The Strategist

On the bullshit of "generations of war"

In this essay in Armed Forces Journal (h/t Ubiwar), William F Owen attacks folk who invent fancy new words to describe existing aspects of conflict...

Thus the forces we used to call guerrillas are now “hybrid threats.” Insurgencies are now “complex” and require “complex and adaptive” solutions. Jungles and cities are now “complex terrain.”

My pet hate, when it comes to such "buzzwords and bumber stickers", is "4GW".

4GW is one of the four so-called generations of warfare, a concept invented up by William S Lind and others in 1989:

• 1st generation involves line and column tactics of the musket era, e.g., the Battle of Waterloo during the Napoleonic Wars.

• 2nd generation involves tactics of linear fire and movement, e.g., the battles on the Western Front during World War One.

• 3rd generation involves using surprise, speed, manoeuvre and depth to attack or defend, e.g., the German blitzkrieg in 1940.

• 4th generation involves warfare between a state and a non-state entity, in which the non-state force avoids conventional combat and uses terrorism, guerrilla tactics etc to overthrow an opponent, e.g., the Viet Cong in South Vietnam.

When I first came across the term 4GW it annoyed the hell out of me. Partly because it suggests a progression which has no basis in history. Partly because any war can involve elements of all generations - Napoleon's campaigns, for instance, or the recent Sri Lankan civil war. Partly because it ignores wars that were fought before the 18th century. And partly because it is dreadfully Eurocentric.

I also found it confusing. 4GW seemed to be about familiar concepts: insurgency, terrorism, guerrilla warfare, rebellion, civil war. But it sounded so fancy, so Zen, that I felt there had to be more to it. After a while I realized that there isn't anything more to it. It's a classic example of obfuscation, a new, confusing and bullshit way of describing things that are already clearly and precisely named.

On the myth of natural-born soldiers

In a review of John Laffin's Jackboot, a history of the German soldier, Cousin Dampier asks "can a nation-state be a warrior-state, and can the people of a nation be summarily cast in their entirety as natural-born soldiers?"

The idea that certain peoples or races are natural soldiers is widespread and longstanding. Laffin considered that "The German, every German, is a born soldier".

During two world wars, New Zealand, Australia and Canada provided the British empire with many of its elite infantry formations. These colonials, from largely agarian societies, believed that they were natural soldiers, of hardier stock than their British kin. Frontier societies, like the 18th century American colonies and the 19th century Boer republics, prided themselves on breeding irregular bush fighters who were tougher, smarter and better shots than European troops.

And in the 19th century, many British believed in the 'martial races' concept. This held that the best recruits for the Indian army came from ostensibly hardy and warlike ethnic groups: Sikhs, Nepalese, Jats, Dogras, Pathans and Rajputs.

I don't believe that any people can be considered as natural soldiers. At some stage, a nation will exist in an epoch of warfare, and generations of young men will serve in the armed forces and fight and die. Myths - a nation of soldiers, a warrior people - will evolve to condition individuals for military service and to sustain the society in war. When the epoch passes, the myths lose their utility and fade.

Ironically, there's no better example of this than Germany. Writing in 1965, Laffin believed that

"No, the Germans are not finished with war. For every German, peace is a suspension of the state of war. The German breathes war, he is imbued with it, he glorifies it."

After a century of German aggression against other nations, many would have agreed with him. Almost 45 years on, you'd struggle to find a less bellicose nation or people in Europe.

What's the best cop flick ever?

Best cop flick ever?

Tough question - there's so many great movies to choose from. Dirty Harry, LA Confidential, Hot Fuzz, Miami Vice...

But my top pick is not American or British. It's a Brazilian film, "Elite Squad", directed by José Padilha, which came out in 2007.

Based on real life, Elite Squad portrays the experiences of a captain and two rookie officers in BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion), an elite military police unit in Rio de Janeiro. Set in 1997, the film takes the viewer deep into the squalor, crime, corruption and drug warfare of Rio's favelas. There are no golden beaches in this film, no bronzed bodies relaxing on the sand at Copacabana, no fun games of beach soccer. This is intense stuff - urban warfare, fought between paramilitary police and drug gangs, in tight-packed slums.

You can't really describe BOPE as a police force. It's a commando unit, clad in black, heavily armed, and engaged in urban combat. BOPE's officers and men don't patrol a beat, investigate crimes and prosecute criminals. They live by the creed of the infantryman - close with the enemy and kill him.

Unlike Rio's ordinary police, which the film shows as slovenly, inept and utterly corrupt, BOPE prides itself on being hard, highly trained and honest. Up against merciless drug lords, BOPE commandos fight fire with fire: they infiltrate the favelas by night, shoot on sight, execute criminals, and torture to get information.

In the film, Captain Roberto Nascimento is burnt out. He's searching for someone to take over his squad so that he can retire knowing that his men are in good hands. He's found two promising rookies, Neto Gouveia and André Matias. Both joined BOPE from the ordinary police after running foul of their venal superiors. At the same time, Nascimento's been ordered to cleanse a slum of its resident drug gang so that the Pope can stay there during his visit to Rio.

The film interweaves these two stories. Along the way it exposes the corruption within the ordinary police - where police chiefs fight for control of lucrative kickbacks, precincts sell automatic weapons to drug dealers, and the cops shift corpses to other areas so that they won't have to investigate the killings. The film also takes a swipe at the hypocrisy of Rio's wealthy university students, who fuel the drug trade by smoking dope and snorting crack, while blathering on about Foucault and state repression.

Elite Squad makes you think about the future of policing in the urbanized, overcrowded and anarchic 21st century. As the authorities bleed sovereignty and cede territory to drug lords, insurgent groups and militias, will police become militarized and focused on protecting turf, resources and revenue?

Is the future of policing about making war, not enforcing the law?

History moves in cycles - FOB Keating and the Siege of Malakand

Forward Operating Base Keating, March 2007 (photo: Sgt Amber Robinson).

Tom Ricks has posted a first hand account of the FOB Keating fight in Nuristan (h/t Armchair Generalist). On 3 October, eight American and two Afghan soldiers were killed when a Taliban force launched a surprise attack against the isolated post.

As you can see in the photo (and in these pictures), the post was situated at the bottom of a ravine. It was overlooked on three sides by cliffs. As a result the post was exposed to frequent hostile fire and was vulnerable to a surprise assault.

This incident reminded me of the Malakand siege, on the Northwest Frontier in 1897. A British garrison held the Malakand pass, which is a key route between the Punjab and the Swat Valley (at that time the Northwest Frontier was part of the British Raj; now it is in Pakistan). From 26 July to 2 August the garrison was besieged by a large force of Pashtun tribesmen, but held out until a relief force reached it. During the siege 173 British and Indian officers and soldiers were killed or wounded.

Winston Churchill wrote an account of the Malakand siege, and the subsequent punitive expedition into the Swat and Bajaur - The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898). Churchill, who served on the expedition, described the situation of the Malakand garrison like this...

"The Malakand is like a great cup, of which the rim is broken into numerous clefts and jagged points. At the bottom of this cup was the 'crater' camp...

...the Malakand South Camp was an impossible place to put troops in. It was easy of access. It was cramped and commanded by neighbouring heights....

