A real love for the hard battle, knowing it offers the opportunity to be at your best when the best is required.

Competiveness: John R Wooden

 More reading about Coach Wooden and his "pyramid of success:"

The Official John R. Wooden site

Biography at Wikipedia

Pyramid of Sucess (PDF printable)

 "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail"  in his own words follow the "Favorite maxims" tab to "never stress winning"

Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

Alternative analysis is the super-class of techniques of which red teaming may be considered a member… these techniques are designed to help debias thinking, enhance decision making, and avoid surprise. (From Red Team Journal)

http://redteamjournal.com/

As noted in The 2010 Announcement post, Project White Horse focus for 2010 will explore "what kind of organizations and indeed groups of organizations can operate at the required tempo demanded for survival when faced with worst case, unconventional crisis, or hyper complex events – the "CAT 5's."  

Now, consider just a quick bit of background to link red Team Journal's effort with Project White Horse perspective.

Considering that the PWH focus on decision making in unconventional crisis/hyper complex events has at its core the thread and ideas of "alternative analysis," the concept of integrating red teaming into organizational learning as significantly impacting the survival process is offered as absolutely critical – an essential element of understanding for a culture of preparedness. As such Red Team Journal is offered as an important resource. Note that the writing of Assistant Editor Adam Elkus has been featured multiple times on PWH, most recently in EEI #25 "What kind of War… Science, Defence, and Strategy … and John Boyd."

Defined by Red Team Journal – "loosely, red teaming is the practice of viewing a problem from an adversary or competitor's perspective. The goal of most red teams is to enhance decision making, either by specifying the adversary's preferences and strategies or by simply acting as a devil's advocate." For a quick look at red teaming and the writers see About.

A year ago PWH introduced a specially focused "carve-out," the INTERSECTIONS page, stemming from Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect and his model for gaining understanding, and developing innovative action -the intersection:

Intersectional ideas are those resulting from combining concepts from multiple fields – areas of specialization gained through education and experience – as compared to those created traditionally by combing concepts within a field – noted as directional ideas. Success in intersectional idea generation is dependent upon breaking down barriers of association that would more than likely indicate a "non relationship" or at best limited context between or among fields.

The question was then asked "Can the "train to the ace level" concept behind Top Gun, Red Flag, National Training Center at Ft Irwin, i.e. the combat training center or "CTC" concept be applied to hyper complex crisis, worst case  disaster command control learning, can ace decision makers be developed?" The following sub-pages continue to address various aspects of this question that include "red team" type functions and capabilities: 

These are considered "open/living threads.  PWH target audience will remain oriented at a community "team of leaders" inclusive of not only emergency management and first responders, but also private sector, and citizens, as required for survival of that community when faced with events that  are inherently severely de-stabilizing – marginalizing prior planning and anticipated response structure. Understanding risk – assessment, mitigation, management and the eventual acceptance level is crucial for a resilient community and part of a culture of preparedness.   By way of starting examples these Red Team Journal articles seem most appropriate

The Defense Science Board Calls for More Red Teaming    "Red teaming as the norm instead of the exception. Secretary of Defense direct the use of red teaming throughout DOD by developing and employing best practice guides, intellectual focus in professional military education, and more aggressive use of red teams in exercises."

 Interposing Tactics  " ... we are now seeing a new form of granular conflict, where the essence of tactical supremacy is achieved through coordination of multi factor, and multidimensional attacks and defense by individual force elements interposed against each other. ... will continue the process of dissolving force elements beyond the individual level to a new level of autonomous actions, which will lead to totally chaotic battles. The winner will be the force composed of individuals who are better at operating in this environment.

An Introduction to Reciprocal Net Assessment  ... good decision making is more than just reacting to threats in time to avoid them; good decision making involves avoiding surprise and creating it. The RNA approach can help analysts and decision makers do both. (and) is useful primarily as a complement to existing methods of red teaming, competitive and intelligence analysis, deception and counterdeception analysis, and business and military wargaming.

 Modeling and Simulation of Red Teaming   This and future position papers will explore possible ways to use M&S to augment or replace traditional red teams in some situations, the features Red Team M&S should possess, how one might connect live and simulated red teams, and existing tools in this domain.

Please make Red Team Journal part of your "resilient community" reading.

