John Robb's Weblog

No Wars in Isolation

David Axe notes the presence of open source warfare in Somalia.

Cultural Guerrillas

Here are some more global guerrillas in action -- moving into the vacuum left by a retreating state. The UnterGunther, a team of guerrillas focused on the restoration of Paris succeeded in fixing the clock tower in the Pantheon (pictures) -- to the consternation of the government. Classic quote from Lazar Klausmann, a group spokesman:

We would like to be able to replace the state in the areas it is incompetent, but our means are limited and we can only do a fraction of what needs to be done.

Thoughts on "Nothing is New"

Robert Greene has an excellent example on how the "nothing is new" mindset plays out in warfare.

After this battle, the Prince was totally disgraced and retreated to his ancestral castle. For the last 12 years of his life he tried to make sense of this ignominious fall. He blamed the other generals for slowing down the Prussian response to Napoleon's attack by their squabbling and their egos. He criticized the Prussian army for its breakdowns in discipline as it retreated. He credited Napoleon's spy system for giving them a beat up on the Prussian strategy and catching them by surprise. He maintained that the French form of warfare was unethical and gave them an unfair advantage because they were willing to fight dirty.

Now if you think about it, this is all rather astonishing. The Prince was no idiot. He was a great student of military history. He had been able to study the French army for nine years before meeting it in battle. He was able to witness it firsthand at Jena. All he had to do was open his eyes and think. And yet with all this evidence staring him in the face, and with years and some distance to analyze it, he continued to completely misread the essence of Napoleonic warfare. He could only come up with clichés, and the usual conventional excuses. His eyes could only focus on the tactics, the details; he could not see the forest for the trees.

Sullivan and Reihan on Open Source Militias

On using open source militias in a strategy of delay. Andrew Sullivan notes:

The obvious benefit of this strategy is that it allows us to do more with less, and avoid the financial and human hemmorhaging of a permanent occupation of a place like Iraq, where nation-building seems increasingly a quixotic exercise.

Reihan follows the money to determine whether this concept is doomed even before it gains traction:

Consider the logic of the anti-China drumbeat, which makes little sense when we think of China as a poor, vulnerable country but rather more when we think of it as an opportunity for defense contractors.

Thanks Noah

Nice mention in Noah's Danger Room.

Oh Joy

Looks like Robert Charette's article on OSW is now on Slashdot. Classic trollfest. Comments fall into three camps of "wisdom":

• Nothing in warfare has changed.
• How dare you associate open source with terrorism.
• Terrorism is a distraction and only a means to enslave us (it's a plot by Bush and the Republicans).

China Euphoria Hits New Peak

Very few things could demonstrate the outsized euphoria over China than PetroChina's $1 Trillion market-cap. Like Paul, I feel like I'm watching a car-crash.

Losing Control to Gain It

Dana Blankenhorn has some interesting thoughts on how OSW applies to business.

Money is an excellent feedback loop

Swedish Meatballs (a strange NSFW blog, but a good one on IO) deconstructs the IO items planted in a WP story about the financing guerrilla/terrorist operations in Iraq. His later realization about the danger of guerrilla entrepreneurs was worth quoting:

Disrupting the insurgents' finances is certainly to be encouraged, but if the new IO theme is factually correct -- meaning that Iraqi men are joining AQI for the pay -- then we are completely farked. The ubiquity of monetary incentivization is the reason that we long ago lost the "War on Drugs." People will do almost anything to feed their families.

As long as the insurgency was considered to be ideologically or sectarian-based, there remained at least some hope that political accommodation with some faction (or factions) could be reached. We can never de-motivate a pecuniary insurgency -- the money will always manage to come from somewhere.

Peer to Peer Globalization

Bing! Bruce gets it (of course):

Globalization is not about the World Trade Organization telling the world what to do. It's about Utah talking to Latvia.

Globalization is less a function of a complex top down global rule set than a minimal rule set allowing ad hoc peer to peer connections.