Global Guerrillas

JOURNAL: More on Tactical Innovation

It's clear from the Mumbai attack that terrorist organizations are inexorably moving closer to the global guerrilla model of warfare (it was an evolutionary improvement over the example the PCC set in the 2006 Sao Paulo attacks). Extremely small teams, operating autonomously, that rapidly move to attack a flexible set of objectives to achieve a leveraged and synergistic effect. Generic improvements (that can apply to a variety of motives) in technique that we can expect to see in the near future include:

• Better use of infrastructure disruption. While panicked crowds and other forms of localized disruption of transportation hubs are effective, a strategic approach to disruption that includes strikes on communications, transportation and energy hubs would prolong the impact and slow the government response. The key point here is that attacks on strategic systempunkts can impact tactical environments at a distance (akin to the Parthian shot that distracts and depletes an enemy).
  
• A focus on corporations and commercial elites. Less heavily protected than government targets and more important to the economic viability of the city. Easily "taxed" through assault in order to force a shift in operations and departures. This will run in parallel, but not replace, a bevy of attacks on foreign businesspeople (which heightens media response but has less long term impact on the city's viability).
  
• Fear management. The combination of rapid movement and indiscriminate slaughter of civilians did achieve a high level of panic. However, in order to create panic induced casualties and prolong the psychological impact, there will be an increasing focus on channeling crowds along "fear vectors."
  
• Media spamming to co-opt information flows. At a minimum, several Web sites and mass e-mailings that launch in parallel to the attack. It could also include multi-channel radio/TV transmissions. In either case, rather than claims of responsibility or justification (a legacy approach), the content of the messaging will be seemingly real-time information on the attack configured to maximize fear/panic, disinformation, and confusion.

URBAN TAKEDOWN: MUMBAI

The late November commando attack on Mumbai India is a great demonstration of the state of the art in "urban takedowns." Essentially, an urban takedown is an attempt by a small group of attackers to overwhelm a city and force it into a prolonged shutdown (see the site, Naxalite Rage for an excellent exploration of the incident). The attack consisted of:

• A nautical assault (coup de main). Several boats. laden with explosives and commandos armed to the teeth, gained entry to the city via the port. This allowed maximal entry velocity into the city's center. However, a rapid response by the Indian naval units in the area closed off the water as an escape route.
  
• Swarm of the city using autonomous "buddy pairs." Each pair had their own routes, minimizing the potential for fratricide. While the initial dispersion of the group was concentrated, the deployment was the opposite (this is an inversion of the formula for animal pack hunters and U-boat swarming). The pair teams shot/blew up targets en route to maximize confusion/fear.
  
• Use of the city's infrastructure for movement and coordination. The city's transportation infrastructure was leveraged, travel by roads and the acquisition of vehicles. Cell phone communication for coordination (not confirmed yet)?
  
• Hostage drama at international hotels. Some of the buddy pairs were able to assault international hotels, which allowed them to focus on killing foreigners. These assaults became prolonged hostage dramas when the government's forces arrived.

JOURNAL: Slow Money

Within a successful transition to a resilient community, one of the earliest signs of progress will be a radical decrease in the community's monetary velocity. Essentially, this means that an ever increasing share of the money that flows into your community, stays within your community. Money, otherwise destined for big corporate retailers, the international banking system, and Asian exporters (the essence of global velocity), stays in the community. This in turn enables the investment flows require for the construction of community platforms (local systems that simplify and accelerate critical activities) that both guard against dislocation/failure in the short term and mint/drive wealth in the long term.

The short term shift to slow money won't be made due to the desire for a lifestyle change or because it is the trendy "eco" thing to do. Some improvements in food quality or a diffuse feeling of fuzzy warmth won't suffice to drive these changes. Instead, it will be driven by a hard edged need to enhance the long term economic and physical security of you and your family. Drivers include:

• Cost reduction. A substitution of time for money. Repair over new. Savings growth.
  
• Mutual support. The local sourcing of goods and services. Strong local relationships/networks vs. arms length/anonymous relationships with global retailers/service firms/banks. A strong hedge against dislocation or an inability to access global supplies/services. Increased flexibility though an ability to negotiate or a potential for barter.
  
• New sources of income. Local production of goods and services. Sales of excess food, energy, and services. A slow discarding of "global consumer" (a slur...) status in favor of "local producer."

For more on this read this excellent post by Robert Paterson.

JOURNAL: DefenseTech in an Age of Scarcity

Noah Schachtman, Editor of Wired's Danger Room, asked me what was missing in the current debate about defense technology. Here's the article that resulted.

GG RADAR: Mid-November 2008

Some interesting reading:

• Piracy reaches a modern milestone. Somali pirates seized a Saudi (ARAMCO) super-tanker off the coast of Kenya (area in the region now under threat of piracy is estimated at 1.1 m square miles). The holes in the global security system are so big now, that you can drive a super-tanker through them.
  
• Hilarious. Envisioning the lair of the 4GW super-villain.
  
