Thoughts on Brave New War

I just finished reading it today. Some immediate reactions:

• Well-written. Brave New War reads more like an action novel than a ponderous policy book. Robb also writes simply, making the complicated concepts accessible to anyone unfamiliar with terrorism or political violence. The style and presentation is reminiscent of Wired magazine articles.
  

• Robb is to be commended for tying together all of the theorists our corner of the blogosphere follow into a compelling, coherent narrative. He also adds historical context and organization to his global guerrillas concept in way that was impossible with scattered blog posts. Though much of the book's material will be familiar for anyone who reads his blog, Robb uses the book form to contextualize and expand his ideas.
  

For the most part, I enjoyed the book and found its critiques and recommendations well-reasoned and original. I do agree with him (and John Boyd, for that matter) that hierarchal systems, especially closed ones, do tend to amplify the stresses put on them until they collapse or find themselves in paralysis. I have a few disagreements.

Understandably, the idea of global guerrillas is by definition a form of economic determinism--it declares that a group of networked actors succeed by using globalization's structures against itself by causing economic damage. This will play a major part in future war, and will be employed by terrorists. But we should not underestimate the role of moral warfare--which erodes state cohesion through fear, terror, and symbolic violence.

For example, what really triggered the worst of the Iraq violence was the Sunni insurgency's deliberate strategy of targeting Shiites and their holy site. Likewise, genocidal raids against civilian populations, attacks on symbolic targets (like Trade Towers) play a role in giving superempowered actors the power to create confusion and chaos, eroding the moral bonds of the state. One also thinks to the Chinese doctrine of "unrestricted warfare," which aims to destroy the adversary through a variety of nonviolent forms of conflict in addition to more traditional forms of cyberwar trickery and terrorism.

We should remember Thomas Schelling's valuable insights in Arms and Influence about war as "violent bargaining process," how coercive violence plays a symbolic, as well as military, role in communicating different messages between adversaries, and John Boyd's heavy focus on the psychological game of conflict. I'm not saying that conflict is exclusively what Schelling calls "pure violence," but I think that a large part of the impact of violence directed by non-state actors is symbolic. It causes the enemy to massively overreact, scares civilian populations, causes dangerous divisions, shuts down opponents' decision cycles, and coerces.

I'm also not saying that Robb completely ignores this. He does catalog symbolic violence as one of the tools of the global guerrilla. It's just that he considers it a minor one--when there is a huge evidence to the contrary. In Ian Buruma's Occidentalism, he documents how all of the enemies of the West, from Hitler to Osama, have viewed us as a weak and diseased--and proscribed the use of force as symbolism to collapse our moral cohesion.

Also, Robb hints at 5GW and super-empowered individuals by stating at the beginning of the book that "one man will be able to take on the world," but does not develop it. This is an idea that Fred Charles Ikle examines in depth in Annihilation From Within, where he talks about the idea of individuals employing "dual-use" technologies such as nanotech, artificial intelligence and biotech to bring the state to its knees. Something that CFR's Richard Haas also discussed in his lecture was the idea of superempowered individuals using low-tech means to create fear and disruptions. He used as examples the Virginia Tech shooting, the DC snipers, and the anthrax crisis.

These things don't necessarily have to be in opposition to the "global guerrillas" concept. They complement it. Despite the various flaws of the "global guerillas" concept as a whole, I still think the concept is extremely groundbreaking and a base for further study.

Hamster Blogging Continues

Conference Blogging Pt. 5

The Global Conference is over. It was a very memorable experience.

Last roundup:

• Panel on the Arab world, featuring diplomats from Egypt and Libya. Self-serving pap and naked appeal for investment and tourism without an honest accounting of Islamic radicalism (within Egypt), Libya's continuing counterbalancing role in Africa, and both's rather abysmal human rights record. Interesting for perspective on how little we really know about the Middle East though. When the Egyptian delegate told the audience that Iran was a Persian, not Arab, country, I heard people in the audience gasp in surprise.
  

• Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke on California's energy successes. A rousing speech, but short on policy specifics. That was fine though. He was, after all, speaking an hour before an all-star panel of Nobel-prize winning scientists dealing with the subject of climate change, so he could be forgiven for speaking in generalities. The Governor was fundamentally optimistic about California's contributions to warding off global warming, pointing proudly to reduced consumption and emissions. He was also ready to challenge the federal government, threatening to sue the EPA if they didn't allow California to go along with further reforms.
  

• The Governor was very critical of the President, and emphasized that if the federal government was unprepared to deal with the reality of climate change, California would lead the United States (and, he seemed to imply, the world) on fighting global warming. He mentioned that other countries were already copying Californian approaches. With all political speeches, one has to be careful about the difference between rhetoric and reality--especially when faced with a politician as charismatic as the Governor. I have yet to do serious research on the reality of California's energy programs, but the Governor was a convincing salesman, if anything else. And the environmental movement needs salesmen, especially those who don't fit the stereotype of the tree hugger.
  

• I was seized with a urge to yell "HASTA LA VISTA, BABY!" or "Get to the Chopper!" during Arnold's speech, thankfully I resisted. Otherwise his security team might have had other ideas.