...the second encampment was close under the north outer edge of the cup....As a military position it, also, was radically bad. It was everywhere commanded, and surrounded by ravines and nullahs, which made it easy for an enemy to get in, and difficult for troops to get out."

Sound familiar?

There's no "moral of the story" here. But once again I'm struck how history moves in cycles. Over a century on from Malakand, another western imperial power finds itself in the Hindu Kush, fighting a frontier war against the same people and encountering similar problems.

Hail the Raj! Brits to train Pakistan's Frontier Corps

There's something gloriously anachronistic about this story. Britain is building a training camp in Pakistan's Balochistan province to instruct the paramilitary Frontier Corps in counterinsurgency.

Talk about back to the future. In 1907, during the Raj's heyday, the British formed the Frontier Corps by amalgamating irregular frontier levies like the Khyber Rifles, the Chitral Scouts and the Zhob Militia. These levies comprised local fighters led by British officers: the Kyyber Rifles, for instance, recruited Afridi tribesmen (Pashtuns). The British used the Corps to police the Northwest Frontier and hold sway over the autonomous tribes along the Afghanistan border. 

After independence in 1947, the Pakistan government expanded the Frontier Corps - it is now some 80,000 strong. The Corps operates in Pakistan's tribal agencies and Balochistan. Its main role is law enforcement and border security, although it has carried out military operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The Balochistan initiative is part of a joint Pakistan, US and British programme to modernize and strengthen the Frontier Corps. The aim is to make the Corps more effective in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda and securing the border with Afghanistan. 

This is smart thinking, on two counts.

While some units are in poor condition, the Frontier Corps is organized, accountable to government, has martial traditions, and comprises locals who know the peoples, languages, customs, affairs and terrain of the frontier.

And whatever strategy plays out in Afghanistan, having a well-trained and equipped Frontier Corps in place is one key way of denying the Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuary in the tribal agencies.

Wrong war, wrong enemy: time for Obama to call it quits

I sense that some bad shit is about to go down...

"President Obama is prepared to accept some Taleban involvement in Afghanistan’s political future and is unlikely to favour a large influx of new American troops being demanded by his ground commander..."

Brace yourselves for howls of "traitor", "communist" and "Islamo-facist lover" from the rabid American far-right.

Such bile shouldn't hide the fact that this approach makes perfect sense. Why?

First up, it was crazy for the West to pick a fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan. It's crazy to keep fighting them. General McChrystal's plan - more troops to fight a protracted counterinsurgency against, yep, the guys the West didn't need to fight - is like building a bloody expensive road to nowhere. Sort of like Iraq, really.

And it clears the way for the West to concentrate on the real enemy, al-Qaeda, with a new strategy which is practical, achievable, affordable and proportionate to the threat. UAV strikes seem to be having a big impact on al-Qaeda's ability to operate. It makes sense to press home the advantage, rather than keep fighting the wrong war against the wrong enemy.

"Pull ya head in" - arguing the Afghan strategy

I haven't closely followed the Afghanistan strategy debate in Washington DC. So I'm not sure of the debate's internal dynamic. But check out the interview with US National Security Advisor General James Jones (h/t Global Dashboard). Am I right in assuming that Jones told General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, to pull his head in?

"We have a strategy. What General McChrystal has done is presented his opinion, is presenting his opinion, of what he thinks his role within that strategy is."

And...

"this is what we going to tear apart and look at and consider General McChrystal's input. The President should be presented with options, not just one fait accompli."

Top politicians, officials and commanders used to debate war strategy behind closed doors. The Jones interview is interesting in that it highlights how strategy is now being debated more openly. We, the public, are not privy to the detailed discussion, but we can get a sense of the main points of argument, and where the debate is heading.

   

T E Lawrence, and leadership as influence

Adam Elkus observed that in counterinsurgency "everyone and their brother wants to be Lawrence of Arabia with the tribes, forgetting of course that Lawrence was an insurgent".

People also forget that Lawrence saw himself, and served as, an adviser to Feisal and other leaders of the Arab Revolt 1916-18. Not the great white commander-in-chief, not the puppet master.

Liddell Hart wrote that Lawrence had the gift of working through men, not standing over them*. To this astute observation I'd add that Lawrence was an influence par excellence.

The influence Lawrence exerted wasn't the shallow kind that sees the smooth talker shine in job interviews. It wasn't the unctuous patter of the used car salesman. Lawrence achieved great things because he was deeply interested in people, because he sought to understand them on their own terms, and because he worked to meld what he wanted with what they wanted in pursuit of a common goal.

* Basil Liddell Hart, T E Lawrence in Arabia and After (1934).

Hart Group: a private military company with fingers in many pies

Al-Jazeera: "We spoke to one Somali man trained by Hart, who says those skills helped him hijack ships when he used to work as a pirate."

Hart Group is a private military company that does maritime security work in pirate waters around the Horn of Africa. In this strategic region Hart has fingers in many pies. In alliance with insurer Swinglehurst, Hart provides security teams on some ships transiting the Gulf of Aden. It reportedly operates an armed escort vessel out of Yemen. It trained and works with the Yemen Coast Guard.

And between 1999 and 2002, Hart had a contract with the government in Puntland, northern Somalia, to train men for a start-up fisheries patrol agency. Training included weapons handling, ship boarding, and maritime interdiction tactics.

In the clip below, Dan Nolan interviews Richard Bethell (Lord Westbury), head of Hart Group (h/t antobei at Close Protection World). In the clip, Bethell denies a suggestion that Hart's training of Somali seafarers contributed to the piracy problem. He also claims that he'd like to see an end to Somali piracy.

>> Somali piracy series

   

"AK-47s trump sound" - an interview with a security contractor about Somali piracy

While researching Somali piracy and private security companies, I've been in touch with a number of company executives and consultants.

One of these men is Charles Kuneff, senior partner in US-based Muse Pro Group. Muse is a private military company which operates in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Its maritime wing, Muse Anti Piracy Solutions, is based in Yemen and works in partnership with the Yemen government. Muse provides onboard security to ships on the east-west transit in the Gulf of Aden.

I spoke with Charles on Thursday via Skype. He gave me interesting insights into the operations of a security company engaged in anti-piracy work. Here's an edited transcript of some of the things we discussed...

"AK-47s trump sound"

Peter Hodge: "What's the main service that Muse provides to ship owners to help them counter piracy?"

Charles Kuneff: "After the Maersk incident [April 2009] we stopped doing non-lethal escorts. Now we only provide armed escorts. Currently 85% of our escorts take place in Yemen waters."

"Did you decide that it was too dangerous not to arm security personnel? Or that the stakes were getting too high? Is this increasingly what your clients want - armed security?"

"Yes. We've worked in Iraq and Afghanistan, and feel this is the best way - fight fire with fire but not show it until the time is right. If you remember a security company called APMSS that had a ship hijacked [the MV Biscaglia, 28 Nov 2008] - well, the only thing they had was a LRAD [long-range acoustic device]. AK-47s trump sound."

"We board at sea"

"Do you board and disembark security teams from Yemeni ports? Do you work longer transits?"

