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THERE’S A FINE LINE BETWEEN AN ACT OF PIRACY AND JUST SIMPLY TAKING SOME INITIATIVE

A fascinating economics paper sent to me by Fabius Maximus (hat tip accorded) that took me a few days to get to reading. Wish I had looked at it earlier:

“An-arrgh-chy: The Law and economics of Pirate Organizations” (PDF) by Dr. Peter T. Leeson

Peterson argues that historical pirates, far from being Hobbesian outlaws, governed themselves with rule-sets that minimized conflict and maximized cooperation and profit ( albeit at the expense of civilized seafaring states). Looking at broad principles of functionality, Leeson’s work is applicable to other violent non-state actors – Latin American drug cartels, 4GW insurgencies and terror networks, warlord and sectarian militias, Bunker’s 3 Gen gangs, TOC groups like Chinese Triads and Russian mafiya and so on.

This argument struck a chord with me on two points. First, it mirrors the historical experience of traditional Russian banditry where robber chieftains ruled over there fellows according to “Thieves Law”, something Solzhenitsyn discusses at length in The Gulag Archipelago.

Secondly, network theory research indicates that small systems that seem chaotic or “noisy” actually develop emergent rule-sets that bring the system into an orderly pattern, even if the rules and patterns are very simple ones. A pirate ship, even a fleet, much like a terrorist network, is simply a small, complex, social network. Rules accepted on a consensual basis cut down on ” noise” and allow the network to become more efficient.

A must read.

GAMING NUCLEAR THREAT ASSESSMENTS

Blogfriend Cheryl Rofer, an expert in nuclear issues with field experience, had an exceptionally intriguing post up the other day at Whirledview entitled “ A Rough Nuclear Threat Assessment for the United States“. While I encourage you to read her post in full first here are her assessments (bold text) along with my responses(normal text):

“Finding 1. No serious immediate threat.There is no country in the world that seriously threatens a nuclear attack on the United States. Further, the probability that a terrorist organization has usable nuclear weapons is extremely low. The most serious current threat of a nuclear explosion in the United States arises from accidents resulting from the continuing alert status of US and Russian nuclear-tipped missiles.”

I would tend to agree with the following caveats:

Radiological bomb attacks or terrorist attacks on American nuclear facilities such as power plants in the hopes of sparking an ” American Chernobyl” are respectively more and marginally more likely than “extremely low”. Add in the possible downstream negative effects of terrorists liberating nuclear materials from poorly guarded Russian installations as well. We are also at risk for secondary environmental effects of nuclear weapons uses by third parties ( ex. India-Pakistan).

All of these are of far lower significance though than a state-based nuclear first strike against the United States or its forces overseas.

“Finding 2. Threats in the 2-5 year range are extremely low. Most can be managed by US actions.Relations with Russia are deteriorating. Relations with China are good, except for some friction in the area of trade. An agreement has been reached with North Korea on denuclearization. Iran is unlikely to have nuclear weapons within this time frame. Pakistan’s current instability presents a concern that action against the government might put nuclear weapons in the hands of radical Islamic groups. Russia continues to improve its nuclear weapons security.

There are a number of ways to improve relations with Russia, including delaying construction of antimissile installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Because Iran is unlikely to have nuclear weapons within this time frame, there is time for negotiation. The instability in Pakistan is the most unpredictable and uncontrollable of the threats in this time frame. We have to hope that rumors are true that the United States has been helping Pakistan to “safe” its nuclear weapons with permissive action links that keep unauthorized people from using them.”

I agree here as well, also seeing Pakistan as the potentially most dangerous wild card. State stability in Iran should not, however, be overestimated, given the decentralization of Iran’s nuclear weapons and power programs. Too many items ripe for the picking by prospective factions, terrorists or transnational criminal syndicates if Iran’s state falters.

