Global Guerrillas

SYSTEMPUNKT 1

When failing a state, the systempunkt is the target which inconveniences the largest number of people through the reduction of critical services. When coercing a foreign state, the systempunkt is the target which has the greatest impact on that state's connections to global markets. In some cases, they are one in the same.

NOTE: I've been asked by a company to provide insight into a model of next generation warfare that the US security establishment can wargame against. To get my head in the game, I am channeling (in my meager way) Sun Tzu.

JOURNAL: Balochs go Strategic in Pakistan

The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) took their campaign of systems disruption strategic this week with two attacks on Pakistani railways in Punjab. The first one caused a train crash and the second was a near miss. In addition to these attacks, the BLA is concentrating their attacks on electricity and natural gas production in Balochistan province with innovative attacks on codependent systems. This sophisticated systems focus reflects the relatively high level of education of many of the group's members (they are evolving quickly). We should expect to see power and gas deliveries to Punjab disrupted throughout the next year despite any and all efforts by Pakistani militias to crack down on the province. Also, the plans for a trans-Pakistan natural gas pipeline between Iran and India are on hold until this conflict is resolved (at a cost to Pakistan of $500 million a year).

JOURNAL: Opportunities in Nigerian Outcomes

Port Harcourt, Nigeria. There have been two large robbery/raids on corporate compounds in the past week. The first was on Agip's (an Italian oil company) headquarters where seven were killed. The most recent was on Saturday when Daewoo's (a South Korean conglomerate) compound was raided and $285,000 was stolen. The objective of these raids and recent kidnappings, beyond the immediate financial gain, is to coerce corporations. It's working.

In further signs that this movement is adopting global guerrilla methods: 1) they have released the foreign hostages after a payment of $770,000. The moral damage to the marketplace was already maximized (Shell has withdrawn 500 employees and hundreds of contractors have fled), and a bloodless release makes it easier for corporations to deal with them in the future. 2) the group has set a GOAL (!) of a 30% reduction in Nigerian production by the end of February!

Naturally, the research analysts at the major global banks/hedge funds and government agencies are scrambling to understand the implications of this new wave of violence -- given that the fate of several major corporations, a trillion dollars of oil, and the world's oil price is at stake. Unfortunately, this effort may fall short given that the type of warfare that is evolving in Nigeria (and other places) is very new and complex. To really take full advantage of this opportunity (for financial speculators) or to mitigate the risks (corporate participants that want to limit their downside risk), a team that combines expertise in the oil market, regional knowledge, and this new form of warfare (this analyst has built an excellent track record by anticipating outcomes in Iraq, Nigeria, and Russia) should be assembled to build an actionable model and potential scenarios. Further, this model could even be built as a service delivered via a private Web site for a hefty subscription (also something I have tons of experience with). The potential profit here is limitless and the downsides are catastrophic. Things are starting to move in earnest.

UPDATE: It appears that some global hedge fund managers think the same thing (although their scenarios need lots of work).

THE EXAMPLE OF GEORGIA

William Gibson: "The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet."

Nothing brings this quote more to life than the current situation in the nation of Georgia. It provides us with a glimpse of the future from thousands of miles of safety. Here's what happened. On Sunday, guerrillas knocked out two Gazprom natural gas pipelines and a critical electricity tower. The combination has deprived the country of heat and light for five days. In all, it's a great example of how:

• Even entire nations are vulnerable to systems disruption.
• Systems attacks can provide amazing leverage. An afternoon's work knocked out a country for more than five days.
• It can be repeated again and again. The attack was simple, the vulnerability is vast, and the attackers weren't caught (nor are they likely to be).

The Disruption of Russia

Vladimir Putin: "The fuel and energy sector, overall, is the goose that lays the golden egg. Killing the goose would be insane, stupid and unacceptable."

To really understand the deeper implications of this attack, it's necessary to revisit a scenario I wrote back in 2004 called, "Chechen Independence" (see parts 1 and 2). This scenario built off of ongoing attacks by Chechen guerrillas (now the Caucasian Front) against Russian infrastructure. It envisions a future where the Chechen guerrilla movement "evolved" and gave up their fruitless terrorist campaign in favor of something much more effective, systems disruption:

In this new substrate (nation-states vs. non-state networks within a global, information economy), global guerrillas will use a similar insight to win decisive battles. In this context, the conventional armies of nation-states aren't the target, a nation-state's economic and societal infrastructure is. Specifically, our large urbanized population centers are reliant on a complex set of relatively automated infrastructures. The operational objective of the global guerrilla warfare will be to separate a large urban population from its infrastructure and take advantage of the collapse and chaos that results.

Whether it was the Chechens or some other group (Ossetians?) we may never know. However, its clear that Russia's dispute with the Ukraine provided the impetus for some guerrilla strategist to make the leap to systems disruption. We saw the results of that inevitable leap on Sunday. We can expect to see more of this in the future.

A New Center of Gravity

The switch to systems disruption also points to a way guerrillas can decisively win wars against nation-states. We can see the outlines of this in the fearful reactions of the Gazprom dependent Europeans to the news of Georgia. This segment from the scenario explains how:

To win, the Chechens need to win a decisive moral victory. The moral center of a nation encapsulates its will to fight. The disruption of this moral center has traditionally been accomplished by directing menace, uncertainty, and mistrust at the nation's population (Boyd). The advent of a world dominated by global markets has changed this equation.

Nation's are no longer self-sufficient, they are interdependent and increasingly reliant on their ongoing ability to perform in global markets. Fall behind in this competition and currencies collapse, debt becomes exorbitant, and domestic stock markets plummet. A sharp slap of Adam Smith's invisible hand can quickly turn a weak state into an economic basket case. As a result of this progress, the target for a moral victory doesn't rest within the nation-state, but rather the global market.

Within this new calculus, actions that undermine the moral psychology of these markets vis-a-vis the target country, is the new measure of victory. Market psychology (of investors, trading partners, etc.) is marginally influenced by traditional terrorism. Systems sabotage is different. It can radically impact market psychology by building uncertainty (kryptonite for markets), menace to contracted export flows (resources in this case -- 1/3 of Europe's natural gas comes from Russia), and mistrust (a flight to alternative suppliers and investment opportunities).

If Russia can be put to the edge of financial catastrophe due to a moral victory won in global markets, the achievement of the limited objective of Chechen independence is easily possible.

THE GUERRILLA OIL CARTEL

The control over the price of oil is in now in the hands of global guerrillas -- the open source, system disrupting, transnational crime fueled, sons of global fragmentation covered by this author. These actors can now, at will, curtail the supply of oil through low tech attacks on facilities in Iraq, Nigeria, central Asia, and India. The amount of oil effectively under their control exceeds five million barrels a day, more than Saudi Arabia's two million barrels a day of swing production.

Means and Motives

It's important to note that this capacity to disrupt production is substantially different than any terrorist threat we have faced in the past. With terrorism, the potential of damage has always been from single large attack on a major facility or node (extremely difficult to accomplish and relatively easy to recover from). Today's threat is based on sustainable disruption -- ongoing, easy, low-tech attacks that are nearly impossible to defend against (everything from pipeline destruction to employee kidnapping). The goals of these attackers can be divided into three complimentary categories:

• Delegitimization of the target state. Attacks meant to "hollow out" the state, through an inability to deliver critical services or a denial of income/investment, to create zones of local control.
• Coercion of the core Western states. Either to damage the US or a target state through economic means.
• Criminal profit. By increasing the prices of oil and its refined products, the profits generated by criminal enterprise (bunkering of oil, smuggling, etc.) are radically improved.

What this means

This situation is merely the first stage in the larger epochal war between non-state groups and nation-states. It is by no means the worst of what we will need to deal with. Other, more profound developments, will occur as this trend progresses (for clues, read older briefs from this weblog seen in the left margin). In the meantime, given that the demand for oil continues to increase (due to the growth of China and India primarily) combined with the inability to bring new supplies to market, the price of oil will continue to climb. $100+ a barrel oil is not unforeseeable. This will likely result in the following:

