zenpundit.com

John Robb has been thinking about tribes. So has David Ronfeldt. So has Seth Godin.

Why?

John Robb  writes:

If you are like most people in the ‘developed world,’ you don’t have any experience in a true tribal organization.  Tribal organizations were crushed in the last couple of Centuries due to pressures from the nation-state that saw them as competitors and the marketplace that saw them as impediments.  All we have now it is a moderately strong nuclear family (weakened via modern economics that forces familial diasporas), a weak extended family, a loose collection of friends (a social circle), a tenuous corporate affiliation, and a tangential relationship with a remote nation-state.  That, for many of us, is proving to be insufficient as a means of withstanding the pressures of the chaotic and harsh modern environment.

The advantage of tribal structures in my view, compared to hierarchies, markets and networks discussed by Ronfeldt revolves around the certainty of mutual trust as a psychological motivator, especially vis-a-vis “outsiders”.  Loyalty to all members of the tribe ( primary loyalty) is paramount which is not the case in hierarchies ( loyalty flows upward, downward not so much), markets ( nonexistent) or networks (potentially  non-reciprocal loyalty to hub). As such, tribes function very well at the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which means they are good insurance for physical survival. It does not matter if the tribe is one of blood or cultural heritage or artificial political, religious or military brotherhood. Militiaman, monk or gang member is irrelevant; what matters is the establishment of unreserved mutual trust as a core of personal identity.

The implicit trust present within the tribe and the flexible sense of authority gives individual tribesmen room for individual initiative to react, knowing “the tribe has their back”. They are a more centralized unit of power than a network but more fluid and mobile than a hierarchy. A tribe is a safety net or a bodyguard. Great enterprises require something else as an organizational form but behind a great enterprise should be at least some kind of life preserver.

Addendum:

Col. Pat Lang – “ How to Work With Tribesmen“

I feel this one will be a weird mix.

Top Billing! Col. Dr. Kilcullen vs. Col. Dr. Bacevich over Dave Kilcullen’s new book,  The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (Dual hat tip SWJ Blog and BJ at Newshoggers.com).

Bacevich Review: Raising Jihad .  Killcullen Rebuttal: Accidental Guerrilla: Read Before Burning

I have not read Accidental Guerilla yet but it seems obvious that Andrew Bacevich begins from a position longstanding and very strong, non-interventionist, anti-COIN, pro- “Big Army/Near Peer Competitior” policy views. I suspect that may have influenced his take on Dave’s argument just a bit, thus leading to Dave to speculate that Bacevich may have not read the final book or read it in full. A possibility; about 80% of the books I review here are advance copies sent by publishers, authors or their agents.

Outside the Beltway ( Dave Schuler) – Negotiating With Iran

Dave’s reasoned and reasonable take on the Obama administration’s opening moves with Iran.

Coming Anarchy – Financial Warfare and Idea: The Dictionary of Modern Ideas

Liked both of these posts – phrase of the day – “argotic arms race”.

Two for One:  Whirledview (CKR) – Diplomacy Is Not What Bush Did  and Duck of Minerva (Nexon) – Haven’t they Filled the Protocol Positions Yet?

This post by Cheryl is a lucid counterpoint to my knock on Obama administration stumbles in foreign policy while subsequent events have caused Dr. Dan to move in my direction on this score.

Threatswatch.org ( Elkus, Tanji) – Legacy Futures in Cyberspace and Brave Digital World 

A cyberspecial.

Tom Barnett is on C-Span in a few hours.

John Robb indulges his dark side.

Open the Future – The End of Long-Term Thinking

A good example from Jamais on how words frame analytical thought.

NewsDaily – Who got AIG’s bailout billions?

Primarily the Brits, French and Germans it turns out – the same folks who were loudly blaming the crisis on American capitalism in public had the weaker and more poorly managed financial systems, despite heavy state regulation, and were taking enormous handouts from U.S. taxpayers in private.

Scientific American – Building a Portrait of a Lie in the Brain

SEED – Adapting to a New Economy , A Hormone to Remember and Is MIT Obsolete?

WSJ – Philanthropy and Its Enemies  (Hat tip to Instapundit and Steve Schippert)

A united Hard Left and multiculturalist Race Hustling attempt at extortion and hijacking of private foundation endowments to advance political causes of the Left through a blandly named front group that is led by extremist antiglobalization activists like Christine Ahn and “social justice” organizers such as Judy Hatcher. Ironically, most of the major philanthropic foundations like Rockefeller, Ford and MacArthur are pretty liberal in their orientation and grant giving but in the perspective of these folks, “liberal” is another name for right-wing, capitalist, crypto-patriarchy. People like this are why David Horowitz never lacks for material.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING:

Evan Williams on Twitter’s user-driven evolution…..

Humor, a take on an old optical illusion ( hat tip Dave of Thoughts Illustrated)

The Armed Forces Journal on the economic decline of America.

The author makes too many assumptions regarding China’s resiliency.  The opacity of China’s hybrid, mercantilist-driven, political economy makes estimates of it’s true strengths and weaknesses difficult. We know how many treasury bills China has bought from us but not the real extent of hidden debt, underemployment or inflation. China’s leadership did not vastly increase the size of it’s paramilitary forces in the past decade because they were confident that it would all be smooth sailing ahead.

ADDENDUM:

Chinese premier takes on politics 2.0

The Obama administration has been strikingly inept in the last few days in foreign policy, making a series of gaffes and counterproductive gestures that, had George W. Bush made them, would be igniting howls of anger and ridicule from the New York Times and the Left blogosphere. Now the crickets are chirping.

In a short span of time, the White House has managed to 1) embarrass visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown; 2) enrage Jerusalem by offering Gaza almost  $ 1 billion ( in return for….?) while HAMAS is still firing rockets at Israelis ;and 3) pull the rug out from under our NATO allies Poland and the Czech Republic with of a give-away-the-store offer to Moscow on missile defense, while pleading for help with Iran. A clumsy and premature gesture that President Medvedev treated with contempt and left Prague and Warsaw, which stuck their necks out in agreeing to host the missile systems, scrambling for diplomatic fig leaves. I wonder to what degree the Czechs and Poles had been consulted beforehand?  None of these actions appear to have been properly vetted and they left the new administration looking very green, slightly impulsive, indifferent toward America’s allies and fairly arrogant.

In fairness, almost every new administration makes first and second year blunders in foreign policy, most of which are completely forgettable in the long run. For example, as a student, an old professor of mine who was an eminent authority in Southeast Asian studies, once recounted to me LBJ giving ” the Johnson Treatment” to the King of Thailand, whose person is considered sacred to Thais and was, probably, in any event, unprepared for being put into a giant Texas bear hug.  Ronald Reagan did not give Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher prior notice of the invasion of Grenada and had initially waffled in the early days of the Falklands War. At other times, the early mistakes prove decisive, such as John F. Kennedy’s failure of nerve during the Bay of Pigs ( or alternatively, approving a cocked-up covert-op plan in the first place) which helped precipitate the later Cuban Missile Crisis.

The one bright spot in foreign policy was the unveiling of the Obama administration’s new National Security Council structure which seems to have been judiciciously considered with an eye toward improving interagency DIME integration in policy formation and enforcing real discipline in execution. On paper, it’s a very good plan with some important changes for improving the national security community’s performance.

Now they need to put it into practice.

This is good, once you get past the pedestrian observations about the economic crisis: