"Intimations of 5GW: Death Note, The Consequences of Victory and Defeat" posted at Musing 5GW: http://bit.ly/bRk9EO

 

"Intimations of 5GW: Death Note, The Hunt is Over" posted at Musing 5GW: http://bit.ly/ckI9ak

"Intimations of 5GW: Death Note, the Rules of the Game" Posted at Musing 5GW:  http://bit.ly/b7j46O

 

"Intimations of 5GW: Death Note, the Players" Posted at Musing 5GW:  http://bit.ly/cbfiY3

Via Danger Room:

Insurgents Intercept Drone Video in King-Size Security Breach

The 5GWish money quote:

If you think militants are going to be content to just observe spy drone feeds, it’s time to reconsider. “Folks are not merely going to listen/watch what we do when they intercept the feeds, but also start to conduct ‘battles of persuasion’; that is, hacking with the intent to disrupt or change the content, or even ‘persuade’ the system to do their own bidding,” Peter Singer, author of Wired for War, tells Danger Room.

This has long been the nightmare scenario within Pentagon cybersecurity circles: a hacker not looking to take down the military grid, but to exploit it for his own purposes. How does a soldier trust an order, if he doesn’t know who else is listening - or who gave the order, in the first place? “For a sophisticated adversary, it’s to his advantage to keep your network up and running. He can learn what you know. He can cause confusion, delay your response times - and shape your actions,” says one Defense Department cybersecurity official tells Danger Room.

 

These are just the sort of systemic vulnerabilities that 5GW actors seek to exploit.

 

(Cross-posted at Red Herrings)

OST

In my last post, I explored the idea of EBOv2 after having introduced it as one of the key "principles" of 5GW.  I suggested three interrelating limitations or "stumbling-blocks" to conducting the more expansive and inclusive form of EBO, summarizing these stumbling-blocks as issues relating to scope.

I also suggested Open Space Technology as a possible guide for handling these issues of scope as they relate to conducting 5GW.  I have previously written about OST here (in 2007, when I first learned of it) and here (after learning of Peggy Holman's latest endeavor exploring the idea of "engaging emergence"), although I have not gone into much detail.

EBOv2

Previously in writing about EBOv2 (or, "Evolved EBO" as I quickly labeled it then), I noted that effects-based operations should be expanded to include two areas of observation when determining operations:

In general “effects-based” has two components:

1. “It is thus about producing desired futures.”  I.e., operations should be focused on pre-determined ultimate effects.  Our activities are therefore determined by those effects, or based upon those effects we are seeking.
2. “[T]hose engaging in effects-based operations must continuously adapt plans, rules, and assumptions to existing reality.” In other words, whatever effects actually occur within the world — as opposed to the pre-determined effects we have chosen — will shape our activities; our future activities will be based upon those effects.

One might summarize to say that, for successful adaptive operations, we must not only have a willingness to observe all that is occurring within our sphere of activity, but we must also have a clear primary goal.  In fact, we might go so far as to include a consideration of the OODA loop and say that the process of adaptation in EBOv2 is a conscious re-Orientation -- as opposed to an unconscious or subconscious re-Orientation.  Unconscious or subconscious re-Orientation occurs when either a) sight of the primary goal has been lost, b) the primary goal is, for whatever reasons, in the process of being altered (or is fluid), and/or c) the primary goal itself is unconscious or subconscious and not understood or apparent to the actor.  Of these, "c" may lead to a positive outcome with respect to the goal for any given action; but for ongoing and extended operations, "c" is more likely to devolve to either "a" or "b" over time than remain a useful guide.

The great stumbling-block for those who would conduct EBOv2 (and for that matter, those who have attempted plain old EBO) results from three different but interrelated conditions:

1. The setting of sights too low, with limited reach, when deciding a primary goal.
2. The inability to define, and thus observe and successfully act upon, an accurate sphere of activity.
3. The existence of others acting within the world who are themselves observing the world at large and setting their own sights on desired futures.

These conditions occur together.  A limited concept of the accurate sphere of activity reduces one's sights to accomplishing merely immediate objectives, never mind the fact that others operating in that limited sphere may be looking outside that sphere of activity for materiel and/or political/ideological support.

Furthermore, those others affecting the battlefield may not actually be within that limited sphere, at least not in a way that will be greatly affected by the limited application of EBO.  Exterior allies of the interior target may affect anything from the supplying of that target (in the case of materiel) to the global marketplace (economic or ideological) upon which the practitioner of EBO depends.  The application of a limited EBO, in an attempt to accomplish a limited goal, may begin to resemble, for lack of a better description, "pissing into the wind."

Finally, the practitioner of limited EBO, through a lack of foresight, may ignore others outside that sphere who could help accomplish even those limited objectives in a lasting manner by helping to achieve more significant objectives not within the limited EBO.  Thomas Barnett points at an example of this when he laments that "The Leviathan is screwed."  In that case, the Leviathan -- the military arm -- attempted to also be the SysAdmin -- or, nation-builder, ignoring the level of support from without, some of it coming within also, that would be required.  (This, incidentally, may be an example of "b" above, or of a shifting, fluid primary objective, since the great effort at SysAdmin was not a part of the major planning for the initial operations.)  Another example, or at least allegory:  short-term gains led our marketplace into the thickets of recession, with the only apparent solution as viewed by those in command being the expansion of the sphere of activity of governments around the world, whether through stimulus packages or bail-outs or broader regulation, often acting in unison.  (Regardless of efficacy or wisdom for any of these responses, these show the sudden realization that an expansion of the sphere of activity would be required.)

To sum:  Without a primary objective that is broad enough, and which takes into account all the domains or battlespaces and actors who may affect that objective, EBO becomes too limited to be of much use and in fact may become counterproductive.

The stumbling-block, in short, is an issue of scope -- with the attending issue of complexity.  In my next post, I'll look at the idea of  Open Space Technology as a guide for how we may approach and overcome that stumbling-block.  

Peggy Holman, co-author of The Change Handbook, discusses "Engaging Emergence". (Be aware there is a 30-sec commercial at the beginning of this video, and then again 1/3 and again 2/3 of the way through this, if you watch it at Veoh.)

A few interesting ideas/phrases used:

• "Change with no one in charge."
• "Whole Systems change."
• "Be compassionate about disruption."

Peggy Holman also spoke with this host about Open Space Technology, a subject I briefly addressed long ago and, rather unfortunately, never revisited until now. Although not quite as interesting as the video above, nonetheless there are many great ideas which should relate to 5GW; in fact, the very framework of the concept behind OST may prove quite valuable.




For a much simplified and shorter explanation of OST, you can watch this video on YouTube.

I'll be back with more ideas about these in a newer post.

UPDATE: Peggy Holman's book proposal for Engaging Emergence at her blog: http://patternsofchange.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/book-proposal/

(This is part of a series of posts exploring what I consider to be the essential principles of 5GW.)

Preliminary:   EBO?

Writing in Effects-based operations: A New Operational Model?¹, April 2002, then-LTC Allen Batschelet examined three differing concepts of EBO currently circulating.  Aspects of each may appear much like the concept of 5GW often discussed here:

Recent discussion concerning the idea of "The Puppet Master"  under an old D5GW thread has brought a question to my mind.

Adam Elkus used two statements, one in the post and another in a comment, that struck me as being very important for understanding 4GW:

Driven by nationalism and religion, they wage a public war directed towards various audiences.

&

Most groups taking arms against the state do so publicly because they see themselves as waging public struggles for public interests.

In many ways, these ideas remind me of a previous attempt I once made for understanding 4GW, in which I linked American political processes to 4GW.