journals that I read

When the Taliban arrive in a village, I discovered, it takes 96 hours for an Army commander to obtain necessary approvals to act. In the first half of 2009, the Army Special Forces company I was with repeatedly tried to interdict Taliban. By our informal count, however, we (and the Afghan commandos we worked with) were stopped on 70 percent of our attempts because we could not achieve the requisite 11 approvals in time. Jonathan J. Vaccaro NYTimes OP-ED.

From an insurgents perspective (key to understanding the issue), the US military's command and control system is a gift from God.  It's lethargic.  Key aspects of why this is so include:  

• Risk mitigation trumps initiative every time.   Careers are more important than victory.   Risk evaluation moves upward in the hierarchy.  Evaluation of risk takes time, particularly with the paucity of information that can be accessed at positions removed from the conflict.

• The US military is extremely top heavy.  Why?  It's staffed for great power war.  This means that it has the middle management and 'leadership' to absorb millions of conscripts.  As a result, internal competition for 'inclusion' in combat ops is fierce (for promotion and 'validation of value' purposes).   This also leads to extreme specialization of bureaucratic function -- lots of different types of oversight.

• New communications technology isn't being used for what it is designed to do (enable decentralized operation due to better informed people on the ground).  Instead it is being used to enable more complicated and hierarchical approval processes -- more sign offs/approvals, more required processes, and higher level oversight.  For example:  a general, and his staff, directly commanding a small strike team remotely.

Avenues of exploitation that slow decision making of counter-insurgency strike teams include:

• Shorten the duration of the exposure to operate within the long OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loops of the opposition.  
• Pinpoint specific decision making processes for disruption.  Knowledge of oversight requirements (the 11 different approvals described) enables multiple points of failure in the decision making system.  Why?  Due to an overstaffed organizational design, there are many specialized (single issue/process) sign offs, which are relatively easy to block if known.  
• Introduce new factors (staggered over time) that force a new series of approvals.  New data needs to be sent up the chain, discussed, and reviewed. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a guest column, written by a reserve NCO with Special Forces, Mark Sexton. It is based on his personal observations in Afghanistan. It represents his analysis only, not any position taken by DOD, the U.S. Army, or any other agency of the U.S. government. In my opinion, it represents exactly the sort of intelligence analysis we need but seldom get.  

How the Taliban Take a Village 

A current method used by Taliban in Afghanistan to gain control of an area deemed of strategic interest to the Taliban leadership operating from safe havens in Pakistan or within Afghanistan is to identify and target villages to subvert. The Taliban have recognized the necessity to operate with the cooperation of local population with the modus operandi being to gain their cooperation through indoctrination (preferred) or coercion (when necessary).   

Read the full article on the LIND site.

Does unemployment drive insurgency?  That's a big question that hasn't been studied much.  Despite the lack of data, unfounded assumptions abound.  These assumptions are the basis of grand strategic theories to multi-billion $$ counter-insurgency programs (such is the intellectual poverty of US military thinking).  One interesting statistical study, Do Working Men Rebel by Eli Berman, Joseph Felter, and Jacob Shapiro (NBER), attempts to answer this question (November 2009).  

They conclude that unemployment is actually negatively correlated to insurgency.  They posit that the most likely explanation for this is that the government's counter-insurgency efforts are cheaper/easier to accomplish, since they can buy intel on insurgent locations more easily.  The other (less likely) potential conclusion is that high unemployment is an artifact of successful counter-insurgency efforts that restrict movement and increase isolation.  In either case, the idea that opportunity costs etc. (the standard theories regarding unemployment and insurgency) drives insurgency doesn't appear to be valid.  Another ancillary conclusion of the paper is that high unemployment typically forces a shift in tactics towards stealth area of effect attacks (IEDs, and other methods that connote relative weakness rather than strength) that produce high levels of collateral damage.

The theoretical implications for insurgency are:

• If the loss of standard jobs are replaced by jobs/wealth derived from black market economies the insurgency is less likely to break down.  The wealth derived from these sources keeps the costs of obtaining information high.  We see this in Mexico and Afghanistan.
• The ability of the insurgency to provide basic services (food, energy, and shelter) blocks government/corporate efforts to force information transfer using the same method.  This is particularly true if isolation is induced. So, if insurgents promote self-sufficiency or generously support charity services offered by NGOs are less vulnerable.  
• Counter-insurgency theory already promotes the disruption of systems through checkpoints, walls, etc. to weaken insurgencies.  As governments become less wealthy/weaker due to globalization or more removed from the threat, we are likely to see much more counter-insurgency lite:  where the government avoids expensive or untenable checkpoints/walls/occupation and instead denies access to critical infrastructure, ala systems disruption, to create the same effect.  Israel is already using this.

NOTE:  an insurgency coupled with alternative wealth production (black globalization or resilient communities) gains not only protection against encroachment but the funding, processes, technologies, and motivation required for more sophisticated or aggressive attacks/defense.

Some random items of interest:

• ArduPilot.  Very nice autopilot assembly (sensors, board, etc.) for DIY drones. <$75.
• RAND:  Federal Paramilitaries.  This paper examines roles and costs.  This force is built to pacify areas that are too hot for regular police and too delicate for military force.  Of course, the stated use of this force is in counter-insurgency and stability operations outside the CONUS.  However, if classified as a police force, it can be used domestically (where, after first use, it would grow virally).  This is all part of a larger trend:  towards the militarization of police function.  To wit:  China, Turkey, Pakistan, and many other countries use paramilitaries to crush domestic unrest.
• The Gandalf moment.  I'm both humbled and inspired to do more.
• Can someone send me this paper plz, "Militias, tribes and insurgents: The challenge of political reintegration in Iraq"  Update: got a copy, thanks.
• US shifts from global contractors to locally sourced corporate militias to guard bases in Afghanistan. "The contractor shall hire a minimum of 50% of its guard force from within a 50 kilometer [30-mile] radius of the location requiring security"
• Global money laundering/smuggling switches to Euros.
• Augmented reality unconference at the "hacker dojo."  Looks like it was fun.  Might want to visit the next one.
• Interesting Times magazine:  Cyberpunk ezine out of Sweden.
• Chris Arkenberg riffs on all things related to augmented reality.  Nice.
• Sunlight labs:  Great American hackerthon on open governance.  12 Dec. in Boston.
• TED India.  Natural gestures + augmented reality + projected displays.  Pranav Mistry demos his SixthSense software (which he is open sourcing -- the prototype in the demo below costs $350 to build):

NOTE: Natural gestures as a controls interface makes sense and is inevitable. Projection displays a) get around the short term deficit in mobile AR visualization and b) allow AR enhanced individuals share data with those that aren't similarly enhanced.