• An expansion of the guerrilla oil cartel to new locations. The success of guerrillas to control production in Iraq and Nigeria will spawn similar developments in other locations. High on that list is Russia, the world's largest oil producer, and the Caspian Sea producers.
• Market corrections. High oil prices will eventually result in a global recession that would reduce demand. However, this reduction in demand may not be enough to reduce prices and may only reduce their ability to increase. Alternative energy sources and conservation will over the longer term gain considerable traction. Those companies/localities that are planning for high oil prices by radically increasing the efficiency of their products/infrastructures will reap windfalls in the future.
• Collusion between global guerrillas and other market participants. So far, there isn't any signs of coordination between groups. This will change. As we have seen in other situations, network connections will develop and open source coordination and collaboration will occur. Additionally, global guerrillas may find useful and powerful allies among states (Iran?) that desire to curtail production, corporations (CNOOC?) that wish to wrest control of oil production from competitors, and market participants (hedge funds? or individuals?) that desire to profit from rapid price changes. If this surprises you, remember that in Adam Smith's world, it doesn't matter how you make a buck, it's only important that you make it.

JOURNAL: System Disruption meets the Internet

An unfortunate consequence of the war in Iraq has been rapid improvements in the ability of guerrillas to disrupt modern infrastructure (oil, gas, water, telecom, etc.). The wide ranging success of these attacks has eliminated any potential economic gains from the tens of billions of dollars spent on the US reconstruction effort and seriously damaged the legitimacy of both the US occupation force and sequential Iraqi governments. The impact of this reverse "effects-based operation" has not gone unnoticed. Al Qaeda's leadership has made systems disruption a central aspect of its campaign against the West.

Recent information indicates that the concept has become the topic of widespread discussion among members of Jihadi forums. On these forums there is a growing realization that the only way to damage the West strategically (without a nuclear weapon) is through the destruction of critical global economic networks. Stephen Ulph of Jamestown summarizes recent activity on these forums. His group found detailed documents that provide explicit instructions on facilities and pipelines that are termed global "economic joints". For example, one set of instructions provided data on the Alaskan oil distribution infrastructure and recommendations for maximizing the value of the attack.

While this effort is still in its adolescence, Ulph has detected signs of the type of collaborative open source development we have seen among guerrilla groups in Iraq. If so, it will advance to maturity rapidly. As that happens, be prepared to see a growing emphasis on the selection of targets (or more accurately "systempunkts") that cause cascading system failures -- failures that maximize the scope of the damage to the scale free and tightly coupled networks we see in developed countries.

NOTE: It's important to remember that in this epochal war, the guerrillas don't need to achieve either an absolute moral or economic victory. All that is needed in this hyper-competitive globalized economic environment is an effort that damages the ability of the target state to compete -- Adam Smith's invisible hand will quickly take care of the rest.

CONTRA BARNETT

The rapid rise of my global guerrillas -- the open source, system disrupting, transnational crime fueled, sons of global fragmentation -- is a cautionary warning on the limits of western power. As a result, my work is often placed in opposition to the work of the best selling author, Thomas Barnett (The Pentagon's New Map and Blueprint for Action -- well worth reading).

Barnett strongly advocates that the Pentagon should be reorganized into a factory for rapidly "processing" failed states into useful global participants (for which he provides an A to Z plan). The objective of this new capability would be to shrink the global "gap" of failed and rogue states to accelerate the end of history (in Fukuyama's sense). Unfortunately, Barnett's thesis has become increasingly central to the Pentagon's (Rumsfeld) and the Department of State's (Rice) planning for the future.

In my view, Barnett's formula would not only accelerate the exhaustion of the US (morally and financially), it would also be a catalyst for radically accelerating the development of global guerrillas. Fortunately, I am not alone in my opposition to Barnett's view. The father of fourth generation warfare (and a prominent influence of mine), Bill Lind, has put his wicked pen to a critique of Barnett's work (see Chet Richards' excellent DNI site for the full text). Bill steps into the breach and doesn't pull punches:

What Barnett advocates is bad in two senses: first, that it won’t work, and second, that if it did work the result would be evil.

