NYkrinDC has an interesting post exploring the role of comedy in exposing contradictions and challenging radical extremists.

Sean Naylor explores ongoing attempts to create an Unconventional Warfare Command.

“It only makes sense if you recognize how different the work is that these people would do and, therefore, that you’re going to have to select different kinds of people than we now tend to select, train them differently, support them in the field differently [and] promote them differently,” [Dave] Tucker [an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School] said.
“We argued that there were different capabilities that were needed,” that would require members of the command to spend long periods in far-flung locations to get to know areas and to build relationships, he said. That “starts to point toward a whole different personnel system — ultimately, one in which people don’t go through the lieutenant to general officer set of ranks, for example.”

One way to view the latest flurry of articles discussing American plans to attack Iran (one such example) is that it represents an honest push by hawkish elements to use military force.

Another interpretation, not necessarily at odds with the first, is that the administration hopes to use this rhetoric to convince Iran that an attack is a very real possibility. The goal of these threats would be shift Iran’s policies in Iraq. This interpretation does not necessarily contradict the first because some genuine efforts to plan air attacks against Iran could be being leveraged as a bargaining tool by other elements in the executive branch.

Given the mistrust between Iran and the US, the belligerent prelude to an attack and the posturing prelude to a negotiated agreement will be functionally indistinguishable.

Some notes from a backlog of Stratfor reading.

Recession concerns for the American, European and Japanese economies could ripple into China, who depends on these markets for its export-based growth.

There already are signs of capital flight from China, and the economy is oerloaded with nonperforming loans. Six percent inflation is causing Beijing concerns about social unrest. If exports to the US and Europe fall too far or for too long, the fragile Chinese economy could break.

The larger article provides a compelling assessment of the relative vulnerability of these major economies to recession.

The article concludes with a brief bit on Bahrain, which just concluded bidding for offshore oil exploration contracts. Its last large-scale oil exploration effort? 70 years ago.

Back to China for a moment. Following up on the toy recall drama, Stratfor concludes that:

if US toy importers ever feel their control over Chinese supply networks slipping, the US buyer exodus from China could be completed within a few years.

Back to oil again. President Calderon’s agenda to reform Mexico’s constitutional rules regarding Pemex illustrate some of the wild inefficiencies that operate in the global oil market:

Currently, Pemex is completely reliant on its own financial resources — participation in the Mexican energy industry by foreigners (as anything more than contractors) is flatly unconstitutional. In the energy business, this does not work especially well, as companies providing technological expertise generally want to own a piece of the project as well. The limitation has further crippled Pemex’s ability to expand exploration and production, as the company’s technological skills are a generation behind those of the wider world.

A very sharp post up over at Swedish Meatballs Confidential dissecting the failure of US public diplomacy efforts to support the Long War, concluding that efforts have been poor attempts to recreate our Cold War public diplomacy campaign in Eastern Europe. [FYI - Depending on your place of employment, Meatballs Confidential may not be safe for workplace viewing.]

But there is also a technical reason for this failure. As though it was not a difficult enough task to improve the image of the US in the Arab world at a time when this superpower has forces occupying an Arab country that is undergoing horrifying tensions and upheavals, and at a time when it encouraged its Israeli ally to go on the offensive against another Arab country in the hope of altering the map of regional alliances, the American media targeting the Arab world was consistently poorly managed. Programming and the substance of programmes never went beyond the blatantly propagandistic campaign to vindicate American policies. How could it possibly succeed?

This is why I’ve advocated an indirect approach through transparency. If the only product we have to offer is obvious propaganda, then then we shouldn’t be surprised when foreign populations choose other products that offer actual substance. A policy of radical transparency may be one way of increasing the actual content of our public diplomacy and creating a product that has more value to foreign populations.

From a UPI article about China’s information warfare strategies (H/T to M-1):

The Chinese military has also started applying so-called “human wave” tactics to establish its cyber war network, which is internally referred to as the information network squad. The first such cyber operation unit to be set up was the Shandong Zaozhuang Municipal Militia Information Network Squad, with members comprising staff from the Zaozhuang Municipal Telecommunications Bureau. The 48 members of the squad all hold professional titles in computer technology.