1.  So What Kind of War Is It? (First in a Series)  [Von Lubitz, Beakley]


2. On War, On Crime – the Intersection  [Sullivan, et. al]


3. Civilian Courts no place for terrorists  [Brooks]


4. War? What War?  [Krauthammer]


5. Boundary Layers [Beakley]


6. 5 Myths about keeping America safe from terrorism [Flynn]


7. The war of new words: Why military history trumps buzzwords [Owen]


8. No Exit  [Bacevich]


9. Square Pegs, Round Holes vs. "War Amongst the People"  [Smith]


10. Definitions or Targets [Ganor]


11.  Science, defence and strategy… and John Boyd [Elkus]

While the question what kind of war is it remains unanswered, this appears an appropriate place to suspend the series, at least for now, with one final thought from British General Sir Rupert Smith:

 ... we are living in a world of confrontations and conflicts rather than one of war and peace; one in which the clear categories of security and defence – the basic purposes for which force is used – have merged…

This is no longer industrial war… absolute and clear threats in recognizable groupings, and… stable political contexts for operations… our opponents are formless and their leaders and operatives are outside the structures in which we order the world and society… The threats they pose are not directly to our states or territories but to the security of our people, of other peoples, our assets and way of life… They are of and amongst the people – in the flesh and in the media – and it is there that the fight takes place. 

Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

There seems to be a trend toward treating events of terrorism as if they were specifically a law-enforcement problem , rather than  enemy operations in the context of war and warfare. Both require application of force  "but for force to be effective the desired outcome of its use must be understood in such detail that the context is defined as well as the point of application." (The Utility of Force; The Art of War in the Modern World by General Sir Rupert Smith)

The issue here is not crime or war, the context is rather that war plays out "amongst the people" – not only in the villages of Afghanistan, but as readily in the airports, cities, communities, and courtrooms of all nations.  The application of force, -whether by police or military – AND  of law are essential.

Consider the following  3 new points (original list provided in EEI# 15) based on the Christmas Day attempted airline bombing:

• In the wake of the failed Christmas Day airplane bombing, President Obama ordered speedy reviews of how the air security system failed and the Transportation Security Administration began enhanced screening for passengers traveling through 14 nations.


• Eight years after WTC and Pentagon attacks, actionable intelligence still can't seem to get across intelligence agency boundaries so as to create "action."


• Nigerian-born Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab who tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear as a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, made its approach to Detroit, Michigan has been read his Miranda rights.

 The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia at the end of the Thirty Year War essentially made war and warfare a function of the state and was in part at least an attempt to limit or control devastation among non-combatants.  The 1949 Geneva Conventions set the standards in international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war and established the qualifications for being considered a lawful combatant  – must have conducted military operations according to the laws and customs of war, be part of a chain of command, wear a "fixed distinctive marking, visible from a distance" and bear arms openly.

Does not the above list  give one pause to think, that maybe, just maybe in light of those long standing and current established rules and protocols, we are laboring most vigorously,  quoting General George Patton, to make circumstances meet the plans and rules, rather than adapting as necessary to a very complex and dynamic set of events. Former CIA Chief of the bin Laden Issue Station, Michael Scheuer, asked are we in a war or chasing Thelma and Louise?  The answer would appear to be BOTH, and without succinct definition of the specific kind of war as back-plane for understanding events as they occur and without either usable definition or following rules, we're continually trying to shoe horn square pegs in round holes.

It seems appropriate here to reflect upon some of the introductory words in General Smith's The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern world:

On every occasion that I have been sent to achieve some military objective in order to serve a political purpose, I, and those with me, have had to change our method and reorganize in order to succeed.  Until this was done we could not use our force effectively.

... it became obvious to me that the extant theories of military organization and application and the unfolding realities were wide apart.  No more was I part of a world of wars in which the civilian and military establishments each had its distinct role in distinct stages.  The new situations were always a complex combination of political and military circumstances, though there appeared to be little comprehension as to how the two became intertwined – nor far more seriously from the perspective of the military practitioner, how they constantly influenced each other as events unfolded…. I realized we were now in a new era of conflict – in fact a new paradigm –

... from armies with comparable forces doing battle on a field to strategic confrontation between a range of combatants, not all of which are armies, and using different types of weapons, often improvised.  The old paradigm was that of interstate industrial war.  The new one is the paradigm of war amongst the people.

The next post will provide some discussion of these terms by way of seeking at least a reference point of terminology .

 Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

America has an impressive record of starting wars but a dismal one of ending them well.

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He is a retired Army Colonel, graduate of  West Point, serving in Vietnam in 1970 and 71.  In his books [The Limits of Power, The Long War, and The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War ], he is critical of American foreign policy in the post Cold War era, maintaining the United States has developed an over-reliance on military power, in contrast to diplomacy, to achieve its foreign policy aims. He also asserts that policymakers in particular, and the American people in general, overestimate the usefulness of military force in foreign affairs.   Bacevich conceived The New American Militarism not only as "a corrective to what has become the conventional critique of U.S. policies since 9/11 but as a challenge to the orthodox historical context employed to justify those policies."  His new book Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War is due out in the spring.

This article found on  The American Conservative would appear consistent with his past writing and the excerpt is offered as yet another view of "what kind of war."

No Exit (Excerpt)

by Andrew Bacevich

President Obama's decision to escalate U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan earned him at most two muted cheers from Washington's warrior-pundits. Sure, the president had acceded to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for more troops. Already in its ninth year, Operation Enduring Freedom was therefore guaranteed to endure for years to come. The Long War begun on George W. Bush's watch with expectations of transforming the Greater Middle East gained a new lease on life, its purpose reduced to the generic one of "keeping America safe."