A critical assumption dismissed:

In both books, Barnett divides the world into two parts, the Functioning Core and the Non-Integrating Gap. This is parallel to what I call centers of order and centers or sources of disorder, and I agree that this will be the fundamental fault line of the 21st Century. Barnett’s error is that he assumes the Functioning Core will be the stronger party, able to restore order in places where it has broken down. In fact, the forces of disorder will be stronger, because they are driven by a factor Barnett dismisses, the spreading crisis of legitimacy of the state. By ignoring Martin van Creveld’s work on the rise and decline of the state, Barnett’s books end up anchoring their foundations on sand.

The fuel it would provide to opposition movements:

What Barnett’s books end up revealing is the combination of moral blindness and international political hubris that characterizes the whole quest for American world empire, a quest initiated by the neo-cons. Like the (other?) neo-cons, Barnett sees the world and its cultures in Jacobin terms, as a combination of Rousseau’s natural goodness of man and Newtonian clockwork mechanism. Just twist a few dials here, throw a couple of levers there and presto!, Switzerlands spring up from Ouagadougou to the Hindu Kush....there is no surer way of making someone your enemy than to announce you will remake him in your image for his own good. To many of the world’s peoples, what Barnett argues for in such blithe simplicity represents Hell, and they will fight it literally to their dying breath.

He sums:

It’s piffle, pure and all too simple. Unfortunately, it is dangerous piffle, both in the evil that would result if it worked and the catastrophes that will come when it doesn’t. Real Fourth Generation theory (JR: as well as my own) counsels caution, prudence and a clear grasp on the limits of American power in a world where the state itself is in decline. Regrettably, in the uneducated and nostrum-hungry powerhouse that is Washington, Barnett’s piffle is just the sort of patent medicine that sells. The more widely it sells, the more Iraqs America will have to endure.

JOURNAL: Aerial IEDs and Open Source Innovation

The enemy is adaptive,” Sinclair said. “They make changes in the way they fight; they respond to new flying tactics.”

Noah Shachtman of DefenseTech quotes Greg Grant of Defense News (a closed site) on how Iraq's guerrillas have developed IEDs that target low flying helicopters engaged in urban patrols or combat.

Insurgents, who place these aerial IEDs along known flight paths, trigger them when American helicopters come along at the typical altitude of just above the rooftops. The devices shoot 50 feet into the air, and a proximity fuze touches off a warhead that sprays metal fragments, said Brig. Gen. Edward Sinclair, commander of the Army’s Aviation Center at Fort Rucker, Ala. The bomb-builders may be obtaining radio-guided proximity fuzes from old Iraqi anti-aircraft and artillery shells and mortar rounds. Sinclair said these aerial IEDs have been used against multiple U.S. helicopters. He declined to say whether such IEDs had damaged any aircraft. The new weapon is one way insurgents are taking on Army aircraft, which come under fire between 15 and 20 times a month, Sinclair said. Other methods include small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and advanced shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles.

NIGERIAN EVOLUTION

"Our aim is to totally destroy the capacity of the Nigerian government to export oil..." from an e-mail sent by the new Nigerian guerrilla group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Nigerian Delta (MEND), that claimed the recent attacks.

A series of high tempo attacks (four in the last five days) have deeply disrupted Nigeria's oil production -- attacks on oil platforms, a pumping station, and pipelines have already reduced the country's oil production by 10%. Shell has withdrawn 330 employees from the region, and shut down four pumping stations. Four Shell employees are currently being held hostage.

These attacks are substantially more sophisticated than previous efforts which were typically either riot/protests or bunkering gone awry. These new attacks include:

• Swarm-based maneuver. The guerrillas are using speed boats in the Niger Delta's swamps to quickly attack targets in succession. Multiple, highly maneuverable units have kept the government and Shell's defensive systems off-balance defending the sprawling network.
• Radically improved firepower and combat training. This new capability has allowed the guerrillas to overpower a combination of Shell's western-trained private military guards and elite Nigerian units in several engagements. Note: one of Shell's private military operators was captured as a hostage.
• Effective use of system disruption. Targets have been accurately selected to completely shut down production and delay/halt repairs. This is a systematic operation. Additionally, the guerrillas are making effective use of Shell's hostages to coerce both the government and the company (for more on the effective use of corporate hostage taking, see brief: Halliburton Strategy).