• Still looking forward to the Boyd Conference on PEI (Prince Edwards Island) in December.
  
• Fraying social situations. Rapid rise of poaching gangs in the UK. The elderly crime wave in Japan (retirement = economic failure). Both are a glimpse at the near-term future of the US.
  
• The Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru recast as a criminal/guerrilla group. The bazaar of violence spreads as the distinction between guerrilla and criminal fades (see "Illicit" and "McMafia" for details on how these transnational criminal markets emerge).
  
• Rich Mexicans spend more on bodyguards as security deteriorates. Excellent quote by a Mexican businessman: “One bodyguard, two bodyguards, even three of them can’t do anything with these criminals, who come in groups of 20 with high-powered arms. If they want to hunt you down, they will get you.” This is going to be a gold mine of an industry in the US by early in the next decade.

THE SWITCH

Traditional guerrilla movements and insurgencies were founded on strict ideologies or political agendas. As a result, their organizations tended towards hierarchy and strong central control. However, the advent of a dominant global market (that no organization, despite claims to the contrary, controls) and the subsequent and inevitable weakening of the nation-state changed that. It substituted market values for ideological or political values and insurgencies are quickly changing to reflect that. For example:

• A group is only successful, long term, if it can consistently generate wealth (as in: enjoy economic success).
  
• Dynamism, resilience, and flexibility are prized over size, rigidness, and purity.
  
• Alliances, cooperation, and interconnectedness is better than "go it alone" or rabidly competitive approaches.

The Impact on Organizations
This "switch" also means that control of the nation-state became is nearly useless in an environment where success was only generated by competition within a global market system at a local level. As a result, modern or 21st Century guerrilla movements/insurgencies increasingly don't put ideology or politics first (although there are some high profile hold-outs, reversals such as al Qaeda suffered in Iraq demonstrate that an inability to invert goals is the path to failure). Increasingly, they put economics first, or more specifically: they focus on the ability of the group and its members to generate wealth. They do this through the integration of their military capability with production centers and supply routes that power the multi-trillion dollar flows of Black Globalization. This connection provides them with the ability to:

• Grow Support. Become competitive with the state in an ability to generate wealth (and everything that economic advantage implies: from services to security) for supporters. This is a competition for legitimacy and nation-state are increasingly losing that competition.
  
• Grow Operations. Grow operations through the development of business operations that enable ever greater wealth. Contrast this to the spiraling deficits and (soon) cuts in security budgets at the nation-state level.
  
• Gain Efficiency and Productivity. Financial success enables these groups to efficiently expand operations through dynamic market operations that enable the rapid purchase of everything from assassinations to IED attacks. This not only vastly expands the pool of participants, it enables specialization and rapid innovation.

It should be apparent that "the switch" to economic agendas in combination with decentralized organizational structures makes modern guerrillas much more dangerous than ever in history. While 9/11 demonstrated the growing leverage (in an ability to do harm) of small groups and Iraq/Afghanistan the power of doggedness of decentralized organizations, this depression will demonstrate the strength of economically driven operations. Barring a major and unforeseen redux in how nation-states operate, we might see the world look like Swiss cheese by early in the next decade: as in, most nation-states riddled with ungoverned spaces/holes in their territory, lost to insurgent groups.

BOOK REVIEW: The Starfish and the Spider

I had the pleasure to briefly meet (to compare notes) and then listen to a presentation by Ori Brafman, the author of the Starfish and the Spider a month ago. The presentation and the book are both very slick introductions to the concepts that power decentralized organizations. I might add more to this post to make it truly a review, but it may suffice to describe the book as a Decentralized Organizations 101 course. It's an excellent introduction to how decentralized organizations function for those that are having difficulty (either conceptually or due to a lack of experience) understanding basic dynamics and functions.

In contrast, this site is graduate level coursework for the serious thinkers on the topic.

STEMI Compression

Here's a highly theoretical construct I believe is useful for the analysis (h/t John Smart) of rapidly evolving systems. Hopefully, you find it useful too.
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In the evolution of technology, the next generation of a particular device/program often follows a well known pattern in the marketplace: its design makes it MUCH cheaper, faster, and more capable. This allows it to crowd out the former technology and eventually dominate the market (i.e. transistors replacing vacuum tubes in computation). A formalization of this developmental process is known as STEMI compression:

• Space. Less volume/area used.
  
• Time. Faster.
  
• Energy. Less energy. Higher efficiency.
  
• Mass. Less waste.
  
• Information. Higher efficiency. Less management overhead.

So, the viability of a proposed new generation of a particular technology can often be evaluated based on whether it offers a substantial improvement in the compression of all aspects of STEMI without a major loss in system complexity or capability. This process of analysis also gives us an "arrow" of development that can be traced over the life of a given technology.

Broader Applicability?
STEMI compression may also be useful in analyzing the development path for other types of systems (i.e. biology, economics, etc. although the work to fully demonstrate that has yet to be done). The question I asked myself, given the ongoing failure of the global system and my work on Resilient Communities, is:

Do Resilient Communities offer the promise of a generational improvement over the existing global system or not?