"We board at sea, we will quote for a longer transit, but why take money for nothing? Maybe when the threat level changes - we will of course adjust services to suit the needs of the clients.

"So, when you put a team onto a ship, what sort of things would they do when onboard? For example, would they secure the ship, help keep watch?"

"Ship risk assessment survey is first. The team leader will walk the ship and find the best place for the crew in case of attack, post a guard watch depending on the latest threat reports. The number of guards posted depends on the ship's position in the transit, but all will be ready for quick reaction. In the day we'll do drills when everything is clear."

"Does the security team have shore support during the transit, like intelligence updates, threat level assessments?"

"Of course. That's why we use the Yemen Coastguard/navy as our main element, and the government's anti-piracy centre."

"Navy SEALS are not cheap..."

"Muse's PMC business recruits former Ukrainian special forces soldiers.  Is that the same for Muse's maritime business?"

"The Ukrainians work mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we are talking about bringing some of the best to work in the Gulf of Aden as liasion officers.

For the maritime operation, we recruit former US Navy SEALS, Special Forces, Delta, even Rangers as team leaders. Navy SEALS are not cheap but they have the training and experience to handle most situations by themselves. TCNs [third country nationals - Yemenis] make up a security team with a well qualified team leader to control everything."

"What sort of experience and personal qualities do you look for?"

"We want combat experience. We look at a man's training, how long was it, who were the instructors. Time in service, combat experience and training is what we look for. And a good brain."

Cry wolf? Yemen the next failed state?

There's been talk that Yemen is on the way to becoming the world's next failed state. Why? Ginny Hill explains that the government is fighting well-armed Shia rebels in the north, a separatist movement in the south, and active terrorist networks.

It pays to be cautious of "cry wolf" calls about failed states. Many westerners don't realize that conflict, at one level or another, is a fact of life in many places. Or that central government weakness and de facto local autonomy are the norm. Conflict + government weakness + local autonomy doesn't necessarily = failed state. Places can be pretty wild but still hang together.

Still, the implications of a collapsed Yemen state are interesting to ponder: two failed states, Somalia and Yemen, on either side of the Gulf of Aden, lynch-pin of global shipping. Nations are struggling to contain the threat of Somali piracy to shipping in the Gulf. How would the world cope with pirate attacks from both shores of the Gulf?

A pest control strategy for dealing with al-Qaida

Eight years after 9/11, al-Qaida is on the run. This according to Jason Burke, who writes that affiliated groups in Algeria and Mauritania are strong, but "al-Qaida central", situated in Pakistan's tribal agencies, is in disarray. Why? Partly because of deadly UAV drone strikes against middle and top leaders…

"The European volunteers speak of the almost neurotic concern about invisible 'chips' supposedly planted by spies to guide in missile attacks. Fear of interception meant no use of mobile phones, only radio and notes carried by hand…"

Burke concludes this insightful article by saying that for terrorists, "simply surviving represents a victory". Well, that may be so, but it's a pretty poor sort of victory if you're hiding out in isolated huts, constantly scurrying from one hiding place to another, always fearing that each minute may be your last, and unable to advance your aims because you can't communicate effectively with the outside world.

This suggests that while the west may never eradicate terrorist groups like al-Qaida, skillful use of advanced technology and highly trained specialists can keep a group's leadership pinned down, significantly disrupt its organization, and curtail its ability to inspire and direct.

You couldn't call this a decisive victory, but it may represent a state of affairs - a stalemate, better yet a situation where you have the upper hand - that the west could live with. The analogy is with pest control. You'll never stop mice from raiding your house, but with sustained pressure and appropriate countermeasures - a hungry cat, cunningly placed traps - you can contain the problem.

Photo: lafrancevi - Heron UAV, Kandahar airfield.

Private security companies called in to combat Somali piracy

Note: I'm researching companies that provide ship owners and marine insurers with security, crisis management and legal services to help them deal with the Somali piracy threat. See this page for a list of all posts on this topic.

With the surge in Somali piracy over the last 18 months or so, private security companies (PSCs) have been busy providing ship owners with security for vessel transits through the Gulf of Aden.

As well as protecting vessels and crews against attacks, such arrangements help lower the cost of marine insurance premiums that are underwritten by Lloyds of London syndicates.

The PSCs are mostly British-based, although American firms are also getting in on the action. They have close links to the shipping industry and insurance companies. The list of companies that claim to be operating off the Horn of Africa is lengthy - here are some of them:

Drum-Cussac

A British firm (based in Jersey) which has been in the maritime security business for a long time. It deploys security teams that use non-lethal force to repel pirates. Drum Cussac works with Dryad Maritime Intelligence Service, a specialist intelligence provider to the shipping and marine insurance industries.

Maritime Security Solutions (MSS)

Another British firm with longstanding experience in the maritime security business. MSS can provide security teams either armed or equipped with non-lethal devices. Seem to recruit mainly ex British armed forces personnel, and like many PSCs claim to have many former special forces soldiers on the books.

Maritime & Underwater Security Consultants (MUSC)

Established in 1973, and based in London, MUSC offers a range of anti-piracy services globally, including planning, risk management, training and security for vessels transiting the Gulf of Aden. If a pirate hijack takes place, MUSC can organize hostage negotiation and coordinate ransom drops and the recovery of the crew and vessel. MUSC works with specialist insurance broker Special Contingency Risks Ltd (SCR) to provide maritime kidnap and ransom (K&R) cover to ship owners.

GEO & Shield Consulting

A London-based firm which works with the Yemen Coast Guard (in partnership with Lotus Projects, a Yemen company) to provide onboard security teams and escort vessels during passages through Yemeni waters.

Gulf of Aden Group Transits (GoAGT)

Formerly British-based Anti Piracy Maritime Security Solutions, a company which was involved in the MS Biscaglia incident in Nov 2008. Like GEO/Shield, GoAGT works with the Yemen Coast Guard and Lotus to provide ships with guards and vessel escorts on Gulf transits. It claims to be not-for-profit.

Nick Davis, the key player in APMSS and GoAGT, has recently established the Merchant Maritime Warfare Centre, an anti-piracy training centre, in the UK.

HP Terra-Marine International

Sister company of US-based Hollowpoint Protection. It's licensed by the Yemen government to operate from Yemeni ports. [Update, 15 September 2009: the CE of a British maritime security company told me that HP Terra-Marine are no longer trading.]

Protection Vessels International Ltd (PVI)

A British-based firm which provides shipboard guards and an escort. It has its own escort vessel, which is crewed by former Royal Marines.

MAST (Maritime Asset Security & Training)

A British-based company which specializes in protecting super yachts. MAST works with Watkins Marine Services Ltd, a yacht managing company which is linked to Watkins, a Lloyds of London syndicate, and Pilgrims Security Ltd, which is based in the Seychelles.

Muse Pro Group

A US-based private military company. Its maritime wing (MAPS) works closely with the Yemen Navy and Coast Guard and local associate Alqusoor. Muse provides armed security parties for transits through Yemeni waters. It recruits security personnel who've served with American elite units, like US Navy SEALS, Special Forces and Delta.

Former US Special Forces soldier Charles Kunuff is the senior executive in charge of Muse's maritime operation (see here for my interview with Mr Kunuff).

