John Robb tracks Global Guerrillas
(7) The real threat, as seen in the rapid rise in global terrorism over the past five years, is that this threat isn't another state but rather the superempowered group. This group, riding on the leverage provided by rapid technology improvement and global integration, is and will remain the major threat to our way of life.
(9) ...new rule set... Sony's PlayStation 2 console has sufficient graphics-crunching capability to pilot a missile to its desired target. [BBC News April 17, 2000]
He's written all about it in his book, Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization. Robb suggests entirely rethinking the notion of a "war" against a stateless, dispersed enemy. "De-escalation of the rhetoric is the first step," Robb said. "It's hard for insurgents to handle de-escalation."
If we are in a global guerrilla "war" with Playstation Cruise missile plans available online for anyone who wants them, we better get serious. Reading Brave New War is a good place to start.
Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization by John Robb
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007
ISBN 978-0-471-78079-3
(15) Because of external pressure, global guerrillas have atomized into loose, decentralized networks that are more robust and learn more quickly than traditional hierarchies. Within Iraq, these networks have combined to create a thriving marketplace, a bazaar of violence, if you will, composed of many entrepreneurial groups - each with its own bond (former Baathist, Sunni, Shiite, and so forth), sources of funding, and motivations.
(20) The threat posed by al-Qaeda and other emerging groups is different. It is not at war with us over the replacement of the state but over who controls the power a state exercises. Al-Qaeda doesn't want to govern Iraq or Saudi Arabia. It wants to collapse them and exercise power through feudal relationships in the vacuum created by their failure. This stance is exemplified by al-Qaeda's relationship with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Not just feudal but theocratic as well with holy warlords, imams, bishops, prophets, and saviors. When you think of al-Qaeda you should also think of Aum Shinrikyo and Jim Jones.
(26-27) Unlike conventional wars of the first three generations, guerrilla wars are primarily moral conflicts. Because the armies of each side typically never meet on the battlefield, there aren't any pivotal moments that decide the war. Under these circumstances, the side that best withstands the conflict's casualties and disruptions is the winner. The key is maintaining moral cohesion.
The Bush/Cheney Junta and their supporters like to talk about moral will. The mistake they make is in making it all about the will and not about the morals.
In the guerrilla war for hearts and minds what is needed is a unifying vision. There is a peace path which starts, I believe, with a civilian-based civil defense and emergency response, self-reliance and local production. This is what Gandhi called swadeshi and can become a Solar Swadeshi within the context of Solar as Civil Defense.
(32) We are staring at a future where defeat isn't experienced all at once, but through an inevitable withering away of military, economic, and political power and through wasting conflicts with minor foes.
The deliberate hollowing out and withering away of the state on top of deteriorating infrastructure and stressed ecological systems as well as peak oil, other resource scarcities, and assorted possible climate change(s).
(44) Given what we can discern (as seen in the Duelfer Report) from the interwar period, Saddam's planning team decided to leapfrog third-generation warfare (maneuver warfare) to build the infrastructure necessary for a defense based on 4GW: a guerrilla war.
(50) Unfortunately, al-Qaeda isn't a proxy force. It is an autonomous entity, a nonstate with its own sources of financing and training. It isn't reliant on states for sustenance. An example of how different it is can be seen in the movements financing development projects in Sudan during the early 1990s. Money flowed in the opposite direction, from nonstate to state. It's not primarily a party for national liberation, either. Even to itself, al-Qaeda is seen more as a movement, an instigator of change, rather than as the primary mechanism for seizing control of a nation-state. In this role, al-Qaeda is a spoiler of order, a mechanism that creates the chaos necessary for change.
(51) The insurgency's learning goals in Iraq are completely different from our own. It is focused on how to disrupt or spoil the evolving political order rather than to replace it.
Disruption is the goal until Sharia Law is established in the particular case of al-Qaeda, as evidenced by their statements and experience with the Taliban. However, there are many other global guerrillas beside al-Qaeda. The way to disrupt disruption is to build local autonomy and self-reliance. Aim for resilience which helps whether the disruption is a hurricane or a bombing.
(59) The interim Iraqi government, because of ongoing attacks on infrastructure, had been unable to deliver the basic services required to legitimatize the government...
Iraqis can't understand how a country can overthrow their hated dictator, but can't get the water running - Robert Kaplan
(68) This new "Thirty Years' War" is being defined by the limits on state power and the rise of mechanisms that power the decentralization of warfare.
Perhaps al-Qaeda is subconsciously in tune with this shift. Its vision of an Islamic state isn't a state in the sense you and I think of it. It is a loose feudal state similar to the caliphate that ruled the Middle East a thousand years ago. It's a decentralized system of affiliation and deference.
(70) 1. The resources allocated to war will remain limited.
- Moral constraints now radically limit military options.
- Interdependence drives decision making.
Limits on moral constraints are only for nation-states, if at all and much less since the US began open torture. One could say, judging from results, that the aim of the Bush/Cheney Junta has always been a Hobbesian nightmare.
(71) Furthermore, as we have seen in Iraq, the rise of globalization and the Internet has accelerated the development of non-state foes. The result is a new, competitive market for warfare more akin to the years before the Thirty Years' War than to our recent past. The participants in this new market are small adroit non-state competitors and occasional allies - guerrilla/terrorist groups, paramilitaries, and private military companies - and they are in a the process of rewriting the rules of warfare
(89) We are not simply a "private security company." We are a turnkey solution provider for 4th generation warfare - quote from Blackwater website
(72-73) The tools of production have been democratized.
The costs of buying niche products are lower.
It's easy to find and choose among these niche products.
It's like a gang war, and we're the biggest gang - US Soldier on patrol in Mosul, Iraq
It's like a gang war layered with corporate feudalism with millennarian theocratic Apocalypse junkies digging in the spurs.
In the middle of a drought, like, you know, Darfur.
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