STARTING AN OPEN SOURCE WAR

Open source war is a byproduct of globalization. It different than conventional guerrilla warfare in that the guerrillas don't have a center of gravity (a unifying ideology). In open source war, the guerrillas aren't loyal to a single group but rather dozens of different groups, each with their own motivations for fighting. The benefits of this organizational type, once it reaches critical mass, are numerous (and once it is entrenched, it is almost impossible to defeat). The good thing is that it is difficult to initiate, cross the chasm in adoption, and reach critical mass.

Unfortunately, it appears that some groups have cracked the code on how to reliably build critical mass in open source warfare. Likely inadvertently, Che Guevara's foco insurgency has been adapted to reliably accomplish this. The elements used include:

• Plausible promise. An open source war is built on an idea that has wide acceptance. The key is finding the idea (eject the occupation or force a government to abandon an egregious exploitation of a target area -- see my notes on Indonesia in the post below). Once it is found, it needs to be turned into a plausible promise. This is accomplished by making successful attacks, an alpha release if you will, on the target. If done correctly, this proves that the target is vulnerable and the war has the possibility of being won.
• Crossing the chasm. They key to moving from a foco to a viable movement is to adopt open source behaviors. This includes sharing, trading, collaboration, and coordination with groups that are willing to participate but do not share the same motivations or loyalties as the initiating group. This is a very tough step, particularly for authoritarian groups. However, if it is accomplished the chasm in adoption is crossed very quickly. Operative tenet: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
• Critical mass. The final step is gaining sustainability, where the movement renews itself as a natural byproduct of its operations. The best method I've discovered is to disrupt critical infrastructure (see State Failure 101 for more). The disruption of infrastructure damages the economy in a way that forces new groups to develop, by driving people to primary loyalties in order to survive. Groups formed by these primary loyalties will actively participate in the conflict (either in support of the government as paramilitaries or against it as guerrillas). The interaction of these groups, particularly their excesses, provides a useful dynamic. Finally, it also fosters the development of a micro-economy (a bazaar) of guerrilla freelancers that provides a large pool of expertise that can be drawn upon to scale operations (transnational crime is a great way to pay for this).

Comments

[TM Lutas]

The Mozilla project is a great example of an entire bazaar infrastructure turning in unison in a completely different direction. The released code from Netscape was, en masse, abandoned. A new codebase was developed from scratch. There are a great number of bazaar projects that just simply die. Even major bazaar points can calve, merge, even die. There is no inevitability about any particular instantiation of the bazaar model, nor that the bazaar itself might not be satisfied at some point, drifting below the minimum point necessary for community viability.

The major difference is that while 99% of OSS projects fail (ie don't get to release/stable stage with a community big enough to carry the project forward) in the world of bits and bytes *it doesn't matter*. You can lose 99% of the time and if you have hundreds of thousands of projects and still have a pretty influential software ecology.

In real world warfare, you don't have hundreds of thousands of wars to pursue your model. You don't even have a thousand. There are maybe 60 conflicts worldwide that could adopt this methodology and you might not have a winner for the methodology in the bunch. It's very unlikely that you'll have more than one.

I find it much more likely that, over time, rich adventurers will simply move in to become king of their own little patch of ungoverned land. They will simply build a wall and take territory, carefully controlling immigration from the surrounding ungoverned population. If they behave otherwise within the rules, they will eventually garner international recognition and the "success" of state destruction will be rolled back bit by bit as adventurers impose order and re-enroll the zone into the international system.

[Curtis Gale Weeks]

Tim, that sounds about right.

Initiating system perturbations usually precedes the inauguration of new systems; the initial disruptions are revolutionary in aspect, but the disruptor will tend toward organization (order out of chaos) after reaching a critical mass, in order to make achievements lasting.

Of course, once the disruptor has achieved some formal organization, new groups can form opposing it, instituting system disruptions of their own. In order to forestall the reemergence of broad system perturbations, the original revolutionary may seek allies able to help in the stabilization of the new system -- i.e., the original revolutionary may reconnect with larger, relatively stable systems. And, at some point in real-world scenarios, a significant portion of the populace may grow very tired of system disruptions and revolutionary activity, leading to support from within even for systems which are not particularly loved (for a time, at least.) Support from within can take many forms; it is essentially the emergence of anti-disruption forces, or a natural opposition to the emergence of disrupting agents.

