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Open-Source Warfare
How do you defend a country against small stateless bands of terrorists?
(Page 2 of 2)
Take Iraq’s Sunni insurgents. They have frustrated the consolidation of a post-Saddam government dominated by the country’s Shiite majority. They have kept the United States from turning its presence in Iraq into a secure base for regional power projection. But as of the autumn of 2007, Shiite militias have successfully cleansed most of Baghdad of Sunnis. Sunnis are no closer to taking control of Iraq. And against the wishes of a majority of the American people, the leadership of both major U.S. political parties envisions an indefinite “residual” military presence there. That’s some victory. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden’s hemisphere-spanning Caliphate has yet to materialize, and MEND still doesn’t have its reparations from Shell Oil.
What most of the global guerrilla groups have managed so far is to not lose. It’s a truism of counterinsurgency that “guerrillas win by not losing,” but successful guerrilla movements eventually win by winning. It’s much harder for global guerrillas to “win” than Robb thinks, because most of these groups have larger goals than he acknowledges.
This oversimplification relates to another of the book’s conceptual problems. Robb refers to the damage a global guerrilla attack causes as its “return on investment”: Spend $2,000 to attack a pipeline, as MEND did in one of Robb’s examples, and get a “return” of $50 million in lost revenue to Shell. But this isn’t really a return on investment as the term is used in economics, because the attackers don’t have $50 million when they’re done. Shell has lost $50 million or so, and the insurgents clearly have increased their utility somewhat; they obviously wanted to destroy that pipeline more than they wanted the $2,000. But it seems implausible to value their increased utility at anything close to $50 million. It’s a perfect illustration of the Australian economist John Quiggin’s dictum that war is a negative-sum game. The combined MEND/Shell system is worth a lot less after the exercise than it was worth before.
This point matters because the relative unattractiveness of open-source insurgency may prove more limiting than anything senescent nation-states do to combat it. Global guerrillas have proven they can keep weak states from functioning but not that they can forge strong states of their own. Iraq’s Sunni insurgents are depriving not just the country’s Shiites of electricity and potable water but themselves too.
As of fall 2007, even many Sunni tribal leaders appear to have soured on “open-source warfare” as a strategy for dealing with American and Iraqi Shiite power. The meaning of the so-called “Anbar awakening” is open to interpretation, and disputed. A Brave New War devotee might argue that the Sunni sheikhs are enjoying —at least temporarily—the fruits of an open-source warfare victory. The U.S. government resisted making deals with the tribes for years. Now, after years of open-source insurgency made Iraq ungovernable, the Americans are showering the sheikhs with money and weapons and pressing the Shiite-controlled government to give the Sunnis a bigger piece of the pie.
But the Sunni demands—government jobs, a formal share of state power—seem to refute the idea that failed states are global guerrillas’ goal. Given the Shiite-Kurdish government’s resistance to resolving issues of distributing oil wealth and patronage, and its reluctance to integrate former Sunni guerrillas into the Iraqi Security Forces, it remains to be seen how long the relative quiet will last. (And Iraq remains one of the most violent places on Earth, with millions of internal and external exiles.)
The real lesson of the global guerrilla phenomenon is social, and the social angle is what Brave New War most scants. Global guerrillas have raised the stakes on consent. The experience of post-Saddam Iraq, for instance, suggests that no state or corporate entity can secure an oil distribution network that a sufficiently alienated out-group can’t reach. Consider how heavily Saudi Arabia’s eastern fields depend on Shiite workers, and figure the chances that the Saudi royal family or the American armed forces could guarantee production in the aftermath of a U.S. attack on Shiite Iran.
Resilience in critical systems is all well and good, but as Gully Foyle could tell us, the long-term hope of coping with the global guerrilla phenomenon lies in finding ways to stop pissing each other off so much.
Jim Henley runs the
weblog Unqualified Offerings at highclearing.com.
|2.18.08 @ 3:15PM|#
open-souce warfare?
I believe there's a typo there.
It should be open-sauce warfare.
thoreau|2.18.08 @ 3:24PM|#
the long-term hope of coping with the global guerrilla phenomenon lies in finding ways to stop pissing each other off so much.
APPEASER!
