John Robb – Brave New War
Up until I just finished John Robb’s Brave New War I would have told you that Ted Fishman’s China, Inc. was the best preparation of which I knew for understanding where we’re going on a global level. I could mention other valuable books but Robb’s Brave New War will allow you to not only begin to understand the actual work of the Iraq insurgency but also to see through U.S. government propaganda and to begin preparing for a future in which tactics developed in such wars will be brought to our country.
Katrina taught us that our government can’t even handle a known disaster, let alone disasters that most government agencies are clearly incapable of comprehending due to their psychological and political limitations. Understanding newly emergent forms of warfare will allow you to begin planning accordingly.
However, if you’re unwilling to interrupt your daily routine or disrupt your assumptions about peaceful retirement in the good ol’ U.S.A., then keep it moving cause you probably can’t handle the truth.
If you’re still reading, the following articles by John Robb are a good introduction to his thinking.
City Journal:
The Coming Urban Terror
Fast Company:
Security: Power To The People
NY Times Op-Ed:
The Open-Source War
John Robb’s Global Guerillas blog should be considered a core resource:
DIY (do-it-yourself) WEAPONS
"DIY weapons and the organizational processes necessary to take advantage of it have been vastly accelerated by the catalyst of Iraq. While 9/11 was also a catalyst…it is better seen as an anomalous outlier…since it occurred years before the changes necessary to enable small groups to fight nation-states evolved."
THE CHANGING FACE OF WAR: Into the 5th Generation (5GW):
"a new more dangerous generation is forming: potentially a 5th generation of warfare. Much of this new generation was derived and accelerated in cauldron of Iraq, just as the basis for 3rd generation of warfare was proved out in the Spanish Civil war."
CASCADING SYSTEM FAILURE:
"Global infrastructure networks are the Achilles heal of the great powers. They form the basis of our wealth and our daily function yet remain extremely vulnerable…next generation terrorists…will focus their efforts on the destruction of this global infrastructure."
THE BAZAAR’S OPEN SOURCE PLATFORM:
"The decentralized, and seemingly chaotic guerrilla war in Iraq demonstrates a pattern that will likely serve as a model for next generation terrorists. This pattern shows a level of learning, activity, and success similar to what we see in the open source software community."
John Robb is currently writing The Resilient Community, a book addressing his ideas about what we can actually do, whether or not the U.S. government gets it together, a process he introduces at the end of Brave New War.
Read Brave New War now. Thank me later.
Its so many people out here that cant handle the truth it pathetic. All of the information we need is at the tip of our fingers and people will rather listen to Fox
This is a great book. It gets a small mention in Clay Shirky’s latest, which you might also enjoy: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Thanks for the note about Shirky.
There are a lot of implications for anarchists as well but I’m hoping this can lead to decentralized organization without ideological labels.
I used to read John Robb’s personal blog ( http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/ ) as well as his Global Guerrillas blog.
It seemed like after a while it was just kind of shrill alarmism. That might have been because it was a constant drumbeat of blog posts.
If it was in an organized book format the effect might be more edifying.
Clyde, do you know about this guy at Skilluminati? http://www.skilluminati.com/ he has very similar interests, especially w/regard to the 5GW metaphor
It definitely puts you in a doom scenario as you can see from my post!
I hadn’t checked out his personal blog but I will. I find Global Guerrillas pretty readable but he may have shifted some from his earlier approach since I’ve just recently been catching up.
I know the Skilluminati guy. I thought I’d already gone far enough out without pushing people over the edge!
Actually I like what he’s doing but while I take the “learn about impending doom” approach, his interest in this topic might be a bit more confusing to my readers.
But, yeah, I’m checking out all the 5GW bloggers and I’m glad you got that link up for readers who are interested. Robb’s my fave but there seems to be an approach for everybody!
And I am particularly interested in the Resilient Community concepts as they relate to the alternative culture, self sufficient lifestyle approaches I read about in the 70s and encountered directly in the 80s. My lifestyle interests are a bit different but the tech continues to develop and it’s time to get back into that part, at the very least.
Given Katrina, the crackpot security approach of our nation post-9/11, our current military vulnerability due to the Iraq expedition and the vulnerability of world oil supples (including the widespread attacks and effects on oil prices of which I was mostly unaware pre-Robb), I figure it’s time to start considering what that means for long term contingency planning.
And I haven’t even started thinking through what the resulting hysteria and security clampdown will look like when the first IED explodes in front of a shopping mall in the U.S.
We will be so f*cked.