Model an insurgency

David Kilcullen spoke at SAIS recently, giving what I suspect is his one of his favorite talks: Fight Club as a model of an insurgency. Kilcullen was the senior counterinsurgency advisor to General Petraeus, who you may have heard is a smart guy. He's had a bunch of really good ideas and his latest take on Afghanistan in The New Yorker is particularly noteworthy.

Insurgencies develop in strange ways and using Fight Club as a model is useful because, as it takes place in America, the observer isn't as distracted by cultural differences, thus allowing the universal attributes of insurgencies to become more apparent.

One general problem that's obvious without Fight Club is the problem of young men. One anthropological theory is that human society developed to deal with agitated or feisty adolescents. Primatologists politely refer to young male monkeys undergoing "dispersal," but there came a point when simply booting young males out of the troop/tribe/group wasn't feasible. Rules and sanctions from a leviathan (or religion) are needed to control people, especially the young males. When formal rules and sanctions disappear, you'd better watch out for the young men, especially when they are well armed...Disaffected youth must be reckoned; tension builds when achievements don't match expectations. The Middle East has quite a youth bulge and when educated people don't find self-actualization (read: decent jobs) they get mad. 

Fight Club brilliantly lays out the developmental stages of an insurgency:

1) Grumpy like-minded individuals find each other
2) A Leader emerges
3) Group formation, rules are established
4) Organization formalization, Tyler Durden starts giving homework assignments
5) Movement - ideological control by the founder can be lost at this point
6) Revolution - intimidate & infiltrate authorities; attempt to overthrow the government

Violence increases at each stage as members are desensitized to brutality and undergo hatred transference; moving from action against the wider out-group to a specific individual. The initial cause can diminish as members become motivated by secondary issues, such as profit or revenge ("His name is Robert Paulson...")

So what do you do about it? One of the most effective means of dealing with radicalized young men is finding them wives and giving them incentives to have children. In the late 70's an extremely successful PLO deradicalization program  involved taking out marriage ads for 5,000 radical fighters. Less than one percent later returned to fighting. An ol' ball and chain can be quite effective at keeping the peace!

There may be no silver bullet, but the first place to start is understanding the causes and group dynamics within an insurgency. And why have the rules, sanctions, and social norms failed to prevent violence? COIN isn't easy.

Is the EU finally serious about its energy future?

On November 13, the European Commission proposed the EU Energy Security and Solidarity Action Plan as part of its Second Strategic Energy Review. Three new proposals that stand out: 1) the construction of a European supergrid, connecting power from the wind farms of the North Sea all the way to the Baltics, 2) the construction of two new gas pipelines, connecting Caspian and African gas to the bloc (Nabucco included), and 3) a "Community Gas Ring", which would essentially allow for the pooling of European gas supplies in the event of supply disruptions (here's looking at you Russia). These measures would directly address import diversification (particularly in natural gas, and specifically away from Russia), security of supply issues, and fragmented national power grids.

Despite recycling a lot of old ideas, the new proposals make this a highly ambitious plan, and in my opinion, one that has absolutely no chance of being carried out in its entirety.

The first rule of European energy is that the national always trumps the regional interest. National regulatory and interest-group challenges to EU-wide liberalization in the energy sector are formidable, and to date have blocked any substantive effort towards a single European energy market. With energy prices falling, and the commercial ties between some of the EU's most powerful members (Germany, France) and Gazprom still deep, there is little chance that this strategic plan will be successful. The European Commission has valiantly fought to create a liberal, single European energy market for 30 years, but the European Council always waters down the compromise enough to preserve the status quo in certain national markets. (Germany, France) Thus, fragmentation persists.

One also has to question the commercial viability of the alternative pipelines proposed by the plan. The Nabucco project has been hopelessly mismanaged. Its commercial viability has been suspect from day one, as the Caspian suppliers it seeks to tap are strongly oriented towards the Russian market, and only Kazakhstan has seriously entertained diversification away from Russia. It is important to note that Gazprom is highly dependent on imported Caspian gas for re-export to the EU, and therefore would not go down without a fight to keep the gas flowing through Russia's borders. I find it difficult to foresee the construction of multiple southern pipelines in the near term.