This new level of sophistication, and its explosive emergence in Nigeria, demonstrates that global guerrilla methods that we have seen demonstrated in Iraq have made the leap to Nigeria. The source of the new funding, training, leadership, and firepower is still unknown (corporate warfare or other GG groups melding with locals?). Regardless of its origins, if the pattern of development we have seen in the past is followed, other indigenous groups will quickly adopt the same approach. The result will be widespread open source warfare, specializing in system disruption. This will mean the following:

• Massive disruption. Given the capabilities demonstrated, estimates of potential disruption in Nigeria could reach one million barrels of oil a day on average. Also, this means a second leg of a global guerrilla shadow OPEC is now in place (in addition to Iraq). This will shift control over two million barrels a day of production into the hands of global guerrillas (more 'swing' capacity than Saudi Arabia). Think: a new trading range for oil in $70-$80 range.
• A cash crises in Nigeria. The country's loss of oil revenue may cause massive instability which will fuel further conflict. If this is combined with disruption of basic services the cities, all bets for the future of Nigeria as a cohesive "state" (even a non-functional kleptocracy) are off.
• An accelerated spread of global guerrillas. The successful coercion and (potential) collapse of the Nigerian/corporate status quo will be a strong incentive for other groups to replicate their methods. Look to Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan for more on this...

UPDATE: 20 Jan 2006: Reuters' Tom Ashby follows up this brief with an article called, "Nigerian delta militants evolve into greater threat." He adds the following on the goals of the guerrillas: "Unlike some previous movements which have fought for outright independence for the delta, which pumps almost all of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels per day, these militants said they want to stay in Nigeria but with more regional autonomy." JR: Again, the essence of many global guerrilla wars won't be to replace or break away from the state, rather, it will be to hollow it out.

SWARM: Cutting Iraq's Gasoline Lines

IRAQ: A large swarm destroyed twenty out of sixty fuel tankers in an Iraqi Oil Ministry convoy built to protect tanker drivers against threatened attacks. These threats, some attributed to Ansar al-Sunna, caused a ten day walk-out of fearful tanker drivers. Operations were resumed when 40% of the refinery's tanker drivers reported back to work -- a number that is likely to decrease after this attack. A second planned convoy of sixty tankers was held near the recently re-openned refinery in Beiji to avoid additional loses. The Islamic Army of Iraq took credit for initiating the swarm.

Snapshot of the impact: Lines for gasoline are reportedly up to 2 miles long despite a recent tripling of prices. Violence (assaults, random shootings, and tire burnings) have forced private gas stations in Basra to close, leaving only government stations in operation. The delegitimization effort continues.

UPDATE: Gasoline demand is up 30% in Baghdad due to particularly bad power shortages (detailed here) -- people need the gasoline for their generators.

WEAPONS: The RFID zapper

Radio frequency IDs (RFIDs), small electronic chips that share information when scanned, are rapidly becoming an essential part of global supply management. In order to correctly route and track items from inception to purchase, these chips are attached to packaging and increasingly the products themselves.

The intentional disabling of these chips can cause supply chain disruption. The best method is to HERF (high energy radio frequency, usually microwaves) the chips using a small transmitter (read about high power home made microwave weapons for herfing). The German branch (privacy activists) of the global guerrilla innovation network has developed a simple solution that converts a standard film camera into a short range RFID zapper. This system:

"...copies the microwave-oven-method, but in a much smaller scale. It generates a strong electromagnetic field with a coil, which should be placed as near to the target-RFID-Tag as possible. The RFID-Tag then will recive a strong shock of energy comparable with an EMP and some part of it will blow, most likely the capacitator, thus deactivating the chip forever.

To keep the costs of the RFID-Zapper as low as possible, we decided to modify the electric component of a singe-use-camera with flashlight, as can be found almost everywhere. The coil is made from varnished wire and placed inside the camera exactly where the film has been.

Then the coil is soldered between the cameras electronic and its flashlight. Last but not least most single-use-cameras will require some kind of switch to be build into them, since their activating-mechanism usually is to small and primitive. Once the switch is connected and tested, the camera can be closed again and henceforth will serve as a RFID-Zapper, destroying RFID-Tags with the power of ordinary batteries."