In other words: is the Resilient Community concept (as envisioned here) a viable self-organizing system that can rapidly and virally crowd out existing structures due to its systemic improvements? Using STEMI compression as a measure, there is reason to believe it is:

• Space. Localization (or hyperlocalization) radically reduces the space needed to support any given unit of human activity. Turns useless space (residential, etc.) into productive space.
  
• Time. Wasted time in global transport is washed away. JIT (just in time production) and place.
  
• Energy. Wasted energy for global transport is eliminated. Energy production is tied to locality of use. More efficient use of solar energy (the only true exogenous energy input to our global system).
  
• Mass. Less systemic wastage. Made to order vs. made for market.
  
• Information. Radical simplification. Replaces hideously complex global management overhead with simple local management systems.

The above indicates that Resilient Communities do offer what appears to be a generational improvement in system design. However, one final requirement must be met. Does this generational improvement conserve or replicate the computational complexity of the previous system? Can it continue to process, innovate, and respond as quickly as the previous system? I believe the answer is yes. If Resilient Communities remain globally connected via Internet networks, there's reason to believe that re-localization is possible without losing any of the previous computational complexity of the system. Further, as the new self organizing system replaces the old one, new forms of organizational innovation (open source, for example) may radically outpace the progress seen in the previous system.

NOTE: There's two long trends in technology that may cement this switch. The first is the radical increase of information density in any and all production process. The majority of almost all processes in almost every industry segment is now a form of information manipulation rather than a manipulation of matter. To wit: how easy it is for most knowledge workers today to work at home.

Second is a switch to bio-processing. In short, growing your computer or product rather than manufacturing it. The development of this technology might get us out of the only centralization trap left: fabrication facilities using exotic materials to make computer chips. Both of these trends may make decentralization nearly costless to the computational complexity of the system.

NOTE2: The availability of a self-organizing and superior alternative to the (now failing) legacy system implies that its implied collapse might be historically brief. It also means that its collapse isn't necessarily a bad thing since its replacement puts us, collectively, on a growth path to radically faster wealth creation (and nsulates us against growing excesses, dislocations, and failures of the existing systems function). More simply, will you accept vastly lower living standards and much higher risks to work/live within the existing system or will you opt out with a Resilient Community?

RC JOURNAL: Decentralized Entrepreneurial Hot Spots

In the early days of Silicon Valley, one of the entrepreneurial hot spots that spurred innovation was Buck's Woodside restaurant (I recommend a visit if you are ever in the area). It's the place where entrepreneurs cut deals with venture capitalists (from nearby Sand Hill road) to launch many of the most successful technology companies in the world. However, in today's environment, a concentrated hot zone like Bucks or a Silicon Valley isn't viable (or wanted).

Instead, we are seeing highly decentralized hot spots of local innovation. One such place is Claire's restaurant in Hardwick VT (recently mentioned in the NYTimes). Local entrepreneurs meet at Claire's to jointly and cooperatively innovate. The main focus of their effort is to remake Hardwick (a failed mining town) into a vibrant community through a revival of local agriculture. To do so, they are building a complex hybrid of local agriculture, business, technology, finance, and community connectivity. For example, they share equipment, capital ($300,000 so far and counting), and insight. They even do business with each other and have joined cooperatively to create a 30 farmer community supported agriculture (CSA) program. Essentially, the effort underway at Claire's is building the foundations for a resilient community.

If there isn't a "Claire's" in your town, make one.

GG RADAR: Early November 2008

On the radar:

• The Reverse Inkblot. John Sullivan of the LA Police's anti-terrorist group, makes a great observation. The effect that occurs when many small groups create temporary autonomous zones within a country looks like a reverse inkblot/oilspot (inkblot/oilspot is the name for a strategy of creating zones of local order via counter-insurgency that can be stitched together to heal the whole) -- albeit one without central direction. Personally, given the opening a silly/archaic name like inkblot gives me, I would like to point out that the world will soon be made of cheese, swiss cheese!
  
• Cyber attacks more potent? Markoff in the NYTimes. The most interesting observation is that biggest/best example of network damage was due to being the battleground for a war between criminal guerilla groups over territory (which is what happens when GGs are unopposed by nation-states).
  
• Micro Nuclear Power? The Telegraph. Yet another example of how technology is trending towards empowering the small with capabilities typically reserved for global actors. It's a trend not only applicable to warfare, but to the technologies of resilience too.
  
• Is the formation of independent militias (that fight the occupier, the nation-state, and the insurgency) a sign of progress in a war with an open source insurgency? Bill Lind argues that it is. I agree since it bifurcates the open source insurgency. However, I would point out that this development ensures that the nation-state will remain hollow since these militias aren't loyal to the government and will gain legitimacy over time (by providing security and connecting to the global marketplace).
  
• Will post more today. Check back.