JOURNAL: Robert Kaplan

The author Robert Kaplan provides another argument in support of the US embrace of open source warfare in this month's Atlantic -- read "It's the Tribes, Stupid."

Iraq has had three elections that have led to chaos. Bringing society out of that chaos has meant a recourse not to laws or a constitution, but to blood ties. The Anbar Awakening has been a rebuff not only to the extremism of al-Qaeda, but to democracy itself.

Kaplan's argument is based more on multi-culturalism than the decline of the state.

Do sub-state groups that have organic legitimacy have a place in a new global order, or will they always be outsiders fighting to hollow it out?

Comments

[zenpundit]

"Do sub-state groups that have organic legitimacy have a place in a new global order, or will they always be outsiders fighting to hollow it out?"

No, some of these groups are "catalyst" minorities who provide both order and dynamism to a larger, less advanced, majority culture.

Case in point Singapore's Chinese population under Lee Kwan Yew the last half-century. The ethnic Germans played a similar role in Tsarist Russia.

[drydiggins]

"Do sub-state groups that have organic legitimacy have a place in a new global order, or will they always be outsiders fighting to hollow it out?"

Reading John Robb and Col. Pat Lang's sites is a humbling reminder of my crappy education. (Most of the comments serve the same purpose, witness zenpundit.) That said...

Federalism, anyone?

[USMC8652]

It is interesting to watch the DON align its organizational interest (a bigger fleet) with the strategic requirements of the next few decades (growth of a brown water navy and ASW). The USAF's attempts to remain relevant in the 4G environment are both awkward and amusing.

[Cavolonero]

This is why we need clones ! Send in the clones !

[AE]

USMC8652,

Have you read the Air Force's new manual for ASW? They try hard but really miss the point.

[USMC8652]

@AE,

It is pretty clear just from the forward of AFDD 2-3 alone that from an institutional standpoint they don't understand what the requirements of Irregular and Asymmetric Warfare are. While it is true that air power is important to the prosecution of a counter-insurgency, there is no real requirement for a separate service to provide the necessary airlift and air cover. In fact, the Air Force has traditionally done a poor job of providing the required air support to ground forces (especially in counter insurgency efforts), which is why the Marine Corps and the Army both refuse to turn over air assets to the USAF.

When the USAF CoS writes "Irregular warfare is sufficiently different from traditional conflict to warrant a separate keystone doctrine document," he means "everyone else has been paying attention to this for years, so we better take a stab at it to protect our turf." I challenge anyone from the USAF to make a cogent argument that explains how the F-35 or F-22 can provide better direct CAS than a A-10.

[subadei]

USMC8652,

See this. [http://www.strategypage.com/military_photos/2007117193416.aspx]

I think it relates to your position. The USAF does certainly appear to be worried about their relevance.

[Gunnar Peterson]

I guess Kaplan decided its easier to copy Steven Pressfield than come up with his own ideas?

http://www.stevenpressfield.com/content/op-ed1.asp

Anyhow, if you are going to copy someone you can do a *lot* worse than Pressfield

[USMC8652]

@subadei,

Something like this?

http://www.strategic-air-command.com/aircraft/attack/a1h_skyraider.htm

Maybe the USAF could dust off the plans for it.

[TSparks]

Using the current situation in Iraq and the Anbar Awakening as an example is disingenuous. The US has decided to back there very insurgents we fought earlier in Iraq because they are opposed to the Shia (Iran)who the US has decide is our next enemy. Our enemy's enemy becomes our friend.

[Marcello]

"Do sub-state groups that have organic legitimacy have a place in a new global order, or will they always be outsiders fighting to hollow it out?"

Well, first of all if the trends are not reversed we are going to get very little "order" to start with. Then once you find yourself with "sub-state groups that have organic legitimacy"
you cannot wish them away, so it is a foregone conclusion they will have some place to be in the general scheme of the things. I mean, genocide, ethnical cleansing and concentrations camps seem still workable solutions to an extent but do we really want to get there? I hope not.
As far as I am concerned "sub-state groups that have organic legitimacy" are a problem at best and a mortal threat at worst.
Even in the case of subnational group being actually more productive than the rest of the population it still a matter of division and distrust.
The problem is that even in reasonably good situations all it takes is a few moronic politicians or bad circumstances to leap into the death spiral of reciprocal distrust and putting the loyalty to the group above to one to the State. Then with the teqniques we have examined in this blog even comparatively small groups can drag a state into the gutter. Then all you are left with are repression on a stalinesque scale or other similar unpalatable options.

[Duncan Kinder]

"Do sub-state groups that have organic legitimacy have a place in a new global order, or will they always be outsiders fighting to hollow it out?"

I, for one, am not sure what these terms mean. Would the Hanseatic League be a "sub-state group"? What is "new global order?" ( For that matter, what is "order"?) What is an "insider"? and "outsider". What if I am a secessionist and just want to bug out? (Any club that would accept me as a member, I wouldn't want to join, etc. ).

Destructiveness and creativity are often the flip sides of each other. To carve a wood statute, I must cut down a tree.

My survey of history suggests that cultural achievement and political comfort rarely go hand in hand. The glory that was Greece was more creative yet more unstable than the prosaic, stable, repressive grandeur that was Rome. The dull British have been far better governed than the exuberant French. The great period of Chinese philosophy was known as the "Waring States Period" while the great period of Chinese poetry took place during the An Lu-shan Rebellion, a horrific civil war that nearly destroyed the Tang Dynasty.

There are various reasons for this: Necessity is the mother of invention; these are times that try one's soul, etc. Artists are "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," so you are asking for trouble if, for some reason, they wind up in charge.

Conversely, order is repressive. I am not really interested in your expressing yourself by your conducting a drag race down the Interstate. When Salvador Dali threw bricks through a window, he also created a mess. The Beasleys in Harry Potter are not just nasty; they are bores. Bruce Schneier is now discussing the "War on the Unexpected." Any good art is "Unexpected."

So whatever the politics of the upcoming era may be, we are apt also to have quite a bit of creativity. Enjoy the ride.

[adam]

Duncan and Marcello,

Superb posts, both of you.

I did think about rattling along about Yugoslavia and the Velvet Revolutions, but frankly they made the point better than I ever could.

[Marcello]

"So whatever the politics of the upcoming era may be, we are apt also to have quite a bit of creativity."

A few weeks ago I was about to ask my superiors at the museum I work at if it could be possible to dispose of what seemed a pile of wrappings and similar rubbish forgotten in a corner. It was only at the last minute I noticed the plaque which denoted it as a very recent artwork.
Whatever we are going to be up with, it does not look pretty...

[adam]

Marcello,

As my old boss used to say: "roses need shit".

Mind you, Harry Lime had it better:

"in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance."

"In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Of course what Harry doesn't care to mention is that most people, if given the choice, would have rather lived in Switzerland - if only for the not being raped, tortured and robbed option - things which were definitely in vogue during the Italian renaissance.