• The Nobel Prize panel went completely over my head. But I did see a healthy diversity of views and solutions, and in the end, that's the best you can ask for. Conflict, within certain limits, does create consensus.
  

Conference Blogging Pt. 4

I'm sitting in a breakout session, observing the head of Yahoo and the News Corp debating the future of media. Very stimulating.

Key insights:

• The Internet is not just the PC. Think wireless devices connecting (PDA, Blackberry, cell phone), because more people in the world own cell phones than personal computers. In the Third World, many people own cheap cellphones rather than landlines (or computers). Cellphone internet connectivity, if priced cheaply enough, could help entrepreneurs in the Global South network and make themselves more prosperous.
  

• Content will be shaped by form. Big screen, three-hour movies are not meant to be watched on iPods, PDAs, computers etc. Just as television was just more than radio or stage transposed, we'll see a distinct artistic genre targeted around small-screens and portability.
  

• "It would naive to expect not to see...billions of dollars lost [in print, radio, and music business]."
  

More later, when I go listen to a discussion on global warming held with some Nobel-prize winning scientists. Supposedly I hear that the Governator is coming down to deliver a lecture later today too.

Conference Blogging Pt. 3

Politics panel was interesting, but I was thinking more about Eddie's series on child war than what was being discussed much of the time. I recommend you read them, as he has some disturbing information and far-reaching solutions.

Conference Blogging Pt. 2

I'm almost done with Day 2. Only thing left to see is an American Politics 2008 dinner panel with Arianna Huffington, Bill Frist, Mortimer Zuckerman, Harold Ford, Roger Ailes, and Kenneth Mehlman.

Highlights so far:

• New Orleans business leaders, academics, and politicians talk about improving New Orleans' resiliency and rebuilding the city. I left towards the end, as it was my impression that the whole session was dissolving into self-congratulatory bluster. They do have much to celebrate, but much more to go.
  

• LAPD chief William Bratton, Larry Silverstein, and a few PR industry people talking about crisis management. This segment would probably be most interesting to Mountainrunner, as Bratton talked in depth about how half of his success in driving down the New York crime rate was effective networking and community relations, as well as developing an efficient media message.

• Rupert Murdoch, Gary Becker, Paul Gigot, and the Carlyle Group's David Rubinstein discussed the world economy, but the discussion digressed into politics and military strategy in Iraq. Although Becker provided insight, and Murdoch some much-needed humor, there was a definite lack of perspective. At one point, a columnist asserted that Americans didn't really mind when gas prices rose, which really is news to me.
  

In other news, I've ordered Brave New War, just like everyone else. I'll get to it once I finish reading the Chet Richards monographs. I haven't read either, and figured that I would probably do well to look at Richards' dispassionate examination of the various theoretical frameworks, and then examine Robb's theories in that context.

Conference Blogging Pt. 1

I'm in the second day of the the Milken Institute Global Conference. It's a very fascinating convention event with a focus on technology, business, and global politics.

Highlights so far:

• Alvin Toffler talking about 5GW (although he didn't really call it that) and calling for a more decentralized national security plan. Toffler seemed really tired, which accounted for his rather lackluster performance in the audience Q&A.
  

• Economist Myron Scholes (of the Black-Scholes theory) elaborating on the future of capitalism.
  

• John Kerry discussing how businesses can profit off of global warming solutions and greentech. He was very optimistic. Other panel guests warned about China and India's resistance to reducing their consumption and questioned Democrats' commitment to follow through with Green rhetoric.
  

• An international panel of social-media companies discussing the "wisdom of crowds" and how it can change global media.
  

• The Council on Foreign Relations' Richard Haas discussing the threat from "superempowered" individuals, using anthrax virus, DC sniper, and Virgina Tech shootings as examples.

I'm in the middle of a panel on how best to rebuild New Orleans. More info later today. I'm not feeling sick anymore too--thanks to everyone for their well wishes and recommendations.

Wheel of Doom

I'm still feeling incredibly ill, but until I get better I have hamsterblogging to cheer me up.

Tabloid Tales

The Yorkshire Ranter voices his disapproval of those who would condemn the British sailors held captive for selling their stories. I agree. From the dawn of recorded history, people have leveraged these types of events for fame and money. And some of them have had literary merit. Let's take a look at just some of the soldiers in the past who committed their stories to print.

Xenophon, Anabasis (up-country march).

Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War and Commentaries on the Civil War.

Josephus (former Jewish rebel), The Jewish War.

Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs.

T.E Lawrence, Revolt in the Desert and Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph.

I'm not saying that the stories that emerge from the British Iranian hostage crisis are going to be literary classics or informative texts. They're likely to be shallow memoirs, crass tabloid stories, and bad movies. But just because their writings (or the writings that others could make out of it) could be crass, shallow, and exploitive doesn't mean the sailors should be condemned in principle for selling them.

The ruckus is more of a reflection of public anxiety over the Anglo-American culture of celebrity. People dislike the craven desire for fame that is displayed so rampantly on reality TV shows, and dislike it even more when someone can become famous for virtually nothing, like Paris Hilton.

