Global Guerrillas

NOTE: Refugees from the Formerly Developed Countries

Had the opportunity to give the keynote at the Sovereign Man conference in Panama last week.  VERY cool conference (although it sold out in 24 hours, it's unlikely to be repeated anytime soon).  The topic of the conference:  methods for hedging sovereign risk.  

The thought that kept going through my mind as I gave my talk to the 350 smart/successful people in the audience:  These people in front of me are just the start of a flood.  Early movers.  People that have seen the long run stagnation and recently accelerating decline of western middle classes as just the start of something much worse -- political failure,  economic depression, financial panics, rampant corruption/criminality, and violence.  

In other words, they were the first real refugees of the formerly developed countries to the north.  

LIBYA: Qaddafi's Pockets

Here's a great little mash-up map of the action in Libya given trusted Twitter accounts from the Arabist site.  Probably better than the one they are using at the White House (that cost $100 billion a year in assets to produce).  Here's a pic from the mash-up showing the 3 government pockets of resistance left (Tripoli, Sirta, and Sabha).  Amazing how quickly the open source 'protest' movement (for those new to this , open source warfare is a method of conflict that uses social media/Internet but it isn't defined by it) morphed into an open source insurgency, and how quickly it spread (as in: how to lose most of the country in less than a week).

 

JOURNAL: Radio Interview

Here's a quick/fun interview with Brett Winterble (starts at 12 m in) from earlier in the week on Egypt/open source insurgency/etc.  

EGYPT: Live Coverage

I've been tweeting my coverage of the protest/revolt/revolution in Egypt.  Follow:  @johnrobb

More:

• Not sure most Americans get what's going on in Egypt. We've been supporting the dictator there for all our adult lives.
• w/o  a march to the Presidential Palace (it would have forced a crisis and a resolution of the conflict), success is completely reliant on behind the scenes maneuvering against Mubarak.
• WashPo:  Human rights watch confirms Egyptian security members loyal to Mubarak were posing as looters to create a climate of fear.  Looting was used as a counter-insurgency tactic.
• The big signs in Tahrir square are a great example of the simplicity of the plausible promise of an open source protest/revolt:  "Get out" or "Mubarak out"
• Is access to the Internet now a basic right?  An essential element of free speech?
• Excellent map mashup of Egyptian/regional tweets.
• Al Jazeera video stream (if you weren't watching it already).  Some excellent (smart) reporters, given enough air time to actually make an intelligent observation.
• I was going to write about how an open source protest can swarm the Presidential Palace (a trigger that could end this protest successfully).  Seems premature.
• Important lesson for youth in the ME and the Arab world:  You don't need to be a religious radical to force political change and rid yourself of dictators.