zenpundit.com

[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]

Octavian Manea, the interviewer par excellence of Small Wars Journal, steps up with an interview with COIN guru and former USG senior adviser Dr. David Kilcullen:

Future of Warfare in a Post-COIN Conflict Climate

[….]

SWJ: Should we expect that when we see all these clustered elements conflict is more likely, the societal environment more conflict prone?

David Kilcullen: There are two different ways to look at this set of relations. If we look at this from the standpoint of the military or law-enforcement, then it is pretty clear that we really need to get comfortable with operating in a very littoral, very urban and very highly networked environment because that is where the bulk of the people on the planet are going to live in the next generation. If you are not comfortable operating in such an environment you are not going to be effective. But this doesn’t mean that the solution to this problem is a military one. Seen from the perspective of the city in itself, it is pretty clear that the solution is not to bring the hawk cops in, and apply hard power tools to stabilize the environment. This is often a recipe for disaster. The paradox is that, on the one hand, there are no military solutions, but at the same time there are no solutions at all without security. Someone will provide that security and it is better for it to be the locals, but if the locals cannot do it, then history suggests that we will be drawn into this kind of conflict with about the same frequency as in the past.    

SWJ: You emphasized in your book, and also at the New America Foundation launching event that in the future we will face operational continuity and environmental discontinuity. What if the environmental discontinuity can in itself be a variable able to change the operational continuity?

David Kilcullen: That’s possible, to the extent that we have data — information based on historical patterns. On one hand, it seems that there is a lot of unwillingness on behalf of the American politicians to contemplate future engagements like Afghanistan and Iraq. Congress has no appetite as we’ve seen in the case of Syria for further military activity overseas. The military leadership is very reluctant to recommend that kind of operation. But going back to the 19th century we see a cyclical pattern in American military history where we repeatedly have leaders coming out with this kind of statement and yet we end up doing these kinds of operations anyway, on about the same frequency. There are deep structures about the way the US is connected to the international community that lead to this kind of behavior. It is possible that we won’t do this in the future, but it is not the way to bet. If you are going to bet on what is likely to happen, the pattern suggests that we are going to see a specific “conflict climate” (shaped by population growth, urbanization, littoralization and connectedness) within which wars will arise.

Read the rest here.

[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]

Top Billing! TechCrunch – Geeks for Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries 

I found this one fascinating and entertaining on several level: an orthodox PC liberal doing a sort of anthropological drive by on an obscure ideological sect where the Far Right intersected with Silicon Valley, but rejected the libertarian adherence to classical liberalism for a mystical-mythologizing ethos ( they seem to admire the mid 20th C. mummery of Julius Evola).

….Perhaps the one thing uniting all neoreactionaries is a critique of modernity that centers on opposition to democracy in all its forms. Many are former libertarians who decided that freedom and democracy were incompatible.

“Demotist systems, that is, systems ruled by the ‘People,’ such as Democracy and Communism, are predictably less financially stable than aristocratic systems,”Anissimov writes. “On average, they undergo more recessions and hold more debt. They are more susceptible to market crashes. They waste more resources. Each dollar goes further towards improving standard of living for the average person in an aristocratic system than in a Democratic one.”

Exactly what sort of monarchy they’d prefer varies. Some want something closer to theocracy, while Yarvin proposes turning nation states into corporations with the king as chief executive officer and the aristocracy as shareholders.

For Yarvin, stability and order trump all. But critics like Scott Alexander think neoreactionaries overestimate the stability of monarchies — to put it mildly. Alexander recently published an anti-reactionary FAQ, a massive document examining and refuting the claims of neoreactionaries.

“To an observer from the medieval or Renaissance world of monarchies and empires, the stability of democracies would seem utterly supernatural,” he wrote. “Imagine telling Queen Elizabeth I – whom as we saw above suffered six rebellions just in her family’s two generations of rule up to that point – that Britain has been three hundred years without a non-colonial-related civil war. She would think either that you were putting her on, or that God Himself had sent a host of angels to personally maintain order.”