It also reflects public distaste over the nature of the memoir. As a genre, the memoir has increasingly become the literary equivalent of reality TV, distinguished by sheer narcissism, posturing, salaciousness, and sometimes pure falsehood. It is no longer a vehicle for mature reflection--the vast majority of memoirs today are simply giant signs by the road that read: "LOOK AT ME!"

Add to the prospect of an equally horrific movie being made out of the hostage debacle, and the public equates the sailors with guests on Jerry Springer, debasing themselves for fame and money.

But let's be clear--this is an justifiable aesthetic reaction. That the sailors are giving their stories to tabloids is sleazy, and the public has the right to feel disgusted by the possibility that the endproduct will be equally crass and sleazy. But aesthetics, by definition, are subjective. Different strokes for different folks. Just because I think that there will be little artistic or informative value to their tabloid stories doesn't give me the right to condemn them from high on the mountain.

It's a hypocritical moral reaction because of the plethora of higher ups across the years who got book deals. No one condemned NATO commander Wesley Clark or former Gen. Zinni when both leveraged their fame into books. You could fill up an entire bookstore with the writings of senior officers and politicians that have sold quite well. The only difference is that higher-ups, by virtue of their importance, get to take their stories to Scribners or Doubleday, or make millions off the corporate speaking circuit. The grunts are selling them to a Rupert Murdoch rag. Again, that's primarily an aesthetic difference, not a moral one. It's also class snobbery as well in that a moral distinction is made between a highbrow (literary publishing or corporate speaking engagements) and populist (tabloid) mode of communication, especially considering that a similar story is being told in both cases.

The sailors own the rights to their own experiences, just like anyone else. Everyone should be able to tell their life stories as they see fit, however distasteful and exploitative. The only exception to this rule that I can think of is the idea of criminals profiting off their victims, as to do so is to give benefit to someone whom society has decided to punish for their transgressions, exploiting those who have been harmed by said criminal's misdeeds.

However, there's plenty of crooks in DC that've profited off their victims over the years--and the sad thing is that we call them "statesmen."

Lean Green Machine

I've read Thomas Friedman's landmark essay on "green power."

I'd like to preface my comments here with a frank admission: I don't like Thomas Friedman. In fact, as I've noted in previous entries, I think that he is probably the most facile and superficial political commentator to ever write for the New York Times. He uses simplistic anecdotes to explain complex social systems---and often times even from a literary perspective those anecdotes and metaphors are jarring (The Lexus and the Olive Tree anyone?). He has a Panglossian belief in the ability of markets and technology to overcome all social conflicts. Despite his extensive travel, he has little knowledge of the Middle East or Islam. And his moronic cheerleading for the Iraq war was marked by a now infamous 4-year insistence that "the next six months are crucial," (the Friedman Unit). When asked to respond to critics taking him to task for his shilling for the Bush administration, he did not attempt to analyze the war's failure in a mature and intellectual fashion. Instead, he groundlessly accused his critics of being racists.

Some of these faults are evident in his "green power" column. For example, Friedman bizarrely claims that oil prices were responsible for the resurgence of Iran's conservatives:

"It is no accident that when oil prices were low in the 1990s, Iran elected a reformist Parliament and a president who called for a “dialogue of civilizations.” And when oil prices soared to $70 a barrel, Iran’s conservatives pushed out the reformers and ensconced a president who says the Holocaust is a myth. (I promise you, if oil prices drop to $25 a barrel, the Holocaust won’t be a myth anymore.)"

This simplistic narrative ignores the extensive political reasons for the defeat of reformers. President Mohammad Khatami's failure to challenge the mullahs in order to enact promised political reforms or reach out to the West demoralized the reform bloc. That, and the corruption (real and perceived) of both Khatami's administration and his party gave conservatives the room for a populist appeal, even though they were much more corrupt. For all the hate that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has for George W. Bush, he employed a similar electoral strategy in 2005: I'm a regular guy like you, vote for me.

Additionally, the regional chaos caused by the invasion of Iraq and Bush's failure to even consider Iranian overtures for cooperation in regional security led the Iranian people to feel like the US was targeting them for invasion next, an understandable worry given frequent American saber-rattling towards the charter member of the "Axis of Evil," the CIA-backed overthrow of Iran's elected government in 1953, and the fact that American troops now surrounded Iran in Turkey, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Of course, Friedman just conveniently dismisses all of this by reducing it down to an issue of pure economics, a snappy catchphrase called the "First Law of Petropolitics" that holds that an inverse relationship exists between a authoritarian country's freedom and the price of its oil. While a "resource curse" does exist, it's important to recognize that it's human cultural and political interactions that are primary, not pure numbers. There are plenty of other moments like this in Friedman's essay.

But even though I loathe Friedman, I recognize that he is performing a valuable service. Americans are not good at seeing the big picture. We cannot conceptualize risk if it is not placed in a form we are familiar with. We always think in the short term. Terrorism is a great example of this---we don't see the need to "shrink the Gap" unless we are confronted with its ugly byproducts.