Finally, the chance of a "communal gas ring" is more reasonable, but no easier politically. Under previous EU energy liberalization directives, member states were required to compel private storage facility operators to open these facilities to universal access. In practice, this occurred less than desired because there is little commercial incentive for the private operators (who by the way, are usually state-owned monopolies like GdF). The chance of one country stretching its own supplies in a time of crisis to assist another member state's shortfall seems unlikely.

Ok, time for the rosier outlook. I was extremely pleased to find a reference to the importance of fostering interdependence between the bloc and its external suppliers (again, that means you Russia). The EU desperately needs to find solutions to its rising import dependence in natural gas. Unfortunately, its own supplies are declining at a rapid pace. This means that the diversification of import sources is the key pillar of the bloc's long term energy security. But in the short to medium term, the EU needs Russia, and Russia needs the EU. A commitment by both parties to fostering a mutually beneficial and secure energy relationship would be a truly powerful development.

Press freedom in Russia

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a France-based nonprofit organization, recently released its annual report, Freedom of the Press Worldwide in 2008. In it, RSF has developed a rather strong argument that the Russian government is actively destroying independent media and seeks to quash any signs of dissent or opposition.

Basically, the situation facing Russia's independent media can be summed up in any number of negative words: horrible, dire, God awful… In the last year, the Russian government has raided and shut down several independent newspapers, and others had to shut down because printers were too afraid to publish the newspapers. Novaya Gazeta, Novyj Times, and Kommersant are the only major independent outlets that remain.

Throughout the year, several independent journalists were arrested just for covering opposition demonstrations. Many journalists were brutally beaten. Most recently on November 13, editor Mikhail Beketov was found in a pool of his own blood after receiving numerous death threats for opposing the construction of a bridge. Also, at least two journalists were forcibly sent to psychiatric hospitals this year – an old trick straight out of the Soviet playbook where you discredit the dissenter by claiming he's insane and end up making him insane because Russian mental hospitals could break even Chuck Norris. It's pretty old school, but effective and a clear violation of human rights.

Where does this leave the Russian population? Well, the dissenting portion of the population remains under constant threat of losing their freedom or their lives. And the remainder of the population is informed of only what the government wants known. For example, if today you should happen to peruse Izvestiya – a state-owned paper – you might be interested in one of its top stories: "Is Barack Obama the Anti-Christ?" Happy reading, Russia.

Introducing... John Thorne

In line with our new collaborative model, it's my pleasure to introduce our first official contributor, John Thorne. John will be covering a wide range of international security issues, including the politics of security and technology/hardware. Here's John, in his own words:

I am a graduate student at Johns Hopkins SAIS, where I am going for a MA in
International Relations. My concentrations are International Economics and
Strategic Studies, in which I am interested in the political economy of
international trade and counterinsurgency, respectively (although there is
quite a bit of unexpected cross pollination in my course work).

Welcome aboard, John! We'll also have some other people to introduce in the near future...

Prosthetics and Foreign Policy

Ok, so this is a few months old but still amazing:

That's right, the monkey controlled a robotic arm with its mind! Then, if you combine it with a jet pack...

...you could put together quite the little techno-monkey mercenary army! (Monkey mercenaries are actually not new; Morocco sent the United States 2,000 monkeys to act as mine sweepers in Iraq back in 2003.) But aside from an army of flying monkeys, to be dispatched by the Wicked Witch of the West, prosthetics technology is making important advances these days. The monkey controlled the robotic arm through about one hundred electrodes placed directly into his motor cortex, which is responsible for physical motions. Amazingly, primate brains have enough plasticity to learn how to control a whole new arm.

