ON OPEN SOURCE GUERRILLA VANGUARDS

NOTE: Working through some thoughts on warfare theory in this post. Please excuse the mess, it's a work in progress.

In the traditional fourth generation war of the Maoist model, an insurgency/revolution begins with the formation of a guerrilla vanguard. This vanguard's goal is to create a moral crisis that incapacitates the government. To accomplish this, the vanguard simultaneously:

• expands the military organization through the training of cadres,
• cultivates a political organization that can indoctrinate the population, and
• generates attacks that sow menace, uncertainty, and mistrust within the government (to create numerous non-cooperative centers of gravity).

Once the moral crisis is of a sufficient magnitude and the political alternative has sufficient support, the government is replaced by moral judo -- the current government melts away as the guerrillas become regular troops and march into the major cities. In essence, a non-functional hierarchy is replaced with the functional hierarchy of the revolutionary movement.

A Revision to a Central Assumption of Moral Conflict

A central assumption upon which this method of moral conflict is based is:

The historical trend is towards increasing levels of centralized hierarchy and the natural formation of complex states.

This assumption, valid since the treaties of Westphalia, may not be true anymore. The advent of a global economic superinfrastructure and new technologies of individual super-empowerment (in sum, a new global "platform") tends to fragment organizational hierarchies and replace them with more robust, resilient, and efficient decentralized alternatives. This logic reflects what we see in going on in public and private life, it should apply to warfare as well. Therefore, the new assumption for moral conflict should be:

The historical trend, since the Millennium, is towards increasing levels of decentralization and the dissolution of complex states.

This completely changes, willingly or not, the role of the guerrilla vanguard in any insurgency. These changes include:

• an easier path towards the creation of a moral crisis that causes the state/government to lose legitimacy but
• an inability to generate a military and political hierarchy that will serve as an alternative to the failed government.

As a result, a moral crisis will not depose the government. Instead, it will create a hollow state that is a government in name only (i.e. the Mayor of Kabul or the Green Zone). The crisis will also enable a perpetual insurgency composed of many small groups, each of insufficient hierarchical weight to replace the government but in combination able to keep the government in perpetual failure.

A Reprieve for the Foco?

So, what is the role of the guerrilla vanguard in this new context? It is very similar to the role proposed by Che Guevarra in his theoretical and experimental work on foco insurgency. In a Che's foco insurgency, the guerrilla vanguard is focused completely on the attacks that are necessary to precipitate a moral crisis. Specifically, the vanguard forgoes traditional political indoctrination and cadre expansion in favor of the disruption necessary to delegitimize the government. In Che's model, when the moral crisis was finally precipitated by the vanguard, an organic uprising would rise to replace it with a morally pure form of governance (without the corruption that the formation of a shadow government and party bureaucracy would entail). Needless to say, Che's utopian theory of for a foco insurgency didn't work as anticipated. During the era in which he promulgated his theories, only the shadow hierarchy of the revolutionary movement could replace the failing hierarchy of the government. This mistake cost Che his life.

However, within the new context, the foco insurgency can work. Small super-empowered vanguards can, with the use of systems disruption to amplify effort, delegitimize weakened governmental hierarchies and force them into the box of hollow states. However, instead of a pure organic government envisioned by Che, an organic open source insurgency, composed of a plethora of small super-empowered groups (that appeal to primary loyalties of tribe, cast, clan, family, gang, ideology, etc.), form in the vacuum. This open source insurgency will only bring fragmentation and perpetual conflict. The vanguard's role, is merely as a catalyst for its formation.

Comments

[Allen Varney]

The case is unproven that nation-states worldwide are trending, as a historical process, toward decentralization. The European Union seems likely to strengthen in the foreseeable term, as does China. The breakup of the USSR arguably didn't derive (primarily) from the decentralizing forces you describe, and Russia's current trend is debatable. The rise of international trade agreements and commodity cartels is compatible with historical growth of state complexity, a la the Hanseatic League.