The increasing environmental stress we are putting on this planet is a long-term risk. You don't have to believe in global warming or peak oil to be alarmed at the tremendous rate we use up our resources and create pollutants. Robert D. Kaplan saw the dangerous social effects of this in The Coming Anarchy, grimly noting worsening pollution, an explosion of slums, and the horrible standard of life endured by those who inhabited them. He was the first to point attention to how such conditions created a yearning for totalitarian authority and order.

Hampshire College professor Michael T. Klare wrote in Resource Wars that ruinous conflicts will begin as growing powers fight over dwindling resources. We have already seen the beginnings of such a conflict in Darfur, where the central government sends its janjaweed militiamen to ethnically cleanse the Fur and Zargawha so Khartoum's favored sons get the most valuable water in an era of increasing desertification. Even when we don't see this in a national security framework, there is still great shame in the idea that we are well on the road to bequeathing a toxic and dessicated planet to future generations.

What Friedman is doing is popularizing this, putting it in terms people can understand, and offering a way out. And because he's seen as a reliably centrist opinionmaker, he cannot be portrayed as a partisan hack. Maybe his way is not the best way to solve the problem, but it's a start. It's true that every great idea needs a great thinker. But every movement needs a salesman, a preacher, and a propagandist.

UPDATE:

For an idea of the national security ramifications of environmental problems, see this Defense Tech post.

Virginia Tech

Being sick and bedridden, I caught the news when it happened.

I can't imagine how terrifying it must have been to be trapped in the classrooms while those shots rang out. And I cannot even begin to imagine the horror and fear that the survivors will feel for the rest of their lives.

Some, like No Quarter's Larry Johnson, believe that our reaction is self-indulgent and hypocritical given the daily carnage in Iraq. However, I've always been of the opinion that a tragedy is a tragedy, no matter the place and time. Johnson's sarcastic tone is also incredibly insulting.

However, he does make one noteworthy point:

"The next time you hear Dick Cheney or George Bush blame the public attitude regarding Iraq on the media's failure to report "good news", examine carefully our reaction to the shooting at Virginia Tech. Look at our collective shock. Our horrified reaction. The public sorrow. Yet, in truth, this is an exceptional, unusual day in America. It is not our common experience. But we cannot say the same about Iraq."

I will grant him that--it is hypocritical to say that we only hear talk of "bad news" from Iraq when violent death, especially that of the people whom we love the most, always has a deep impact. However, Johnson also implies that America is somehow a placid zone free of such large killings, and always has been.

Not so. One can only think of our vicious Indian wars, the bitter struggle between North and South, "Bleeding Kansas," the turn of the century anarchist assault, the bitter labor disputes, and the religious and racial violence of the past to dispel that illusion. We, like every other country in the world, have a violent past. And, if the gang violence of the inner city is any guide, we will have a violent future.

Incidents like these should compel us to seriously think about how vulnerable we truly are. And often, the answer is disturbing. However horrifying this incident is, it's not without precedent.

In a grotesque way, a university a prime environment for a mass killing---large numbers of people packed together in narrow spaces, a large environment (and a big human sea) allows a gunman to avoid capture and consistently confuse those seeking to pinpoint his or her location, and the typical large university's bureaucracy cannot react fast enough until it's too late.

Is it possible to make the police and administration in such cases more efficient? Yes. The VT administration should have been more proactive in locking down the school and evacuating the students to a safe place after such a violent incident. But we can't eliminate the essential factors that make such an environment a desirable place for mass murder or rid ourselves of the sick people who would exploit those vulnerabilities.

As Atrios said,

"[L]arge residential college campuses are like small cities, places where people live, work, and study. Calling for absurd things like random bag checks and metal detectors in such an environment is like calling for such things on city streets."

In a broader sense, the illusion we can insulate ourselves from risk is what motivates "security theater" instead of meaningful attempts to challenge what threatens us. In the case of terrorism, public fears are mollified by the sight of soldiers patrolling airports and high-tech gadgetry. In the case of crime, the public feels safer with harsher sentences. When it comes to drugs, we all feel safer after our government declares "war," as if a tank or paratroopers can be deployed against a marijuana joint.

In each case described, there is a huge gulf between the public's image of safety and reality, one that a high-profile crime often shatters. Should another terrorist attack be carried out on American soil with mass casualties, there would be mass hysteria.

We can't protect ourselves from risk. However, we can try to be proactive in protecting the people we love with more than just placebos. I'm not saying that VT could have been prevented. Incidents like these are sadly a part of life--no one can exercise control over a lone gunman willing to throw away his life in a suicidal burst of rage. But we can act to make ourselves safer from all threats over the long run, provided we recognize that creating resilience is a long-term investment that involves building community, not hiding behind armor.

UPDATE:

Anyone looking for a good roundup of blogosphere reactions should click on this useful Instapundit thread. Also see his posts here, here and here for more VT-related material. See CATO's Radley Balko's post here for a great sampling of individual reactions.

UPDATE II:

Tbogg notes that the usual suspects are trying to relate this to terrorism/blame Muslims and immigration.

Iraqi Endgame

In my new piece for Electronic Iraq, I try to put last week's parliament bombing in a larger strategic context.

Surging Off the Cliff

There's two important criticisms of the "surge" right now in the news. Robert Fisk and John Robb both attack it, although Fisk does a historical comparison to the French in Algeria and the American experience in Vietnam and Robb looks at it through the prism of his systems disruption theory.

The essential points of both briefings is this:

• The US is trying to divide up Baghdad into a series of secure zones (inkblots) where it can rebuild.
  

• It thinks it's cutting off insurgent communication, but it's not. Although effective against foreign fighters, local insurgents can easily bypass the secure barriers. Insurgents have the support of the population (and are the population) and can pass between zones at will.
  

• American patrol bases (criss-crossed throughout these zones) are vulnerable to overrun.
  

• Even the most secure zones are vulnerable to attack.
  

• Building a political solution is impossible when the participants are enclosed within the US security bubble (and thus seen as US puppets).
  

Additionally, I also have a few observations of my own.

• In a high-tech age of free-flowing information and people, you can't effectively restrict movement. If you try, you end up with Robb's earlier solution, which I attacked.
  

• The purpose of COIN, at least in the classical Galula reading, is to create the conditions for a political solution. There is no political solution in Iraq. The only other way is the "Hama rule," decimating the population to intimidate the survivors. However, only tinpot dictatorships, colonial powers, the Nazis, and the Soviets did this. America is not a tinpot dictatorship or a real colonial power, nor is it led by Joseph Stalin or Hitler. Even if it were, such a strategy would still be massively immoral and probably backfire.
  

• The continuing bleeding of the American hyper-power in Iraq plays into a long-term Al Qaeda strategy, which I analyzed in my first article for Foreign Policy in Focus.
  

Gangs, Terrorists, and Trade

A.E. "Gangs, Terrorists, and Trade." Foreign Policy in Focus. 12 April 2007.

I have a new piece in Foreign Policy In Focus looking at the rise of networked gangs in Latin America. Interestingly enough, it was also reprinted in Free Republic.com.

Some notes on my conceptual approach:

• When I mean "state-friendly" policy, I conceive of preserving the state against the encroachments of non-state actors and avoiding steps that weaken state power. One of the criticisms I have of the IMF and "Washington Consensus" policies in Latin America is that they forced states into the world marketplace when they still lacked the political, economic, and institutional architecture necessary to adapt to such a change. For a more thorough take on this, see John Rapley's "The New Middle Ages" in Foreign Affairs, a portion of which is cited in my article.
  

• Also see any of Mike Davis' books on slums and the work of Saskia Sassen, who coined the term "global city"--which I throw around quite a lot.

• One thing I didn't spend enough time on (I always have these moments after I publish a piece) is the role of corruption and traditional inequalities in disconnecting large portions of the population from the market system. See Hernando De Soto's works on Latin American political economy for a good take on that.
  

Hamster Blogging Continues

"Gatekeepers"

As someone interested in conspiracy theories, I was very interested to see the response to Alternet staff writer Joshua Holland's writings on 9/11 conspiracists. He, like George Monbiot and Alexander Cockburn, took a big risk in denouncing the 9/11 conspiracists because a large portion of them are part of the broader left-wing movement. And just like Monbiot and Cockburn, Holland was viciously attacked.

All of the conspiracist tropes were at play. Holland (and Alternet) were slammed as dupes or CIA plants, Bush-lovers, etc. However, the most interesting charge that was leveled as "Gatekeeper." Holland, Cockburn, and Monbiot were all attacked as "left-wing gatekeepers." What does this mean?

One commenter explains, asking Holland why he doesn't stick to his usual criticism of the Bush administration and "quit editorializing about 9/11 where the only role you play is gatekeeper, trying to keep the door closed." What the conspiracist means is that Holland, as a popular left pundit, could use his media stature and credibility to validate the marginalized 9/11 "Truth" movement, but instead he ridicules them. This is crucial towards understanding the mindset of the conspiracy theorist.

In Michael Barkun's excellent academic study A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, he notes that despite the manifold distrust that conspiracists hold for authoritative institutions like academia and the media, conspiracists mimic academic styles of presentation. Unlike religious fundamentalists, whom conspiracists are often falsely compared to, conspiracists believe they are rational human beings whose claims must be taken on a factual basis, rather than faith. They have a need, in a sense, to be taken seriously. And while they believe all academics and media figures are tools of the overwhelming conspiracy they fight against, they still hunger for the respectability that a pundit or academic's endorsement can give them. Hence their anger at Mr. Holland.

Yet while conspiracist tomes are laboriously footnooted to give off the appearance of academic rigor, the citations are either from fellow conspiracist "scholars" or dubious conspiracist media. This is what Barkun calls the "cultic milieu"--the hermetic and self-reinforcing network of conspiracist books, websites, radio shows, and periodicals.