 Yet the Long War's most ardent supporters found fault with Obama's words and demeanor. The president had failed to convey the requisite enthusiasm for sending young Americans to fight and die on the far side of the world …

... That the post-Cold War United States military, reputedly the strongest and most capable armed force in modern history, has not only conceded its inability to achieve decision but has in effect abandoned victory as its raison d'être qualifies as a remarkable development.

Since 1945, the United States military has devoted itself to the proposition that, Hiroshima notwithstanding, war still works—that, despite the advent of nuclear weapons, organized violence directed by a professional military elite remains politically purposeful. From the time U.S. forces entered Korea in 1950 to the time they entered Iraq in 2003, the officer corps attempted repeatedly to demonstrate the validity of this hypothesis.

The results have been disappointing. Where U.S. forces have satisfied Max Boot's criteria for winning, the enemy has tended to be, shall we say, less than ten feet tall. Three times in the last 60 years, U.S. forces have achieved an approximation of unambiguous victory—operational success translating more or less directly into political success. The first such episode, long since forgotten, occurred in 1965 when Lyndon Johnson intervened in the Dominican Republic. The second occurred in 1983, when American troops, making short work of a battalion of Cuban construction workers, liberated Granada. The third occurred in 1989 when G.I.'s stormed the former American protectorate of Panama, toppling the government of long-time CIA asset Manuel Noriega.

Apart from those three marks in the win column, U.S. military performance has been at best mixed. The issue here is not one of sacrifice and valor—there's been plenty of that—but of outcomes.

... An alternative reading of our recent military past might suggest the following: first, that the political utility of force—the range of political problems where force possesses real relevance—is actually quite narrow; second, that definitive victory of the sort that yields a formal surrender ceremony at Appomattox or on the deck of an American warship tends to be a rarity; third, that ambiguous outcomes are much more probable, with those achieved at a cost far greater than even the most conscientious war planner is likely to anticipate; and fourth, that the prudent statesman therefore turns to force only as a last resort and only when the most vital national interests are at stake. ...

To consider the long bloody chronicle of modern history, big wars and small ones alike, is to affirm the validity of these conclusions. Bellicose ideologues will pretend otherwise. Such are the vagaries of American politics that within the Beltway the views expressed by these ideologues—few of whom have experienced war—will continue to be treated as worthy of consideration. One sees the hand of God at work: the Lord obviously has an acute appreciation for irony.

... The impetus for weaning Americans away from their infatuation with war, if it comes at all, will come from within the officer corps. It certainly won't come from within the political establishment, the Republican Party gripped by militaristic fantasies and Democrats too fearful of being tagged as weak on national security to exercise independent judgment. Were there any lingering doubt on that score, Barack Obama, the self-described agent of change, removed it once and for all: by upping the ante in Afghanistan he has put his personal imprimatur on the Long War.

Yet this generation of soldiers has learned what force can and cannot accomplish. Its members understand the folly of imagining that war provides a neat and tidy solution to vexing problems. They are unlikely to confuse Churchillian calls to arms with competence or common sense.

What conclusions will they draw from their extensive and at times painful experience with war? Will they affirm this country's drift toward perpetual conflict, as those eagerly promoting counterinsurgency as the new American way of war apparently intend? Or will the officer corps reject that prospect and return to the tradition once represented by men like George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Matthew B. Ridgway?

As our weary soldiers trek from Iraq back once more to Afghanistan, this figures prominently among the issues to be decided there.

 Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

 ... familiar arguments about what can and should be done to reduce America's vulnerabilities are again filling the airwaves, editorial pages and blogosphere. Several of these arguments are based on assumptions that guided the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks—and unfortunately, they are as unfounded now as they were then..

5 Myths about keeping America safe from terrorrism

by Stephen Flynn

With President Obama declaring a "systemic failure" of our security system in the wake of the attempted Christmas bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner, familiar arguments about what can and should be done to reduce America's vulnerabilities are again filling the airwaves, editorial pages and blogosphere. Several of these arguments are based on assumptions that guided the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks—and unfortunately, they are as unfounded now as they were then. The biggest whopper of all? The paternalistic assertion that the government can keep us all safe without our help.

1. Terrorism is the gravest threat facing the American people

 Americans are at far greater risk of being killed in accidents or by viruses than by acts of terrorism. In 2008, more than 37,300 Americans perished on the nation's highways, according to government data. Even before H1N1, a similar number of people died each year from the seasonal flu. Terrorism is a real and potentially consequential danger. But the greatest threat isn't posed by the direct harm terrorists could inflict; it comes from what we do to ourselves when we are spooked. It is how we react—or more precisely, how we overreact—to the threat of terrorism that makes it an appealing tool for our adversaries. By grounding commercial aviation and effectively closing our borders after the 2001 attacks, Washington accomplished something no foreign state could have hoped to achieve: a blockade on the economy of the world's sole superpower. While we cannot expect to be completely successful at intercepting terrorist attacks, we must get a better handle on how we respond when they happen.