It's just as useful to redefine the "trend toward complexity" as "higher-tech states assimilating lower-tech states," for definitions of "tech" that include the current tools of open-source warfare. The trend, then, is toward reducing the tech imbalance between monolithic nation-states and the global guerrillas who fight them. Nation-states that evolve resilient low-level defense mechanisms will avoid the putative "trend" toward decentralization. These mechanisms aren't inherently incompatible with a strong state, are they?

[John Robb]

Perhaps the case against states is still in debate, however, the larger trend across industries and social life shows decentralization is on the march. I wouldn't think that states, as a form of human organization are immune to that trend line.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that states are going away. I am saying that they are relatively more fragile than they were in the last century -- more vulnerable to non-cooperative centers of gravity. Also, that weak states under pressure from vanguards are more likely to fragment than they are to reform.

[yacheritsi]

It seems to me that there is a group of interventions at which, weak states are especially bad. Weak states should preemptively give up these interventions before guerrillas force them to do so. That way, the state is not de-legitimized by the failure of these interventions.

Examples: The new gov't of Afghanistan should never have attempted to outlaw opium production. Instead it should have brought growers into the fold of legitimate farmers.

Unfortunately, if the gov't stops suppressing opium NOW, that would be a clear signal of the defeat of its current policy.

Likewise in Iraq, the fuel price subsidies provide a monetary incentive for smuggling. This draws people away from the legitimate economy and puts the gov't in conflict with people who may just be trying to make a living. The artificially low price also creates gas shortages which cost the gov't credibility.

Again, if the Iraqi gov't stops subsidizing fuel NOW, it would be seen as a defeat. All of the consumers of fuel who are used to the subsidized price would be upset. Instead, the coalition authorities should have ended the fuel subsidies as soon as they took power.

Taken to the extreme, the new or weak states shouldn't even attempt to provide many services that Western states provide. Instead, they should be subject to benign neglect from the central authorities. "Electricity? It's your job to get it yourself. Our job is just to stub out the nasties." A model here would be Somalian cell phone service. Private companies provide a service that nearby governments provide incompetently.

[yacheritsi]

The proliferation of "international trade agreements" does reflect a kind of centralization. (Such as IP agreements.) However, the growing importance of "international trade" creates international relationships between non-state organizations that marginalize nation-states to a greater degree.

[Duncan Kinder]

One of the essential attributes of the viability of states' is their ability to control the currency.

This overall control can be measured by following the value of gold, which varies inversely with this ability. The raw commodity value of gold ( for dental, jewelry, electronics, and other such purposes ) is about $250 / ounce. Any higher value is a measure of its value as a currency, which increase in response to decreases in values of competing currencies, such as the dollar, pound, euro, etc..

It is now more than $800 / ounce.
http://www.kitco.com/

In the words of Stephen Colbert, "The market has spoken."

[Duncan Kinder]

Following Robb's thesis, we rewrite Shakespeare:

Richard II:

Responding to Richard II's seizure of the Duchy of Lancaster, the enraged Bollingbroke returns to claim is inheritance. Aided by the rebellious Percy's he overthrows Richard but does not claim the throne, resting on his Lancaster satrapy instead. Mowbray also return from exile to claim his satry in Norfolk.

Henry IV, Parts I and II:

The Percy's continue their struggles in the North, feuding with various Nevilles and Dou8glas'. Owen Glendower revives a Druidic cult in Wales. Falstaff actually seduces Hal, and with fellow ne'er-do-wells, forms a criminal underground.

[adam]

New rule: Don't drink coffee and read Duncan's posts at the same time.

"Owen Glendower revives a Druidic cult in Wales" :-D

[Flagg]

"The case is unproven that nation-states worldwide are trending, as a historical process, toward decentralization..."

Well, check out this map of the world in 1900: http://tinyurl.com/2szcwd

And then check out this map of the world in 2007: http://tinyurl.com/2p52dv

The 2007 map also doesn't show the reality of several regions - a functioning Puntland inside "Somalia", a functioning Kurdistan inside "Iraq", the overlapping sovereignty of Hezbollah and "Lebanon", oddities like the microstate of the "Trans-Dniester Republic", etc.

The nation-state will be around for a long time to come, but to deny that decentralization is not a strong trend is to deny political history for the last hundred years.