Hart Group

A global PSC with its HQ in Cyprus. Its maritime division used to be called Global Marine Security Systems. Hart trained and works with the Yemen Coast Guard, and reportedly has an escort vessel stationed in Yemen. Insurance company Swinglehurst Ltd offers shipowners war risk cover (including piracy risk) on Gulf transits where the ships are protected by Hart security personnel.

Here's an Al-Jazeera interview (h/t Close Protection World) with Richard Bethell (Lord Westbury), former British SAS officer and head of Hart. In the clip, Bethell denies suggestions that Hart trained many of today's Somali pirates. Between 1999 and 2002, Hart had a contract with the government in Puntland, northern Somalia, to train men for a start-up fisheries protection agency.

REDfour MSS Ltd

The maritime wing of British company REDfour Security Group (which provides security services in Africa, the Middle East and Asia). It offers a range of services to shipowners, including onboard armed or unarmed security, depending on the flags of vessels. REDfour has signed an agreement with leading insurance broker Marsh to provide security for over 900 transits a year. Will McManus is REDfour MSS's chief executive.

ISSG Holdings Ltd

A Seychelles-based company that provides security to vessels in the Gulf of Aden and Horn of Africa waters. ISSG mainly hires ex-Indian navy commandos for its security staff. Michael Murrell is the company's chief executive. It has recently developed an anti-piracy training course for seafarers to be taught at the MATS College of Technology in the Philippines.

Caught my eye - future of nukes, getting dumped, and a 2000th anniversary

Here are some posts that caught my eye over the last week...

• The Oil Drum: Europe features a series of posts on the future of nuclear energy by Dr Michael Dittmar. Here's part 1. According to Dittmar, about 50% of US nuclear reactors are fuelled from Russian excess military uranium stockpiles. The contract's soon to expire...

• Kate Carruthers blogs about a friend who got dumped by his personal trainer (!) via email. "Hi mate. Just tried to give you a call. I think we should break up. ..."

• Jeff remembers the 2000th anniversary of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest as if it were yesterday. 

Quinctilius Varus, who led three Roman legions to the slaughterhouse at Teutoburg, must be a contender for the title of "unluckiest Roman general ever". He's perhaps pipped by Varro who, with Paullus, lost at Cannae to Hannibal.

Russia, and why it's hard to win counterinsurgencies

This article, about the renewed insurgency by Islamic radicals in Russia's North Caucasus region, highlights how hard it is for states to "win" counterinsurgencies. And how, by assessing the situation over a short time frame, we fool ourselves into thinking that things are over.

Through brute force, a state might end one phase of conflict. But old grievances remain, new ones are added, and both are sharpened by brutal repression and humiliation. Lack of jobs means that young people have plenty of time and energy to forment revolt. If the ideas that animated earlier phases of insurgency have played out, new ideas, like radical creeds linked to operational tactics that worked elsewhere (e.g., suicide bombing, roadside IEDs), fill the void and spark further insurrection.

In these situations, struggle may also morph into new forms. As a nascent form of conflict, cyber-warfare seems ripe for exploitation by insurgents. There may be others. 

Caught my eye - Shag Camp, black swans and farming Detroit

Here are some posts and articles that caught my eye recently...

• Jules Evans at Global Dashboard visits Shag Camp Climate Camp in London. "And for a second, I was jealous of John spending the next few nights in the camp. I bet he meets some really hot women, I thought".

• Nassim Nicholas Taleb lectures British conservative leader David Cameron about black swans and the financial system. Interesting how Taleb doesn't seem to have bothered writing to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Wonder what that's all about?

• Mark Dowie writes about the nascent take-off of urban farming in Detroit. He believes that Detroit may "become the first modern American city where agriculture, while perhaps not the largest, is the most vital industry".

Food for thought for future generals

At the Committee of Public Safety Joseph Fouche links to a British Staff College reading list on military theory and strategy. He applauds the choice of Clausewitz, Colin Gray and Rupert Smith, but criticizes the inclusion of Martin van Creveld and Mary Kaldor ...

"if you agree with Kaldor you might as well take that fat juicy volume of On War and all of classical strategic thought for that matter, soak it in gasoline, and light it on fire."

Ouch!

The idea with reading lists like this is to expose future senior commanders to the work of a range of thinkers. You may not agree with what Kaldor or van Creveld have to say, but they are influential and insightful and it makes sense to understand their ideas.

Joseph Fouche argues that Staff College students should "probably master the masters first and worry about the newest fashion later". But why can't they read both? We're talking about experienced officers who are being prepared for senior command appointments, not callow cadets.

Ideas about human security (Kaldor), demise of nation-states and 4GW (van Creveld) and war among the people (Smith) are relevant to the situations that these commanders will encounter. If nothing else, they will provide food for thought.

Caught my eye - Taliban fighters and Colombian drug money

• In the mountains of south-east Afghanistan, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad spends time with Taliban fighters loyal to Jalaluddin Haqqani. Abdul-Ahad was worried about US drone attacks; the Taliban seemed unfazed.

• More on Afghanistan - Seth Jones's op-ed in the WSJ (h/t Zenpundit), on how the US can win the war by "going local", generates a critique at Ghosts of Alexander and a lively debate at Registan between Froust and readers, including "Njarl" who has just come back from 15 months in Afghanistan.

• Amazing story of some Colombian soldiers who found US $150 million of drug money stashed in the jungle. They turned it over to the authorities, right? Well, not exactly...

• Not that long ago the IEA rubbished the idea of peak oil. Now it's sounding the alarm about the end of global oil supplies.

• I knew there was a good reason for having a cuppa (Earl Grey or English Breakfast) before work - drinking tea helps deal with crises.

Imagining the 21st century: Generals need not apply

According to Peter Singer*, "tactical generals" are senior US commanders who are using communications technology to make low-level battlefield decisions and take part in ground fighting. In doing so they're usurping the roles of junior officers and NCOs, and drastically shrinking the chain of command.

What interests me in this are the organizational implications. If this is a trend, does it blow the need for the "middle management" of armies - everybody from corporals to colonels? Or does it blow the need for generals as we know them?

Imagine an "army" of the future in which hierarchy is flattened, command is decentralized, and power is devolved to networked but self-contained units at the edges. The leaders of these units will not be conventional generals. Instead, they'll be unorthodox men and women - generalists, rather than generals, who are adaptable and open to new ideas, adept at understanding and using technology, able to quickly synthesize information and grasp the big picture (Clausewitz's "coup d'œil"), and comfortable working with AI and with people from different cultures and walks of life.

They probably won't be career soldiers. Heaven forbid, but the armies of the future may look more like flat, fluid and savvy tech companies, with talented individuals - "civilians" and "soldiers", or a blurring of the two - coming and going according to need.

* Thanks to YT for the heads-up on this article.

General Typhus: Napoleon's greatest foe?

If you're a military history aficionado, you'll enjoy this article on Napoleon's 1812 campaign in Russia (h/t YT). Apparently, the greatest foe of the Grande Armée was not the Russian army, nor the Russian General Kutuzov, nor the Russian winter, but a typhus plague that crippled the army even before it reached Moscow...