2. When it comes to preventing terrorism, the only real defense is a good offense.

 
The cornerstone of the Bush administration's approach to dealing with the terrorist threat was to take the battle to the enemy. But offense has its limits. We still aren't generating sufficiently accurate and timely tactical intelligence to adequately support U.S. counterterrorism efforts overseas. And going after terrorists abroad hardly means they won't manage to strike us at home. Just days before the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the United States collaborated with the Yemeni government on raids against al-Qaeda militants there. The group known as al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula is now claiming responsibility for having equipped and trained Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to blow up the flight. The group is also leveraging the raids to recruit militants and mount protests against Yemen's already fragile central government.

At the same time, an emphasis on offense has often come at the expense of investing in effective defensive measures, such as maintaining quality watch lists, sharing information about threats, safeguarding such critical assets as the nation's food and energy supplies, and preparing for large-scale emergencies. After authorities said Abdulmutallab had hidden explosives in his underwear, airline screeners held up flights to do stepped-up passenger pat-downs at boarding gates—pat-downs that inevitably avoided passengers' crotches and buttocks. This kind of quick fix only tends to fuel public cynicism about security efforts. But if we can implement smart security measures ahead of time (such as requiring refineries next to densely populated areas to use safer chemicals when they manufacture high-octane gas), we won't be incapacitated when terrorists strike. Strengthening our national ability to withstand and rapidly recover from terrorism will make the United States a less appealing target. In combating terrorism, as in sports, success requires both a capable offense and a strong defense.

 3. Getting better control over America's borders is essential to making us safer.

Our borders will never serve as a meaningful line of defense against terrorism. The inspectors at our ports, border crossings and airports have important roles when it comes to managing immigration and the flow of commerce, but they play only a bit part in stopping would-be attackers. This is because terrorist threats do not originate at our land borders with Mexico and Canada, nor along our 12,000 miles of coastline. They originate at home as well as abroad, and they exploit global networks such as the transportation system that moved 500 million cargo containers through the world's ports in 2008. Moreover, terrorists' travel documents are often in perfect order. This was the case with Abdulmutallab, as well as with shoe-bomber Richard Reid in 2001. Complaints about porous borders may play well politically, but they distract us from the more challenging task of forging international cooperation to strengthen safeguards for our global transportation, travel and financial systems. They also sidestep the disturbing fact that the number of terrorism-related cases involving U.S. residents reached a new high in 2009.

4. Investing in new technology is key to better security.

Not necessarily. Technology can be helpful, but too often it ends up being part of the problem. Placing too much reliance on sophisticated tools such as X-ray machines often leaves the people staffing our front lines consumed with monitoring and troubleshooting these systems. Consequently, they become more caught up in process than outcomes. And as soon procedures become routine, a determined bad guy can game them. We would do well to heed two lessons the U.S. military has learned from combating insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan: First, don't do things in rote and predictable ways, and second, don't alienate the people you are trying to protect. Too much of what is promoted as homeland security disregards these lessons. It is true that technology such as full-body imaging machines, which have received so much attention in the past week, are far more effective than metal detectors at screening airline passengers. But new technologies are also expensive, and they are no substitute for well-trained professionals who are empowered and rewarded for exercising good judgment.

5. Average citizens aren't an effective bulwark against terrorist attacks.

Elite pundits and policymakers routinely dismiss the ability of ordinary people to respond effectively when they are in harm's way. It's ironic that this misconception has animated much of the government's approach to homeland security since Sept. 11, 2001, given that the only successful counterterrorist action that day came from the passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93. These passengers didn't have the help of federal air marshals. The Defense Department's North American Aerospace Defense Command didn't intercept the plane—it didn't even know the airliner had been hijacked. But by charging the cockpit over rural Pennsylvania, these private citizens prevented al-Qaeda terrorists from reaching their likely target of the U.S. Capitol or the White House. The government leaders whose constitutional duty is "to provide for the common defense" were defended by one thing alone—an alert and heroic citizenry.

This misconception is particularly reckless because it ends up sidelining the greatest asset we have for managing the terrorism threat: the average people who are best positioned to detect and respond to terrorist activities. We have only to look to the attempted Christmas Day attack to validate this truth. Once again it was the government that fell short, not ordinary people. A concerned Nigerian father, not the CIA or the National Security Agency, came forward with crucial information. And the courageous actions of the Dutch film director Jasper Schuringa and other passengers and crew members aboard Flight 253 thwarted the attack.

 Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

A  "lesson in aerodynamics" might be of interest as painting- hopefully- a useful "picture" of the period from  shortly before the September 11, 2001 8th hour, 46th minute, 40th second impact of American Airlines Flight 11, on through the remainder of the day as initial reaction and response took place, and on into the  12th as intial world level response was planned. 