Looking back through history, the First World War was an impetus and a catalyst for major advances in neuroscience. A large number of young soldiers returned home from the horrors of trench warfare with very localized brain injuries from shrapnel wounds. (What does what in the brain is often deduced from what happens when something is missing or wounded.) In our own time, over 30,000 American soldiers have been wounded in Iraq by official tallies. One of the least discussed costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are limb amputations, but this will also be a catalyst for many new medical advances, such as the first successful hand transplant.

War is a terrible, terrible thing, but then again necessity is the mother of invention. No matter what your thoughts on the man, let's hope that part of Bush's foreign policy legacy is a number of important medical advances to care for wounded coalition members and Iraqi and Afghan civilians. Machine-brain interface prosthetics and transplants seem like as good a place to start as any.

Our new domain: blog.zzzeitgei.st

Dear zzzeitgeist readers,

You've probably noticed by now, but we'd like to take this opportunity to officially announce our new domain.

We've moved from http://zzzeitgeist.blogspot.com to our new home: http://blog.zzzeitgei.st/. In case you were wondering, .st is the top level domain for the country of Sao Tome and Principe, a tiny nation located off the coast of Africa. (It's just the name: the blog is still hosted on servers in the United States, so it will load at the same speed as always!)

Why switch domains? It's a signaling mechanism: we're taking the new collaborative model very seriously, and we're working very hard to make it successful. We hope that establishing our own domain both reflects this commitment and adds a new element of professionalism to the operation. Plus it's, like, a totally sweet domain.

One important note: thanks to Blogger software, you must type in http://blog.zzzeitgei.st/ to visit us. (Neither http://www.zzzeitgei.st/ or http://zzzeitgei.st/ will take you where you need to go. Sorry about that, but the problem is on Google's end, not ours.) Otherwise, this is largely a cosmetic change. For the foreseeable future, we will continue hosting the blog on Blogger, and it will have the same look and feel. We set up our old address to redirect automatically to the new one, so you don't even have to update your bookmarks. If you receive zzzeitgeist by email, you also shouldn't have to change anything.

However, if you subscribe to the zzzeitgeist RSS feed, you may need to update it. Look at the URL of the feed to which you are subscribed.

This one will no longer work: http://zzzeitgeist.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

The correct feed is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/zzzeitgeist.

Many thanks for your continued support of zzzeitgeist. We look forward to making things even better.

Nick and Patrick

zzzeitgeist: a brief visual history

We've come a long way from our humble beginnings last summer.... aesthetically, at least. Here's a look back at the evolution of style at zzzeitgeist. (What can I say? I was inspired by model years after writing that post on car makers. Plus, it's Saturday.)

The design that started it all. Zeitgeist 1.0:




We first tried to create a coherent color scheme with Zeitgeist 2.0:

This next one is a misguided version that did not last very long. The scattered words ended up being a bit too flashy and distracting. The one displayed here is actually a 4-color, never-before-seen version of the one we posted on the website. I give you Zeitgeist 3.0 (unreleased multicolored edition):

We did much better in the next evolution. This marked the first instance of the ever-popular "Global Zeitgeist." Zeitgeist 4.0:

When we decided to pursue our new collaborative model, we also decided to start actively using zzzeitgeist in lieu of Zeitgeist. While we re-cut the banner to reflect this, we had a no-frills temporary placeholder, zzzeitgeist 1.0:

... Which paved the way for the rebirth of global zzzeitgeist, modeled after Zeitgeist 4.0, our most popular banner. zzzeitgeist 2.0 (current):

What will the future hold? And which one is your favorite?

Bailout blues: Big Three edition

As someone who argued strongly in favor of a bailout for the financial sector earlier this fall, I am absolutely flabbergasted that a bailout for America’s car makers is under serious consideration. In short, this is a terrible idea, and there are no legitimate parallels to bailing out (recapitalizing?) the financial sector. The financial sector is essentially like the economy’s plumbing: if the pipes aren’t working, nothing works. By contrast, the auto industry is a bit like an old, poorly-functioning toilet: if it doesn’t work, it’s best to just get rid of it rather than paying exorbitant sums to refurbish it.