"That's the conclusion of an investigation that began in 2001 with a gruesome discovery: A mass grave containing 2,000 corpses in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.

At first, excavators guessed the victims were killed by the KGB, or were Jews killed during the German occupation. But by examining belt buckles and uniform buttons with regimental numbers on them, archaeologists unraveled the mystery. The dead, it turned out, were soldiers of Napoleon's Grand Army."

I'd suggest that typhus was one of a number of factors that destroyed the Grande Armée as a fighting force. Other factors were lack of supplies, hunger, extreme weather and conditions and enemy action. The interplay of these factors, not a single killer blow, brought about Napoleon's downfall.

The profiteers: companies making money from Somali piracy

Who are the western companies that are profiting from Somali piracy? And how do they make their money?

I'm researching these questions for an article. So far I've identified an assortment of companies that are engaged in security activities relating to Somali piracy and hostage-taking in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Generally speaking, these companies are involved in one or more of the following activities:

• Security for ships: private security companies, like Hart and Secopex, provide guards and non-lethal weapons on ships, training for crews in piracy countermeasures, and advice to shipowners on operational security and risk management.

• Crisis management: London-based law firms, like Holman Fenwick Willan, coordinate responses to hostage-taking on behalf of shipping clients. They engage specialist companies, such as Control Risks, to manage crises, conduct negotiations with pirates, and carry out ransom drops. Law firms also provide shipowners with legal advice, e.g., on the legality of paying ransoms. 

• Marine insurance: companies like Cooper Gay write kidnap and ransom ("K&R") policies for shippers. Hiscox also provides shippers with crisis management teams. In 2008, Swinglehurst Ltd teamed with Hart to provide shippers with war risk cover (including piracy risks) for vessels protected by Hart personnel transiting the Gulf of Aden.

• Intelligence, analysis and monitoring: companies such as Dryad Maritime Intelligence provide piracy threat assessments to shippers. The ICC International Maritime Bureau runs a 24-hour Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur.

As the maritime capital of the world, London is the hub for most of this activity. Collaboration between companies appears commonplace. Gulf of Aden security work seems to be dominated by British firms, but American companies, like Xe (formerly known as Blackwater) and Hollowpoint, are getting in on the action.

Piracy as a business opportunity

Fancy setting up as a pirate? In "Cutthroat capitalism", Scott Carney outlines the economics and business model of Somali piracy...

"Most of Somalia's modern-day pirates are fishermen who traded nets for guns. They've learned that ransom is more profitable than robbery, and rather than squandering their loot, they reinvest in equipment and training. Today, no ship is safe within several hundred miles of the Somali coast."

Somali piracy seems to involve a cosy and lucrative arrangement where most of the parties - pirates, their financiers, insurers and private security contractors - can make loads of money.

Meanwhile taxpayers are hit with the cost of maintaining maritime forces in the area. The threat of naval intervention is an important element in the ransom process, but are the shipping insurers and security contractors paying the taxpayers their dues or getting a free ride? I suspect the latter - it's the good old public cost, private profit equation.

Secondly, if piracy is so lucrative, how come people elsewhere aren't getting into it as well? Is Somali piracy the start of a global trend? Or is there a combination of factors - like high shipping volumes, narrow waterways, secure bases for illegal operations (Somalia), skilled manpower (expert seafarers and gunmen), and many ways to make money - that make piracy around the Horn of Africa a uniquely profitable situation?

Caught my eye ... Nigerian scammers and "dastardly operations"

Here are some posts, articles and press releases that caught my eye this week...

• The Guardian profiles woman cops gunning for drug traffickers in Rio's favelas. Inspector De Mello: "I enjoy operations. When we don't have them I feel unmotivated. Today I feel professionally satisfied."

• Dean at Travels with Shiloh rips into Steven Pressfield's vids on tribes in Afghanistan. I don't know if Pressfield's spent time in Afghanistan, but Dean has. When he says that Pressfield's videos are "rife with over simplifications and generalities", I sit up and take note.

• Press release from the Columbia FBI on the latest Nigerian scam (h/t Bruce Schneier). What's interesting about this scam is how the tactics of the Nigerians are changing and evolving.

• Whoever claimed that the only benefit of organic food is that it's "healthier"? I eat organic food because it hasn't been drenched in herbicides and pesticides.

• Meanwhile in Pyongyang, Rodong Simnun, aka the "Newspaper of the Workers", denounces the imperialists and their puppets for "intensifying the dastardly operations for ideological and cultural poisoning".

Mapping Mexico's drug cartels

Here's a map of drug cartels and their purported areas of influence in Mexico (h/t Rethinking Security).

Several things bother me about this map. Firstly, it's drawn by Stratfor. I'm wary of anything that Stratfor writes. The last time I bothered reading Stratfor's reports, about 12 years ago, I was astonished by how its writers could sound so authoritative while getting so much wrong.

Secondly, the map ends at the Mexico-US frontier. So, the cartels have no influence beyond Mexico's borders? A serious effort to map the drug lords' influence would show what North American cities are dominated by which cartels and their affiliates.

Thirdly, the map looks way too much like a classic depiction of nation-states. It gives the impression that the coloured areas are controlled by the cartels, and that cartels are tethered to territory, like 19th century European nation-states and principalities.

I'd imagine that the real map would be a lot more complicated and colourful. Some areas would be tightly controlled by cartels, other areas contested by rival gangs, government forces, security companies and militias - there'd be no clear-cut boundaries, but rather a patchwork pattern of blurred and shifting zones, enclaves and corridors. Long tentacles of power would reach deep into Mexico City and North American cities, illustrating trafficking routes and influence exercised over the minds of corrupt officials and law enforcement officers.

No map can do justice to such complexity. We need something like Robert Kaplan's three dimensional cartographic hologram ("The Coming Anarchy", 1994). Or better still, a richly detailed computer game or simulation.

First we take Peshawar...

David Kilcullen on the next big fight (via The Daily Dish):

"For Britons and Americans watching the hard-fought progress of our Coalition troops in Helmand, the harsh reality is that Nato could do everything right in Afghanistan and still lose the broader regional campaign against terrorism if Pakistan fails to contain its internal militants.

This makes the fight in Pakistan, and finding means to help Pakistanis help themselves, the most important battle in the world."

Hmmmm. The US and Britain have no clear idea about objectives, strategy and resources for the Afghan War. Is Kilcullen suggesting that as well the West gets embroiled in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province and the tribal agencies? What comes after that? Balochistan, Kashmir?

The title of Kilcullen's piece suggests that he seeks inspiration from George Curzon's experience as Viceroy of India (1899-1905). If there are lessons to be drawn from British imperial experience on the Raj's frontier in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it's these: know your limits, don't overextend, leave tribal peoples to govern themselves, and if you must enter their territory, don't stick around long.

Jakarta hotel bombings a huge blunder?

Why did Indonesian terrorists bomb a Jakarta hotel the day before English football superstars Manchester United were due to stay there?

Man U were booked for the weekend into the Ritz-Carlton, one of the two hotels attacked on Friday. The timing of the attack and the team's visit seems more than just coincidence. Blowing up the world's greatest football team would've been a huge propaganda coup for the terrorists.