The "plausible promise" mentioned by John usually has an end-point, even if it is at first abstract or vague. If that end-point is reached, new systems may settle. It is at this point that loosely-connected groups with wildly varying concepts of the Promise may begin to bicker, necessitating broken promises. Quite possibly, one domineering (or simply stronger) group or set of groups may begin to eliminate the remaining unsatisfied groups. So much depends on the shape that Promise takes; the longer it remains vague, the greater the chance that disruption will continue to emerge, in a quick-cycling, almost bipolar manner.

[Turloch O'Tierney]

Open source warfare is important as secrecy in methods is a hinderance to getting people to sign up, and does not help the groups security.

The idea is to get everyone up to a line and move one step past it. The occupiers cannot lock everyone up.

People will and have got killed but one needs to show up the oppression and the oppressor for what they are.

The group can splinter and become a multi headed dragon, it is the ability to carry the activists that give the groups political wing power.

I confuse the activists and the populace.

[Arherring]

First, I am of the opinion that there is no enemy that lacks a ‘center of gravity’. It may not be an ideology. It may be something logistic. It may be something in its communications. In any case, there has to be a piece or combination of pieces that, once removed, causes the enemy to be ineffective.

I also think it is possible to directly attack each of the factors for building an open source guerilla movement listed here.

Plausible Promise: (Finding a unifying goal)
An idea is vulnerable to attack. It may be hijacked. Another, unpopular, idea may be directly linked to it. Another group may be formed to accomplish an idea before an open source guerilla movement can gain momentum. All of this may be done by little more than a successful propaganda campaign.

Crossing the Chasm: (Moving to open source warfare)
“They key to moving from a foco to a viable movement is to adopt open source behaviors. This includes sharing, trading, collaboration, and coordination with groups that are willing to participate but do not share the same motivations or loyalties as the initiating group”

Groups may be prevented from adopting open source behaviors in a variety of ways. Propaganda, false-flag operations, infiltration and other similar tactics can prevent these groups from forming the necessary bonds and even cause them to attack each other.

Critical Mass: (Disruption of critical infrastructure to gain sustainability)
One way to defeat this is to build your own security forces and build infrastructure faster than it can be destroyed. Also, as for system disruption causing new groups to develop, it is entirely plausible for a government to guide these emerging groups to serve its own ends in ways as complex as serving in a paramilitary organization, or as simple as a neighborhood watch with an anonymous tip-line (or reward driven tip-line) in order to improve surveillance or infrastructure assets.

In short, I am not going to buy the concept of a successful open source guerilla movement at this point. Part of the strength of a 4GW organization is its sense of purpose and dedication to its ideology. For individual guerillas with different ideologies to work together even if they disagree strikes me as improbable. In fact, the cynicism required for such a thing would make them less like dedicated ideological warriors and more like itinerant mercenaries. It seems to be very unusual that multiple 4GW organizations with different ideologies can come together against a common foe and not have that actually become a liability. It opens up too many avenues of attack for a determined opponent to exploit.

[Cardenio]

Ideology is " what do I get out of this ? " and that's why it works, from say ' the finanncer ' down to the ' suicide bomber '. When everybody gets a lil' somethin', you've an ideology.

[Marcello]

"All of this may be done by little more than a successful propaganda campaign."

Succesful propaganda does not come easy.You cannot simply snap the finger and have people believe what you want them to believe no matter what.German WW2 propaganda worked well in Germany.It did not work all that well in the occupied territories.Insofar I can gauge from polls etc american propaganda in the arab world is not faring better.

"Groups may be prevented from adopting open source behaviors in a variety of ways. Propaganda, false-flag operations, infiltration and other similar tactics can prevent these groups from forming the necessary bonds and even cause them to attack each other."

Again easier said than done.In order to do that you need to know where you are putting your hands into.Good intelligence on the iraqi groups does not seem to be abundant.

"One way to defeat this is to build your own security forces and build infrastructure faster than it can be destroyed."

Basic Warfare 101
Blowing up stuff is easier and faster than building it.

