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John Robb is hard at work on Book II which will be about the building of ” Resilient Communities”. He’s batted a few comments about on twitter and worked up a series of posts on the RC theme at his “formal” site. Here are a few samples to give the flavor of his enterprise:

Journal:COIN without a model for Resilience is Futile

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Resilient Community

THE THERMODYNAMIC CRISIS

JOURNAL:Why use the thermodynamic crisis as a framework

DISSIPATIVE STRUCTURES

“Resilience” is a particularly intriguing concept with multiple meanings though John is honing in on those related to Newtonian physics and complexity theory ( one source in the last post, Ilya Prigogine ,was a significant influence on John Boyd). I particularly liked this bit by John:

The modification of thermodynamics necessary to accommodate this observable fact was formulated by the Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine in a theory called “dissipative systems” (read his excellent book: “The End of Certainty” for more). One important leap in this theory is that a dissipative system isn’t a closed system. Rather, it lives within a larger system (an “environment”) that it can interact with.

This upshot of this is that it can extract energy from this larger external environment to increase its structural complexity (build itself up through a process called self-assembly). It can also use this external environment to dump the entropy created during the energy conversion process to minimize the deleterious impact on its structure.

We’ve been pretty good at building up the complexity and are rather poor at dissipating the entropy, mostly for reasons related to the structure of our political system that ties self-interest of politicians and corporate CEOs to short-term frameworks and gives comparative advantage to rentier interests over innovators. The problem has become more difficult because many aspects of “the system” due to globalization are now beyond any state’s control.

Resiliency will involve decentralization and independence within greater interdependence in order to put natural “brakes” on high velocity forces without using draconian state controls ( which won’t work and never did  – except with globalization they will be all side effects and no benefits). I’m very much looking forward to reading what solutions Robb proposes in Book II.

ADDENDUM: Past posts on resiliency:

THE RESILIENCE OF CIVILIZATIONS

DIMENSIONS OF RESILIENCE

LEADERSHIP, RESILIENCE AND OSSIFICATION

COUNTERING 4GW: STATE RESILIENCE, NOT STATE BUILDING, IS KEY

 I finally started reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s  The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable today and I’m already impressed with it. Taleb’s very straightforward in attacking the limitations of Bell Curve assumptions and the common assumptions regarding the extent of uncertainty ( most people, unless they are futurists or, say, design computer models, seldom contemplate questions of deep uncertainty that might be in play). The book is really a tutorial on epistemology.

I’ll review this one when I’m finished.

Both Tom and John have weighed in on the important piece by James Fallows in The Atlantic Monthly, entitled “The $1.4 Trillion Dollar Question“:

Dr. Barnett:

“What Fallows doesn’t address in China’s vast surplus/savings is the huge and very real current sovereign debts and future mandates that are hidden in this development scheme: overseas resource dependencies demanding investment stakes, future aging costs, current and future enviro costs, future requirements to build out (and up) the poor interior, and so on.

Those are real sovereign liabilities because the people will expect some/much government help in these matters over time to ensure continued development and sustained movement up the product chain (gotta get as rich as possible before getting old).

Having said all that, Fallows’ analysis of the government’s logic is dead on. I suspect that, with all his time spent in China, we’ll see a book that does a big turn in explaining China to America. That will be a huge journalistic endeavor, and most welcome from someone with his considerable narrative talents.

As for the larger strategic question, we owe China a quiet international security order within which to develop, and sufficient partnership so as to obviate too much defense spending on their part. Eventually, Deng’s “grand compromise” of 1992 (PLA supports him on market acceleration in return for money and cover to modernize) must be tempered so that China doesn’t field a military for a war that should never happen and which it could never win. It needs to field a SysAdmin-heavy force that partners with us in mutual dependence: we can’t rule the peace with our Leviathan-heavy force, but they can’t rule war with their Leviathan-lite force either, so we must cooperate in extending and protecting globalization to our mutual advantage.”

John Robb:

“Fallows runs through the details of the “financial balance of terror” between the US and China and concludes that it won’t last long. However, of the reasons he listed for a collapse of the balance, he didn’t include the most likely: that China will need the money to shore up its domestic economy as the US heads into a lengthy and severe recession.