As it happens, Indonesia's reputation as a safe place for foreigners to visit will be dented. But that doesn't amount to much given that the country's image has been on the skids since the Bali bombings in 2002.

I wouldn't mind betting that the bombers made a huge blunder. They got the timing of the team's visit wrong and detonated the bombs too early.

Jakarta bombings and the evolution of Jeemah Islamiyah

Hardliners of Jeemah Islamiyah (JI) are in the frame for the Jakarta hotel bombings in Indonesia. Here's Jason Burke's analysis of the evolving structure of JI...

"JI has evolved significantly since the 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people, mainly western tourists, and brought it to global attention. Since then, and as with such movements elsewhere, it has become more complex and fragmented." 

Caught my eye - Silvio Berlusconi and the Alaska ethics elves

Here are some articles and posts that caught my eye this week...

• An interview with economist Thomas Schelling on global warming and the collective bargaining of international climate change negotiations.

• The Chinese are worried about their vulnerability to cyber-warfare. Meanwhile a Sino-Turkish cyber conflict may be about to break out.

• Possibly the most pathetic opinion piece I've ever read: poor Sarah Palin, hounded to resignation by the "Alaska ethics elves" (h/t AE).

• Global Dashboard almost causes a diplomatic incident with Italy, then makes a grovelling apology to Silvio Berlusconi. My take on this: who cares if Silvio's hosting of the G8 was crap? He throws some bloody good parties and that's all that matters.

• On 13 July Korean News fondly remembered the visit of DPRK President Kim Il-sung to a farm co-operative's vegetable greenhouse in May Jurche 70: "That day, the President instructed officials that the brook in the rear of the greenhouse should be dug two meters deep".

Trend watch: insurgent attacks in Afghanistan

From The Economist...

Change of strategy needed in Afghanistan

If Jeff is right about Iraq - "the US has defeated the insurgency there" - then it's a pyrrhic victory. Where are the great benefits that offset the terrible costs of the invasion and insurgency?

This is my basic problem with the counterinsurgency/nation-building approach, advocated by Kilcullen, Nagl and other dreamers, which is being rolled out in Afghanistan. It's ruinously expensive and it's a grossly disproportionate response to fairly straightforward problems.

Take Afghanistan. We want to prevent al-Qaeda using Afghanistan as a base, right? So why try to secure this country - a remote and harsh landscape of deserts, mountains, fiercely independent tribes, and a weak and corrupt government - through protracted counterinsurgency? And why battle against the tough and fanatical Taliban, a movement that the west didn't need to pick a fight with in the first place?

How about ignoring the Taliban, and grandiose plans of nation-building, and concentrating on al-Qaeda? Set up one or two fortified fire bases in strategic locations. From there carry out precision strikes against terrorist leaders and infrastructure using special forces, UAV attack drones, and local mercenaries. More ambitiously, run a divide and rule strategy from the base areas, sowing discord between terrorists and their tribal allies.

This approach would play to Western war fighting strengths, like air power and high technology. It would minimize friendly casualties - no more soldiers getting blown up by roadside IEDs while patrolling the countryside. And if the Taliban were stupid enough to attack the fire bases, they'd be annihilated by concentrated firepower. Defence remains the stronger form of war, after all.

Photo: Cherie A Thurlby, CH-47 Chinook helicopter, Afghanistan, www.army.mil

John Robb on the "North Korean" cyber attack

Great observation from John Robb on the recent DDOS attack against American and South Korean government and commercial websites...

"The US government, Stratfor and others are hyperventilating, claiming it to be the work of the North Korean Government. Essentially, there is a 50,000 PC botnet (using old software) in Asia doing the DDoS attacks against US and S Korean websites.  This is most definitely something a single individual could pull off (old thinking: only a government could do this... new thinking: superempowered individuals are more than capable). 

The government/consultant cyberwar crowd can't seem to move beyond the state vs. state vision of cyberwarfare (not sure how you fix this mindset, it's so pervasive with those over 40 -- exactly the same guys about to spend tens of billions of a cyberwar boondoggle)."

Afghanistan: on the horns of a dilemma

Putting your enemy on the horns of a dilemma is one of the hallmarks of great strategy, according to British military thinker Basil Liddell Hart.

This is one way of interpreting the situation in Afghanistan. The Coalition is on the horns of a dilemma. To withdraw from Afghanistan now would throw away all the efforts of the last eight years and leave the weak Kabul government to fall to the resurgent Taliban. To stay in Afghanistan means committing to a protracted and costly counterinsurgency and nation-building campaign where the odds of success are at best uncertain.

When you're on the horns of a dilemma, paralysis, or ineffectual half-measures, often result. Either way, defeat comes, sooner or later. This is why the west should pull out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. Or get in there boots and all. If Afghanistan really is the "important and strategic country" that many western politicians make it out to be, then the west needs to dramatically boost its military and civil commitment.

But are there viable "have your cake and eat it too" options? Such as running a divide and rule policy from a nearby friendly country (perhaps India) - like the Raj and its 19th century strategy of playing off one frontier tribe against another. Or securing several enclaves in Afghanistan and from there striking the camps, training grounds and supply routes of takfiri terrorists and drug smugglers - like a mirror image of guerrilla sanctuaries or Maoist base areas.

"Is Afghanistan an important and strategic country?" Part 2

This is probably the clearest expression of western strategic aims in Afghanistan that I've read:

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown:

"...three quarters of the most serious plots against the UK have links into these mountains. So our purpose is clear: to prevent terrorism coming to the streets of Britain.

If, in Afghanistan, extremists return to power and once again provide a safe haven for Al Qaeda, then the same threat of global terrorism arises.

So this is a fight to clear terrorist networks from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to support the elected governments in both countries against the Taleban, to tackle the heroin trade which funds terrorism and the insurgency, and to build longer term stability."

Brown's statement goes a long way towards answering a question that I asked a while ago, about why Afghanistan should be regarded as "an important and strategic country for the west".

But it doesn't address the concern that the west's counterinsurgency campaign and nation-building effort is not sustainable. Or whether the Coalition is actually winning the fight against the Taliban, as Brown claims.

A tale of two regimes: political unrest in Tehran and Urumqi

Why did the Iranian regime struggle to deal with recent political violence in Tehran? Why did the Chinese government quickly contain ethnic unrest in Urumqi?

There seem to be at least three crucial differences: planning, policing, and the use of force.

Planning

The Iranian regime was caught napping. It was thrown off-balance by the passionate and violent popular reaction to the election results. Shaken, the regime struggled to reassert its authority and took several weeks to restore order.

In Urumqi, the Chinese authorities responded quickly and decisively to the riots. The way that the Chinese reacted suggests thorough contingency planning for unrest, not just in Xianjiang but for other restive regions in China.

Policing

Chinese policing in Urumqi was smart, restrained and disciplined. Reporting from Urumqi, Peter Foster commented that last Tuesday the Han mobs "were allowed to go round and round in circles, exhausting themselves in the hot sun while never actually being allowed to reach the objects of their anger". The police aimed to contain unrest quickly, using minimum force, while separating Uighur and Han rioters and safeguarding the innocent and their property.