The cultic milieu is a fluid network where different conspiracy theories (UFO, racist paranoia like "Aztlan" or the Protocols of Zion, lizard people, JFK, Majestic 12, etc) mingle and eventually merge together. The only standard of proof for something to be included the pantheon of conspiracism is that it be what Barkun calls "stigmatized knowledge"--in other words something shunned and discredited by mainstream institutions. If one believes that such institutions are tools of an overwhelming malevolent force, then one becomes open to all kinds of revisionist theories rejected by the powers that be.

This is why the most popular American UFO conspiracist, William Milton Cooper, reprinted the anti-Semitic forgery Protocols of the Elder of Zion in his seminal text Behold a Pale Horse. This is also why some on the hard left believe in both 9/11 conspiracy and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. When one believes that everything put out by "respectable" institutions is a bald lie, there is a natural tendency to be sympathetic and trusting of those also marginalized by those institutions.

Rejection only increases the vigor of the conspiracist that he (and his friends) are the only ones that know the truth, because the only evidence that he accepts as authoritative is drawn from the cultic milieu--stigmatized knowledge. The exhaustive Popular Mechanics study disproving the attacks did nothing to convince conspiracists. Instead, they claimed PM was a front for Halliburton. Counterpunch commissioned a structural engineer to evaluate the claims, but his study was dismissed by conspiracists who assumed (bizarrely) that Cockburn had been bought out by the Bush administration.

With every rejection, increasingly paranoid believers retreat deeper into the cultic milieu, severing links with mainstream society and all of its institutions. Ordinarily, this would not merit such a long blog post, as conspiracists have traditionally been a marginalized and unimportant political force. But according to a recent poll, close to 40% of Americans believe the Bush administration either committed 9/11 or let it happen on purpose. As I noted in my article, this is a sign of serious danger.

The War At Home

After reading an article in the Atlantic Monthly about the fate of "snitches" and the growing difficulty for law enforcement officers in securing the trust of the community in many inner cities, I began to see some parallels to the larger discussions we are having about terrorism and insurgency.

• No security. Police officers have failed to establish security in many inner city neighborhoods or a credible witness protection program. Without that no one will talk.

• Losing "hearts and minds." The African-American population distrusts the police for a number of reasons, including the role of unreliable criminal informers in putting innocent people away, police abuses resulting from racism and a lack of accountability for those abuses, heavy-handed government covert ops against black leaders in the 60's and 70's, and the fact that arrests and convictions in the "War on Drugs" tend to skew overwhelmingly black. Because of that distrust, conspiracy theories have grown increasingly popular. Many believe the government introduced crack cocaine and AIDs as bioweapons to wipe out blacks in the inner cities. Other minorities such as Hispanics distrust the police for many of the same reasons, but especially for police cooperation with the immigration and naturalization service.
  

• The important thing is that the population sees the police as an occupying force with a sinister agenda, rather than the legitimate agent of government authority and a protecting force. And the select few interested in cooperating with the law are intimidated into silence because the police cannot protect them.
  

• Police also face an economically depressed and chaotic environment where the breakdown of community institutions and the family favors gangs, who fill both a practical and psychological gap, providing security and community. Gangs have also developed resilient networks, some of them transnational.
  
  
• Brawn over brains. In many big cities, police have not invested resources trying to develop human intelligence (HUMINT) or community networks. Cooperation with other police departments and law enforcement agencies (FBI, Coast Guard, etc) remains scattershot. In the case of transnational networks like MS-13, more cooperation and networking with foreign law enforcement officials is needed.
  

Part of the problem, as G.I. Wilson and John P. Sullivan write, is that gangs are evolving throughout the world into lethal forces that effectively supersede state authority:

"The intersection of crime and terrorism is characterized by an increasing interdependence of terrorists and transnational criminals and gangs. While these non-state actors have divergent motivations (politics v. profit) they can exploit the benefits of cooperation and shifting 'plug and play' network connections to further their individual and collective goals. These entities are “strategic criminals” whose lawlessness and violence threaten a range of state security interests. Consider Dawood Ibrahim, India's “godfather of godfathers,” who runs criminal gangs from Bangkok to Dubai. Ibrahim's syndicate D Company engages in strong-arm protection, drug trafficking, extortion, and murder-for-hire. He has been designated a "global terrorist" for lending his smuggling routes to al-Qaeda, and supporting jihadists in Pakistan."

Thankfully, we in America do not yet have to deal with "strategic criminals." MS-13 represents the only real transnational network that has the potential to challenge the state, but nothing like the PCC's assault on the Brazilian government has happened yet here. But even without such a larger threat, gangs are still a plague on American communities that have to be stopped.

Admin note: progress report

The advantage of blogging, compared to other mediums, is that it offers a quick and relatively accurate appraisal of what works best and what doesn't. What follows is an evaluation of some of the problems I've had so far and what I intend to change about this site's style and content.

When I blog, I'm always caught between two competing instincts. The first is to write a long piece, and the second is to publish instantly. Longer pieces tend to be more coherent but somewhat lengthy (bad for the blogging medium) shorter ones tend to be more appropriate for an internet audience but rather shallow (they consist of whatever is on my mind at that given point). Longer pieces also make updates less frequent, which kills traffic.