Spurious analogy? Perhaps. But this is truly bad policy. You can go to any number of sources for an explanation why: I particularly liked Megan McArdle’s posts and Dave’s at IPE-J. In short, Congress is proposing to devote a good chunk of finite resources* to struggling, out-dated firms with high fixed costs, no track record of innovation, no proven capability of making a product people actually want to buy, and no systemic connection to the greater economy. The halcyon days of “As GM goes, so goes America” are long gone, if they ever even existed. In fact, the only halfway decent argument that I can find to justify such a handout is to avoid a possible crisis of confidence: if the auto industry were to fail, would it cause consumer confidence (and spending) to collapse? It’s a novel interpretation, but one that I don’t find entirely convincing.

Nonetheless, it is looking increasingly likely that a bailout for the auto industry will happen possibly as early as this coming week during the lame duck session of Congress. I am particularly interested in what this says about our President-elect, who has come out forcefully on the side of intervention. Frankly, I can’t help but feel slightly nervous about the implications. This isn’t change. This is old-school, interventionist Democratic policy, which didn’t work very well on the first go-round. In my view, this bailout is in no small part about the demands of the United Auto Workers, who campaigned strongly for Mr. Obama’s election. I sympathize with their desire to preserve a high standard of living for union members, but unfortunately that way of life no longer seems sustainable. (Please read this post in its entirety before you feed me to the lions over that last statement.)

My point is this: in order to deliver on the massive change that Mr. Obama has promised in policy areas such as education and health care, he will need to do battle with powerful entrenched interest groups. It will be a long fight, but this is a poor showing in the first round.

* I don’t care if we've been spending like money grows on trees: it all has to come from somewhere, and if we borrow it, then sooner or later we have to pay the bill. I for one don’t want tax rates in the 40 – 50% range when I’m in my 40s because of terrible fiscal policy now.

The G20 and SWFs

The G20 is scheduled to meet this Saturday to outline a set of guidelines for the world's 20 largest economies to coordinate action in light of the worsening global economic milieu. An illustrious crew of economists at VoxEU have written the book (literally) on what government officials need to say and do to deliver the world from catastrophe. The prescriptions are as banally predictable as all the doomsday yarns and the fact that government officials will inevitably do the wrong thing. Beyond the obvious calls for increased cooperation and coordination, one piece of advice struck me as quite odd. Guillermo Calvo, via Dani Rodrik:

The new Bretton Woods institutions should be more tolerant of controls on capital mobility, especially as those controls centre on limiting the actions of the banking sector.

True, these new capital controls may certainly help developing countries stall capital flight; but there are a number of complications. The dollar is still seen as the safest asset in the world. For that reason, SWFs (from China to Dubai) have been sinking ever more money into dollar denominated assets - at least one piece of anecdotal evidence to explain the recent rise of the dollar. This has, at least in part, kept the US out of the worst of the crisis. There is no way the US will allow new restrictions on capital outflows to be the bulwark of any new "Bretton Woods". Not only are such controls notoriously hard to enforce, they would probably bring the dollar back down, and I have a feeling that's something we would be loathe to support.

To be sure, global capital flows were somehow involved in the current financial troubles. But to reiterate, our current situation is far too complicated and opaque to be blamed on any single silver bullet: whether they are swaps, the housing bubble, or capital outflows. The underlying root was a mispricing and misunderstanding of risk throughout the financial model.

Capital outflows allow investors to put their money where they see fit. SWFs represent, by far, the largest outflows of capital. They are intended to mitigate risk and exist to safely invest currency reserves in the way that will most diversify national wealth. For their sake, and ours, let's keep letting them.

(Image: New Yorker)

COIN in the news

The New York Times revealed today a 2004 blanket order was signed by President Bush allowing secret covert action pretty much wherever the Pentagon wants, and in some cases, without his express permission. This shines a little light on the recent operations in Syria, but military attacks on sovereign countries, without specific Presidential permission to do so, are not what God, Clausewitz, or the Constitution intended!

