John Robb, In Other Words

In keeping with his vision of demons operating in a decentralized and disorganized manner, Robb has begun to consider angels who operate in a similar fashion:

The reason is that systemic resilience is hard. It reverses power relationships and pushes control to the edges. It simplifies processes and builds-in dampening forces to limit the impact of any shocks that ripple through our global network. It forces changes in individual behavior to broaden skill sets and limit dependencies.

• “Reverses power relationships” by “push[ing] control to the edges”: not true, in the sense that such reversal has always been the dream of progressive liberals: the hierarchies will be destroyed, vertical controls will disappear, and extreme liberality, or absolute freedom for individual actors, will save us, it is assumed. Reversal is not the right word, although the word has pull for anarchists who dream of a stable, utopian world utterly without government.


• Consider the movement to factional development and the dream that these localized factions “at the edges” will “control” the system; whether they control in an organized, cooperative manner or by default out of no organized but yet interacting, ‘confluential’ manner will make a difference. 
  
  Not too much difference, however, since this is really a recipe for the creation of vertical force out of the synergy of so many horizontal forces.  Such a vertical force is assumed to exist in the phrase “simplifies processes” — and, besides, those “dampening forces” Robb mentions are one set of vertical forces in such a system.  Similarly, the dream of “limit[ed] dependencies” is a false dream in a complex world, where any factional reality (the localized stability) will be affected by the shape of each other factional reality also existing in the world.  Such an understanding by those living within those tiny ‘utopias’ will lead to interactions between factions and the realization that dependencies exist.  Call it interdependency, codependency, or call it mutual exclusion and exclusivity requiring constant evolution to defend against incursions, and it will make no difference.  Absolute insularity is impossible.  All will exist within the global system and will be dependent on the shape of each.
  

But such an assessment of Robb’s latest post may be myopic.  Consider the article he wrote for FastCompany.com: “Security: Power To The People”. In that article, he considers the first wave of innovation which is likely to be a movement toward insularity (generally, at the corporate level and the city level), and then outward in the second phase as insular systems work to interconnect:

Perhaps the most important global shift will be the rise of grassroots action and cross-connected communities. Like the Internet, these new networks will develop slowly at first. After a period of exponential growth, however, they will quickly become all but ubiquitous—and astonishingly powerful, perhaps as powerful as the networks arrayed against us.

The interesting thing about that article is this:  it assumes that these innovations will be reactionary in the first phase and organic in the second phase.  Contrast such development with Robb’s assessment of the new threats now facing us:

This new class of threat is characterized by its bottoms up pattern of growth rather than the familiar competition between nation-states. It percolates upwards through catalyzed organic growth until it overwhelms our ability to respond to it….These threats don’t just emerge in a form that can be dealt with through careful deliberation, they explode once they reach an ignition point….All of these events intertwine the actions of billions of actors that span the globe and they can break individual nation-states like kindling wood. It defies logic to think that a nation-state or even a group of nation-states can even remotely approach the response necessary for mitigating this class of problem once its effects are felt.

The threats emerge ‘suddenly’ — “they explode once they reach an ignition point” — and once they do, mitigating the results will be virtually impossible for a nation-state or group of nation-states.  Presumably, a “virtual state” or collections of individuals formed into “virtual teams” could accomplish what nation-states cannot accomplish, if only they begin working preemptively.  In GG speak, this means decentralized yet somehow coherent teams are superior to centralized yet increasingly incoherent teams.  (This is a false dichotomy, however, because whatever virtual teams form to address problems preemptively will be opposed by the centrifugal actions of nation-states trying to maintain exclusive vertical controls — if, that is, those virtual teams attempt to operate openly in the form of corporations, NGO’s and relatively insular city-states. See the last bulleted item above. )

• “Bottoms up pattern of growth”: Horizontal growth; the convergence of multifarious domains: the actors within those domains, their actions, the effects of those actions upon the whole system and upon each set of actors.


• “overwhelms our ability to respond to it”:  this calls for proactive approaches rather than reactive.  By the time these threats have emerged, the multifarious domains have already been shaped to create that emergence; i.e., these threats already have organic resilience.  By this point, the problems are systemic.


• “All of these events intertwine the actions of billions of actors that span the globe”:  Once the effects are felt, those effects will have great power to determine future emergence.  They are systemic.  Reactionary measures will prove inadequate for this reason:  the reactionary operates within and from the systemic reality, which means he helps to sustain that reality even if that is not his goal.  Conflict which has already exploded onto the scene, when it is the culmination of organic growth, cannot be stopped by actors who join the fight that is already occurring.  Similarly, one might look at the forecasters of Global Warming Doom and those who oppose upsetting global economies to forestall that Doom:  adding more voices to the debate only adds to the static that disables a coherent and focused effort at forestalling the Doom.
  
  

What does all this mean?  John Robb is approaching an authentic theory of 5GW (compare to his cooptation of the term 5GW as a marketing ploy for Global Guerrillas), in which a careful management of multiple strands may work to preempt the emergence of these new threats or at least mitigate their effects.  Systemic resilience will require a preemptive, proactive guidance of emergence on a global scale — which means working within multiple domains to preempt the “actions of billions of actors” — because reactionary measures will prove ineffective once these new threats have fully emerged.  —Sounds a lot like the work being conducted by Thomas Barnett and Steve DeAngelis — although it’s true those two actors do not appear to understand the overwhelming problem created by attempting to act transparently to effect change in an increasingly complex, chaotic world.

Because these new threats are already coming into focus, we should assume that the problems are already systemic and that any moves to mitigate them or preempt their emergence will require clandestine operation. Why? Because the static already present in the system, which aids the development of these new threats, cannot be defeated by adding more static, or cause for contention. The necessary vertical controls for resilience cannot be built by increasing horizontal conflict alone, nor by allowing that horizontal conflict to continue shaping the emergence of these new threats in an undirected manner. We need 5GW to win the Long Wars (plural).

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UPDATE:

See also: Steve DeAngelis, In Other Words.