This blog had a previous incarnation that lasted from September 2006 to roughly November. I deleted it then because I felt that it was slapdash, throwing content at a screen simply because it could be seen. In the last few weeks, I've also had similar apprehensions about this blog's quality. But the great part about blogging is the opportunity that it offers to connect with others with similar passions, and riff off ideas. I was deluding myself to think that I would ever get the traffic (or attention) of some of the larger blogs specializing in foreign relations or politics. And even if I did, it wouldn't matter---what makes this worthwhile is the connectivity, however small.

So instead of giving into the urge to delete again, I want to change the way I write this blog and bring it into line with my original vision of it as an incubator for ideas.

• Longer, less frequent posts, consisting of both blog content and links to relevant outside articles I've written for other publications.
  

• More of an strictly analytical focus on foreign relations and much less content targeted around or commenting on American politics.
  

• More graphics and (maybe) some powerpoints.
  

• Liveblogs from conferences.
  

• Book reviews of pertinent titles relating to the concepts discussed here.

That's pretty much my plan for now. I've also considered switching to Wordpress, but I like blogger's format, and I think that it will stay here for the time being.

UPDATE:

For those nervous about the status of hamsterblogging, it will continue. I cannot resist hamsters.

Postcards from the Gap

Phishers strike again. Time to reset my spam filter.

"FROM THE DESK OF MR.MAXWELL ADAMA

AUDITING AND ACCOUNTING MANAGER,
BANK OF AFRICA (B.O.A)
OUAGADOUGOU-BURKINA FASO.


Dear Friend,

I am the manager of Auditing and Accounting department of BANK OF AFRICA
(B.O.A) here in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.In my department we discovered an
abandoned sum of US$20.5m dollars (TWENTY MILION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND US
DOLLARS) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer (MR.
ANDREAS SCHRANNER from Munich, Germany) who died along with his entire
family in Jully 2000 in a plane crash.For more information about the crash
you can visit this site:(
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm)

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of
kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless
some body applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as
indicated in our banking guidlings and laws but unfortunately we learnt that
all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the
plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim. It is therefore upon this
discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you and
release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for
safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we
don't want this money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill.

The banking law and guidline here stipulates that if such money remained
unclaimed after seven years, the money will be transfered into the bank
treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this
business is occassioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a
Burkinabe cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner.
I agree that 30% of this money will be for you as a respect to the provision
of a foriegn account , 10% will be set aside for expenses incurred during
the business and 60% would be for me Thereafter, I will visit your country
for disbursement according to the percentage indicated Therefore, to enable
the immediate transfer of this fund to you arranged,you must apply first to
the bank as relation or next of kin of the deceased with a text of
application form that i will send to you when i hear from you,so i will like
you to send to me your private telephone and fax number for easy and
effective communication and location where in the money will be remitted.

Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of
the application . I will not fail to bring to your notice this transaction
is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all
required arrangements have been made for the transfer. You should contact me
immediately as soon as you receive this letter.

Trusting to hear from you immediately.
MR.MAXWELL ADAMA
Yours Faithfully,
MANAGER AUDITING AND ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT
BANK OF AFRICA."

My favorite one, however, has to be the hilarious letter I got from a fake British "attorney" informing me that a relative had died in the 7/7 attacks who just happened to own a silver mine in Nigeria.

Jonathan of Chicago Boyz has an interesting post about a C-SPAN episode he watched:

"I watched part of an interview on C-SPAN conducted by a guy who was identified as a (the?) 'CBS News national security correspondent.' The interview was with a leftist author who has written a conspiracy-mongering book about the Blackwater company. At one point the author used the term, 'fourth generation warfare.' The CBS guy subsequently said that he had never heard that term before and was unfamiliar with it. Is this possible? It seems like a very odd admission for a 'national security correspondent' to make. Perhaps I misheard, or the correspondent really was familiar with the term and was trying to elicit an explanation for an audience he assumed was not. Either way, very strange."

Zenpundit chimed in the post's comments with a possible explanation:

"It is perfectly possible, unless perhaps you are dealing with a select TV talking head who is an actual expert on security affairs like Bernard Trainor, Anthony Cordesman, Pat Lang, Thomas X. Hammes, and so on.

Aside from most journalists lacking any formal education in history, political science, economics, the sciences or military affairs, the military ( outside of SOCOM and to an extent, the Marine Corps) have not just ignored 4GW, but COIN doctrine itself. Until very recently, COIN specialists were the unloved stepchild of the JCS which have wanted to focus only on training to fight wars with ” peer competitors”, like China. And even in the COIN/SOCOM community, 4GW is controversial or, at best, only partially accepted."

Speaking as a freelance opinion writer (I suppose I could loosely be categorized as "journalist"), I think this is right on the ball. I don't necessarily blame the journalist in question for not having heard of 4GW, because it is a controversial theory whose main non-military and non-academic adherents are a select group of bloggers, all of whom can be listed on one blogroll. However, there is a very big lack of historical perspective in the media that is sometimes painfully obvious--especially the broadcast media. It's rare to see anyone appeal to historical or political perspectives or theories--news anchors report and discuss the news as if its generated in a vacuum.

