Monday, June 5th, 2006
GAMES PEOPLE PLAY II: CRITT MAKES THE PITCH !
“Social venture funding angels: Paying it forward“
“All men’s gains are the fruits of venturing” – Herodotus.
Archive for 2006
Monday, June 5th, 2006
GLOBAL GUERILLAS DEBATED
“Under the rubric of systempunkt, John Robb has been pushing the idea that successful guerrillas will go after the schwerpunkt (center of gravity) of Western countries and their allies: money…Not only is this bad strategy generally: wise leaders go after their enemies’ weaknesses, not their strength, it is statistically unlikely to produce regime change.
…Certainly countries with corrupt governments that do not reform might see their public turn against them, but “systempunkt”-style attacks would not be the cause: pre-existing general government paralyze would be.
Global Guerrillaism is the application of 3G ideology to guerrilla wars. It is built to fail”
“GG *is* 4GW (I don’t think Robb wants to call it a different generation) but it isn’t just anyone’s 4GW theory, it is a specific flavour of analysis.
What seems to be the crucial (distinguishing) elements of Robb’s GG theory are :
– there are many groups, who don’t need to share strategic objectives to share tactical co-operation. (Interestingly, this is how Richard Stallman once described his relationship with the Open Source movement. Different strategic objectives but tactical co-operation.)
– the groups don’t need explicit connections but can communicate and co-ordinate “stimergically” ie. tapes broadcast on arabic TV, stories of decapitation in the media inspire other groups to try the same tactic.
– the groups are shifting their patterns of attack from symbolic targets or “killing a lot of people” to systems disruption.
I don’t think Robb’s name “Global Guerilllas” is particularly felicitatious, but I think I see where it’s coming from. I suspect “global” is meant to imply that we should see this as a universal phenomenon in that it’s popping up everywhere (in US cities and China as well as Baghdad); and that the reach of guerrillas can be global (eg. bombings from Bali to London, taking out a pipeline affects the world oil price.)
The question of whether there are “common” motivations does indeed depend on how narrowly you define a motivation. But I think Robb’s intuition is that motivations and strategic objectives are “more diverse than you probably imagine” (particularly if you naively imagine that the Iraq insurgency (for example) is nothing but a few unreconstructed Saddamists and a few Al-Qaeda infiltrators. Or conversely, a heroic anti-imperialist mass movement.)
For a long time it’s been hard to get much acknowledgement about the roles that either a) good old fashioned “crime”, or b) sectarian gangs, are playing in Iraq. It’s not that they’re not acknowledged, but that they weren’t taken seriously in strategic planning.
“Wow, Phil’s recap of global guerrillas as a 4GW movement is very, very well executed. It’s so good, I don’t want to see it squandered in a comments section”
John has finished his long-awaited book so we can expect this debate to intensify very soon.
Monday, June 5th, 2006
THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
Critt Jarvis is en fuego with his new game project that he has begun in Connecting in Conversations which is a blog, a process and a set of creative relationships all at once. The following are posts that relate, at least conceptually, to “the game” by bloggers who are part of CiC, outside of CiC and may soon be inside CiC, but who have all contributed to the conversation in some way.
(special thanks to Larry Dunbar who doesn’t have a blog but has helpfully chipped in nonetheless):
Critt – “Update: Version 0.05 of template“
Critt – “Design goal: Horizontal thinking and the importance of rule sets“
Critt – “Building an organization, a structured container“
Dave Davison– “MeshForum 2006 Review Continued – Breaking Up Old Networks“
Steve DeAngelis –“Pattern Recognizers and Solution Simplifiers“
Steve DeAngelis – ” The Medici Effect“
Dan of tdaxp – “Visualizing Critt’s New Game“
Dr. Von– “Mediciexity Defined“
David Galiel – “A LEVER LONG ENOUGH:Value driven enterprise in the networked information economy“
David Galiel – “Personal Game Design Philosophy, circa 2001“
David Galiel – “Now What Do We Do ?”
Art Hutchinson – “Vertical vs. Horizontal Thinking“
Art Hutchinson – ” Visualizing Complexity“
Zenpundit – ” Complexity vs. Simplification in Cognition“
Zenpundit – ” CREATING A CULTURE OF “MEDICIEXITY“
Drs. Fernette & Brock Eide – “Complex Thinkers “
Drs. Fernette & Brock Eide – “Learning From Experience & Developing New Rules“
Ok, Critt – what or who am I forgetting here ?
Sunday, June 4th, 2006
RECOMMENDED READING -SERIES EDITION
Extended commentary on a single subject by respected voices:
The charming and perceptive Nadezhda at American Footprints has a series on the diplomatic crisis with Iran. Nadezhda is one of those bloggers who always does her homework and her assessments are wedded to real experience and sharp analytical judgment. We are not always in agreement but I have never had an intellectual exchange with Nad where I did not walk away impressed:
Part I -Iran 1 – EU3 talks back on [+ US – update]
Part II- Iran 2 – Softly, softly …
Part IV – R-E-S-P-E-C-T, regime change and the P5+G
Part V – Centrifuges, posturing & raising the stakes
More parts to come in the series….
At tdaxp, the intrepid and corona-inspiring Dan Abbot is promoting his multifaceted extravaganza, Summerblog ’06, but I would like to focus on one part of Summerblog, Dan’s series on Colonel John Boyd’s OODA Loop. The OODA Loop is a very important concept to understand and one that related to major military schools of strategic thought including both Network-centric Warfare and its rival, Fourth Generation Warfare. Dan has not only thought long and hard about the implications of the OODA loop but he has had exchanges with some of the world’s best informed experts on the subject, including John Robb and Dr. Chet Richards.
(And, as a parenthetical aside, you also get to see Dan’s impressive skill with graphics on display).
Variations of the OODA Loop 1, Introduction
Variations of the OODA Loops 2, The Naive Boydian Loop
Variations of the OODA Loop 3, The Sophisticated Boydian Loop
Variations of the OODA Loop 4, Pseudo-Boydian Loops
Variations of the OODA Loop 5, Post-Boydian Loops
Variations of the OODA Loop 6, Bibliography
That’s it for series blogging !
More posts to come later today on unrelated matters.
Saturday, June 3rd, 2006
GUEST POSTING AT AUSTIN BAY’S BLOG
Top blogger, Colonel Austin Bay ,was kind enough to solicit my views on Haditha and diplomacy yesterday which he has posted alongside those of the esteemed FSO and blogger, Dr. Demarche ( formerly of The Daily Demarche and now over at Marc Schulman’s American Future). It was nice to see the congruency between our two guest posts in terms of how the United States should handle Haditha’s international impact, given that Dr. Demarche is himself a diplomat.
I’d like to thank Austin for the opportunity to be heard on such an important topic and for spotlighting Zenpundit for his many readers.
