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Mountainrunner’s review of Brave New War was greeted thusly by John Robb:
Knew it was going to happen. Oh well. To tell you the truth, I kinda expected more push-back to an outsider like me from the “conference crowd” guarding the walls around the counter-terrorism money/fantasy machine in Washinton. This guy is the only one to do so publicly.
Respondingly publicly, MR wrote:
I don’t know that I am trying to protect the “money/fantasy machine”, mostly because I don’t know what he means (a little help?). However, it does sound bad and I would probably agree the “money/fantasy machine” needs to be whacked based on name alone. Whatever it is, my issue with the book pivots on his failure to include and factor in purposes and support systems into the analysis of his guerrillas. Insight into these two not insignificant data sets can’t be dismissed or ignored, but that is just what BNW does.
At the time, I noted this was a humorous way to turn the other cheek. However, MR is wrong. The “money/fantasy machine” is a vital part of shrinking the Gap.
Read more below, or join the discussion at tdaxp.com.
Earlier, Curtis commented on Tom Barnett’s view of 5GW:
he resolution to the Barnettian paradox is not something Barnett himself has offered: a true 5GW approach. Although he speaks in the language of co-optation, he uses the term when addressing inter-national relations; e.g., that Iran can be co-opted. Barnett does not descend to the street level although he does support improving the lives of the persons on the street; [Tom Barnett] has yet to formulate a clear plan for co-opting the many individuals of which nations and corporations are comprised. For the most part, he seems to assume that nation-states and corporations, if they only do the right things, will be received as benevolent dictators — or, scratch that term, as benevolent superempowered entities.He may be half right. Many people seek saviors of one sort or another; many are happy to delegate responsibility for the things they themselves cannot touch or do not have the time or motivation to fix themselves — or do not understand, themselves. The crux of the Barnettian paradox involves the manner and method of assigning these delegations so that the general man-on-the-street can rest easily knowing his prosperous future is assured. Even within the Core, much doubt about this process of delegation exists; various superempowerments within and without the Core threaten to upset faith in the systems of the Core.
For his theory of 5GW, Barnett needs to reduce the footprint of his preferred superempowered entities, and this will require a re-think about how they operate — in fact, perhaps also about who they are.
In an unrelated post, Mountainrunner himself says much the same thing:
To this end, when operating in conflict/post-conflict environments were the host state needs to be rebuilt, certain tools are missing from our tooklit that demonstrates our commitment to the mission to the host, facilitates capacity building, and deepens host nation commitment, and capability, to the mission, and perhaps most importantly, enlists the locals into their own success.
Both posts can be summarized like this: America needs to subvert her own population, to enlist Americans, to shrink the Gap. Most thinkers are stuck in a low-G paradigm, so obvious solutions are for “everyone to pitch in” (0GW), “organize everyone to shrink the gap” (1GW), write harshly-worded letters (4GW), etc.
However, a 5GW solution is wiser. If shrinking the Gap is a public policy option, it could be rejected. Shrinking the Gap is a long-term process, and should be insulated from politics as much as possible. We have a model of how to proceed.
The Global War Against Communism was a successful, multigenerational effort by the United States to defeat the Communist world, to spinter the Soviet Union’s support, and ultimately to turn the USSR’s constuent republics against themselves. This was done by institutionalizing the war, building up a military-industria complex for the leviathian … what John Robb describes as a “money/fantasy machine” and Tom Barnett decries a generation after the Cold-War ended.
Think about that.
The anti-Communist 5GW that was built up at the beginning of the Cold War is still functioning in spite of widespread recognition that is has been obsoleted by its own success.
The anti-Disconnectedness 5GW that must be built up at the beginning of this Long War must be similarly durable. Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, globalists and internationalists, they come-and-go. They’re electoral defeats and victories are as rational as which town is hit by which tornado, which Senator uses an anti-asian slur that was current among North African Jews a lifetime ago, and other quirks of fate. Shrinking the Gap is too important to be left to chance.
Rather than decy a “money/fantasy machine” we need to build our own.
We need to build a Military-Industrial-Systems Administration-Complex.
We need a Virtual Department of Everything Else.
We need to Shrink the Gap.
Posted by Dan tdaxp on Jun 12, 2007 03:37 PM
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18 Comments
This is the big mission for our generation and the one to follow.
Purpleslog,
Agreed. But it can be done.
PS: MountainRunner takes a guess at what was meant by the original money/fantasy machine swipe.
Dan,
Very thoughtful post. I have lots to say, but will sit on it for another day or two (although I’ve already posted related comments.)
I would point out a couple simple things.
First, I believe that the casual visitor to D5GW or tdaxp may have very little comprehension of what we are saying! More and more this seems to be an issue, at least for some of my posts: a lot of back-story is left out.
Second, given the first, I would point out a couple ideas I’ve previously expressed: 1) That a 5GW org wouldn’t necessarily want to ultimately destroy or severely weaken all its proxies, since the extraordinary success/good for some proxies would also be very good for the 5GW org’s ultimate plan; and 2) The notion of a “gentler, kinder” war, in 5GW-style, is not so preposterous as the term ‘war’ might seem to make it!