T. Greer – Another Look at ‘The Rise of the West’ – But With Better Numbers 

Why the West? I do not think there is any other historicalcontroversy that has so enthralled the publicintellectuals of our age.  The popularity of the question can probably be traced to Western unease with a rising China and the ease with which the issue can be used as proxy war for the much larger contest between Western liberals who embrace multiculturalism and conservatives who champion the West’s ‘unique’ heritage. 
A few months ago I suggested that many of these debates that surround the “Great Divergence” are based on a flawed premise–or rather, a flawed question. As I wrote:  

“Rather than focus on why Europe diverged from the rest in 1800 we should be asking why the North Sea diverged from the rest in 1000.” [1]

I made this judgement based off of data from Angus Maddison‘s Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 ADand the subsequent updates to Mr. Maddison’s data set by the scholars who contribute to the Maddison Project.

As far as 1,000 year economic projections go this data was pretty good. But it was not perfect. In many cases–especially with the Chinese data–it was simply based on estimates and extrapolations from other eras. A more accurate view of the past would require further research.

That research has now been done. 

Small Wars Journal– ( Sullivan and Elkus) The ‘New’ Playbook? Urban Siege in Nairobi 

Urban siege entails combined arms, ‘swarming’ attacks that bring multiple assault squads into play to attack a target or targets.  The goal is to draw in defenders to prolong the attack and maximize casualties and disruption.  By leveraging multiple, simultaneous assaults (known as swarming) response is complex. As a result, fog, friction, and the smog of terrorism is amplified. As the START Background Reporton the attack noted, extended hostage-barricade attacks with durations over 24 hours are nearly five times as lethal as those that end within a day.

The most notable antecedent to the Westgate siege was the Mumbai attack. In that 2008 action Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) conducted a series of assaults—including complex hostage barricade situations—on seven separate targets in Mumbai, killing 171 and wounding over 250 during their three-day siege.  We viewed that as a seminal event in contemporary urban siege.  Indeed in our paper “Postcard From Mumbai: Modern Urban Siege” we called it a ‘Back to the Future’ incident where terrorists returned to urban guerilla tactics.

War on the Rocks (Evans) –WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH CHINA’S NEW AIR DEFENSE IDENTIFICATION ZONE? 

According to a spokesman for the PLA, the zone “is an area of air space established by a coastal state beyond its territorial airspace to timely identify, monitor, control and react to aircraft entering this zone with potential air threats. It allows early-warning time and provides air security.” It has issued a set of rules for aircraft to follow, including identification of themselves and their flight path.  Ominously, the PRC states, “China’s armed forces will adopt defensive emergency measures to respond to aircraft that do not cooperate in the identification or refuse to follow the instructions.”

China claims the zone “is not directed against any specific country or target,” but this is clearly not the case.  The zone covers territory claimed by both Japan and China – the Senkaku Islands – and there have been a series of incidents and disputes related to this territory.  China claims to be “following international practice” but it is not clear what practice they are referring to. They claim it is “a necessary measure taken by China in exercising its self-defense right. It is not directed against any specific country or target. It does not affect the freedom of over-flight in the related airspace.” 

Business Insider –US NAVY: Hackers ‘Jumping The Air Gap’ Would ‘Disrupt The World Balance Of Power’ 

Chicago Boyz –Daniel Hannan’s new book: Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World  

The National Interest – Interpreting the new Iran Deal  

Shloky.com – Announcing the Origins of the Lean Start Up

The National Interest – Interpreting the new Iran Deal

Recommended Viewing:

J.M. Berger being interviewed on his book Jihad Joe:

[ by Charles Cameron — Iranian diplo communiqué on Twitter uses Vatican imagery, huh? ]
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Here’s Seyed Abbas Araghchi‘s tweet announcing the conclusion of the first series of negotiations with Iran:

???? ?? ??? ??? ????. ??? ???? ?? ??????? !

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) November 24, 2013

Here’s the tail end of the Guardian article, Iran seals nuclear deal with west in return for sanctions relief, in which that tweet is translated:

The first announcement that a deal had been reached, by Ashton’s spokesman Michael Mann, and the confirmation by Zarif, were both made on Twitter – a first for a major global accord.

“Day five, 3am, it’s white smoke,” tweeted the deputy Iranian foreign minister, Seyyed Abbas Araghchi, referring to the terminology used in Vatican for the announcement of a new pope.

Julian West, dear friend and one-time Telegraph war correspondent covering Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, quoted those two paras with approval, and commented:

Not just a first on Twitter, I’d say the first time an Islamic state has used a papal metaphor, thereby confirming my first impressions while reporting there early 2000s. These aren’t a bunch of woolly mullahs.

Woolly mullahs, Julian? I don’t know — but I too like the reference to white smoke and papal elections.

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For those who don’t like the deal — me, I don’t feel well-enough informed to want to comment — here’s Omer Bar-Lev‘s view, as presented in a Times of Israel piece titled Labor MK: Compared to strike, deal is ‘far superior’:

Considering the achievements such as the dismantling of [Iran’s] stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent, reducing the number of centrifuges, halting construction of the heavy water facility [in Arak], all the while the sanctions of Iranian oil and banking industries continue — compared to the alternative of a military strike at this point — it is clear that the agreement reached is far superior…

John Schindler‘s tweeted comment:

Bar-Lev is no softie, he’s the former CO of Sayeret MATKAL, the IDF’s top SOF unit.

and ah, yes, his next tweet:

I think it’s too soon to tell; I have no faith in Tehran.

I’ll buy “too early to tell” — curious, hopeful, wary, that’s me.

[ by Charles Cameron — continuing my exploration of a pattern language of thoughts, both verbal and imagistic ]
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This is a ship-shipping ship, shipping shipping ships. pic.twitter.com/GqzTB866WK via @usmanm

— Nat. Maritime Museum (@NMMGreenwich) October 15, 2013

One of my favorite patterns derives from the nesting of Russian dolls inside Russian dolls, so it’s only appropriate to start with an example of what I can only call.. Matrioshka shipping!

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It’s my habit, as you may have seen, to collect certain “ways of thinking” in the miniature format provided by my Twitterstream. Whether you think of them as logical forms, patterns in a pattern language, or amuse-bouches for the mind, they are here to delight and instruct — and when you pile a whole lot of them up together, they can make you just a touch dizzy.

Today I’ll be bringing my collection up to date with two posts, Serpent logics: a ramble, and Serpent logics: the marathon. If you want a quick look at some of the neat patterns I’ve seen since I last posted on these topics, this post — Serpent logics: a ramble — is the one for you. If, after reading it, you want a gruelling, hilarious, insightful, insane, devious, extended course in this kind of pattern recognition — try Serpent logics: the marathon.

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Here’s one from today, tweeted as I was prepping this post — in a category I’ll simply call…

Counter-intuitive?

When the personal is not political. Indian-origin slave-owner in UK a Marxist-Communist. http://t.co/R0i8krpLE4

— Shivam Vij (@DilliDurAst) November 24, 2013

Admit it, that’s just a trifle mind-blowing, no? C’mon!

**

Serpent Bites Tail:

Here’s a light-and-dark-hearted example of the ourobouros or serpent-bites-tail recursive patterm, with a hat tip to Allan Stairs:

What is the operation by which a self relates itself to its own self, transparently? Selfie.