Boundary conditions – the set of conditions specified for the behavior of the solution to a set of differential equations at the boundary of its domain – are important in determining the mathematical solutions to many physical problems.

  More specifically, concerning flight, the condition is noted as the boundary layer – the layer of reduced velocity in fluids, such as air and water, that is immediately adjacent to the surface of a solid – the wing – past which the fluid is flowing.  Truth is the air moving at different speeds around the upper and lower surface of the airfoil, thereby creating lift, rides not on the wing itself but rather on the boundary layer. Friction generated with the surface by the air's movement creates the slower moving  layer with the air  not only riding but additionally holding the layer to the surface. 

 If the angle of incidence of the airfoil in relation to airflow is increased, whether  initiated by the pilot or by impact of turbulent air, the layer flow can slow to the point of turbulence  ( loss of laminar flow)  and in this disruption,  the flowing air can no longer stay attached to the layer/airfoil, drag over comes lift and the wing is no longer in stable positive flight – not flying it stalls.

Characterized and understood by most under the context "lack of imagination," the 9-11 attack was planned, enabled and occured  successfully because the initial conditions – the boundary conditions –  that existed on 11 Sept were ideal for the al Qaeda attackers. They were those of the Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) as strategy, and what do do with the supposed peace dividend  as the only global suoper-power. Not appropriately factored in were events such as the Khobar Towers attack, the first WTC bombing, or bombing of USS Cole, nor the emergence of non-state, religous and ethnic  players suddenly attempting to control their own destiny in the wake of the USSR's demise and demise of acceptance of the state boundaries imposed at the end of WWI.  The conditions "of war" were metaphorically laminar for both American Flight 11's high speed attack on the World Trade Center and for al Qaeda.  A new set of boundary conditions with a great deal of turbulent flow in the layers around any future activity now existed. The fact that "what kind of war" has never been adequately addressed is evidence that "new norm" indicates only partlial recognition of  the flight environment for the ship of state.

Further, not recognized even as clearly, the initial 11 and 12 September plus later responses -

[the attack against the Taliban, invasion of Iraq, the Global War on Terrorism, the implementation of population-centric COIN tactics – and continued dithering (evidence offered in this series) on everything about "the war on terrorism" from its name to what do to with prisoner enemy combatants, to how to fight, where to fight, who or what to fight with, who gets to know what,  to how much money goes to each city or state to how to keep explosives off of airplanes] -

are direct result of operating with the wrong or at least insufficiently defined and understood boundary conditions. With the Cold War mind set prevailing to enable  the attack, the WWII, big war (tanks, fighter jets, war by technology) mind set defined the boundary layers of our planning for response.  All did what they know.  Initial Spec Ops with horses and B-52s with precision bombs, and the run up the Tigris and Euphrates by Marine and Army forces worked well.  Since then our metaphorical wing-of-war has seen more of the air flow shown at the end of the graphic than the beginning. Indeed not all airfoils are usable in all types of flight conditions.

Since Sept 11, 2001 the airfoil of our ship of state continues flight in turbulence – mostly resulting from trying to make the plans of another time and place meet a changed and ever changing 21st century circumstance.  As stated in daVinci's Horse #5 and in the lead article in this series by Dr. vob Lubitz, we persist in doing what we know, rather than taking the apparently difficult path leading to  knowing what we should do. Unstable air, unstable flight, indeed.

Rectifying the current situation – beginning by answering the question: "what kind of war is it?" – cannot be based on what we would like it to be considering our current defense posture, planning,  and investment, nor can it be built on urban legend or myth.  Retired Coast Guard Commander and recently selected president of the Center for National Policy, Dr. Stephen Flynn  elaborated on this subject  in the Washington Post on  Sunday January 3, 2010.  5 Myths about keeping America safe from terrorrism:

With President Obama declaring a "systemic failure" of our security system in the wake of the attempted Christmas bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner, familiar arguments about what can and should be done to reduce America's vulnerabilities are again filling the airwaves, editorial pages and blogosphere. Several of these arguments are based on assumptions that guided the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks—and unfortunately, they are as unfounded now as they were then. The biggest whopper of all? The paternalistic assertion that the government can keep us all safe without our help

The graphic "Boundary Layer Separation" is from Computational Fluid Dynamics and Visualization

Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

Fooling ourselves into thinking that terrorism is a just a criminal problem best handled by halfhearted security measures and civilian courts that rely on a "reasonable-doubt" standard is both naive and dangerous. 

Bob Brooks is the Sheriff of Ventura County California. He has a Master of Arts in Security Studies (Homeland Defense and Security) from the Naval Postgraduate School.  An excerpt of his Masters' thesis Creating a Coordinated Game Plan: Improving the Effectiveness of Miliary Civil Support to Law Enforcement appeared in Edition #6 of this website. He has served as a Project White Horse 084640 advisor since first publication.

