Rethinking Security

REPORT: MASTER OF CHAOS

I saw the new Batman movie over the weekend--went on two long and was too dark for my tastes. However, Heath Ledger's demented performance as Joker as worth the price of admission. As I drove back from the theater, I started thinking about the interesting parallels between the movie and the subject matter of the asymmetric warfare discussions we've been having in the last couple of years. 

ANALYSIS: FUTURE WAR REDUX

I'd like to highlight this SWJ Blog on a lecture given by General Sir Richard Danatt of the British General Staff. What Danatt gets at here is extremely important for discussions of future national security:

"We can no longer be prescriptive about taking part in either Major Combat Operations or Stabilisation Operations, the boundary between them has become increasingly blurred – the antithesis of the beloved binary response. I cannot envisage a conflict where there will be no role for stabilisation operations, but equally stabilisation is highly likely to involve combat as it does today. But more importantly the Army does not subscribe to the view that major combat operations are a thing of the past."

Danatt goes on to argue that that those espousing such views will find themselves imperiled when the big guns begin to fire again. This point extremely important---we may not be able to completely predict what form future wars will take, but interstate conflict is not something that will die away when there's a McDonald's on the moon.

REPORT: NAVEH AND LEBANON

Via House of War, Avi Kober examines the 2006 Israeli failure in Lebanon. The essay powerfully demonstrates how a national security system in a state of extreme dysfunction contributed to a defeat that would have made even Moshe Dayan tear off his eyepatch in a fit of atavistic rage. Unfortunately, Kober uses the opportunity to take a potshot at Shimon Naveh, one of the most innovative thinkers the Israeli Defense Force has produced in a very long time.

REVIEW: THE ARMY AFTER NEXT

Skepticism towards transformation pervades Thomas K. Adams's new book The Army After Next: The First Postindustrial Army. AAN deftly chronicles the Army's fumbling attempts to transform into a lighter, more rapidly deployable force after the first Gulf War. The level of detail is impressive, and Adams does well in breaking down the Pentagonese into readable prose. His detail and focus elevates AAN above similar histories such as John Arquilla's Worst Enemy and Frederick Kagan's Finding the Target, grounding its harsh critique of transformation in extensively researched fact.

REPORT: CHINESE PARAMILITARIES

China is massively investing in its internal security forces, the People's Armed Police. The Jamestown Foundation reports that the PAP Is mobilizing in increasing force to quell domestic unrest. John Lee writes in the PAP analysis that there were close to 87,000 instances of "unrest" in 2005. I put quotation remarks around unrest because an authoritarian regimes have a habit of characterizing everything that they do not directly control as disorder. Still, it seems that unrest related to corruption and environmental issues is increasing. Add that to the volatile mixture of ethnic minorities on the periphery and the regime has a real problem.

Despite China's ambitions of global power projection, it's clear from this massive militarized police force that the regime still sees internal enemies as the most dangerous. As China expands, its interior socioeconomic fault lines will grow more prominent. Beijing understands this well, for the warlord and warring states periods of Chinese history demonstrate the consequences of disunity.

ANALYSIS: THE SPITZER TRAP

Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer's patronization of a high-class prostitute, at first glance, does not have much relevance to irregular warfare. When the scandal first broke, I traded jokes with a friend about Spitzer "supporting the arts" through his transactions with Ashley Dupre, who recorded Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera imitation music when she was not servicing rich and powerful men. In Los Angeles and New York, there are many people whose careers are delineated with a "slash"--actor/waiter, musician/tennis instructor, writer/tutor, but musician/prostitute is certainly uncommon!

However, as Spin Hunters details in this excellent post, there are many propaganda aspects to the scandal that suggests, at a minimum, that it may not have completely developed organically.

REPORT: CERTOPS.COM

Interesting site focused purely on prison tactical units and security. Lots of information and news related to both domestic and international prison security.

Prisons are a unique and bizarre category of operational space. They mirror aspects of the "real" world---prisons have their own economy (outside contraband and commissary provisions), complicated set of dueling ethnic/religious/criminal factions (see Bill Valentine's Gang Intelligence Manual for more information), and offer both legal and illegal means of social advancement (working hard for early release or selling drugs). Yet no one loses sight of the fact that prisons are claustrophobic, completely regimented, and authoritarian societies constructed for the sole purpose of isolating criminals from the outside world and punishing them for their misdeeds.

REPORT: STICKS AND STONES

Soob has a great new post detailing the devolution of the Kenyan conflict into tribal warfare, complete with bows and arrows. John Robb has also posted. There are very scary parallels to Rwanda, and one hopes that something can be done to stabilize the situation. That being said, Kenya's troubles do not amount purely to tribal competition. Economic discrimination and class resentment also motivates a great deal of the violence directed against the majority tribe. None of this is also exclusive to Third World or developing nations.

REPORT: BHUTTO AS SOCIAL SYSTEMPUNKT

In my review of Brave New War, I criticized John Robb's focus on the technological and economic at the expense of the social. While Robb's scholarship on open source warfare, black globalization, systempunkts, and other related concepts is invaluable, he doesn’t spend enough time analyzing social systems disruption. This hurts the overall quality of his analysis. The world is composed of human systems, and economics and technology fall are part of (not above) such systems.

However, Robb analyzes the Benazir Bhutto killing’s social impact with pinpoint accuracy.

ARTICLE: D5GW SCENARIO

Inspired by Arherring's post, I've come up with my own 4GW/5GW scenario on Dreaming 5GW.