Accountability is fundamental in a democracy, including ours! It is not acceptable for the Commander in Chief of the world’s most expensive military to delegate the most important statecraft decision! What is Bush thinking? Where is the outrage? Oh wait, right here…

It seems especially odd that such measures are allowed as US forces are already "innovating" on their own. Case in point? Task Force ODIN is heading to Afghanistan. 

ODIN, also the Norse god of war and death, stands for “Observe, Detect, Identify, Neutralize.” This entity, a Bob Gates creation developed for Iraqi COIN, is a unit of approximately 400 people. Equipped with monitoring aircraft, analysts, and quick attack forces, ODIN specializes in detecting IEDs along the road, and has been responsible for neutralizing over 3,000 insurgents. The measure of their success in Iraq seems to be much more effective than secretive air strikes that rely on dubious intelligence and kill more than a few civilians.

The intention is for Task Force ODIN in Afghanistan is to protect the nearly complete “Ring Road," which connects the major cities and is crucial for commerce, development, and general security. This represents an interesting evolution of the usual strictly hierarchically structured American military, which was designed to take on the Soviet Union in the Fulda Gap. ODIN is flexible and fast, much like the enemy coalition forces face.  

When the Taliban can jack a NATO convoy in Pakistan and move scot-free into Afghanistan, it's obvious the tribal belt is pretty lawless.  Scary stuff for sure, but it seems that it will be ODIN, not the propensity of the US military to ignore borders, that will get these guys and their new toy.

The new green economy: what role for government?

The Economist has an interesting leader this week on the perils of government-led investment in solutions to climate change. If I understand the arguments correctly, the thinking goes that there is an upside to climate change; namely, the naissance of a new and profitable green-tech industry to combat it. Millions of new “green collar” jobs will be created as money is funneled into alternative fuel and energy research and implementation. If the government subsidizes this industry, it will lock in those jobs domestically, boost the economy, and achieve policy goals like energy independence and fighting global warming.

Of course, the problem with any government-led subsidy program is the issue of picking winners. Resources are scarce, especially if you’ve seen the federal debt numbers lately. You can’t subsidize everything, and by subsidizing any particular form of alternative energy, the government is expressing its confidence in that fuel’s viability. But the government, a semi-closed organization with limited human capital and a bureaucratic (read: slow) outlook, is almost certain to be less efficient at distributing resources and picking winners than a market. That’s why we live in a market society, and that’s why communism doesn’t work (sorry, Ms Klein.)

None of this is new, but it bears repeating for two reasons. First, Mr. Obama has named energy independence as his top domestic priority behind stabilizing the financial system and the economy. Second, the financial crisis has so badly tarnished the reputation of markets that resistance against government leadership on green investment is unlikely. Thus, we may be on the cusp of a massive government-funded research program for green technology, and so we need to carefully consider the downsides of such a policy prescription. After all, the United States is still happily subsidizing corn-based ethanol, which is a terrible idea.

There is a central role for governments to play in a market society. Moving forward, there will be a leading and constructive role for government to play in the fight against climate change (please can we have a carbon tax?) However, in an ideal situation markets and government complement one another. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. But above all else, we should strive to avoid a situation where one of these institutions usurps the role best played by the other.

(photo from montanaraven's photostream)

We still love you, Australia!

The zzzeitgeist global header is back. This one is a bit slimmer (and a smaller file) than the old one, which means we've been forced to cut out such places as Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and parts of Canada. Don't get us wrong: we've got nothing against the Commonwealth, we just want the page to load faster.

Google Reader shares

New feature update: in the right-hand column, you can now see both Nick and Patrick's five most recent shared items on Google Reader. Google Reader is an RSS aggregator that fetches and displays content from the blogs we read. When you 'share' something on Google Reader, you flag it for your friends to read. Your shares are essentially what you think is the best and most interesting content out of everything you read.

