nerdgirl

The last part of your post makes me think … ongoing thinking.

If you were a decision-maker, what would you propose the US do w/r/t Iran and DPRK differently than what is currently being done? What is your desired end-state? How do you plan to achieve that end-state? What specific actions would you pursue and by what means? E.g., by what methods & means are securing access to the nuclear facilities, and what consequences are you willing to accept for your decisions? How will you deal with China w/r/t DPRK? How will you deal with Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran limiting transit through or closing the Straits of Hormuz? It is tempting and easy to toss out one-liners. I look forward to hearing your specific plans. And to show that I’m not asking of others anymore than I am willing to do myself, I provided some of my own detailed proposals on ends, ways, and means w/r/t US foreign policy toward Iran in this thread (posts 1, 47, 49, 50-53, 56, 59, 63, 64, 69, 72). /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Which one? Which “Bush administration”? Do you mean to suggest President GHW Bush and implicitly former SecDef Caspar Weinberger and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, namesake of the Powell Doctrine, were also leaders who lacked “the balls to make tough decisions”? And “armchair quarterbacks.” Should they “acknowledge that’s what [they were]” because they did not push to Baghdad in 1991? (To be explicit, I don’t think that.) Or is it more complicated than the portrayal suggests? I’m not sure the sole metric that I’d want to apply to have the right to a valid opinion and perhaps, even some expertise that might be worth considering is whether or not an individual has made decisions that directly impacted foreign deployment of US service members or civilians. Most military service members don’t make direct decisions on US foreign policy yet they are often the ones charged with implementing and executing policies. They frequently have valuable insight, imo. Otoh, there are quite a few soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and others who I’ve met – maybe I’m just really special? – who actively value input of those who might fit your description of ‘armchair quarterbacks’ who haven’t made direct foreign policy decisions. Perhaps if more “armchair quarterback” expertise would have been sought and listened to, many of the pre-invasion errors (e.g., the aluminum tubes) and post-initial invasion (e.g., disbanding Iraqi army and the later) choices that figured prominently in later problems would have been avoid or minimized (e.g., rise of insurgencies 2004-2006) … or they might have happened anyway. While I think the first part of President Eisenhower’s famous quote on planning is hyperbolic, the second is profound, again imo: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Or alternatively as I heard earlier this week, the Marine Corps “the 7Ps" rule: “Proper planning prevents piss poor performance.” (think I forgot a “p” ... [embarrassed] ... irony at its finest, eh? ) Process matters. The Army generally calls them lessons learned rather than “armchair quarterbacking.” /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Yes, at least one with the same Fed Res IG testomony video, if not two, on the similar ideas. h/t to [airdvr] for the link to agency by agency break-down of recovery and reinvestment act funds. More: allocation of 'stimulus' funds by State. Today's Wall Street Journal has a story on page A2, "Some Hard-Hit States Get Less Stimulus," which found that "Nevada, where unemployment stood at about 10% when the plan was passed, is getting $541 for each resident from the stimulus money allocated so far, a Wall Street Journal analysis found. Wyoming, where the 3.9% jobless rate was the lowest in the country in February, is getting $1,074 per person." Congressional Research Service? CRS on "funding provided for federal education programs by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub. L. 111-5)". /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Interesting observation

Agree - think there are lots of interesting stories and histories behind chemical warfare. If Hitler was in power, I have no doubt that Haber would not have supported the war effort as he did. Another interesting twist of history, which you may know, toward the end of WWI Hitler was exposed to chlorine that blinded him temporarily. Historians generally credit that experience for his resistance to using chemical warfare agents on the battlefield during WWII. And from documents declassifed in the few weeks: "Britain considered chemical attack on Tokyo in 1944." /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

There's not much there, if anything, with which I fundamentally disagree. I am still reading what you wrote -- owned as my reading -- as largely refecting military planning doctrine & dogma, sort of a military planning "Kumbaya" (albeit one in camos & with combat boots ) ... rather than addressing the issue of the irony the that Mark Harju and others observed. Or maybe I'm just not communicating well. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for your reply. Much of it goes down a tangent very different from my original post on the question of the effect or the asserted irony of planning for future conflicts near major WWI battle sites. But tangents can teach me much.

Please do … because I think that answer is too easy, especially in context of who’s asking the question, i.e., me. Two semi-regular, long-time, posters of arguably very different political opinions have expressed something similar: If we can recognize that irony, what should we do with that recognition? Some don't care. Intentionally hyperbolic: do we just all nod in agreement and sing “Kumbaya” around the bonfire? [donning my asbestos underwear] Does just replying “yes, we should plan” or some equivalence, whether in Latin, Greek, or Prussian (Clausewitz reference), really push beyond the war studies equivalent of singing “Kumbaya”? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

So given Art Lykke's ends/ways/means rubric that the Army uses and your examples of potential planning w/r/t deploying to DPRK, what does that imply w/r/t the asserted irony of thinking about future conflicts near the Ypres Salient? Should such planning occur in the DMZ between the two Koreas? [Devil's Advocate] Or are the assertions of irony misplaced? Or? [/Devil's Advocate] /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

One of the comments from a member of the US mission to NATO was that he thought that history is much more close to the surface informing political debates among European states because there are real reminders like Flanders Fields and Verdun. I thought that was a valid hypothesis. The temporal effect is something less clear to me, as one can observe the change in Japanese political posture toward expeditionary warfare capabilities (which they don't call as such yet) and nuclearization. Thanks!

Assume for a moment that the planning meetings are all closed, i.e., no press or PR. Just the planners. Does that change the potential value of being intentional in geographic choice? And do you really mean "as many different scenarios you can possibly think of" ? Or was that just short hand? There are two different responses that occur to me at the moment (prolly other equally or more valid ones as well). At least once every month or so, someone comes to me and earnestly asserts that "We (usually unspecified "we") need to control/regulate nanotechnology." Without exception I respond by asking "What do you mean by 'nanotechnology'?" Depending on how patient I'm feeling at the moment, I'll either feed them some proverbial "self-assembled nanobot/grey goo" rope on which to hang themselves or draw out what they mean more diplomatically. About half the time, the threat scenario is more science fantasy than science (or even true science fiction). Scenarios need to technically robust. Another example of threat over-hype/lack of technical robustness, imo, is terrorists with EMPs ... and there are some very smart & very credentialled folks who have put forth those as threats. The second response is should there be some consideration of probability and consequence? Resources are finite. I can come up with a whole lot of proliferation and terrorism scenarios ... the probability and consequence varies highly (e.g., see attached attempt to graphically convey differences in WMD terrorism risk [deleted].) Add a couple improvised or smuggled multi-kiloton nuclear weapons & I concur. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I'd forgotten about that. Thanks for the reminder. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Might one argue that being close to such an area so viscerally retaining remnants of some of the worst makes that a more likely outcome? Should all discussions on nuclear poliferation be conducted in Hiroshima or Nagaski? Should all discussions of radical Islamist counterrorism planning be done in Lower Manhattan? Or is it the inverse? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

So if one believes, "If you wish for peace, prepare for war," what does that imply w/r/t the asserted irony of thinking about future conflicts near the Ypres Salient? [Devil's Advocate] Or are the assertions of irony misplaced? Or? [/Devil's Advocate] /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

(Another one of my American-centric posts ...) If yes, why? If no, why not? In the thread on my trip to Ypres and Flanders Fields, two posters -- who one might infer, based on their posting histories, reflect very different political viewpoints -- have both made similar comments: By anticipating and planning for something do we make something inevitable? Or is the wiser side, the prepared one? A la the Girl Scout and Boy Scout mottos? Or is this one more example that while history is not predictive, it shouldn't be ignored either? (My version of Santayana's aphorism.) While one can consider the question ponderously, which is fun, imo … I think (?) everyone recognizes that there are real world consequences w/r/t policies to control spread of technology, w/r/t investment in defense industries (& all of the jobs associated with those industries), etc. Next week, DTRA is holding an open/unclassified workshop on the security implications of de novo (i.e,. ‘from scratch’ through syn bio or synthetic genomics) synthesis of smallpox or similar orthopox virus. This is something that currently doesn’t exist, and debates are ontgoing regarding if/when it will be technically viable. One can find lots of examples currently and historically. If we all (?) can recognize that irony, what should we do with that recognition? Intentionally hyperbolic: do we just all nod in agreement and sing "Kumbaya" around the bonfire? Or too big a problem to think about on a Saturday afternoon? I know people 'inside the Beltway' think about this a lot. Some of those folks are very smart ... some less so, im-ever-ho. Some are very well intentioned ... other less so. Do folks outside the Beltway, whether in 'flyover land,' on the Left Coast, or elsewhere think about it ... or not care? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thank ya all for the cool discussion in this thread. Not sure if I agree with you or not ... but ya's made me think about the ideas, actions, and policy in new ways.

It might benefit you in other ways too. A few years ago back at Archway I was load organizing and I screwed up the spot -- pretty bad. We spotted ourselves out of a King Air at the time. Of course, notionally everyone is responsible for their own decision to exit the aircraft and not depend on the person spotting or the green light. I apologized and bought the folks on the jump with me jump tickets. Partially it was my pride for having screwed up the spot. Luckily it was a 6-way, iirc, which made it even more embarrasing to me to screw up (Iirc, the 2-tandems asked for a go around .. don't remember what happened to the freeflyers ), and jump tickets were a lot cheaper then. One of the guys on that jump, DaveO, used to post on dz.com. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Dirt ... that suggests geophysics more than traditional, solid-state, or quantum physics. What would be the greatest experiment in geophysics? My initial nominee is whatever led to development of theory of plate techtonics. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment Feynman was also fond of working physics problems at Pasadena strip clubs ... gives a somewhat different connotation of a 'Double Slit Experiment' eh? [Did I just type that? ] Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Were they really burqas? Or were they abayas, hijabs, or other conservative Islamic clothing? I suspect you were just using 'burqa' as short-hand/subsitution for all conservative Islamic dress. The number of women I saw in conservative Islamic dress in Brussels earlier this month was unexpected. I don't recall seeing any burqas. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Perhaps it’s not completely unanswerable. One can argue that any suicide/homicide bomber that successfully detonated concealed explosives did “g[e]t away undetected.” If detected, the terrorist would not have been able to execute the attack, eh? Therefore the level of successful attacks executed by individuals who used conservative Muslim dress to conceal IED or other explosives gives one a lower limit for the number that “got away undetected." While not a burqa, abayas have been used to conceal IEDs. In 2008, there were over 30 such sucicide/homicide bombings in which explosives were concealed under abayas or other culturally-religiously obligated/encouraged/demanded dress, i.e., the “Black Moving Object” (BMO). One individual admitted to coordinating at least 28 suicide/homicide bombings in which abayas concealed explosives. Example of two such bombings in Iraq in 2008 that caused at least 73 deaths, which was also discussed here. There have been fewer such concealed suicide/homicide bombings this year. It’s also been a tactic used repeatedly by Palestinian terrorists against Israel. [smart-ass] Perhaps getting an answer depends on who one asks, eh? [/smart-ass] As a civil libertarian, I dislike such restrictions on choice in personal dress. While I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that there is a rash or severe threat of female terrorists in France using conservative Muslim dress to conceal explosives and I don’t know enough about the level of indoctrination/control of Muslim women in France by Muslim men (unlike other parts of the world), there is an operational security issue that one can consider. To pretend that it is not an operational security issue in parts of the world (again, I'm doubtful France) is lack of knowledge or denial. Is there ever a valid reason to restrict such clothing? If concealing with abaya or burqa is an established terrorist tactic, how many dead people does one need to have before such restrictions are warranted? Some may say, it doesn’t matter. Others might say one is all it takes. I’m inclined to something less at either end of the spectrum. But it is a legitimate, imo, and interesting question w/r/t what civil liberties are groups of people willing to give up in order to increase security/decrease risk. Also, there is also some irony, I think, that in the areas in which women are either required by law (e.g., areas under Sharia law) or induced/compelled by threat of punishment or death if they are regarded as dressing immodestly (not a lot free choice there, eh?), the basic human rights and civil liberties of half the population are often severely restricted explicitly or tacitly. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Heard an observation that the symbol of the 1979 Revolution was the bearded cleric ... now the symbol emerging is a young, modern woman. Iranian Nobel Peace Prize-winner, Shirin Ebadi (more) is also playing an even more public role than before. I wonder about demographics. What's the affect (maybe none ?) of the loss of young males during the Iran-Iraq war & does that correlate with the apparent prominence of women in the protests? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for the additional comments. Gives me some things to think about w/r/t precision/ambiguity of terms. And reminded me I need to do more reading & listening & talking with folks.

Insurgents/terrorists. But that doesn't mean it's 4GW. It's about the only option they have considering their circumstances. Edited to add: I do not believe it would be their first choice if they had other reasonable options. The main reason I do not believe insurgency is 4GW is because generational warfare is adopted by all sides. 1GW - Massed manpower 2GW - firepower 3GW - manuever Think that we may largely be in agreement here. 4GW is not just historical insurgencies. 4GW is effective use of information and communication technologies by both states and non-state actors. I’ll borrow COL Hamme’s description for 4GW: “Fourth generation warfare uses all available networks – political, economic, social, and military – to convince the enemy’s political decisionmakers that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit. … The key concept in this definition is that 4GW opponents will attempt to directly attack the minds of enemy decision makers. The only medium that can change a person’s mind is information. Therefore, information [& the new, faster , higher capacity methods by which information can be transmitted, received, stored, & queried – nerdgirl] is the key element of any 4GW strategy. Effective insurgents build their plans around a strategic communications campaign designed to shift their enemy’s view of the world.” Those are the ideas that were largely perceived to have been epitomized in the concepts of network centric warfare (of the VADM Cebrowski (RIP)-led Office of Force Transformation, under SecDef Rumsfeld) and that one might speculate are nascently observed in the recent Iranian-protesters use of social networking methods, e.g., Twitter. (Altho’ the latter is not w/out skeptics: “Reading Twitter in Tehran?”) Don’t disagree. It’s a framework not an operational plan or ‘battle command’ (e.g., per FM 3-0 Chapter 5-2 … and my apologies for defaulting to Army doctrine; if I knew USMC doctrine as well, I’d cite that.) It a framework that is also most applicable to state on state conventional military operations & the role of technology, im-ever-ho. It works less well, again imo, for trying to figure out how to account for what is being observed today w/r/t decrease in state-on-state warfare and increase in non-state actors (terrorists & insurgents) & the role of technology. Afaik, there isn’t a better, high-level explanation of the impact of technology on warfare tho’, especially w/r/t emerging technology. Maybe you know one I’ve missed? And admittedly, it largely treats emerging technology as catch-all for ‘stuff’ that will have major strategic impact. (Not very satisfying intellectually or operationally, eh?) The GW concept may not be (probably isn’t, imo) completely adequate, but it’s a starting point for conversations. And it’s a framework that many of the folks with whom I’m wanting to be able to converse know, which is important for communicating. While there has been significant increase in the visibility over the last few years of counterinsurgency theory (largely since FM 3-24’s publication and dissemination … the latter, perhaps being just as important, insofar as strategic communications, like making it available through amazon.com), to a large extent the US military today still recognizes two grammars of war: conventional warfare & everything else. The latter includes COIN but is more expansive. And NATO largely follows whatever we do. (Don't tell some of them that, tho.' ) An adequate framework has to span both conventional military operations and insurgencies & the blurry-frustrating-spaces in between, imo. For me, the most fascinating, fun, and most significant strategic implication of the GW concept … (or “theory” as the social scientists call it, which I find more insidious than annoying here because it falsely tries to project/mimic the predictive capability of physical theories, which it can’t/doesn’t) … is at the “5GW” level - the anticipatory portion. Again from COL Hammes: “Communications is not the only burgeoning sector with implications for 5GW. Two industries with even greater potential to change our world—biotechnology and nanotechnology [including cloaking metamaterials – nerdgirl]—are on the verge of huge growth.” I’d add both robotics (near term) and the cognitive sciences (medium to far term) to the potential to create GW changes. Which in some ways goes back to my earlier question: Why do you specifically think guerrillas will pursue unmanned vehicles? (As opposed to cyber or other means?) What's the advantage? Very much look forward to reading them.