“Finding 3. Threats in the 5-20 year range are much less predictable, but remain low.With intelligent diplomacy and some steps back from the more warlike policies of the Bush administration, such as preventive warfare (which step may have already been taken), good relations can be maintained with other nuclear powers. In a similar vein, progress should be possible with North Korea and Iran toward non nuclear weapon status. Instability in Pakistan and friction between Pakistan and India are probably the biggest threats of nuclear war or nuclear weapons becoming available to subnational groups. Regional conflicts could encourage other states (say Brazil and Argentina) to consider a path to nuclear weapons, but the probability of such conflicts seems likely to remain low.

Let’s just stop here for a moment and take a breath. This is a very different threat assessment from anything that might have been done during the Cold War. In fact, it surprised me when I saw it all written down this way. But if we stick to verifiable threats with reasonable probability, I think this is the way it has to come out.”

I depart here from Cheryl. In my view, the degree of uncertainty is too high given the length of the time frame and the systemic instability (current and potential) of a number of nuclear armed states. Moreover, proliferation ( and sequence/timing of proliferation) changes the dynamic by altering the nuclear postures of interested states. A nuclear Iran changes Saudi Arabia’s attitude toward non-proliferation while a nuclear armed Japan does not. Each additional new nuclear weapons state increases the probability of accident, loss, covert sale or use. I would rate the danger as rising toward “moderate” the further you go in terms of out-years.

A great post by Cheryl.

ENGINEERING RESILIENCE

This article is sensationalistic but useful, showing the effects of a small ” shoe bomb” on an airliner like the one used by bumbling malcontent and al Qaida adherent, convicted terrorist Richard Reid.

I am no engineer or pilot, so I’m willing to be corrected by those with expertise, but it occurs to me that a large part of the problem is that our passenger aircraft have deliberately been designed to be unsurvivable, because this saves pennies on the dollar, rather than to be resilient. Planes are not always by nature fragile; B-24’s during WWII or the more modern A-10’s could take devastating hits and remain airborne.

Much like not highjacker-proofing the doors of the cabin to protect the pilots, I suspect there are many known elements that could be engineered into passenger aircraft design that corporate executives and FAA officials intentionally choose not to require. Then there measures yet undiscovered, some possibly inexpensive or cost-reducing, that we will not find until we try.

I’m not advocating flying around in Abrams tanks with wings but in putting a greater effort toward thinking in terms of resilience when we sit down at drawing boards, instead of lamenting what was not done, after the fact.

IF OUR RESPONSE WAS BEING PROBED, WE FAILED

If you are a regular reader of Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye , then you know that he is a dog aficianado who raises them for show and for specialized training. Naturally, the contamination and recall of pet food was a story he had been following with a considered care that I have not. Dave has put forth an intriguing thought experiment however “Wargaming an attack on the food supply“:

“Although we have an entire enormous expensive facility within DHS ostensibly devoted to the subject of biodefense including agro-terrorism, the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, to my eyes much of what’s available in open source form on this subejct seems very rudimentary.

*a toxin or pathogen would be introduced into a basic food item either via a producer, distributor, or manufacturer

*the item would be packaged and distributed throughout the country

*the retail products would be purchased by consumers

*individual cases of injury or death would begin to appear

*complaints would be made to retailers and/or brand name vendors

*at some point relevant government agencies would become engaged

*there would be a scramble for causes and sources

*conflicts between agencies would emerge

*at some point the toxin or pathogen would be identified, its source might be identified, and a solution put into place

Some number of lives would have been lost, resources consumed in pursuing the problem, and the ultimate solution would bring that process under control but the objective of the attack would already have been accomplished: there would be a diminution of confidence in government, society, and other people.

A modern economy and modern society operates on trust.”

Dave has much more, of which you can read the rest, here.

If you recall the infamous anthrax letters, Dave is outlining a hypothetical 4GW style systempunkt test of our bureaucratic response capacity, which I am sad to say, remains obtuse and palsied in the face of the non-obvious.

AN INTRIGUING PROPOSAL

Collounsbury is on to something important.