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BIZARRE VISITORS TODAY FROM THE IVORY COAST

196.201.87.# (ISP Cote d’Ivoire). Twice today.

Search Words: ” 2005 emails contacts of cultivation members of agricultural service activities in poland”

and

Search Words:” email contacts of big man in algeria”

Weird. I see you and other people do too.

5GW’s AUTONOMOUS ROBOTIC SURROGATES

In the earlier 5GW thread I speculated that 5GW would feature ” autonomous surrogates” from human networks to robotic substitutes. Jeremiah at Organic Warfare has a post on the development of the army’s Future Combat Systems that you should check out.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING [ UPDATED]

I haven’t gotten around to one of these posts in a while and as a result, there is a backlog of fine posts and articles worthy of attention.

“Best Practices in Counterinsurgency” in Military Review with a commentary post by Nadezhda at Liberals Against Terrorism. This one is the winner du jour.

“Campaign Design for Winning the War….and the Peace” by Pierre Lessard at Parameters.

“Series: What America Needs to Do to Achieve Its Foreign Policy Goals … Dealing with Terrorism -Part IV.” by William R. Polk at HNN.

” Common Sense and Science” by string theorist Lubos Motl at The Reference Frame and Pure Science vs. Applied Science by Dr. Von at Vonny.

” Sheik of Sheiks ” on networking principles from the Scythians by Dan of tdaxp

“War for Sale” by Brad Plumer

“Is Europe Dying? Notes on a Crisis of Civilizational Morale” by George Weigel at HNN

“China’s New Old Civic Mythos” by Matt McIntosh of Conjectures and Refutations.

That’s it.

UPDATE:

Another stellar piece from DNI – “From The Military: Applying 4GW Theory to The Intelligence Community” by Myke Cole.

MORE THOUGHTS ON REFORMING STATE – PART I.

Link Preface:

” State Sanity I ” – Caerdroia (Jeff)

“State Sanity II” – Caerdroia (Jeff)

“What should (and won’t) happen at the State Department” – Glittering Eye

” On Diplo Services and Reform” – Lounsbury

“Yet Another Missed Opportunity“- Whirledview (PHK)

“A State Department Worth Creating” – Zenpundit

I’ve been pondering the reforming of the State Department in light of these posts ( and comments made on the posts) and will try to clarify a couple of points:

a) Regarding why the deep expertise advocated by myself, Col and PHK is a good thing in a FSO.

b) The nature of State ” obstructionism” that Dave, Jeff and I have decried and how reform might mitigate it.

Deep expertise in a foreign nation or region – where somone has effective mastery of language, cultural and social nuances, history, religious traditions and politics plus a network of personal connections – is an invaluable platform for making informed policy choices. It also takes at least a decade to cultivate, including academic study plus considerable periods of time of immersion ” in-country” but this can be regarded as an investment in a FSO will will have an effective 25 -35 year career. The current rotation policy for FSO’s makes this kind of knowledge acquisition very difficult without bringing any tangible benefits to the United States ( except perhaps for the Chiefs of Mission who can send troublesome or subpar functionaries into somebody else’s bailwick).

Ironically, in the unenlightened days before WWII, the State Department had, relative to its total number of employees, many ” old hand” experts of this type. The combination of high prestige and miserly government salaries tended to attract a lot of wealthy Wall Street lawyers and international bankers ( or their sons) to the Foreign Service. These predominantly WASP Ivy leaguers usually started out politically connected ( The Dulles brothers for example had Secretary of State Lansing as an uncle) well-travelled, multi-lingual and arrived with a set of interests in a foreign land or two that they continued to develop.

Having these ” old hands” kind of FSO’s like George Kennan, Chip Bohlen and Joseph Grew around provided the Secretary of State and the President with a source of informed and coherent advice at critical moments in American history. Grew was partly responsible for the policy of co-opting Hirohito as an adjunct of the Occupation, sparing the United States the costs of a massive occupational garrison and frequent bloodshed. Old Hand expertise was not always a guarantee of sage advice- the ” China Hands” who were persecuted by McCarthy had understood China well but badly misjudged Communism as a revolutionary ideology. Mao was no agrarian reformer nor could he and Chiang have built a coalition regime.

