interest extended beyond more people than can know each other by first names.

[Kim McDodge]

Let us go into that great biological dance called ublopia which is what happens when we fall from one thing to the next under the strictures that fawn ideologies that always seem to have mass graves as punctuation. We can do this in times of melting when we cannot find a handle much less a messiah. But this is just BS. Google and gaggle.

[joe]

John, and blog contributors, please look at this.
This is an excellent analysis of the cartoon crisis, a great example of Information Operations, and what should be a very sobering glimpse of the breadth and depth of the global jihad. Dr. Walid Phares provides the insight of an insider. PC treatment of this threat will be our downfall. Joe L

"The Danish cartoons were published in September 2005. Why did it take five months for what Western media dubbed "instant reactions to the insult" to materialize? One hundred and fifty days and nights are too long for a mass reaction to be described as "instant."

"Why didn't the protest explode until only few weeks ago? Because decisions were made, measurements were designed, and plans were laid out by the "Jihadi elites." The masses had to wait until the establishment decided to unleash the emotions. Every single regime and organization had to refine the expectations and project the dividends."

http://yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_31706.shtml

[MountainRunner]

John,
Nigeria is an interesting place with its federal system, LGAs, resources and technology initiatives. Considering their interesting history, US interest and growing Chinese influence and participation (Nigeria recently 're-asserted' its support for One-China), do you think the trajectory of these GGs will be any different?

[gmoke]

"One of the reasons for this is that the criminal economy -- oil bunkering (smuggling stolen oil), arms trafficking, corporate warfare, corruption, etc. -- gets positive feedback from disruption. This criminal "economy," which I call the bazaar, is an economic platform that connects transnational crime with local global guerrillas."

This reminds me of MS 13, the transnational gang that reportedly came out of the El Salvadoran war of the 1970s and 1980s and has spread to the US, first California now on the East coast as well. The nexus between religious/political/social terrorists and profit oriented criminals trafficking in drugs, people, and other varieties of contraband is an extremely salient touchpoint.

What happens if and when the African scam spammers get into identity theft and link up with the oil guerrillas?

[steve laudig]

“The more the state hollows out.” Call me naïve, it seems that the logic of unregulated economic enterprise, globalization, deregulation, modernism, stealing as economioc practice, as practiced, and encouraged, under the current U.S. administration [and those prior] drives “hollowization” of state. Bismark’s approach to state building would seem helpful. Identify the foundation of support for the opponents of the state and co-opt them.

The hollowing of the state is the stated goal, indeed inevitable result, of trade liberalization, national and international. An arms trade (driven and dominated by the Americans) that diverts resources to the stick will never result in the stability that the carrot of social welfare would provide for far less.

[John Robb]

Steve, something to think about: perhaps they are part of the same trend.

[Grimgrin]

One thing that I think is interesting is that all the places Global Guerilla activity seems to be occuring have a few features in common.

The first is that they are all single source economies. That is to say that one single resource/activity dominates the economic landscape. In Nigeria and Iraq, it's oil, in Afghanistan it's opium, in central america it's either cocaine or oil, depending on geography.

The second is that they all have infrastructure that is to borrow a term from graph theory, "sparsely connected". Generally there is only one connection between any two elements in the system. Wether it's one road between towns, one pipline between field and refinery, one port between refinery and the rest of the world.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughs on wether the same self sustaining bazzar could set itself up in a more complex system, where the initial outlays for disruption are going to be higher and the profits likely to be lower.

[S]

Perhaps you can comment on the alleged use of low tech swarming tactics the Iranians ar allegedly threatening to use as a weapon to attack US fleet and Hormuz. Seems relevant here.

[steve laudig]

insufficiently regulated economic activity [when accompanied by the subsidy of limited liability for ownership ownership] and backed with enough force to suppress worker and community protection looks Hobbesian from a distance, removes the glue of the perception of justice for the less powerful participants and feels like war to those compelled to participate in a money economy.