The hacker attacks upon overseas Web sites were quite likely launched by similar military cyber operation squads. The establishment of this “information militia” warfare network means that the concept of a “people’s war” has been officially introduced in the realm of information warfare.

The Chinese military has paid high attention to computer warfare over the years, and its capability to engage in information operations is now taken as an important benchmark in the improvement of the overall “soft combat power” of the Chinese armed forces. As a result, the PLA has introduced such slogans as “control information” and “information is combat strength.”

After the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was mistakenly bombarded by NATO aircraft in 1999 during the Kosovo conflict, Chinese hackers launched waves of attacks upon U.S. networks. Most of these attacks were from the “information militia” — who claim to have set a record of successfully invading 10 U.S. government Web sites each hour.

In a strategy aimed at attacking the enemy from the rear, China is already launching an information World War, a new type of People’s Information War.

Intriguing concept, this information militia. What are the implications if active membership becomes supported by more passive support? Current zombie networks depend on the spread of trojans and viruses that users don’t realize they have. What if a population were enlisted by its government to show support by intentionally installing such software on their machines. Sort of like a 21st Century war bonds drive: “Contribute processor cycles to the national defense!” Given the low cost of entry and nearly zero technical expertise needed, any citizen with a computer could participate. This could dramatically expand the zombie nets available for the more highly trained citizen-hackers to use in their operations.

For that matter, this sort of effort wouldn’t even need to be aligned with a state. Imagine an online campaign (like the movements to put red ribbon .gifs on blogs to show support for AIDS research or “click here to donate” links) where an explicit or a secret component of the movement was making each member’s computer a part of the movement’s personal zombie net. Explicit support might be a bad choice, since it would make members vulnerable to charges of supporting hacking with no offsetting benefit. A better strategy might be to have members download an “information orientation package” or some such material that would include the trojan. Members would then have deniability (”I’m just a victim of another nasty trojan!”) and the group would still get its zombie net. A small team of skilled hackers could then use these resources to further the group’s policy goals.

Approaches such as this translate the democratization of computing power into information operations capability. Each person may not have the will or skill to be a food soldier or a hacker, but they do have an immensely powerful asset that they can contribute to the cause: their processors.

Some conversations with folks who study conflict management reminded me of one of Clausewitz’s analogies:

decision by arms : operations :: cash payment : commerce

The question for theories of non-violent conflict resolution is: what plays the role of cash payment? “Using self-sacrifice as a teaching moment” is the best answer I’ve come up with so far.

This differs from Sun Tzu’s theories of winning without fighting or Liddell Hart’s advocacy of reducing violence to the “slenderest means,” of course, because these two men still trusted that combat would be the ultimate means of cast payment. Musashi always had cash. Clausewitz was wary of getting to worried about indirect approaches because he feared it would let strategists get too cute and clever, leading them to forget the fundamental currency of war.

Arr, me hearties, Opposed Systems Design be observing National Speak Like a Pirate Day.

So grab yer lass, swill some grog and buckle on your swash. Regularly scheduled blogging be suspended until the morrow.

Yo ho!

I was fortunate enough to get to attend Dave Lampton’s lecture at the JHU-APL Rethinking Seminar Series. I highly recommend watching or listening to Lampton’s full talk, as he discusses the three dimensions of Chinese power: might, money and minds.

Lamption repeatedly emphasized that internal security and stability represents the primary concern of Chinese leadership. He discussed both the increasing rate of internal protests and the tensions created by uneven economic growth. These themes led me to wonder, how would America respond if a real crisis struck China’s internal stability?

The precise mechansim - economic depression, rural-urban conflict sparking uncontrolled riots, etc - matters less than the consequences. What would happen to the US economy? How would Korea and Japan respond? Would outside attempts to help be viewed as imperialist attempst to exploit China’s vulnerability and meddle with its internal affairs (as has happened in the past when China was weak)? Would North Korea jump at the opportunity to spark another crisis while the world is distracted or would it be more worried with the short-term disruption of key supplies from China?

My working hypothesis is that the experience would demonstrate the extent to which it is in America’s interest that China remain stable and economically sound. As China struggled to hold the pieces together, the American challenge would be to find ways to help them that didn’t exacerbate the problem. This would lead to the need for closer collaboration between Chinese and American leadership. Negotiating this relationship would force the US to choose between attempting to contain China’s rise or channeling China’s rise. Whether or not it had a policy in place, American actions would have to broadly follow one of these two strategies.