This article was originally published by the Ventura County Star on Wednesday Jan 6, 2010 and is presented with permission of the author.

Civilian Courts no place for terrorists - Sunday morning, I listened to the president's top counterterrorism adviser say that there was no "smoking gun" that could have prevented the attempted mass murder of airline passengers approaching Detroit on Christmas Day.

As a member of the executive committee of the Los Angeles Joint Terrorism Task Force, it is troubling to believe that specific information available on this terrorist was not enough to generate a response that would have prevented him from conducting an attack on our shores.

The adviser, White House aide John Brennan, went on to defend the decision to prosecute Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a common criminal protected by all the rights granted to a citizen of the United States, saying that prosecutors may be able to use our system to make a deal for him to disclose information about other threats.

Abdulmutallab stated that there were other terrorists coming with similar intent, before his taxpayer-funded attorney prohibited him from making further statements.

If Abdulmutallab was right, can we afford to wait weeks or months before finding out if there is an imminent threat? If he was willing to die for his cause, will a plea-bargain agreement convince him to divulge al-Qaida's plans? How many potential terrorist recruits will be influenced by this trial being played out on a world stage?

This is a continuation of a shocking trend toward treating a war as a law-enforcement problem. Changing the political terminology does not change the reality. Clearly, this terrorist is a soldier of an extreme ideology that intends to destroy the West and, therefore, he should have been dealt with as an enemy combatant. We must acknowledge that our enemies do not have to be nation-states, or we will enable our enemies and handicap those charged to protect us.

Later Sunday, the Transportation Security Administration announced that individuals flying to the United States from one of the 14 countries we recognize as state sponsors of terrorism will be subjected to additional screening measures.

While this policy, in addition to the use of full-body scan technology, are good ideas, why did it take this attack to implement these common-sense measures? Unfortunately, most of our security screening is directed at stopping certain items from being taken on planes, while a trained terrorist can make a weapon out of a wide variety of materials that can make it through screening.

In contrast, Israel's state-run airline has an outstanding record for passenger safety. It relies on the far more successful approach of looking for terrorists rather than a four-ounce shampoo bottle or nail clippers.

Israel's security personnel do pay attention to country of origin, but they also gather additional passenger information and rely on careful questioning of individuals to determine whether they display a combination of characteristics consistent with someone who may pose a threat. I have been subjected to the process several times and found it to be respectful and reassuring.

If we are really serious about protecting our skies and our communities, we need to acknowledge that we are at war with a serious and determined enemy and that this conflict may continue for decades.

Fooling ourselves into thinking that terrorism is a just a criminal problem best handled by halfhearted security measures and civilian courts that rely on a "reasonable-doubt" standard is both naive and dangerous.

Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

 "At this stage, the drug cartels are using basic infantry weaponry to counter government forces," a U.S. government official in Mexico said.  "Encountering criminals with this kind of weaponry is a horse of a different color," the official said. "It's not your typical patrol stop, where someone pulls a gun. This has all the makings of an infantry squad, or guerrilla fighting."

[From INTERSECTIONS II (Scenarios for Training to the Ace Level) – 4. The 'Cat 5? Next Door: Drug Cartels' New Weaponry Means War describing the on-going drug based vilolence in Mexico. ] 

 In "What Kind of War Is It," EEI#15, it was offered for consideration  four broad types of user/method 4GW operations that include mixes of terrorism, insurgency, small unit tactics, media warfare, and cyber warfare.  These methods can be characterized as manifesting themselves as follows:

1) war-within-war to include counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism (Iraq, Afghanistan)

2) expeditionary attacks (Mombai, World TradeCenter/Pentagon)

3) lone wolf attacks (murders at Ft Hood)

4) adaptation of 4GW concepts and methods by criminal elements and gangs (Mexico's drug war). 

As a continuation of "essential elements of information for a culture of preparedness," and several previous posts under EEI on the impact of current high level government decisions on  how we fight in future conflict, the following three articles/links discuss the over-here aspects of continuing war, warfare, violence in the context of fourth generation warfare (4GW).  Discussion of counter operations then continues on the INTERSECTION pages: III. Crime and Fourth Generation Warfare- A really bad Intersection.

On War #323 Milestones by Bill Lind

Excerpt: One of the ongoing themes of this column has been gangs and the role they play in a Fourth Generation world. Here in the United States they already serve as an alternative primary loyalty (alternative to the state) for many urban young men. Gangs will likely be a major player in 4GW because gang members are expected to fight. Those who won't do not remain gang members.

The November 15 Washington Post had a story about gangs in Salinas, California, that deserves close attention from 4GW theorists. ... what is interesting in the Post's article is not the gangs themselves. It is a new response to the gangs. Salinas has brought in the U.S. military to apply counter-insurgency doctrine to a situation on American soil.