I mention these things for those who don’t have the back-story but have the title of this post!
Curtis,
You’re right on the jargon. I’m not sure how to overcome this, unless each theoretical post is accompanied by a popularizing companion. (For a while the perl programming community did something similar, with each “apocalypse” followed by an “exegesis”)
Unfortunately, John Robb, the most gifted popularizer whose found 5GW theory, is more interested in bastardizing it as part of his own hype cycle instead of being intelelctually honest.
Your second point ties into a comparison between 5GW and Conspiracy Theories — conspiracy theorists believe that President Truman created Majestic 12, a secret committee that is still in charge of keeping knowledge of aliens from the public. Political scientists, on the other hand, chart his role in rapidly establishing the military-industrial complex. Conspiracy theoriests believe that Majestic-12 could theoretically turn itself off by coming clean. Political scientists, however, recognize the military-industrial complex cannot just turn off.
The Anti-Communist 5GW saw future incarnations of the government and national security establishment themselves become proxies for the late 1940s 5GWarriors. When the prep-work was fainlly done at the 5GW was released, however, it didn’t matter that nearly all of their work was public record. It was already too late. The proxies were all ready in place.
Perhaps we need a glossary?
Maybe we could steal a proposition recently given by A.E. on The Blorum, and create a Wikified glossary that could be updated periodically, for all the key terms as they are used on D5GW? Given the limited scope, I would foresee limited access for editing the entries, probably to the 4 D5GW Contributors at first. It wouldn’t be a place for developing theories or introducing new terminology or non-site-specific terminology, but rather, as I said, a glossary of terms used here, ‘more-info’ links to the relevant posts (made as citations), maybe even a chronology for edits/revisions/extensions to the definitions.
I think a glossary would be a great idea.
Mountainrunner previously mentioned to me that he would be happy if we used the ConflictWiki. Perhaps that’s an idea?
Dan,
The last time I checked out MountainRunner’s ConflictWiki, I could not find any entries on:
William Lind,
the xGW framework,
1GW, 2GW, 3GW, 4GW, & 5GW
I know that MountainRunner is skeptical of the xGW framework, but I found the exclusion of these topics to be a little excessive. They’re not mentioned anywhere, so far as I could tell, not even a mention in the other topics.
I’ve not checked into the procedures for adding entries or the set-up of that wiki, for this reason.
The best idea for D5GW would be something like a separate area of the site, similar to Barnett’s glossary, for the wikified glossary, but with automatically linking of those terms in posts and perhaps a small independent sidebar to the right of posts listing all the wikified entries used in each post, linked to the glossary (similar to the new sidebar I’ve recently put to the right of posts!) Accomplishing such a technical feat may be beyond me.
At present, the nearest thing we have is the tagging system in MT. If it were used consistently — ha! — then we could add a top section to each tag search which would give a glossary definition to that term. This would be far simpler to implement but not quite as neat. Perhaps ultimately we could integrate the tagging system with a wikified glossary, even.
Alternatively, one field we do not currently use when writing posts for D5GW — the keywords field — could perhaps be used to highlight the keywords of any post. However, using that field to integrate with a wikified glossary might be technically difficult. I’ll bet some MT plugins might come in handy.
The most laborious aspect of any of these would be setting up the wikified glossary, i.e. not only the set-up but writing the entries. Integrating it with posts would be simpler, I think.
I think MR’s waiting for us to edit those entries… :-)
ConflictWiki purposefully isn’t branded as an MR because of his desire to extend it to our whole community. I think it would be a nifty way of extending our ideas and potentially integrating them with other like thinkers too.
Dan, Curtis,
Some advice. Spend some time putting down either theoretical or virtual 5GW operations. Take a break from the nuts and bolts or the vast theoretical inner-workings of 5GW and risk contemplating and publishing a 5GW veneer.
When I first started reading D5GW I found myself very much out of my element. Partly because the xGW framework was new to me, partly because I’d stumbled upon this intellectual festival in it’s midst rather than it’s beginning and partly because the concept is discussed from the inside out. This is not so much a criticism as it is an observation. I’m a pretty smart dude but had to willingly research my way to an understanding of what 5GW, as theorized here, was.
In essence, you need a real world example of 5GW, whether it be fictitious or virtual. This may sound odd at first but I’d put the present global warming phenom at the head of a real world example of 5GW. This isn’t to say that I believe Al Gore is waging a 5GW campaign, rather that the elements that surround the GWarming initiative contain some very 5GW tastes.
I’ve put the idea of Al Gore as a 5GWarrior to Arherring via PM correspondence at the forum. He seemed receptive to the principle.
Further, commentary between myself and ‘Slog at my own humble blogging abode found me chasing the idea of exacting a 5GW initiative upon our own populace in order to readjust the masses to the future of American conflict as it has, decidedly, moved beyond the confines of cold war ideology. The pentagon may catch up but their own glacial thought process is nothing compared to that of mainstream America which seems quite comfortable with the “we’re the biggest and baddest and so everthings a’ight. What’s Paris up to these days?”