All in all, I think it would make an excellent scenario for a crisis simulation. It would draw out some of the key strategic relationships between economics and security as well as the pivotal role of Sino-American relations in global security.

One of the most powerful themes of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is that of form and formlessness in warfare (and, more generally, in situations of poorly constrained conflict where winning matters).

I will be equating form with specialization. By assuming a specific form, an army sacrifices the ability to do some things in order to do other things well. For example, an infantry unit can form a square in order to better ward off cavalry attacks, and in the process sacrifices its ability to move. On the margin, if one wants to do better at A, one must accept worse performance at B. Or, as I said in one of my earlier posts, optimization equals specialization.

Therefore any form will have strengths and weaknesses. There cannot be any universally dominant form. In war, if a general always uses a certain form, it will be recognized by his enemies and they will adapt themselves to flow to its weakness.

…when you induce others to construct a formation while you yourself are formless, then you are concentrated while the opponent is divided.

-chapter 6

Of course an intelligent general will adapt to this adaptation, and seek to exploit the weaknesses that arose from his adversary taking form to attack his weakness. With two intelligent adversaries, the conflict becomes a race for adaptation to the other’s changing form. As the rate of change approaches infinity (i.e. each side is constantly changing form), the army approaches formlessness. At any given moment it could assume any form; therefore it has no form.

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.

-chapter 6

Throughout The Art of War, Sun Tzu uses water as a metaphor for the adaptive manner in which a formless army can flow towards an opponent’s weaknesses.

When the victorious get their people to go to battle as if they were directing a massive flood of water into a deep canyon, this is a matter of formation.

-chapter 4

A particularly powerful metaphor, since it reflects both the power and the vulnerabilities of water. A mass of water flowing downhill is a powerful force indeed. Scattered droplets of water, however, have little force. The danger in rapidly shifting forms is that friction increases, fracturing one’s force, until what could have been a rushing torrent has been so divided that it is now hardly a trickle. Boyd’s answer to this challenge was that the force needed a robust internal orientation to resist this friction. Sun Tzu’s answer was that the general needed the way (or mandate of heaven, or the tao) on his side, meaning that the motivation of the soldiers are aligned with the goals of their leaders. This leads, among other things, to greater combat efficiency:

…when people are skillfully led into battle, the momentum is like that of round rocks rolling down a high mountain - this is force.

-chapter 5

This potential energy metaphor also comes through in Sun Tzu’s descriptions of the attack:

Those skilled in defense hide in the deepest depths of the earth, those killed in attack maneuver in the highest heights of the sky. Therefore they can preserve themselves and achieve complete victory.

-chapter 4

Attack, and you wield the power of turning that potential energy into kinetic energy. Aimed accurately against a vulnerability of the defense’s form, this cataclysmic power will crush the defender. Aimed poorly, however, the force of the attacker will scatter like rain on a mountain ridge flowing to different watersheds. And of course, as the attack flows downhill, the defense has the opportunity to adapt to that attack and adapt their form.

The more that one adheres to a form, the more predictable one becomes, opening the opportunity to manipulate those patterns:

Therefore there are five traits that are dangerous in generals: Those who are ready to die can be killed; those who are intent on living can be captured; those who are quick to anger can be shamed; those who are puritanical can be disgraced; those who love people can be troubled.

-chapter 8

Ultimately, this play between form and formlessness, leading to patterns and rhythm, is what creates the environment for the game of cheng and ch’i:

There are only five notes in the musical scale, but their variations are so many that they cannot all be heard. There are only five basic colors, but their variations are so many that they cannot all be seen. There are only five basic flavors, but their variations are so many that they cannot all be tasted. There are only kinds of charge in battle, the unorthodox surprise attack and the orthodox direct attack, but variations of the unorthodox and the orthodox are endless. The unorthodox and the orthodox give rise to each other, like a beginningless circle - who could exhaust them?

-chapter 5

Infinite variation springs from the dynamic interaction between opposed forces. Any equilibrium creates a new orthodoxy, creating the opportunity for an unorthodox approach.