By contrast, Iranian police and paramilitaries looked inept, ill-disciplined and unorganized. Many operated like gangland thugs - the militiamen on motor-bikes, for instance. Meting out punishment and seeking revenge, not restoring order, appeared to be the priority.

Use of force

In Tehran, the regime's initial response was hesitant. It didn't have enough troops on the streets to stamp out unrest. This may have emboldened protestors and exacerbated the scale of the unrest.

The Chinese delivered a swift and overwhelming show of force. Photographs showed massed phalanxes of well-equipped Chinese riot police and paramilitary troops, backed by armoured trucks and helicopters, facing down Uighur and Han rioters. Even as the violence abated, the authorities flew in large numbers of reinforcements, to saturate the city with police and troops and prevent flare-ups of violence.

Photo: rioting in Tehran, .faramaz

Pyongyang not to blame for cyber attacks?

IntelFusion explains why Pyongyang may not have been behind the recent cyber attacks on American and South Korean websites (via ubiwar):

"this rather smallish botnet which was amateurishly crafted would not have passed muster at any of the official IT research facilities associated with the DPRK. These are well-educated individuals, some having attended the Indian Institute of Technology (one of the world’s top technology schools) and the quality of their work is high."

Cyber saboteurs emerge from the shadows

OK, so I've been rather sceptical about North Korea's cyber warfare capabilities. It's a tad hard to square news of elite cyber saboteurs with this crappy DPRK government website. But maybe I was wrong.

Over the weekend, North Korean-linked hackers carried out distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against US and South Korean government and commercial websites.The websites targeted included those of the US Secret Service and the White House, the New York Stock Exchange, and South Korea's Defense Ministry and National Assembly.

Tim Stevens, who blogs at ubiwar, was quoted as saying that "this type of 'denial of service' attack was designed to disrupt rather than penetrate a system to obtain data". Opinion varies about the scale and sophistication of the attacks. The Guardian described it as "a paralysing barrage of electronic cyber attacks", but this article claimed that the attacks were relatively unsophisticated and small-scale, involving 50,000 to 65,000 computers.

Another thing I've been sceptical about is the effectiveness of DDOS attacks. What's the big deal if a couple of websites are down for a day or two, right? But according to the Technology Liberation Front...

"The only real cost of an attack such as this one is writing an effective bit of malware that can spread itself around, compromise tens of thousands of machines, and allow an attacker to call on this army of unwilling silicon conscripts whenever it wishes.  When viewed from the hundred-billion-dollar heights of nation-state budgets, this cost is essentially zero....

DDOS attacks are a cheap (hijacking is free), relatively hard to trace, and very effective way for a state or non-state actor to inflict meaningful economic losses on others."

Banks and companies carry out a lot of business via their websites. Increasingly, government departments are delivering core services through their web portals, like getting people to apply online for welfare benefits and grants. Even temporary disruptions can inflict big costs on businesses, departments and customers alike. This is a pretty good return on investment for hackers.

Urumqi unrest - Beijing controls reporting and Twitter

From Urumqi, Xinjiang, Peter Foster observes how effectively Chinese authorities controlled international reporting of the unrest:

"Beijing has moved swiftly not only to calm the streets but also to control the reporting environment, corralling the large international media presence in a single hotel.

They’ve done this not by force, but by the simple expediency of limiting internet access to a single location (a hotel off the People’s Square), and like animals on the plain who graduate to the last waterhole in times of drought, the world’s journalists have had little choice but to congregate here."

Also interesting is how the authorities quickly cut internet access for Urumqi residents and blocked Twitter in China.

You might think that Beijing learned lessons from Teheran's failure to effectively counter Iranian protestors' use of social media tools to organize unrest and spread the word. But the swiftness of Beijing's move suggests that the authorities prepared well in advance for such situations.

Caught my eye...

Here are some articles that caught my eye over the last week:

• Wealthy countries, worried about food security, scramble for arable land in Africa, South America and Russia. This land grab, and likely indigenous resistance to it, are trends worth watching.

• Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder reports from the Swat Valley on the Pakistan army's "mopping up" operations against the Taliban (vids here and here). Note the General's immaculately pressed fatigues and his walking cane - talk about a throwback to the Raj.

• In Pyongyang, the Paektusan Czech-Korean Friendship Association and the Czech Group for the Study and Materialization of the Juche Idea bitterly denounced the US imperialists and their south Korean puppet stooges for their hostile war moves.

Organizing for cyberwar - "we might be a vapour"

How can governments organize to fight cyberwar?

The UK government's cyber-security strategy* assumes that a centralized and top-down approach (business as usual, in other words) is the way to go. Two new bureaucracies, the Office of Cyber Security and the Cyber Security Operations Centre, will be set up to focus and coordinate the cyberspace activities of a plethora of other government agencies (which includes GCHQ, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and MI5).

This approach strikes me as a bureaucratic, lumbering and unimaginative approach to an emerging form of warfare. It's like being in France in 1940 and trying to stop fast-moving German tanks with foot-slogging infantry.

My sense is that cyber organization has to be loose, decentralized, flat, fast and adaptive. (If you've spent time in public service you'll know that this is precisely not how government operates.) One approach could be networks of small and ad hoc groups of experts, loosely tethered to government but operating autonomously within a general framework, which come together for particular aims and dissolve or reconstitute once the aims have been achieved. Different groups and networks might be assigned to different aspects of cyberwar, but there would be a high degree of collaboration between them.

In Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T E Lawrence provides the essence of an ethos for this approach. "Armies were like plants," he wrote, "immobile, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head". His Arab guerrillas were different, and something new: "We might be a vapour, blowing where we listed".

* Earlier post on the UK strategy here.

"We lead from the front..."

Chris Keeble, on the deaths of Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, CO of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, and Trooper Joshua Hammond, in Helmand, Afghanistan:

“We lead from the front. The death of a commanding officer is no less and no more of a tragedy than the death of a private soldier.”

Keeble was second-in-command of 2 Para during the Falklands War in 1982. He took immediate control of the battalion when its CO, Lt Col "H" Jones VC was killed attacking an Argentinian machine gun at Goose Green.

And you thought Maoism was dead...

New post here at Global Dashboard - "like evangelical Christianity, Maoism is going to have a big future in violent and poor places in the 21st century". Prompted by this post at India's Forgotten War.

Imagining the 21st century - "gangland" cities (2)

In the 21st century most of us will live in cities, of one sort or another. Here are some ideas about the possible evolution of cityscapes.

Those who live in the 21st century's city-states, whether in Asia, Europe or the Americas, will be the lucky ones. In the Third World, sprawling, polluted and anarchic slum megacities will continue to grow. No amount of "development aid", "economic growth" or utopian dreaming is going to change that trajectory.

In the west, former industrial cities of the 19th and 20th centuries will be gradually abandoned. Some will shrink into smaller and more viable hubs, abandoning the suburbs to nature, and if they're lucky becoming absorbed in the hinterland of a prosperous city-state. Others will become "ganglands", controlled and fought over by cash-strapped local authorities and cashed-up crime cartels. In the worst cases, think Roman Britain after the legions pulled out in 410AD and the barbarians moved in.

