ENTERRA DiB AND THE NATIONAL TERRORISM STRATEGY

Steve DeAngelis of ERMB ( and a newly minted Visiting Scientist at the prestigious Oak Ridge National Laboratory -congrats Steve!) is commenting with greater directness these days on military , intelligence and foreign policy questions. This a welcome development and no doubt a result of Steve’s collaboration with Dr. Barnett and recent ventures by Enterra to connect with the IC.

Yesterday, Steve took a look at the new National Strategy for Combatting Terrorism released by the Bush administration, and offered a cogent analysis:

“The new strategy notes that the war on terrorism is about both arms and ideas. “Arms and ideas,” however, provide too narrow a focus for countering this very complicated challenge, a point the document actually makes.

…What struck me most about this long-term strategy is how closely it parallels what I have been promoting for our Development-in-a-Box approach. First, it talks about establishing international standards and best practices, which is exactly what makes Development-in-a-Box different than past approaches. Second, the strategy talks about needing a new architecture for dealing with this problem. Enterra Solutions is working with a number of groups to help them develop a Resilient Technology Architecture to help meet this need. Finally, the strategy stresses the need for establishing a community of practice, an approach I have indicated is critical in the development world as well. The President is simply encouraging the establishment of one of many such communities that need to be created. We all know that drafting a strategy doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be implemented properly. The basic approach for long-term success is promising. Let’s hope it survives a change in administrations.”

Steve elucidated the DiB principles at greater length in a prior post, “Wiring Rwanda to the World“:

“1. Start with security. When Kagame seized control of Rwanda, he tried to establish a coalition Tutsi/Hutu government that would make all citizens feel more secure. Were a civil war still raging in Rwanda, Wyler’s venture would never have gotten off the ground.

2. Use accepted standards and best practices when establishing infrastructure. Wyler transplanted technologies and standards used in the U.S. to ensure that once his system was in place it would work properly.

3. Create a customer base. Wyler tries to make every customer a sales person for his services. By selling cheap Internet access in small increments, Terracom has hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of potential customers. Wyler also showed others how they could be entrepreneurs themselves by selling Terracom products.

4. Establish a community of practice. By starting with schools, institutions, and small businesses as well as working with the government, Wyler concentrated on building a community of practice that could help him succeed in his venture. They became virtual owners of the project, because their future success in some measure would be determined by Wyler’s success.

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