— KimKierkegaardashian (@KimKierkegaard) September 18, 2013

Follow Kim Kierkegaardashian (@KimKierkegaard) on Twitter if you like mashups between the deepest of theologians and the shallowest of celebrities…

**

I have no idea what category this one belongs in, so I’ll slip it in here. It’s from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, protecting our digital private parts:

It's great even NSA is using our Tor explainer. But they're violating our CC license by classifying it Top Secret. https://t.co/m1B2kzsr0W

— EFF (@EFF) October 4, 2013

Oh my! A Clash of Classifications!

The EFF even has it’s own playful-serious version of the NSA logo —

— as the DoubleQuote above — juxtaposing how the Agency views itself with how the EFF sees it — illustrates…

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DoubleQuotes in the Wild

The Wailing Wall in Jerusalm and Spain… pic.twitter.com/nNmm6cbGtp via @SonParecidos

— Kasper Ploegman (@Kasper_P) November 19, 2013

DoubleQuotes in the Wild is my on-going collection of paired juxtapositions that say more together than they do apart. It’s a beginning training in what F Scott Fitzgerald claimed was the “test of a first-rate intelligence” — “the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function”.

The example above comes from Parecidos Razonables, a blog that takes off from the Separated at Birth concept and specializes in double-takes of this sort, often satirical. One of their more celebrated examples:

Vladimir Putin y Perro #Rusia #Humor pic.twitter.com/UmPVPGF3Ea

— Parecidos Razonables (@SonParecidos) November 14, 2013

I’d have juxtaposed Vladimir Putin with Daniel Craig as James Bond myself, but that idea has already been taken — a Bond fan apparently photoshopped Putin’s face onto a poster of Bond in Casino Royale, and then “plastered” Moscow with his handiwork.

Apparently the Apparat, like Queen Victoria, was not amused. I’d have been flattered…

**

While we’re on the subject of President Putin, here’s another category to consider…

Mixed games:

#Putin and #Rouhani's op-eds show they are playing strategic chess game. Yet, we continue to play darts.

— Ali H. Soufan (@Ali_H_Soufan) September 20, 2013

The op eds by Presidents Putin and Rouhani to which Soufan refers are Putin’s A Plea for Caution From Russia and Rouhani’s Why Iran seeks constructive engagement.

Ali Soufan, the author of Black Banners, is always worth paying attention to — and his tweet, above, clearly belongs with that Alasdair MacIntyre quote I’m so fond of [1, 2]:

Not one game is being played, but several, and, if the game metaphor may be stretched further, the problem about real life is that moving one’s knight to QB3 may always be replied to by a lob over the net

**

Let’s close with some examples from the arts, the first with just a touch of Tibetan Buddhist flavor…

One of mine:

Re: his “Poppy Field” paintings, Mr. Zhang said: “If they are alive, they will love these works. But if they are dead, they will buy them.”

— hipbonegamer (@hipbonegamer) September 20, 2013

For further details, see Death and hallucination color new work by Chinese artist Zhang Huan after life-altering Tibet trip.

And the second, a pair of images — each in itself a sort of DoubleQuote in the Wild comparing the forms of birds and mechanical objects in a single photo — posted together today by Wm. Benzon under the title Conjunctions:

Birds and cranes, New Jersey and Lower Manhattan.

Birds and cranes, Brooklyn and Governors Island.

Magnificent — what a generous eye he has — many thanks, good Sir!

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Patterns? You might think of them as Jungian archetypes, Platonic ideas, Hofstadterian analogies — or Ayat, the same word used to describe the verses of the Qur’an, signs in the calligraphy of God:

Qur’an 41 (Fussilat), 53

We shall show them Our signs in the horizons and in themselves…

**

And now, consider your options. Have you had enough of these damn patterns of mine — or would you like to try out for the marathon version?

[ by Charles Cameron — oh, the sheer delightful drudgery of finding patterns everywhere ]
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I’ll start this post, as I did the previous one to which this is a sort of appendix, with a (deeply strange, tell me about it) example of the…

Matrioshka pattern:

Truly weird Matrioshka Barbie image http://t.co/Dt6NcY4xWa

— hipbonegamer (@hipbonegamer) October 2, 2013

That’s a piece of jewelry made out of disembodied pieces of Barbies from the extraordinary designer’s mind of Margaux Lange, FWIW.