There could be transitional phases lasting decades in which westerners fight insurgencies not in far-flung places like Afghanistan, but much closer to home, in decaying cities, marches between city-states and ganglands, and frontier zones like the American/Mexican border and the Balkans. Gangland cities will provide criminals with secure bases for making, storing and trafficking drugs, guns and other illegal materials. Global terrorists and criminals will find sanctuary there.

Some gangland cities might be highly organized and prosperous, ruled by powerful cartel lords, and networked with gangs in other cities. Others will be a violent, poverty-stricken and fragmented mess where power flows and ebbs between a succession of petty tyrants. For city-states and national governments, the ganglands will constitute their greatest security threat.

Many cities will be stuck somewhere between city-states and ganglands. Generally prosperous cities, like London or Vancouver, will have poor slums and violent no-go areas. Generally poor and violent cities - Johannesburg is a contemporary example - may have wealthy and heavily fortified enclaves, protected by private mercenary companies.

For decaying cities, "Roman Britain" scenarios are not inevitable. As I've written before, in some places municipal authorities and national governments, working with local communities, may retain or regain control from gangs by using counterinsurgency practices and urban regeneration programmes.

>> Imagining the 21st century series

"Global COIN campaign" a crazy idea

Check out the Armchair Generalist's post on Andrew Bacevich's takedown of Andrew Exum at a recent conference on American security and foreign policy...

"I admit I am a big Bacevich fan, and it's arguments such as his - in less than ten minutes, he outlines everything that is wrong with the past and current [Afghanistan - Pakistan] strategies - that win me over."

John Nagl's idea of a global counterinsurgency campaign must be a contender for the silliest idea to emerge since the "War on Terror". There are basic unanswered questions, like...

• what would be the aim of a global COIN campaign?

• is that aim realistic and achievable?

• how would the US pay for it?

• what would be the opportunity costs (i.e., the things that could otherwise be usefully done with the money)?

No managers need apply to "Spectre Force"

Here's a post I've written at Global Dashboard, on the Brits and their bureaucratic approach to cyber-war.

Applying Kilcullen's ideas to urban regeneration

As I mentioned several weeks ago, I've recently read David Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla. Here's a post I wrote at Global Dashboard which adapts one of Kilcullen's counterinsurgency concepts to urban regeneration and countering criminal gangs in rundown western cities.

Obama and Iran's "green revolution"

Jeff believes that US President Barack Obama should be doing more to support Iran's protesters in their hour of need...

"This opportunity may not come again anytime in the near future. The Mullahs are becoming desperate and the military crackdown is probably coming soon.

I realize the forces at play here and the balancing act Obama is trying to maintain. But he needs to openly lean more forcibly toward those in the streets. Let's not miss this chance."

It seems to me that Obama has deftly handled the Iranian protests. He's responded by bearing witness to the government's crackdown. At the same time he's acknowledged Iran's sovereignty and the fact that only Iranians can work this out for themselves.

Obama's approach has been considered (isn't it refreshing to see a politician who takes time to think matters through, despite the incessant cries for action?), and he hasn't allowed himself to get caught up in the Andrew Sullivan-style "green revolution" hype.

Behind this is a sensible caution and a readiness to see the world as it is rather than as we'd like it to be. The situation in Iran is not as clearcut as western liberals and neocons would have us believe, with their hyperbolic talk of a "green revolution" and "freedom" for Iran.

Yes, many Iranians are angry about the election results and want political reform. But there is also great popular support for President Ahmadinejad and the Islamic revolution. And the government commands the loyalty of the security forces.

For a statesman, the prudent approach is to wait and see, and to eschew words that could inflame the situation. This is the course that Obama seems to be steering.

Caught my eye - China power and cyber "strikeback"

• China's making massive investments in solar and wind power. As I've mentioned before, this is an important trend to watch, and one where China could steal a technological march on the west.

• Edward Glaeser writes about bulldozing America's shrinking cities, and how "urban decline is a reality in much of older, colder America".

• America and Britain prepare to "strikeback" against Russian, Chinese, and North Korean (???) hackers.

Idiot/ Savant on "tanks and guns blazing"

Oh, for heaven's sake...

Idiot/Savant is raving about how the New Zealand government let loose "army tanks" on Napier streets during the recent siege of gunman Jan Molenaar.

You'd think, reading Idiot/Savant's posts, that Wellington is now one step away from unleashing the army "with tanks and guns blazing" to "intimidate protestors or even kill people". Like Tiananmen Square, or something.

Sorry folks, time for a reality check. Two LAVs (light armoured vehicles, not tanks, there's a big difference) were used during the Napier siege. The LAV crews operated under police command and in accordance with the Defence Act 1990. The vehicles were used solely to transport police officers into the siege area, and to rescue neighbours pinned down by the gunfire. Why? Molenaar was expert in using weapons, heavily armed, firing at anything that moved, and intent on going down fighting. Using the LAVs probably saved the lives of police officers and civilians.

Upshot - police use of the LAVs was lawful, sensible and restrained. A far cry from "tanks and guns blazing".

Imagining the 21st century: conflict

"Man is at bottom a dreadful wild animal," wrote Arthur Schopenhauer, "a beast of prey which will pounce upon a weaker neighbour as soon as he notices his existence."* It's obvious to all but the most fervent peaceniks that violence and conflict will shape the course of the 21st century. But what sort of conflict will we see?

Some analysts talk about "resource wars" - wars between states for control over increasingly scarce natural resources like oil, water, minerals, arable land, food, timber. I'm trying to think of a better term for describing this phenomena, because resources doesn't encompass the idea that people will also fight for...

• position: territory that determines access to strategic resources and infrastructure, e.g., an oilfield, a pipeline, a grid;

• people: the leadership and allegiance of a population;

• loot: wealth to be gained from exploiting or taxing a resource, either legally or illegally, e.g., rainforest timber, cocaine.

Clearly, these categories are not mutually exclusive. And these wars will not be fought only between states. They'll involve state v non-state groups (a tribe, a crime cartel, an insurgent network, a terrorist group, a private military company, a corporation), and non-state groups v other non-state groups. Sometimes the identity of protagonists will be cloaked as proxies are used to do the dirty work.

Arguably, counterinsurgency doctrine is a western approach to this type of conflict - it's a doctrine of control. The ideas being worked through by Petraeus, Kilcullen, Nagl and others will become a system that westerners will use to control resources, land, positions and populations. You can see this at work in Afghanistan, where counterinsurgency doctrine is a means to control territory and population, thereby denying takfiri terrorists a sanctuary and base area for launching attacks on the west.

But counterinsurgency is cumbersome, consumes a great deal of time, effort and money, and doesn't guarantee long-term success. Others, emulating the Russians in Chechnya, or the Sri Lankans in their war against the Tamil Tigers, will stick to tried, trusted and brutal means of suppression and control.

* "On Ethnics", in Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms (transl. R J Hollingdale, 1970).

Photographing "Tank Man"

Check out this audio slide-show about the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising by photographer Stuart Franklin.

Franklin took an iconic photo of "Tank Man", the protester who stood in front of a column of PLA tanks. The identity of "Tank Man" is a mystery, as is his fate. There are claims that he was arrested and shot, or that he fled and remains in hiding in China or Taiwan.