It's a small upgrade, but if you've ever wondered what we're reading day-to-day, now you'll know. In the past, we've posted some of our Google Reader shares in Zeitlinks: now we're sharing this content directly and in real time. And don't worry: our oldest recurring feature isn't getting the axe, but we're hoping that it evolves into something grander (and it will of course be rechristened zzzeitlinks!) Stay tuned.

COIN is hard

There were several items in the news recently that drive it home for the umpteenth time: Counterinsurgency really isn’t easy. Let me count the ways.

First, we should remember that the United States actually has a history of successful counterinsurgency efforts. The US fought and won several counterinsurgencies here, here, and maybe it's slightly politically incorrect, but here as well. We even have a brand new COIN manual, authored in part by General Petraeus, though this isn’t the first time a manual has been written.

Lately, the Pentagon has been purchasing lots of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. This is quite an evolution from the first jeep that the US used at the dawn of mechanized warfare. MRAPs can resist what the insurgents used to throw at the unarmored, then up-armored hummves. But if you build a bigger truck, then of course insurgents build a bigger bomb. And there's an upward limit to the size of a truck, but not for bombs. The top-heavy MRAPs are prone to flipping when off-roading. And the Pentagon is in the market for more…

Counterinsurgency 101 tells us to live among the population and off the FOBs. And Machiavelli warns against living in fortresses for the same reason: you are forced to interact more with the people, and you will urgently find political solutions when your own security is tied to that of the population’s security. However, if you're advocating driving around in a stripped-down Wrangler, rather than an MRAP, that’s a tough thing to do right now in Afghanistan.

A couple of years ago the Pentagon started a program to send trained social scientists into Iraq and Afghanistan to assist in understanding the local populations better. Some of the very first results were striking successes. But even this effort isn’t too easy either. Bottom line: COIN is hard. Let’s hope the new administration is ready for the challenges ahead.

zzzeitgeist header

Small detail: going forward, we're making a conscious effort to use the name zzzeitgeist (instead of Zeitgeist), and we've recut the banner to reflect this. Fear not! This is just a provisional banner: we'll have the global background in place again soon.

Brave New World

This is an important announcement about the future of zzzeitgeist.

We have just witnessed what will likely be one of the most important political moments of our lifetime. The people have spoken, the old order has been blown away, and change is coming. President-elect Obama faces enormous challenges both at home and abroad, and the policy decisions he makes will have repercussions around the world. In short, things are about to get even more interesting.

And as we stand on the cusp of a new era, we have news of our own to share. Both of us have come to realize two things in writing this blog. First,while we both understood that international issues are nuanced and complex, we have increasingly realized that there are many sub-issues within international political economy and development that warrant close attention. Some of these are beyond our expertise. Second, we have been consistently amazed at how intelligent our readers around the world have been, and your thought-provoking feedback has helped drive the blog. Given these facts, we've concluded that we have a unique opportunity to deliver even more insightful commentary on the issues our readers care about.

So we're happy to announce that as of today, zzzeitgeist will begin moving toward a collaborative model. Both of us (Nick and Patrick) will still post regularly, but we will assume a more editorial role and focus more on steering the ship and plotting the overall direction of the blog. At the same time, we are recruiting specialists who will provide analysis on issues as diverse as military security, finance, and global health. We are building a broad network of contributors, each of whom we hope will bring a special expertise to zzzeitgeist. As editors, we will work hard to connect the dots between our specialists.

Our goal is no less than to give readers a robust picture of everything relating to international political economy and development, from a source they can trust. We want to be one of your top sources of news and analysis. And consistent with a founding principle of this blog, we are committed to providing a platform for young and up-and-coming voices in these disciplines. We want our contributors to provide an edgy and fresh look at the issues.

As our new model is implemented, you can expect more posts on new and old issue areas, with the same quality analysis that we've worked to provide up until now. We will post updates about the administrative changes we make as we make them (we're working on several new features right now). Things will grow slowly, but if they go to plan, changes should be noticeable soon: we hope to have 3 - 5 contributors by the end of November.

It's a new world, and we are really excited about our new "blog by committee." We look forward to adding to the debate in critical times.

- Nick and Patrick