Remember, China hasn’t endured anything other than growth pain for over a decade. Further, the average Chinese citizens hasn’t reaped much from that boom. They don’t have the financial reserves to weather a crisis (and many of those that do will lose their shirts when China’s market bubble tanks). So where will this cash go over the next two years? Not into Blackstones or US Treasuries. Instead, it will be invested domestically. Into jobs and projects to shore up the little bit of legitimacy the Chinese government still has (we see a similar pattern with many of the globe’s marginally legitimate governments, from Saudi Arabia to Russia).

Frankly, I’m not sure that $1.4 trillion (the normative value of which is evaporating with each plunge in the dollar) will be enough to prevent China from disintegrating if this crisis becomes a panic.”

My two cents:

China holds enormous reserves in dollars because their financial strategy – parking surplus cash in Treasury securities – also represents an internal political strategy of deferring acrimonious, major, spending and investment choices that might precipitate division among the elite. China’s leaders are acutely aware of their nation’s deficiencies and historical tendency toward centrifugal, regional, disintegration and keeping the country intact and the state in charge is right up there in terms of priority with sustaining a fantastic rate of GDP growth. The dollar surplus represents an agreeable, strategic, “rainy day fund” consensus choice of the elite and significant changes here will only be in response to pressures or needs that the elite of the CCP can get behind as a whole. Likely, cautious changes but possibly also too little too late.

Adam Elkus was kind enough to cite one of my old posts on superempowered individuals as a foil to develop the concept further in his DNI article “Night of the Lone Wolves“:

“Who is the “super-empowered individual?” He is talented, alienated from society, and willing to kill large numbers of people. The technological revolution has given him destructive tools unimaginable to the anarchists and terrorists of old. He is an innovator-he creates new doctrines, tactics, and operations. A “brittle” infrastructure that lacks redundancy and resiliency gives him a perfect target. Living off the grid, he is invisible to authorities. The unprecedented nature of his attack ensures that no counter-measures are in place to prevent it. And when he strikes, his attack will not only kill massive amounts of people, but also profoundly change the financial, political, and social systems that govern modern life.

This is a frighteningly plausible vision. As blogger and futurist Mark Safranski gloomily noted, “the world is but one self-sacrificing genetic microbiologist away from a super-empowered suicide bomber riding international air routes to a new black plague”. That being said, many scientists and security experts note the immense difficulty involved in acquiring, maintaining, and deploying weapons of mass destruction. One expert, Bruce Schneier, is especially vehement in deriding what he calls “movie-plot” threats.

Who is right? Both sides. For now, the probability that a super-empowered individual will trigger a extreme mass casualty event is extremely low. But the high odds against such a catastrophe occurring will ensure that when it happens we will be taken totally by surprise. If a mass-murdering microbiologist is indeed preparing to make engineered smallpox complimentary to the in-flight meal, there is little we can do to stop him. Confused? With apologies to The Matrix, it’s time to take the red pill. “

Read the whole thing here.

Elkus is correct, as he goes on to develop his thesis,  in assessing the mass psychology aspect of superempowerment as as aspect that will often be more significant than any kinetics in future SEI events. look at the societal shock delivered to the Netherlands by the murder of Dutch film maker, Theo van Gogh, a perturbation of Dutch society made possible not by the death of a single man but the reportage amplified through a modern mass media.  Often but not always. Aside from the microbiological example, the disruption or destruction of certain complex systems, such as financial markets, by an SEI, will have ripple effects of a significant magnitude.

Elkus closes with a positive prescription, one rooted in the strategic ideas of John Boyd, to which I can add my hearty assent:

“In any event, we have always lived with danger and always will. And the threat posed by murderous, alienated individuals, with or without weapons of mass destruction, will also always be with us. But the good news is that the key to overcoming these threats lies in two bedrock American values-hope and pragmatism: hope for a better world and the determination to create such a world; and the pragmatism that has helped us continuously innovate to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges.

What is needed is leadership at the top level that encourages and channels those values within the American people, instead of leadership that burdens them with fear. True leadership will recognize that strategy is not just wanton destruction-it is also, as John Boyd stated, “a pattern for vitality and growth“. If we recognize this, we can all be “super-empowered individuals” instead of victims huddling in fear of the sound of anything beyond the campfire.”

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.