:)
|2.18.08 @ 3:24PM|#
I just stepped in a puddle of Dondero's saliva.
He's drooling over the thought of declaring war on everybody.
John Wayne|2.18.08 @ 3:46PM|#
You buy yourself some second-ammendment-protected guns and blow the suckers away. If we all carried guns, everybody would be safe. No terrorist wants to fuck around with somebody who's carrying a piece. You talkin´to me, buddy? Blam! Take that, you fucking rag head!
|2.18.08 @ 3:54PM|#
The answer is obviously open-source anti-terrorism efforts. Loosely organize all the Internet Tough Guys and get them to war-spam terrorist networks into oblivion.
Brandybuck|2.18.08 @ 4:00PM|#
Hey editors, can you ditch the IMVU ads and bring back the Snorg girls?
Episiarch|2.18.08 @ 4:01PM|#
We should take off and nuke the place from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
|2.18.08 @ 4:04PM|#
"cost the attackers an estimated $2,000 to produce. ... The
effects of this attack were over $50 million in lost oil exports.
The rate of return: 250,000 times the cost of the attack."
Typo. It's 25,000 times.
|2.18.08 @ 4:20PM|#
cost the attackers an estimated $2,000 to produce. ... The
effects of this attack were over $50 million in lost oil exports.
The rate of return: 250,000 times the cost of the
attack.
I could issue a bomb threat from a local telephone to an airport,
have it shutdown for 30 min while they sort out the hoax and have
spent $1.00 in change for >$250,000 in travel disruptions.
Destruction is alot easier than creation.
thoreau|2.18.08 @ 4:23PM|#
It's worth noting that in the Table of Contents for the print
edition, it reads like this:
How do you defend a country against small stateless bands of terrorists? Jim Henley
Chuck Norris fears Jim Henley!
thoreau|2.18.08 @ 4:42PM|#
How about, small stateless bands of defenders?
That's certainly what the Internet Tuff Guys regard themselves as.
Me, I'd rather not stake my safety on Little Green Fascists.
Mad Max|2.18.08 @ 4:44PM|#
joe,
I think I have your guy:
http://www.marvel.com/universe/Spider-Man_(Peter_Parker)
|2.18.08 @ 4:47PM|#
cost the attackers an estimated $2,000 to produce. ... The
effects of this attack were over $50 million in lost oil exports.
The rate of return: 250,000 times the cost of the
attack.
That's not a rate of return; the attackers didn't get $50 million
deposited in their bank accounts. Bang for the buck, perhaps.
thoreau|2.18.08 @ 4:52PM|#
Ah, but what if some evil genius was sponsoring the terrorists,
and he had plans to short sell stock in that oil that was
disrupted?
Sounds like a 24 plot to me.
LarryA|2.18.08 @ 5:02PM|#
I can see it now. Al Qaeda stages a devastating open-source
warfare attack on Washington, D.C., completely disrupts the city's
physical and social infrastructure, resulting in the destruction of
the government of the U.S.
They thereby earn the eternal gratitude of the American people.
|2.18.08 @ 5:02PM|#
How about, small stateless bands of defenders?
joe, you anarchist, you.
Not volunteering, are you?
Me, I'd rather not stake my safety on Little Green
Fascists.
Me neither. Although, to really carry out the analogy, we would
have to provide our gang of "stateless" defenders with the kinds of
haven and material support that the "stateless" attackers have. At
that point, of course, we would be held responsible for everything
they do, even though Syria, Iran, etc. are never held responsible
for the actions of their pet "stateless" actors.
|2.18.08 @ 5:22PM|#
How about, small stateless bands of defenders?
I think I have your guy:
http://www.marvel.com/universe/Spider-Man_(Peter_Parker)
Close, Mad Max. But joe called for a stateless
bands of defenders?
Shannon Love|2.18.08 @ 6:30PM|#
The idea of "stateless" agents is a myth that arose during the
Cold War as means of disguising from the general public the role
the Soviet Union played in fostering and directing most of the
terrorism of the day. In reality, all such groups are either rebels
operating from a definitive ethnic region or covertly supported and
directed by States. Such groups can be eliminated by attacking the
patron State or by assisting they state they are rebelling
against.