**

This post is the hard core follow up to my earlier piece today, Serpent logics: a ramble, and offers you the chance to laugh and groan your way through all the other “patterns” I’ve been collecting over the last few months. My hope is that repeated (over)exposure to these patterns will make the same patterns leap out at you when you encounter them in “real life”.

Most of the examples you run across may prove humorous — but if you’re monitoring news feeds for serious matters, my hunch is that you’ll find some of them helpful in grasping “big pictures” or gestalts, noting analomalies and seeing parallels you might otherwise have missed.

Have at it!

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Here’s another Matrioshka, from the structural end of lit crit that my friend Wm. Benzon attacks with gusto over at New Savannah:

I wonder if any work has been done to map the stories-within-stories structure of the Mahabharata as a tree or graph?

— Abhinav (?????) (@abhinavagarwal) September 15, 2013

**

Enantiodromia:

You’ll recall this is the pattern where something turns into its opposite… as described in this quote from the movie Prozac Nation:

I dream about all the things I wish I’d said.
The opposite of what came out of my mouth.
I wish I’d said
“Please forgive me. Please help me.
I know I have no right to behave this way?”

Here are a few examples…

Ahmed Akkari Repents Violent Opposition to Danish Cartoons Lampooning Islam:

After a Danish newspaper published cartoons satirizing the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, Ahmed Akkari spearheaded protests that ultimately cost the lives of 200 people. Now he says he’s sorry. Michael Moynihan on what changed Akkari’s mind.

That’s impressive!

That one’s run of the media mill…

After over-hyping cyberwar in story after story – media now runs story after story about cyberwar being over-hyped.

— Ali-Reza Anghaie (@Packetknife) September 20, 2013

And this one’s from my delightful, delicious boss, Danielle LaPorte:

What if the opposite were true? #truthbomb

— Danielle LaPorte (@DanielleLaPorte) September 20, 2013

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A friend sent me this:

RT On the topic of things you shouldn't do, but can: pic.twitter.com/KCeCtPbAYa (via @wesbos) -> @hipbonegamer for your serpentine logic series?

— Callum Flack (@callumflack) September 28, 2013

**

Let’s just plough ahead…

Nominalism:

Nominalism is the category where the distinction between a word and what it represents gets blurry — a very significant distinction in some cases —

It's funny how 'mature content' is a phrase used primarily to mark immature content, especially with schoolboy humour in games.

— Chris Bateman (@SpiralChris) September 18, 2013

How’s this for naming your donkey after your President?

FOR THOSE THAT MISSED IT A FARMER HAS BEEN ARRESTED FOR NAMING HIS DONKEY SISI.

— Stanley Cohen (@StanleyCohenLaw) September 21, 2013

Consider this one, another instance of nominalism in action, from the French justice system:

A mother who sent her three-year-old son Jihad to school wearing a sweater with the words “I am a bomb” on the front, along with his name and ‘Born on September 11th’ on the back, was handed a suspended jail sentence on Friday for “glorifying a crime”. A court of appeal in the city of Nimes, southern France, convicted Jihad’s mother Bouchra Bagour and his uncle Zeyad for “glorifying a crime” in relation to the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11th 2001.

The classic nominalist image — with which I’d compare and contrast the French three-year-old with the unfortunate name and tsee-shirt — is Magritte’s cdelebrated “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”:

And here’s one final nominalist example:

There is something very pharisaical about pointing at other people and calling them pharisaical.