"Also, as for system disruption causing new groups to develop, it is entirely plausible for a government to guide these emerging groups to serve its own ends in ways as complex as serving in a paramilitary organization"

Which is what is already being done in Iraq.
However "loyalist" paramilitaries have tons of drawbacks.

"In fact, the cynicism required for such a thing would make them less like dedicated ideological warriors and more like itinerant mercenaries."

Not 4GW but the nazi and the communists in WW2 had no problems collaborating even while looking forward at destroying each other.The western powers supported soviet russia.

[D Thinker]

I don't believe in revolution in it's essence, people just want change. Things turn or revolve-that is it.

[John Robb]

The idea of 4GW groups coming together into a vibrant open source community isn't speculation, it's being proved daily. Additionally, the mechanism of growth detailed here actually worked in Iraq. The war reached critical mass in the face of US opposition.

During the critical early phases, there was strong denial by the US military and political leadership that an insurgency even existed (due to hubris and poor analysis).

[Adam]

TM,

I think you've got a little too excited about the IT term open source compared to the political military one. Personally I think that the description "come as you are war" might be better, but its a lot less pithy and marketable than John's phrase, so who am I to argue? Anyway, open source warfare as seen in Iraq today is the reverse of John Lennon: What if they gave a war and *everybody* came?

"The Mozilla project is a great example of an entire bazaar infrastructure turning in unison in a completely different direction. The released code from Netscape was, en masse, abandoned. A new codebase was developed from scratch. There are a great number of bazaar projects that just simply die."

So what? Both projects provided the same thing. In this case multiple projects provide a guerilla war. If you're arguing that a war isn't being fought because of some IT analogy then there is a job in the US government or Heritage Foundation waiting for you as they're desperate to avoid using guerilla war (warning, that joke is now around 2 years old, the new term they're desperate to avoid is civil war, and on present form in two more years the new no-no phrase will be complete bloodbath).

"Even major bazaar points can calve, merge, even die. There is no inevitability about any particular instantiation of the bazaar model, nor that the bazaar itself might not be satisfied at some point, drifting below the minimum point necessary for community viability."

It takes about 3 people to do a good solid guerilla bombing and by definition there aren't many users to keep happy. Current estimates for Iraqi resistance strength go from 0 (Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney) to between 20k and 160k plus (everyone else), to the entire population (the US Marine Corps).

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002876683_civilians20.html

On that basis I'm not sure that worrying about community viability is a major concern of the global guerilla community right now. Heck, even Bin Laden isn't worried by lack of community, if we were to do a poll today I'm pretty sure that Bin Laden would be way more popular than Dubya in every Middle Eastern nation.

"In real world warfare, you don't have hundreds of thousands of wars to pursue your model."

You have an awful lot of skirmishes though. Perhaps the motto of Open Source warfare could be: Another day, another IED, another chance to shine. That said that Iraq shows that experience from Chechenya, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Palastine is being used.

"You don't even have a thousand. There are maybe 60 conflicts worldwide that could adopt this methodology and you might not have a winner for the methodology in the bunch."

Given that the US military is trying to work out how it can get whats left of its butt out of Iraq as fast as possible I'd say that the implications of this methodology are, at the very least, pretty damn impressive:

US military budget $600bn, Iraq's $1bn.
US total spend estimated at $2,000bn (that's two thousand billion dollars, which is real money). Iraqs? Who knows. But I'd bet you'd not get much change out of the cost of a single stealth bomber, a movie, and a packet of chips (Northern English joke).
US population 300 million, Iraq 25 million.
US advanced technical industrial nation, Iraq oil monoculture.
US highly trained professional soldiers, Iraqi conscripts.

Just looking at the numbers its hardly self evident that Iraq wins within 3 years. Thats not a bad record for a small nation facing invasion from a superpower.

If we assume that the methodology doesn't count then the only alternative answer is that a combination of magic pixies and lack of belief back home made the US soldiers lose. In ten years time the far right US press will be saying things like if only people had clicked their heels and said that "there's no place like victory in Iraq"...

"It's very unlikely that you'll have more than one."

Currently we have Nigeria, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palastine, Somalia, Lebanon... All seven exhibting some or all of John's symptoms. And I'd guess that we can add Iran after the Americans invade. We could throw in Indonesia and Thailand.

"I find it much more likely that, over time, rich adventurers will simply move in to become king of their own little patch of ungoverned land. They will simply build a wall and take territory, carefully controlling immigration from the surrounding ungoverned population."

Sorry, my jaw dropped on reading this. Is this a game of Civilisation 4 or D&D? Local warlords may try and take over things but unless they've already got some legal rights or a whole bunch of gunmen its a little bit difficult for them. Moqtadr al-Sadr did what he did with the support of ike minded clerics, his local community, his fathers reputation, and a brass neck about a mile long.

Even with an estimated 8,000 troops Bin Laden never took over anything in Afghanistan, he was at best an ally of the Taliban - one the Taliban were quite willing to sell out by the way. I suppose you might say that the Taliban were such a group of invading barbarians (perhaps on the Raging Hordes setting) but they were popular religious students, backed by a popular Islamic power, working against national chaos through - as far as possible - local authorities, wandering tribes they most certainly were not.

[Arherring]

Marcello:

Nothing in warfare is ever ‘Easy’ except losing, which is mostly what our armed forces did immediately after they broke drove into Baghdad and toppled the Iraqi government. And the reason they were losing is because they weren’t fighting the right war. In any case, they didn’t have the right tools for that job anyway.

No, propaganda is not ‘Easy,’ I never said it was, but it has been around for a very long time and there are many people who are incredibly good at it. Once something is entrenched, propaganda against it must be a long-term effort. Propaganda is, however, much more effective when used pre-emptively.

Yes, it is much easier to blow things up than build them. But, to give a very basic example, people would much rather their lights work than sit in the dark. If those people can be convinced that they would have lights if guerillas didn’t keep blowing up the sub-station, you deprive the guerillas of one of the things that makes them effective, the support of the populace.

Yes, paramilitaries have drawbacks. Using them must be weighed against the good they will do versus the harm. Warfare is always about calculated risk.

John Robb:

“The idea of 4GW groups coming together into a vibrant open source community isn't speculation, it's being proved daily. Additionally, the mechanism of growth detailed here actually worked in Iraq. The war reached critical mass in the face of US opposition.
During the critical early phases, there was strong denial by the US military and political leadership that an insurgency even existed (due to hubris and poor analysis). “

I am going to disagree that Iraq has a true open-source guerilla movement. Yes, I will concede that there is cross-pollination in IED design and guerilla tactics, but I don’t believe the guerillas there are actually ‘working together’ to the extent you seem to believe. Part of what you are seeing is the progression of Darwinian natural selection in an evolving organism. The Sunnis are attacking the Shia and Kurdish and even other Sunni collaborators. The Shias are attacking the Sunnis in revenge. The Kurds are being attacked by anybody with a grudge. Everybody is attacking the Coalition military and Iraqi security forces for any number of reasons. Add to that various groups running about grabbing people off the street either for ransom or to make some kind of political point in the world media. In any case, much of this chaos could have been prevented if the forces in Iraq had been ready to fight the peace and / or prepared to crack down on any insurgency before it entrenched itself. The denial of the very existence of an insurgency proves that the U.S. / Coalition military and political leadership never had the chance to attempt some of options I have outlined. This allowed the guerillas to work together to the extent that they are and entrench themselves in the areas they have chosen, reaching critical mass before or not long after any kind of truly effective Coalition response. Had the coalition forces been prepared to fight a preemptive campaign against the insurgency I think the picture in Iraq would be very different.

Bottom line, fighting your open-source guerillas can be done. Their critical vulnerabilities are inherent in the very process of their organization should it successfully occur. True, the opposing force must be numerous, dedicated, skilled and preferably ruthless, but I believe it can be done. However, once an insurgency is entrenched, it is an insurgency like any other and you are in it for the long haul. You will either lose like in Vietnam, or after years and years it will fade away to near-irrelevancy like ETA and the IRA.

[captbob]

Cute concept, but I don't think it works. Seems like you're trying to shoehorn an interesting idea into another, totally incompatible idea.
If there's an open source war, does it use a Creative Commons license variant or GPL? Maybe the MIT or Berkely licenses are better fits (because war could be for profit or for fun).

[iheartcars]

cute concept? Since when could guerrilla warfare be considered cute? Anyways-I think it's incredibly plausible. Nothing's more uniting than a common enemy!

[kobm rpqyjuo]

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