Border Zones and Insecurity in the Americas by John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus

Excerpt: Border zones are incubators of criminal instability and violence. Weak state presence and the lucrative drugs trade is combining to challenge state sovereignty in acute ways. Consider Mexico, where the northern frontier with the US and southern border with Guatemala are contested zones. The bloody center of gravity of Mexico's drug cartels is the 'plazas', the drug smuggling corridors that link the borders….While some have fretted that these zones could harbor jihadi terrorists, the real danger lies in the violence produced by bloody competition over these lucrative areas and the spread of criminal reach and power throughout the state and across frontiers.

The 'Lone Wolf Problem' poses security challenges for feds - Dallas Morning News

Excerpt: What made the Fort Hood case so hard to prevent, Zarate said, "was that Maj. Hasan allegedly acted alone, in lone wolf fashion, and may have used his medical research to mask his own inner turmoil and attraction to a violent ideology."...  It is impossible for the government to identify and, if necessary, take pre-emptive action on every person who espouses violence – to separate the wheat from the chaff.

"In many ways, the lone wolf insider threat is the most challenging and difficult of problems for the counterterrorism and law enforcement communities," said Juan Zarate, former deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism for President George W. Bush.

Please continue further: III. Crime and Fourth Generation Warfare- A really bad Intersection.

 Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

This site has stated that it is neither a military/warfare specific -oriented or focused site nor is discussion of war and warfare  its main operational theme.  Rather, the focus is decision making in severe crisis and disaster environments with issues of leadership as obvious necessary elements. So what then is the context for asking "so, what kind of war is it?" And how important are the words of war?

Consider the following:

• The 9-11 planners are to be tried in a civil court in New York City. What exactly is their legal classification – criminals, enemy combatants, terrorists, radical jihadist? Is this similar to the WWII Nuremberg trials?


• 
  
  Since 9/11, authorities in the United States have uncovered nearly 30 terrorist plots involving "homegrown terrorists." This total includes plots to carry out attacks in the United States abroad, as well as support for foreign terrorist organizations. Although not all of the plots, if undiscovered, are likely to have resulted in successful attacks, very little separates the ambitions of jihadist wannabes from a deadly terrorist assault. The essential ingredient is intent. Domestic intelligence collection remains a necessary and critical component of homeland security.


• 
  
  Is the killing spree at Fort Hood an act of terrorism?  Is Major Hassan a terrorist?


• 
  
  Is what we're doing in Afghanistan overseas contingency operations, counter-insurgency (COIN), counter terrorism, nation building, fourth generation warfare, what? Why does this matter?


• 
  
  Are we in a global war on terrorrism, a hybrid war, an irregular war, a guerrilla war, an asymmetric war?  Or is it just "war" as Clausewittz  defined it based on Napoleonic times ingrained with an inherrent element of constant change?

 So, what kind of war is this, is it even a war in the sense that we recognize the process from past wars of movement  from peace to confrontation to violent conflict of armies, to negotiation and then back to peace again?

Let's begin with all four of the elements which have been previously stated as major contributors to crisis and disaster potential:

• Natural Disasters


• Globalized Economy


• Internet Communications


• Non-state Warfare

 These elements by in large make up what Dag von Lubitz described in the beginning of DaVinci's Horse #5, as a world of "tightly coupled systems in unstable equilibrium" in which we attempt to survive and prosper.  Each element in its own sphere is capable of manifesting a severe dark side (Katrina, current world wide banking/monetary crisis, day-day Internet threats and viruses, the 9-11 attacks), but if we consider all aspects of the day-day environment as that tightly coupled "system of systems" then that interdependency becomes the source of instability. Further from von Lubitz:

(A) failure of one element induces destructive reverberations within the environment which, unless promptly addressed and eliminated, will have sufficient force to overcome the tenuous ability of the system to resist. As a result, the equilibrium will be lost, and its loss will induce further, exceedingly destructive and potentially irreversible consequences.  Since catastrophes can reach the extinction level (or, more directly, end the existence of humans at best, and at worst terminate all advanced life forms on earth), it is not surprising that in the recent years there has been an explosion of studies devoted to the "rule of calamity" affecting all super complex, tightly coupled systems. From engineers to social scientists, and explorers of crisis, all agree – "catastrophic destructuring" is a built-in property rather than a theory unlikely to become the reality. Catastrophic destructuring, whether manifesting as war or natural disaster displays a very similar pattern of increasing instability, followed by the critical event, then resolution in form of either diminishing tensions or recovery.

 The increasingly tight coupling of modern world is mirrored by the exponential raise in the frequency of disasters related to human activity. Significantly, the incidence rate of catastrophic events escalated dramatically in the 80's, i.e., at the same time the continuously fragile and easily disrupted computer technologies (IT/telecommunications) started to play the ever-dominant role as facilitating and controlling tools in business, politics, transportation, industry, etc.

 The issue is by no means trivial. Repercussions of major disasters have increasingly global range, and what happens in the US can and often will have a major impact on EU, China, or Africa. Equally, distant events may have an indirect but still forceful influence on vital US interests at home and overseas.

