{"id":2629,"date":"2008-03-08T05:53:02","date_gmt":"2008-03-08T05:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=2629"},"modified":"2008-03-08T06:49:24","modified_gmt":"2008-03-08T06:49:24","slug":"two-quite-reasonable-observations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=2629","title":{"rendered":"Two Quite Reasonable Observations"},"content":{"rendered":"

From John Robb<\/strong> at Global Guerillas<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

The US national security budget is nearly $700 billion a year (much more if the total costs of Iraq\/Afghanistan are thrown in), more than the rest of the world combined. Unfortunately, within that entire budget there isn’t a single research organization or think tank that is seriously studying, analyzing or synthesizing the future of warfare and terrorism. Fatally, most of the big thinkers working on the future of warfare do their critical work in their spare time, usually while working other jobs to put food on the table for their families. In sum, this deficit in imagination will soon be the critical determinant on whether the national security bureaucracy remains relevant in a rapidly changing global security environment. That relevance is the key to its future. <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From Fabius Maximus<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

This has been criticised as dividing\u00a0insurgencies\u00a0into rigid categories – black and white,\u00a0not accounting for the shades of grey found in all human experiences.\u00a0\u00a0That is both\u00a0true and a good thing.\u00a0 All rules of thumb are arbitary, in some sense, but useful for practicioners who know their limitations.\u00a0 Even the exceptions to this “rule” about insurgencies, and I believe they are quite few, tell us something new.\u00a0 For example, the <\/strong>Malayan Emergency<\/strong><\/a> shows the importance of having a legitmate local government to do the heavy lifting (even though the COIN literature tend to follow the Brits’ view,\u00a0considering it “their” win – not that of the locals).<\/strong><\/p>\n

The value of these kinds of insights was well expressed\u00a0by a post\u00a0<\/strong>Opposed Systems Design<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(4 March 2008):<\/strong><\/p>\n

A deeper understanding of these dynamics deserves an organized research program. The first concept – an artifically binary distinction between “foreign COIN” and “native COIN” – has served its purpose by highlighting the need for further work on the subject.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One reason for our difficulty grappling with 4GW is the lack of organized study.\u00a0 We could learn much from a matrix of all insurgencies over along period (e.g., since 1900), described in a standardized fashion, analyzed for trends.\u00a0 This has been done by several analysts on the equivalent of “scratch pads” (see IWCKI for details), but not with by a properly funded multi-disciplinary team (esp. to borrow or build computer models).<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0We are spending trillions to fight a long war without marshalling or analysing the available data.\u00a0 Hundreds of billions for the F-22, but only pennys for historical research.\u00a0\u00a0It is a\u00a0very expensive way to wage war.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When the Cold War was as young, the newest of America’s armed services, the Air Force, sought an intellectual edge over their venerable and tradtion-bound brothers and funded the ur-Think Tank, RAND Corporation<\/a>. I say “funded” because the USAF brass, while they expected products that would justify a strategic raison d’etre for the Air Force to Congress, wisely allowed their creation autonomy and\u00a0this in turn\u00a0yielded\u00a0intellectual freedom, exploration and creativity. The Air Force and the United States were richly rewarded by these egghead “wild men” who advanced nuclear warfighting and deterrence strategies,\u00a0Game Theory analytics,\u00a0\u00a0a renaissance in wargaming, Futurism and a multilpicity of other successes. Moreover, RAND itself became a model for a proliferation of\u00a0other think tanks that created an intellectual zone for public intellectuals and scientists outside of the constraints of academia.<\/p>\n

We need something like that today. A few years back, I called for a “DARPA for Foreign Policy<\/a>” but the need is equally critical in considering the future of war and conflict as is taking a multidisciplinary, intersectional, insight-generating “Medici Effect<\/a>” approach.<\/p>\n

We can do better.<\/p>\n

Wow-That-Was-Fast Department<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Wiggins<\/strong> extends the conversation on RAND’s origins as an inspiration for today<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From John Robb at Global Guerillas: The US national security budget is nearly $700 billion a year (much more if the total costs of Iraq\/Afghanistan are thrown in), more than the rest of the world combined. Unfortunately, within that entire budget there isn’t a single research organization or think tank that is seriously studying, analyzing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[360,361,46,304,198,87,37,17,78,388,336,303,333,39,340,270,515,7,13,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-century","category-america","category-analytic","category-defense","category-fabius-maximus","category-foreign-policy","category-futurism","category-global-guerillas","category-ideas","category-innovation","category-intellectuals","category-john-robb","category-medici-effect","category-military","category-military-reform","category-national-security","category-opposed-systems-design","category-robb","category-theory","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629","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=2629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}