Global Guerrillas

JOURNAL: A Competition for Resilience

The typical governmental planning process is to create a committee, hire some consultants, and gather the usual contractors (to share in the spoils). Of course, the result is almost always subpar. To break this cycle of failure, New York City has decided to use transparency as a means of process improvement. To wit: it's launched a design competition to find the best solutions for provisional housing (which can be used after a disaster to house displaced citizens):

The New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) is sponsoring a design competition to enhance the City's ability to provisionally house residents after a major coastal storm.

Some valuable philosophy on how to get things done

Here's three simple insights for organizational success in a chaotic, complex, and hyper-competitive environment (and a way to use the wisdom of crowds to unearth talent that you need to thrive):

• The best people (to solve any given problem) don't work for your organization. A corollary to this: if you don't have the best people working for you, you will fail.
• Use transparency and the marketplace to find the best people located outside your organization (simple test: whose ideas capture the greatest mindshare within your organization?). NY City's contest is a great example of using transparency as a means of finding great talent.
• Buy all of the time they have available.

NOTE (on when being good isn't enough): Another trend is that an increasing number of problems are information/knowledge intensive. This means that an old rule from the software world applies: a couple of great programmers are more valuable than a room full of good ones. Apply this rule to any complex information-intense problem you face and you will get much faster, cheaper, and better results.

JOURNAL: Slowing The Endless War

In another sign that war is going private at an accelerated rate (beyond Iraq), the Pentagon's Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office recently announced that it was offering $15 billion (over 5 years) -- this is likely to expand as Mexico devolves -- in contracts. While a debate over the efficacy of this would be interesting, it would likely not be fruitful.

A more actionable approach would be to focus on simple stop-gap measures (bureaucratic roadblocks) that may slow the growth in inefficiency, increase the effectiveness of oversight, and reduce the potential of a private standing army. One such measure is to halt the large defense contractors from vertically integrating their current portfolio into private military operations. In essence, if your employees pull triggers or operate vehicles, your company (or a company that owns any portion of your company) cannot bid on DoD/State/etc. contracts that are outside this core operational activity. Another is to put PMC (if it takes US government dollars for operational activities) employees, including foreign nationals, under a modified version of the UCMJ (the military justice system) for the duration of the contract.

UPDATE: Reihan, over at the Atlantic magazine, has some excellent thoughts on the privatization of warfare.

JOURNAL: Portable Herfing

Here's a good technical description of a functional HERF (high energy radio frequency) device from Eureka Aerospace that can shut down microprocessors in cars at a distance of 50 meters (from a pursuit vehicle or from the side of the road). This device is currently being developed for the LA Police department. I suspect with some modification of the antenna (the critical part for a HERF device), could be used for a wide variety of microprocessors. We are going to see lots of more of this device once it gets into the field.

JOURNAL: An Inconvenient Truth about Private Military Companies

"If we drive out or expel this company [Blackwater] immediately there will be a security vacuum..." Iraqi government spokesman to Reuters.

An inconvenient truth missing in the debate over Blackwater (which is currently in trouble with the Iraqi government over a shooting incident), is that the US military is completely dependent on private military companies (PMCs). This dependency can't be wished away or reversed. If anything, given the trend lines, PMCs will increasingly replace conventional military forces well into the future. The reasons are simple. Private military companies are:

• Efficient. If you count the costs of 8 to 9 support personnel (in the DoD's extremely long bureaucratic "tail") needed to field every US soldier in the field and state-side rotations, the high pay for individual private military employees is a bargain (certainly less than half the cost for a government soldier, not even counting the savings associated with medical care/retirements).
• Scalable. There are currently 20,000 PMC trigger pullers in Iraq. These men are guarding facilities and key people across the country. This is likely nearly the same number of trigger pullers (as opposed to support personnel) as the entire US military currently has in the country. Without these men, the US military would barely be able to field a force large enough to patrol Baghdad.
• Contingent. Unlike the hordes of bureaucratic Defense contractors that will permanently infest the halls of the DoD, private military companies field mission specific employees. IF there is a withdrawal from Iraq, there will be bust in the PMC industry as firms quickly shed employees.

JOURNAL: DIY Hi Def Recon

Chris Anderson (the editor of Wired magazine) has been pushing the envelope of do-it-yourself reconnaissance using low cost UAVs, stitching software (in conjunction with Google Earth), a GPS datalogger ($99), and digital cameras (the Canon PowerShot SD650, at 6 MP). Yet another global guerrilla (for good) tinkering project for applications in security and disaster response.

A GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEMPUNKT

On June 22, 2006 the New York Times (Lichtblau and Risen) broke the story that the US government had a deal with Swift (a Belgium-based company that routes global transactions -- $6 trillion is transferred through 11 million transactions between 7,800 member banks/brokerages a day) to get data on transactions that may be related to terrorism -- it is the "gold" data on global financial flows. While the leaked story was certainly a blow to efforts to track large money transfers related to terrorism (under the assumption that these transactions would flow to the informal banking system), the more interesting aspect of this was that it put a focus on Swift as a global financial systempunkt.

The one thing we should be learning from attacks (like the one that almost succeeded at global liquid fuels systempunkt at Abqaiq) is that non-state enemies are searching for ways to manufacture black swans -- events that defy prediction -- that sweep the world with disruption/chaos. For the financial system, Wall Street and many of the more visible locations we normally associate with global financial flows are relatively difficult to disrupt. The real global systempunkt for financial flows are in the sleepy, quiet, and relatively unknown back-office systems like that of Swift (here's their US operations facility).

NOTE: There's a common misperception among old guard warfare theorists that disruption doesn't produce any meaningful results. The most potent evidence for this line of reasoning is the post WW2 strategic bombing survey (which demonstrated that the nation-state can mobilize sufficiently to neutralize the deleterious effects of large scale disruption). Unfortunately, this conventional wisdom doesn't apply to the modern context. Several important factors have changed:

• Most conflicts are now fought while in a peacetime posture. The nation-state isn't mobilized and the environment is business as usual. This radically limits what the nation-state can accomplish/do. Citizens will not accept pain or sacrifice and assume the government will continue to deliver growth and prosperity. Any deviation will be punished at the ballot box.
• The global economic environment is viciously competitive. Weakness, brought on by disruption, will be punished quickly and a loss in wealth can be substantial. For example: the recent attacks in Mexico have generated over $2 billion in damage to corporations currently based in the country. This is 10-20% of Mexico's entire foreign direct investment (FDI) flow. If more attacks occur, that FDI could quickly reverse and quickly put Mexico's economy into deep trouble.
• It can put nation-states onto a path of financial ruin. Global competition is forcing nation-states to run increasingly lean/efficient budgets. Increases in tax rates can force companies and individuals to flee (movement in a globalized world is quick). Given this situation, nation-states can quickly find that open-ended defense expenditures (to compensate for disruptions) a path to financial ruin. For example: Despite the fact that 40% of Mexico's federal budget is funded by oil revenues that are in a steep decline (due to past peak drop offs in its oil fields), the country has increased defense spending by 24% to fight narco-guerrillas and other internal foes.

MEXICO: The ROI (return on investment) for disruption

"Investment likes silence" Mexican Economy Secretary Carlos Arce on the negative impact these attacks could have on foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico.

New ROI estimates for the September attacks on Mexican natural gas pipelines:

• Over 2,500 business will suffer severe harm in 11 of Mexico's 32 states. 1,100 companies have shut down production. Key industries impacted: Auto, glass, food, and cement. For example: Volkswagen (1,780 cars a day, 81% of which is for export).
• Revised estimate of $200 million a day in costs.
• Impact expected to last for a week.

ROI for an attack that cost less than estimated $10,000 to accomplish? Rough estimate: 1.4 million percent. Welcome to modern war.

JOURNAL: DIY systems disruption in the UK (fiber hack)

Here are some good photos of systems disruption that targeted CCTV, burglar alarms, and other information systems in the UK last year. Simple and effective counter to ubiquitous surveillance.

Armoured fibre-optic and copper cabling, designed to prevent damage from accidents and petty vandalism, were severed, most probably using industrial cable cutters and saws.

TARGET: MEXICO

More global guerrilla activity in Mexico. Six new attacks by an unknown guerrilla group (an earlier claim by a leftist group was likely a false front) destroyed five PEMEX natural gas pipelines (likely through a timed detonation). 12,000 people were evacuated due to fire risk. This follows on the heals of the July pipeline attack that disrupted operations at 1,200 companies (including Honda, Nissan, and Kelloggs). If the earlier pattern of embedded timer-triggered explosives holds, there will be more explosions next week. Is this the start of the "Breaking Mexico" scenario? The sophistication of the earlier attack (given that it targeted critical valves -- systempunkts) and the ability to repeat the assault (so far, nobody has been caught) indicates that it has the potential to be:

Here's on potential method of how it could happen. Analysis of critical Mexican infrastructure reveals a critical flaw. Due to its history as an oil exporter, nearly all domestic fuels and most of its electricity is generated from oil and natural gas delivered by pipelines radiating from the oil producing region in the southeastern corner of the country. Low tech attacks along a 300-400 mile stretch of pipeline would quickly starve the country of the oil needed to generate electricity and refine fuels (the current system has been inadvertently built to maximize cascading failures across multiple infrastructures if properly disrupted). Further, analysis of the pipeline infrastructure would also quickly reveal junctions and pumping equipment that would be extremely difficult to replace (systempunkts). As we have seen in Iraq, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, etc. these anonymous attacks could be frequent, effective, and nearly impossible to interdict. They would also result in an immediate expansion of black markets for fuels imported from the US, generating a useful feedback loop for continued disruption.

Given the level of gang and criminal violence currently challenging the Mexican state [which has been militarized and thereby converted into a war between the state and non-state groups] for supremacy, there is already a large subset of actors that could quickly seize upon this opportunity. Their access to arms (often much better than the Mexican military) and to sources of income independent of the state's function (smuggling of all types into the US) would allow them to thrive at double and triple digit growth rates as state power began to fail. They also have access to a huge pool of people that would be easily enticed to disrupt infrastructure for a few dollars (enabling the costs inflicted by disruption to top $200,000 for every $1 invested in the activity). In short, the dynamic that is produced would be similar to the models of state failure we have seen elsewhere. It would also be almost impossible to stop once it becomes entrenched.

NOTE: the cascade of failure from these attacks has forced Volkswagen to close its car assembly plant in Puebla for 5 days -- at a loss of 7,200 assembled vehicles. In a JIT (just in time) global economy, the impact from systems disruption can travel quickly.

UNLEASHING THE DOGS OF WAR

Zogby Poll: A majority of Americans - 54% - believe the United States has not lost the war in Iraq.

John Robb: "In 4th generation warfare (guerrilla warfare), the war typically ends when one side, usually the nation-state, suffers moral collapse and loses the will to fight (ala Vietnam) -- this is in contrast to a collapse in means due to attrition (WWI) or a collapse in ability due to disruption (WWII)."

If you think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will end with this US presidency, think again. These wars will likely outlast the next several Presidents. The old Vietnam era formulas don't apply anymore. The reason is that the moral weaknesses that have traditionally limited the state's ability to fight long guerrilla wars have dissipated, and modern states may now have the ability and the desire to wage this type of war indefinitely. Here's what changed:

• A radical improvement in marketing war. The US military learned from Vietnam that it needed to be much better at marketing wars to domestic audiences in order to prevent moral collapse. It has gotten better at this, and that information operations/strategic communications capability has reached a new level of effectiveness with General Petraeus. Despite this improvement, the military and its civilian leadership still don't have the ability to garner wide domestic support for guerrilla wars beyond the initial phases. However, they do have the ability to maintain support within a small but vocal base -- as seen in the use of weblogs to generate grass roots support for war -- and the capability to trump those that call for withdrawal (by keeping the faintest glimmer of potential success alive and using fear/uncertainty/doubt FUD to magnify the consequences of defeat). In our factional political system, that is sufficient to prevent withdrawal.
  
  
• The threat that justifies the state and the perpetual war that codifies it. The ongoing threat of terrorism has become the primary justification for the existence of a strong nation-state (and its greatest instrument of power, the military) at the very moment it finds itself in decline due to globalization (or more accurately: irrelevance). The militarization of "the war against terrorism" reverses this process of dissipation, since it can be used to make the case for the acquisition of new powers, money, and legitimacy (regardless of party affiliation) -- for example, everything from increases in conventional military spending to the application of technical reconnaissance on domestic targets. Of course, this desire for war at the political level is complimented by the huge number of contractors (and their phalanxes of lobbyists) attracted by the potential of Midas level profits from the privatization of warfare. The current degree of corporate participation in warfare makes the old "military industrial complex" look tame in comparison.
  
  
• The privatization of conflict. This is likely the critical factor that makes perpetual warfare possible. For all intents and purposes, the US isn't at war. The use of a professional military in combination with corporate partners has pushed warfare to the margins of political/social life. A war's initiation and continuation is now merely a function of our willingness/ability to finance it. Further, since privatization mutes moral opposition to war (i.e. "our son isn't forced to go to war to die") the real damage at the ballot box is more likely to impact those that wish to end its financing. To wit: every major presidential candidate in the field today now gives his/her full support to the continuation of these wars.