 Reverberations within tightly coupled and largely stochastic systems spread in often highly unpredictable even erratic patterns that are hard to predict, and with a constantly changing force. While the current preoccupation with global terrorism dominates newspaper front pages, TV news, and academic activities, the economical and social consequences of natural disasters are not less worrying, and may have far more substantial repercussions.

 … and for that matter, all crises and conflicts, are complex stochastic events where chains of interactions are unpredictable, and where consequences often lead to secondary disasters associated with their own, typically unexpected and sudden, consequences. In words of an insurance TV commercial "Life comes at you fast," and unless the response is equally fast and correct, life may actually annihilate you. To be prepared is simply not enough. Yet, because responders are conditioned to act that way, most do what they know INSTEAD OF KNOWING WHAT THEY SHOULD BE DOING.

 Knowing what one SHOULD be doing under conditions of extreme stress induced by events unfolding with total unpredictability constitutes the state of READINESS. It is the state that is completely different from preparedness. Unfortunately readiness and preparedness are used synonymously, and, therefore, while an enthusiastic declaration "WE ARE READY" is made, in reality we are merely PREPARED. When the unexpected happens, the lack of readiness amplifies the magnitude of the disaster – again Hurricane Katrina.

 Contrary to preparedness which is largely the function of administrative approach and solutions to foreseeable problems, readiness depends predominantly on the mental state of the actor. Hence, it can be taught. (emphasis added)

 Development of readiness is the result of intensive training in which the trainee is exposed to increasingly more complex tasks that are presented unpredictably, and often in logically confusing combinations. Together with task complexity its intensity is also gradually elevated, and so is the number of either simultaneous or near simultaneous events that need to be addressed. Some events are critical, while others merely appear to be so, and vice versa. The trainee (or a group of trainees) is expected to select appropriate actions, appropriate sequence(s) of actions, and appropriate targets for these actions, while coping with sensorial and cognitive information overloads typical of crisis and disaster environments. Time is always a critical factor, and so is communication.

 The effect? It was because of such training that the passengers and crew walked away from the aircraft ditched in Hudson River. Had the crew been merely prepared, the aircraft would have crashed either during ditching maneuver, or worse, into the populated part of New York.

Here for this post and the following series, we branch from leadership needs into one specific aspect offered as what needs to be learned.  In particular we look at the non-state war and warfare element as it exists today – as compared to September 10, 2001 – and what that implies about surviving in the noted environment of  unstable equilibrium .   This post then is intended to begin discussion on  what kind of war is it as  necessarily an  "essential element of information for a culture of preparedness." And thus we desire to leverage the "knowing what they should be doing" idea.

Note that PWH has referenced Alvin Toffler's quote often that "the illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who can neither read nor write, but rather those who cannot/will not learn, unlearn, relearn.  What needs to be unlearned, is that our survival in severe crisis is mostly dependent on arrival and performance of a government first responder cavalry.  What must be relearned is the resilient community attitude of our frontier fathers, and at least one thing we need to learn is how the changing face of war in this century impacts our day-day highly coupled world in the condition of unstable equilibrium.

A series of "what kind of war" is planned. The series of articles anticipated should address at minimum:

•  Why the "kind of war" hasn't already been defined for us, since after all, it has been some time since September 11^th 2001.


• What elements must be consolidated within a definition


• What the definition "of kind" must incorporate or at least consider

 As a starting point consider that events since Sept 11, 2001 would seem to dictate that we must at least include in discussion the following:

1. War-within-war to include counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism (Iraq, Afghanistan)


2. Expeditionary attacks (Mombai, World TradeCenter/Pentagon)


3. Lone wolf attacks (murders at Ft Hood)


4. Legal definitions and processes where criminal events and warfare style merge beyond historical precedent and understanding


5. Adaptation of 4GW concepts and methods by criminal elements and gangs (Mexico's drug war)

 References and recommended other reading:

Books

1. The Utility of Force; The Art of War in the Modern World, by General Rupert Smith


2. The Sling and the Stone; On War in the 21^st Century, by Col T.X. Mammes (USMC. RET) 


3. Accidental Guerrilla; Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One, by David Kilcullen


4.  Brave New War; The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization, by John Robb 


5.  War Made New; Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History- 1500 to Today, by Max Boot 


6.  Another Bloody Century; Future Warfare by Colin S. Gray 


7.  The Transformation of War, by Martin Van Creveld 


8.  If We Can Keep It; A National Security Manifesto for the Next Administration by Chet Richards 

Articles

• Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars, Frank G. Hoffman


• The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation, by William S. Lind, Keith Nightengale, John F. Schmitt, Joseph W. Sutton, and Gary I. Wilson


• Essay: The war of new words; Why military history trumps buzzwords, by William F. Owens 

Add: 25 January: See The Post-COIN Era is Here