On the other hand, Right-wingers getting rid of State’s China experts ended up blinding successive administrations to the Sino-Soviet split and aggravated problems during the Korean and Vietnam wars. Likewise, leftists and fellow travellers in the Roosevelt administration who successfully intrigued to abolish State’s Russian division in 1937 and destroyed State’s files on the Stalinist terror deprived FDR of realistic advice regarding the USSR, Stalin ( which of course was their intent) and State’s own internal security. The only clear-headed advice Franklin Roosevelt received on Stalin came from Winston Churchill and Henry Stimson, not his State Department with pro-Soviet functionaries like Winnant, Davies and Hiss in the driver’s seat.

End Part I.

MANLY ARTS OR HORS DE COMBAT ?

Dave Schuler of the Glittering Eye had an unconventional post ” The Best Weapon is a Trained Mind” last week on his philosophy of self-defense that was sparked by a discussion at
Dean’s World:

“First, let me establish some credentials. I’ve studied martial arts longer than many of my readers have been alive. My first Judo instructor was a U. S. national champion. My second Judo instructor and Taekwondo instructor was the head instructor at the most prestigious martial arts school in South Korea (the name escapes me at the moment). My kendo instructor was the head kendo instructor with the Japanese Imperial Army in Manchuria (he didn’t spread it around too much for obvious reasons but odd things come out in post-practice drinking sessions). I’ve also studied aikido and fencing. I used to be a passable shot with both gun and bow.

I taught judo for six or so years and women’s self-defense for five years. I received thank you notes for several years thereafter from women who’d successfully used the training I gave them.

I’ve found myself in situations in which I was compelled to use my training, successfully, a couple of times.

…However, I don’t think that’s quite the whole story. I think that it doesn’t matter a great deal if you’re empty-handed or whether you go out with a machete in one hand and a howitzer in the other. The only genuine weapon is the mind. Armies train for reasons and among those reasons is that it takes training to overcome the reflexes and inhibitions that prevent effective response to attack. Regardless of how determined you may be when fighting actually starts without serious training it’s pretty likely you’ll just freeze.

The most effective form of self-defense is recognizing dangerous situations and avoiding them.
Failing that the very first line of self-defense should be flight. Preferably yelling or screaming your head off, blowing a whistle, and generally making a ruckus.

Avoid being the first one to resort to violence. If your opponent is bigger or more skilled than you are you may be in for a world of hurt. And the instinctual response of your opponent to attack may be fight rather than flight. Or freezing.

…Avoidance is best. Then flight. “


Smart advice. Miyamoto Musashi would have no doubt approved.

Generally, in civilized societies you can walk around, even at night, without fear of being accosted. Unfortunately, most places in the world aren’t quite up to that standard and that includes many neighborhoods in Chicago to say nothing of regions of the world where the police might be more dangerous to encounter than the criminals.

Compared to Dave’s expertise, my martial arts skills are rudimentary. I studied Northern Shaolin Kung-fu for a couple of years and some kickboxing as well. I coached wrestling for a number of years and while my skills are certainly decent, a national collegiate champion managed to tie me into a pretzel in about a minute despite my being far stronger.

I’m better with firearms. I’m a crack shot with a rifle, having shot competitively through my adolescence in a club that produced two national champions. I’m also pretty good with a pistol though I have not practiced in ages and don’t own one anymore. My real area of accomplishment though is in the weightroom. Depending on the grip used, I’ve benched 485 -545 without using any drugs, bench shirts, elbow wraps or any other training supports other than a belt. My other lifts are heavier than that and while I have made an effort to cut back a bit in terms of size ( buying suits was expensive) I’m still about 230 and that scares away a lot of potential miscreants and my strength means that when I have sparred I hit harder and tired less easily.

None of that really matters though. Anyone taken by surprise no matter how strong or skilled is in serious trouble and you have probably only a few seconds to make a life-altering or life-saving decision. Getting the hell out of there, as Dave suggests, is still the best option – even if the opponent has a gun because most people can’t shoot straight beyond five to ten feet or will hesitate to shoot at all.

If you can’t get away though you need to upset the opponent’s game plan in some way to introduce uncertainty, the more the better. Noise, the unexpected action, fight dirty and then get away. Standing there and going toe to toe – when you can get out of there – just to make a point by kicking ass is to look for trouble which can easily find you. All the moreso if you are introducing a firearm into the situation. Anybody who carries a gun without getting the proper training is a goddamned fool and what legally constitutes a righteous act of self-defense in Texas may get you an involuntary manslaughter charge in Illinois. I favor conceal and carry laws but I favor even more people knowing what they are doing if they opt to have a deadly weapon on hand.

Real life ain’t the movies.