Put some concentration into presenting what a 5GW initiative does or could look like. Maybe GWarming is a good example, maybe not. Either way, combine the nuts and bolts into a cogent “example” that is tangible enough for people to immediately recognize and ponder.
Soob,
Check out Dreaming 5th Generation War, Section Six.
I think the idea of a one page FAQ of terms would work. I might be okay to using ConflictWiki for that.
I have been slow to post.
Once done with the styles (which are done in my head and outlined on my computer), I meant to post on possible/potential/proto 5GWers. Here is a sneak preview:
Scott Adams (yes,not a joke mostly)
Bill Gates
George Soros
The early/original Muslim Brotherhood
Al-Suri
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Al Gore
Michael Moore
Mullah’s of Iran
The Red China puppet masters
Barnett (heh)
The Tranzi Network
EU original theorizers/founders
Pope Benidict
One other thing, one reason I have edited on ConflictWiki was aI really wasn’t sure how long it might be around. I didn’t want to add/edit content just to have it go away.
I think I would be okay using it as a glossary for our little part of the blogosphere.
Dan,
“a nifty way of extending our ideas and potentially integrating them with other like thinkers too.”
I agree, although I’ve wondered if MR would agree. This is something related to wiki’s in general, especially those like Wikipedia: establishing authoritative sourcing and reducing the footprint of the merely theoretical and/or hypothetical small-time blog! I remember the results of the last Wikipedia endeavor. The ConflictWiki would be a good place to outline the basics; I’m not sure MR would want to include every permutation related to 5GW, given the many various interpretations or utilizations of that concept around the Blogosphere — maybe one page titled “Fifth-generation Warfare” explaining the hypothetical nature of that subject with all permutations mentioned and sourced (D5GW, tdaxp, Global Guerrillas, Barnett, Hammes, etc.)
Certainly, some of our oft-used terms are well-established if not uniformly accepted, e.g., SEI, Gap/Core, the xGW framework (1GW-4GW only). These would be good terms to include on ConflictWiki. Some others are not — my peculiar use of ‘static’ — or have been peculiarly interpreted — again, my use on D5GW of ‘kinetics.’ Still other terms have been used as a base for further conjecture on D5GW, like the OODA Loop.
My general thinking is that D5GW might need a context-specific glossary that would enable visitors to better understand our own frameworks, because that glossary would be a contextual aid for posts on D5GW. The glossary could include links to related entries on ConflictWiki, Wikipedia, and so forth, perhaps with mentions of variations or how the concepts outlined in the glossary may not be standard. I’m not sure that ConflictWiki and/or Wikipedia would be much of a contextual aid, sometimes, given the nature of D5GW and our writing styles. (To the degree that our use of terminology is standard, those sources would be fine as contextual aids; we link Wikipedia from time to time already, after all.)
Why have ConflictWiki when Wikipedia already exists? Answer: it’s a specialized wiki. The D5GW glossary would be further specialized, similarly smaller in scope, although it could tie in, via linking, to the others. This wouldn’t preclude creating/editing entries on either of those two, btw.
I discovered today that the hosting service for D5GW provides two choices for free wiki software that can be easily installed on the account: PhpWiki and TikiWiki. The latter seems best although it’s a much larger install — it is actually more of a CMS than a mere wiki, although its wiki functionality is probably superior to the other functions it enables. Setting up a localized wiki would be pretty easy. (HOWEVER, more and more lately I’ve been considering going with a full site redesign using some CMS. Imagine having unified log-ins for all the areas of D5GW, with better integration!)
Soob,
When I’ve considered posting hypothetical 5GW operations currently underway, I’ve also considered how those conjectures would seem like the sort of rampant conspiracy theorizing already available around the ‘Net! Isolating those conspiracy theories that already exist, and drawing the 5GW scope — what if said conspiracy theory is actually the result of a real 5GW underway? — might be a good approach. Dan’s already linked one example at tdaxp; the al Qaeda example here on D5GW also already exists. We have moved away from such conjecture, which is something I’ve regretted although I’ve been eagerly awaiting PSlog’s explorations!
The Global Warming conjecture is something that has popped up from time to time, here and there, albeit in a limited way. I agree, GWarming is a fascinating hypothetical for 5GW exploration.
Meanwhile…I suspect that if you build posts developing the ideas you’ve presented here, on your blog, they’d be linked by D5GW and explored here!
The big reason for our own wiki, whatever the skope, is that Wikipedia will delete pages that use web sites as sources. (That’s why purpleslog’s excellent 5GW entry vanished.)
I’ll send MountainRunner this link, and get his thoughts.
I already linked this conversation at MR, and included a query! (My comment hasn’t appeared there yet, is in moderation.)
Great minds think alike!
FYI…I have never been able to add/edit a page on ConflictWiki.
I always get this error:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 140 bytes) in /usr/www/users/mtnrunnr/w/includes/SpecialPage.php on line 731