I also don't see any evidence that "open source" warfare really
works in any systematic manner. No group has ever forced a major
policy change in a major power without the backing of another
equivalent power. (vietnam&afghanistan) neither have they had
much success in winning against smaller states. About the only
victory post-9/11 terrorism can point to is causing Spain to
abandon the people of Iraq and that was a decidedly minor
victory.
Kolohe|2.18.08 @ 6:34PM|#
this threshold will finally reach its culmination-with the ability of one man to declare war on the world and win
(emphasis *mine*)
Somebody has forgotten his Clauswitz and Sun Tzu.
Kolohe|2.18.08 @ 6:54PM|#
From their cradle in post-Saddam Iraq, the methods of
open-source warfare have spread to Pakistan, Russia, Nigeria, and
beyond.
Is Robb saying that this only started in 2003? Because the idea of
open source (or 4th gen warfare) is certainly older as illustrated
by William Lind and his peers themselves whom first started writing
this in '89 or so - decades after the phenomenon had been firmly
established. Plus, most obviously, there was that unpleasantness in
downtown Manhattan sometime around the beginning of the the
decade.
And FWIW, I think the characterizations of the first three
generations of warfare are off.
thoreau|2.18.08 @ 7:05PM|#
About the only victory post-9/11 terrorism can point to is causing Spain to abandon the people of Iraq and that was a decidedly minor victory.
Well, leaving aside your disingenuous characterization of Iraq,
there's also the fact that the election outcome reflected the
incompetence of the Spanish government as much as anything else.
The gov't tried to insist that it was the work of Basque
separatists when all evidence pointed to other elements, and so the
Spanish voters got rid of a government that was clearly stumbling
in its response to the attack.
And, as I understand it, the government was already pretty
unpopular before the bombing, and the party that won had already
pledged to withdraw from Iraq before the bombing, so they were
simply following through on a popular agenda rather than responding
to the bombing.
Mad Max|2.18.08 @ 8:40PM|#
"Close, Mad Max. But joe called for a stateless *bands* of
defenders?" [link]
The problem with those guys is that they violate the dress code. Of
course, that might be an advantage. The enemy sees them and says,
"look, Abdul, that guy is wearing nothing but a pair of green
shorts, and the chick is half-naked!" They will be so busy focusing
on that, their reaction time will be slowed, and they'll be
beaten.
Mad Max|2.18.08 @ 8:44PM|#
"And behold, Achmed, the infidel in the skimpy, tight shorts is clearly buff, but I can see no sign of a male organ. Perhaps he is a eunuch, or has been taking too many steroi - AAAAAAGH!" (as the superheroes beat the terrorists to a pulp)
Shannon Love|2.18.08 @ 8:50PM|#
thoreau,
The gov't tried to insist that it was the work of Basque
separatists when all evidence pointed to other
elements...
Actually, one government spokesman made an off the cuff assertion
that it might be Basque separatist and the media reported that the
government had officially. As soon as the government issued an
official statement the opposition cried "they lied!" and the
triumphed in the election a few days later. It's was a neat trick
which demonstrates the power of a dishonest and biased media.
However, you are correct that those in Spain opposed to fighting
for democracy their were already poised to win. The bombings only
had any effect because they occurred so close to the election and
could be used by the anti-Iraqi democracy opposition to quickly
gain power. If the election had been a few weeks off, the
government might have had time to correct the record and the
attacks could have had no effect whatsoever.
thoreau|2.18.08 @ 9:08PM|#
However, you are correct that those in Spain opposed to fighting for democracy their were already poised to win.
Democracy: Good enough for Iraq, but lousy for Spain!
Let me ask you this: Given that you've long called for media
outlets to (voluntarily, not coercively) refrain from reporting
details about terrorist attacks, what do you think the Spanish
media should have said about the nature and affiliations of the
attackers?
Oh, and FWIW, I seem to recall that Spain successfully captured,
tried, convicted, and punished the bombers. Bravo to Spanish law
enforcement!
|2.18.08 @ 9:15PM|#
There is an interesting presentation on terrorism and how to
deal with it here:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/Atran07/index.html
It's all about understanding the motivations of the attackers and
not using conventional techniques to combat them. It's well worth a
read.
