BRIEFS AT DNI<\/b><\/p>\n
Defense and The National Interest<\/strong> <\/a>has two powerpoint briefs up that are worth your time to read and review:<\/p>\n The first is in file format ( thus no link) available for download by Dr. Chet Richards<\/strong>, provocatively entitled ” Neocons and neolibs: Their Edifice Has Crumbled<\/em><\/strong>“.<\/p>\n Richards work is always worth consideration for the combination of conceptual boldness and analytical precision he employs. For example, instead of running with 4GW a priori, Richards asks and then answers the question if we are facing a new form of warfare:<\/p>\n “We don\u2019t know \u2013 still being worked out. To be useful, it has to be something other than state military vs. state military or insurgency vs. a state. Possibilities include state vs. state (nonmilitary) and state vs. nonstate (other than classical insurgency).”<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Like most of his previous briefs, Dr. Richards wastes little time getting to the heart of the matter in COIN situations – political and moral legitimacy – a difficult intangible to directly establish with military operations, particularly without the larger non-military context in mind and well-understood. This powerpoint is also, again like Richards’ earlier pieces, deeply rooted in the ideas of Colonel John Boyd. Richards suggests the possibility of aligning with,<\/em><\/strong> rather than against<\/em><\/strong>, insurgencies as a better geopolitical bet. Though he does not mention it, this was a policy most recently used by the United States in the 1980’s against Soviet clients in the form of The Reagan Doctrine<\/strong> <\/a>with varying degrees of success, but abandoned by the first President Bush in favor of a return to direct military intervention.<\/p>\n The second brief is by Colonel G.I. Wilson<\/strong>, one of the originators of 4GW theory<\/a>, entitled “Terrorism:Psychology and Kinetics<\/a>” (PDF). A short meta-analysis of literature on terrorist psychology, the most interesting sections deal with the terrorist profile and cognitive restructuring to dehumanize potential terrorist targets ( a process we also see, historically speaking, on a larger scale to psychologically prepare a society or movement to commit genocide). Wilson stresses the heterogeneous nature and rational functionality of terrorist groups, at least within the context of their own cognitively restructured terms.<\/p>\n This strikes me as likely, as I recall reading that researchers had previously determined from the 1970’s and 1980’s studies that ” professional” terrorist recruiters were at pains to screen out the obviously disturbed psychopaths and nut cases who might threaten group harmony.<\/p>\n More posts to come later today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BRIEFS AT DNI Defense and The National Interest has two powerpoint briefs up that are worth your time to read and review: The first is in file format ( thus no link) available for download by Dr. Chet Richards, provocatively entitled ” Neocons and neolibs: Their Edifice Has Crumbled“. Richards work is always worth consideration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}