[Allen Varney]

Many of the differences between the 1900 map and the 2007 version actually happened in the first few decades of the 20th Century, such as the European "Scramble Out of Africa" and similar collapses of colonial-era administration. The end of colonialism was a different historical process from the post-Millennium fragmentation our host proposes in this blog entry. The autonomous regions within weak states that you cite are better examples of the more recent fragmentation, but it's premature to suggest this process will strike even healthy states.

We have yet to see or comprehend the consequences of today's global trading agreements among strong states. History suggests at least a possibility these trading blocs may develop transnational complexity and authority, which contradicts the inevitability of decentralization as a historical process.

I suspect the coming decades will bring lots of evidence to support both sides of the argument.

[Fabius Maximus]

Brilliant, as usual. Will be interesting to see where he goes, as his thoughts on this develop.

Robb's thoughts start from a different perspective than mine, though we share many of the same assumptions (4GW). But our work seems to be evolving to a similar conclusion. As in my series on The Insurgent's Handbook.

For a powerful example of the "superempowered" individual see the current War Nerd:
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=13701&IBLOCK_ID=35

However potentially powerful, they are only minor irritants. Until, as Shaw said in Man & Superman...

{after showing that men are cowards} "Yes, now comes the most surprising part of the whole business...You can make any of these cowards brave by simply putting an idea into his head."

[Mikyo]

Humorous. I thought that superempowerment was created by modern technology. Has hi-tech had much effect on simple arson?
I can't really imagine Bart Simpson with a book of matches as a deadly terror threat. Most targets are not as easy to burn as malibu in a high wind during a drought.

[gmoke]

Solar Insurgency

"Small super-empowered vanguards can, with the use of systems disruption to amplify effort, delegitimize weakened governmental hierarchies and force them into the box of hollow states. However, instead of a pure organic government envisioned by Che, an organic open source insurgency, composed of a plethora of small super-empowered groups (that appeal to primary loyalties of tribe, cast, clan, family, gang, ideology, etc.), form in the vacuum. This open source insurgency will only bring fragmentation and perpetual conflict. The vanguard's role, is merely as a catalyst for its formation."

What if the global guerrilla vanguard was constructive rather than destructive? What if the vanguard was building resilience and autonomy, survival and security instead of chaos and destruction?

Small super-empowered groups can also do potholes as, reportedly, Hizbollah has been able to show in Lebanon. Maybe not global guerrillas but certainly a localized, decentralized model,Cuba's already gone through their Peak Oil experience ( http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/2/11/204215/961 ) and adapted through lots of public transport, bicycles, and local agriculture. In the 70s some of the 60s civil rights/antiwar/feminist/environmental energies of the Cold War baby boomers went into community gardens, farmers' markets, food coops, feeding programs, local agriculture, sustainability and environmental restoration. These networks still exist.

In the face of oil-funded terrorism, an oil war in Iraq, an overstretched, under-budgeted, corrupt social welfare system, and increasingly expensive natural disasters and emergencies Solar IS Civil Defense
( http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/30/142018/700 ) can be a logical open source guerrilla response.

For instance, a minimal amount of solar electric photovoltaic PV power charges batteries. Combine that with a hand crank, foot pedal, or string pull generator and you have virtually permanent personal electric power (cell phone, flashlight or reading light, computer, camera...) for emergency situations, just in case.

Before the invasion of Afghanistan ( http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/27/0353/85056 ), NATO forces dropped solar/dynamo AM/FM/SW radios for the civilian population. After the invasion, they gave away more radios. Unfortunately, the solar/dynamo wouldn't allow for battery switching. The NATO radios charge only the internal hardwired battery. If the solar/dynamo could charge batteries in the external battery bay, then you could charge one set of batteries while you used in rotation another two or three sets of batteries to operate a cell phone and light as well as the radio. The solar/dynamo would be a source of electricity day or night, by sunlight or muscle power, at least for the lifetime of the batteries, crank, pedal, string, and PV panel. Now add a bicycle.

The Bogolight ( http://www.bogolight.com ) charges standard size AA batteries and thus does allow for battery switching. The Bogolight is a solar LED flashlight or reading light that provides 4 hours of light for every 8 hours of sunlight. It is very well designed. You buy one for $25 and they donate a second light to various development programs around world. Solar IS Civil Defense
( http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/30/142018/700 ) at home and abroad.

The human scale combination of solar power with human muscle power allows the human power component to become a kind of Solar Swadeshi
( http://solarray.blogspot.com/2005/05/solar-swadeshi-hand-made-electricity.html ). Instead of turning Gandhi's spinning wheel making thread for khadi cloth, cranking or pedalling or pulling a string, the repetitive practice of personal power producing electricity for an AA battery all the way back to the grid.

Open source global guerrilla vanguard as solar scholar warriors fomenting resilience, cooperation, and the free exercise of the imagination, green ecological designers to save us at the last possible moment, the promise of the Whole Earth Catalog, Woodstock, New Alchemy Institute, the Viridian greens, Burning Man, worldchanging...

Video example
http://www.youtube.com/v/sohI6vnWZmk

[Duncan Kinder]

"What if the global guerrilla vanguard was constructive rather than destructive? "

This is key to whether global guerrillas constitute a pestilence, ultimately to be stamped out, or whether they heralds of a new social order, based on non-state, networks.

One of their trademarks is improvisation, it is no coincidence that IED's are one of their most effective weapons.

This gives rise to the question of what role improvisation can play elsewhere in society. Nowadays, for example, people strive to "keep up with the Jones'" by answering their neighbors' Cadillacs with a BMW. All very regular, formal, and standardized. ( The Alfred P. Sloan form of corporate organization depends upon this sort of hierarchy: Chevrolet - Pontiac - Oldsmobile - Buick - top floor, Cadillac! )

This gives rise to whether guerrilla etiquette might take off. It now is ridiculous to attempt to keep up with the billionaires. I'm sorry, but no matter how fancy my BMW, it can't keep up with their private helicopters. So why bother? A used Chevy actually can provide me with basic transport. ( Or even a bicycle, in many instances ).

Nevertheless, I might very well be able to go asymmetric. Not to fail according to their rules but to develop my own style.

And this calls for improv. One such example would be simple entertainment. According to Michel Jeanneret, in _A Feast of Words: Banquets and Table Talk in the Renaissance_, the Renaissance regarded the banquet as the platform for improvised conversation, which they viewed as a high art dating to Plato's Symposium and other classic authors. Renaissance banquets could be exuberant; Jeanneret extensively quotes Rabelais.
http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Words-Banquets-Table-Renaissance/dp/0226395766/ref=sr_1_1/002-9992735-5789603?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194708011&sr=8-1

While one could well envision massive Roman-emperor type orgies as part of this banqueting tradition, we can nevertheless achieve high levels of excellence on very simple terms: "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou is paradise enough."

Note that unlike Robb, this calls for direct , face to face interaction and the joint sharing of common foodstuffs. This is not just some computerized, cyborg, hyper intellectual vision but recognizes that, as living beings we must eat, drink, fart, and go to the bathroom.

[Duncan Kinder]

Improv also can impact theater and festivals.

See the the dissertation, "THE NOVELTY OF IMPROVISATION: TOWARDS A GENRE OF EMBODIED SPONTANEITY"
http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0701103-135033/unrestricted/Charles_dis.pdf