Sonic Charmer|2.18.08 @ 9:27PM|#
Robb's main skill seems to be an uncanny ability to look at a
rather obvious, crude and banal phenomenon that (however much
damage it causes) really pretty simple and not at all difficult to
understand in the first place (terrorism) and needlessly dressing
it up in fancy, opaque terminology that makes it seem infinitely
more complex, advanced and coordinated than it actually is. Occam?
Who's that?
He's really quite good at it, I understand he has an actual career
doing this; certain types of people must be impressed by it. I find
it a somewhat irritating parlor trick myself, which too often veers
close to adulation. Sure, the kid down the street may have tee-peed
my house but does that really make him a self-actuated
stateless systems-disruption node? (Or whatever.)
Heinrick|2.18.08 @ 9:31PM|#
I hope he doesn't really expect us to develop multiple redundant systems. That would not be very cost effective. It is like the hospitals. If we ever get hit with a bioligical attack, the hospitals don't have anyone extra they can call in, just their regular staff.
Frank Castle|2.18.08 @ 10:26PM|#
I can take care of it for you . . .
as long as you don't ask too many questions
|2.18.08 @ 11:16PM|#
From their cradle in post-Saddam Iraq, the methods of
open-source warfare
What utter tripe. What does he think the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, and
all their myriad kin and spawn have been doing for the past 40
years?
Robert|2.18.08 @ 11:41PM|#
We should take off and nuke the place from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
How do you know they didn't sneak someone onto your space ship?
Ebeneezer Scrooge|2.19.08 @ 1:49AM|#
Over time, perhaps in as little as 20 years, and as the
leverage provided by technology increases, this threshold will
finally reach its culmination-with the ability of one man to
declare war on the world and win"
ooooowwwww, it's the myth of The Lone Wolf again, children. Aren't
you afraid?
Except, if you wanted to disrupt "systems", then the "leverage
provided by technology" was arguably there with the development of
gun powder. And yet I don't recall reading about "Harry The Bad Ass
vs. Belgium" wars, or any other Lone Wolves, in my history
books.
Oh, but just you wait boys and girls, it's going to happy
within 20 years!
Robb rejects the Bush administration's favored counter-terror
strategies of untrammeled surveillance at home and "pre-emptive"
war to transform civilizations abroad. He instead favors
decentralized, flexible infrastructure and security networks such
as "plug-dumb," two-way electrical grids where end-users can store,
produce, and sell back electricity, improving redundancy and
diversity.
Robb is also an freaking idiot.
This "redundancy" he "advocates" is expensive when it's possible.
And in a number of practical ways it's simply not possible.
However, I suggest one of our current presidential candidates hire
Robb asap, because he knows just how to "move the people".
Bingo|2.19.08 @ 1:49AM|#
Letters of marque and reprisal, let the LGFers and
"Jesus-wants-us-to-have-the-Middle-East" Evangelicals ship
themselves over there.
I mean, we would have basically created an American version of
Al-Qaeda, but at least it would be more cost effective and we could
disavow any sort of formal relationship with them.
a Duoist|2.19.08 @ 5:46AM|#
Just another apocalyptic selling the sky falling. They are always wrong, but man, can they sell books to worry-warts, conspiracy buffs, and anyone with a pessimist's knee-jerk negative world-view!
Paul|2.19.08 @ 12:55PM|#
Hmph, sounds like a perfect world for "open source
defense".
Hey, I wonder if there's anything in the Constitution which might
provide for such a concept? Wondering...
Hmm...
Nothing springs to mind...
An_Arab|2.24.08 @ 9:16PM|#
You people will never understand, until someone does to you,
what Israel did to us. Then I would like to see how many of you
"civilized" westerners will NOT resort to terrorism.
Japan bombs a navy shipyard and takes out 2000 military personel,
and you see it fit to vapourize 200,000 of their civilians.
Then all the sudden when we bomb Israelis because of what they have
done to us, we are called terorists and fanatics.
Well fuck all of you.
If defending one-self, our country, religion, homeland and empire
is fanaticism, then yes - we are all fanatics.
NUKE ISRAEL.
Long Live the Arab Empire
Allahu Akbar
An_Arab|2.26.08 @ 5:45PM|#
'Me', I know they both created you, but dont confuse the Almighty with your mother.
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