I stopped watching television news a long time ago simply because I was tired of the shallow supermodel anchors, fancy graphics, lurid sensationalism (Anna Nicole Smith, anyone?) and televised talking head shouting matches. Whenever I've gone to a place with a loud overhead TV, whether a friend's place, a gym, or a bar, I've found it much easier to watch the sports channel than CNN. Very odd for a consummate political junkie like myself, but true. Of course, this could just be the aesthetic hierarchy speaking.

There's usually more of a wide focus in the newspapers, especially The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor. But the print media is hardly perfect either, and newspaper readership is steadily falling anyway. Considering that the average reader is over fifty, perhaps The New York Times will eventually fold and become a small newsletter for eighty-something baby boomers. Some would say that's not much of a drastic change, but I digress.

On the subject of security issues, I've found it also very frustrating that there's little discussion of security issues in the larger political blogosphere that addresses academic theories and grand strategies or aims to put events in a larger historical, thematic, or strategic context. But then again, that's probably expecting too much. And I suppose I'm throwing stones in a glass house--I sometimes blog about hamsters and Michael Jackson.

Here, Soob looks at the increasingly blurred terminology of the war on terror and suggests that we re-examine our thinking. I completely agree, and suggested in comments that it arises from people's psychological comfort in seeing the threat through Manichean lens (although some believes that such an analogy better fits Zoroastianism). People feel better having one monolithic enemy who can be monitored, observed, and destroyed than a series of small hydra-heads.

A Silent Cacophony has a post on Italy's hostage deal with the Taliban. Although all deals with terrorists should be denounced, I think that Italy won't be the only one to make such a deal. Since the motivator for the deal was the ruling Prodi government's political weakness and the declining popularity of the Afghan expedition in Italy, it seems likely that other coalition governments fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan experiencing similar political problems may find such a solution extremely tempting.

John Neffinger in the Huffington Post has some empirical confirmation of why the medium is the message.

Jamais Cascio has an interesting post about the use of video gaming for strategic forecasting in disaster relief. It's a great read. I've also read stories about a Mideast peace simulator that uses similar techniques. As much as I love videogames such as Grand Theft Auto, I think that the simulators Cascio mentions, which can train future decisionmakers to deal with a variety of unpleasant situations, are more worthwhile and important. I would love to get my hands on one of them. That being said, no game or simulation compares to the infinite amount of variables present in real-life crises.

What the hell does Petraeus think he's doing?

"This morning on the Chris Matthews Show, NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell revealed that Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, met 'very recently' with the Senate Republican caucus to discuss their strategy on Iraq legislation. Petraeus went to the Republican caucus and told them, I will have real progress to you by August,' Mitchell said. The Republicans claim they told him that after August, they will end their support for the war. 'They have told him at a caucus meeting as very, very recently, that if there isn’t progress by August — and real progress means not a day of violence and a day of sanity — that they will pull the plug.'"

Though frequent readers of this blog know my loathing of the Bush administration is strong, I always respected General Petraeus. But this is too much. Not only is he acting in an explicitly partisan political capacity by meeting the Republicans to help them craft their legislative strategy, but he actually said "I will have real progress to you [the Republican lawmakers] by August." Petraeus forgets that his job is to protect America, not act as a partisan political operative.

If anything, this incident suggests a possibility that I find very troubling: the real purpose of the "surge" is not to stop the violence but to act as political cover for the beleaguered Republican party. This would not be unusual, given the GOP's crude political exploitation of the very real threat of jihadi terrorism. Over the last few years, President Bush has also shown a disturbing penchant for martial trappings, a habit more befitting a caudillo than the leader of a democracy. Just as soldiers are used as political photo-ops, the credibility and impartiality of a figure like Petraeus is manipulated to serve the administration's political ends.

Disgusting. Just disgusting.

UPDATE:

Zenpundit urges caution in comments and suggest this may just be Beltway gossip. Hopefully, something else will come up about this in the next week and clarify things.

UPDATE II:

Apparently, Mitchell was just trying to create a sensation. Salon's Joan Walsh reports that the NBC reporter has admitted that Petraeus carried out closed-circuit meetings with both parties. Mitchell's initial omission of this seems like a calculated attempt to hit the news cycle. I apologize for my role in passing this one along, and am leaving this post up as an object lesson in why an attitude of skepticism is needed towards media gossip (for an interesting perspective on this, see last week's New York Times Magazine on Beltway leaks).

Recommended Links

Anatol Lieven has a great article in the American Conservative about the fallacy of our policies toward Russia.

Glenn Greenwald on The Politco's alleged link to Matt Drudge. When viewing this, I wonder (assuming of course, that Greenwald is right--which has not been established) whether The Politco can be considered part of a 4GW or 5GW media campaign.

A original perspective on online music.

"Weberian Activism"---viable or outmoded?

Steven Pinker debunks the myth of the "noble savage."

Ezra Klein on Michael Berube vs Alexander Cockburn.

Robert Fisk on Shakespeare and war.

Stop the Spirit of Zossen on the media's complicity in building Bush's "heroic myth."