— Chris Henrichsen (@Chrishenrichsen) September 30, 2013

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The spiral:

Here’s a potential downwards spiral, for those watching India:

Watching Modi watch Bharatanatyam http://t.co/dC4wcoZRCI

— TOI India News (@TOIIndiaNews) September 30, 2013

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Straight parallelism:

This one’s from Jonathan Franzen:

And meanwhile the overheating of the atmosphere, meanwhile the calamitous overuse of antibiotics by agribusiness, meanwhile the widespread tinkering with cell nucleii, which may well prove to be as disastrous as tinkering with atomic nucleii. And, yes, the thermonuclear warheads are still in their silos and subs.

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Simple Opposition:

People who used to queue for bread find it odd to see people standing in line to get a phone almost identical to the one in their pocket.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) September 20, 2013

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Some of these categories seem pretty fluid — or to put that another way, some of these examples might fit with equal ease into several doifferent categories. Here’s another oppositional class:

Arms crossed:

Grad school, the inevitable process of feeling dumber while getting smarter.

— Hans-Inge Langø (@hilango)September 24, 2013

From Ezra Klein and Evan Solta blogging at WaPo’s Wonkbook: The Republican Party’s problem, in two sentences:

It would be a disaster for the party to shut down the government over Obamacare. But it’s good for every individual Republican politician to support shutting down the government over Obamacare.

A great “values” juxtaposition:

Just saw a picture of a Che Guevara iPhone 5 case which kinda contradicts everything Che fought for

— reema #HandsOffSyria (@rHouzaiXo) September 28, 2013

And hey, nice phrasing:

The Paradox of Desistance is … You can't do it alone ,but only you alone can do it !!

— Steven Duncan (@BlessheadSteven) September 17, 2013

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Here’s an example of one of the central patterns of violence and justice:

Tit for Tat:

What Kenyans are witnessing at #Westgate is retributive justice for crimes committed by their military, albeit largely miniscule in nature

— HSM Press Office (@HSM_Press) September 21, 2013

[ the account this tweet came from, which was a media outlet for Shabaab, has since been closed — hence the less than euqal graphical appearance of this particular tweet… ]

**

And here, without too much further ado, is a whole concatenation of…

Serpents biting their tails:

@selectedwisdom did you just link to yourself via yourself?

— GregorydJohnsen (@gregorydjohnsen) September 24, 2013

You call it narcissism. I call it me.

— Nein. (@NeinQuarterly) September 20, 2013

[ … and that last one of Nein‘s appears to have been withdrawn from circulation ]

Wow. Doctors & medical journal sued for publishing an article that made malpractice suits harder to win. http://t.co/3N5qWs4Vq7

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) September 18, 2013

I remember seeing a speculation that all words were originally metaphorical. In the metaphorical sense of 'all,' I'm guessing…

— Allen Stairs (@AllenStairs) September 22, 2013

This one I love for its lesson on biblical pick-and-choose:

A man tattooed Leviticus 18:22 on his arm that forbids homosexuality, unfortunately Leviticus 19:28 forbids tattoos. pic.twitter.com/heZ2woyfzt

— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) November 17, 2013

Obama's choice to run State Dept diplomatic security shot himself in the foot. No, not figuratively. http://t.co/ZbUjM5FisF

— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) September 18, 2013

This one is also a DoubleQuote:

We hope you won't hate-read this essay about hate-reading http://t.co/gkHP3NIYix

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 20, 2013

when closely followed by:

Combatting Twitter Hate with Twitter Hate http://t.co/lmWCT7oauv

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) September 21, 2013

And this one really bites:

#Taliban killed by the very same mines they had planted in Sangeen, Helmand. http://t.co/ph8GHOSm6u

— Sana Safi ??? ???? (@SanaSafiBBC) September 19, 2013

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To close the series out with more of a bang than a whimper, here’s Serpent bites Tail with apocalypse & gameplay for additional spice:

God hovers over "delete universe" button RT @NYTMetro: High-end restaurants feed their chickens their own high-end table scraps

— Teju Cole (@tejucole) September 17, 2013