Set forth below is its table of contents. Note that this dissertation discusses the politics of improv.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... vii
CHAPTER
1 READING INTO BAKHTIN’S NOVEL: EXPLORING A NEW WAY OF
SEEING ................................................................................................................. 1
2 SURVEYING THE FIELD OF IMPROVISATION: SPOLIN, SPACE AND
SPONTANEOUS PLAY ..................................................................................... 20
Boyd and Spolin: Returning the “Play” to Theatre ........................................ 23
Of Streets, Tents, Laundromats and Bars ...................................................... 29
Creating Something Out of Nothing: Space Transformation and
Semiotics .................................................................................................. 52
Negotiating the Great Divide: The Spatial Boundaries of Performance ........ 67
Conclusion: The Ideal Space ......................................................................... 77
3 MORENO’S THEATRE OF OPENING NIGHTS: IMPROV IN THE HERE AND NOW ............................................................................................... 79
An Improvised and Unpredictable View of Time .......................................... 84
Reflecting Our Time: Specificity, Adaptability and Newspapers ................. 89
An Act With Presence/Presentness: Masks, Clowns and Players
of the Moment ........................................................................................ 105
The Blessings and Curses of Disposability: Improv’s Historical
Challenges .............................................................................................. 120
Conclusion: A Timely Utterance ................................................................. 130
4 A PROSAICS OF THE PEOPLE: AMATEURS, OUTCASTS AND
BOAL’S SPECT-ACTOR ................................................................................. 134
Putting the Populace in their Proper Place ................................................... 137
Giving Voice Through Embodiment: Boal and the Spect-actor .................. 155
Embracing the Amateur ............................................................................... 168
Membership from the Margins: Improvisation and Inclusivity ................... 180
Conclusion: The Prosaic Partnership ........................................................... 189
5 DIALOGIC FORM AND FREEDOM: STRUCTURING THE
CONVERSATION ............................................................................................ 192
Leading the Way: Sidecoaches, Jokers, Directors and Conductors ............. 199
Following the Rules of the Game: Texts, Taxonomies and the
Birth of Long-Form ................................................................................ 213
Structures with Character: Physical-Based Frames ..................................... 231
Considering the Bigger Picture .................................................................... 243
Conclusion: A Disordered Order ................................................................ 251
6 CARNIVAL, CHANGE AND BOUNDARY BLURRING: THE POLITICS
OF IMPROVISATION ...................................................................................... 254
The Power of the Carnival Satirist: Taking Laughter Seriously .................. 258
Improvising Between the Lines of Art, Politics and Life ............................ 274
The Political Ends of the Means .................................................................. 296
Challenging the Conserve and Censorship .................................................. 307
Conclusion: The Changing Tide .................................................................. 318
7 CONCLUSION: COLLABORATIVE CREATIVITY AND THE NOVELTY
OF IMPROVISATION ...................................................................................... 321
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 330

[Mikyo]

Thanks this is very interesting.

[Mikyo]

Some social networks, and most 'virtual worlds' have no other purpose but to help their users entertain each other.

[Duncan Kinder]

What would be really interesting would be if the Global Guerrillas could develop a solution to the healthcare crisis. (E.g., the way to cure a disease would be to get inside its OODA loops. )

[gmoke]

Speaking of keeping up with the Joneses...

_The Zenith Angle_ by Bruce Sterling
NY: Random House, 2004
ISBN 0-345-46061-8

(128) Airports everywhere were still selling liquor bottles. any hijacker with a liquor bottle had a big glass club full of flammable liquid that could be turned into a deadly glass dagger with one good whack on a bulkhead. A fifth of Jack Daniel's made a much worse weapon than a tiny boxcutter. Where were the priorities here? Why hadn't someone thought that through?

Still, Van could understand why politicians obsessed about plummeting airplanes. a falling airplane was one of the few weapons that could kill a large crowd of politicians inside Washington.

...If terrorists really did want to use airplanes to assault a center of government, then civilian passenger airliners were a lousy choice for that kind of attack. Civilian airliners were way too slow, too well polices, and had too many witnesses and busybodies on board. The ideal flying assassination weapon for kamikaze terrorists would be a private business jet. Their crews were small, and such jets were easy to steal from a hangar. Then the stolen jet could be packed with explosives, Oklahoma City style. It was a matter of simple physics, obvious once you worked it all out on paper. Stolen business jets were sure to hit much harder, faster, and more effectively than the Septmeber 11 passenger planes.

But while Joe and Jame Consumer were having their shoes x-rayed at the airport, nobody in federal security was doing anything useful about the stark threat posed by private jets. Private jet owners were America's richest people. Nobody in Congress dared to offend them.

American rich people were too rich to get treated like terrorists. Even though Osama bin Laden was plenty rich, and probably the world's best terrorist ever. Shoko Asahara, the nerve-gas yoga mastermind, was so rich he could afford private helicopters. If anybody was a serious terrorist security problem, it was rogue rich people.