by Jakub Grygiel
Hoover Institute
Most political groups in modern history have wanted to build and control a state. Whether movements of self-determination in the 19th century, of decolonization in the post–World War II decades, or political parties advocating separatism in several Western states in the 1990s (e.g., Italy and Quebec) — all aimed at one thing: to have a separate state that they could call their own. The means they employed to achieve this end ranged from terrorism and guerilla warfare to political pressure and electoral campaigns, but the ultimate goal was the same — creation of its own state.
It is the ultimate goal no longer, and it is likely to be even less so in the future. Many of today’s nonstate groups do not aspire to have a state. In fact, they are considerably more capable of achieving their objectives and maintaining their social cohesion without a state apparatus. The state is a burden for them, while statelessness is not only very feasible but also a source of enormous power. Modern technologies allow these groups to organize themselves, seek financing, and plan and implement actions against their targets — almost always other states — without ever establishing a state of their own. They seek power without the responsibility of governing. The result is the opposite of what we came to know over the past two or three centuries: Instead of groups seeking statehood through a variety of means, they now pursue a range of objectives while actively avoiding statehood. Statelessness is no longer eschewed as a source of weakness but embraced as an asset
Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization
by John Robb
The counterterrorism expert John Robb reveals how the same technology that has enabled globalization also allows terrorists and criminals to join forces against larger adversaries with relative ease and to carry out small, inexpensive actions—like sabotaging an oil pipeline—that generate a huge return. He shows how combating the shutdown of the world’s oil, high-tech, and financial markets could cost us the thing we’ve come to value the most—worldwide economic and cultural integration—and what we must do now to safeguard against this new method of warfare.
Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy
by Robert Neuwirth
• Thousands of Africans head to China each year to buy cell phones, auto parts, and other products that they will import to their home countries through a clandestine global back channel.
• Hundreds of Paraguayan merchants smuggle computers, electronics, and clothing across the border to Brazil.
• Scores of laid-off San Franciscans, working without any licenses, use Twitter to sell home-cooked foods.
• Dozens of major multinationals sell products through unregistered kiosks and street vendors around the world.
When we think of the informal economy, we tend to think of crime: prostitution, gun running, drug trafficking. Stealth of Nations opens up this underground realm, showing how the worldwide informal economy deals mostly in legal products and is, in fact, a ten-trillion-dollar industry, making it the second-largest economy in the world, after that of the United States.
Having penetrated this closed world and persuaded its inhabitants to open up to him, Robert Neuwirth makes clear that this informal method of transaction dates back as far as humans have existed and traded, that it provides essential services and crucial employment that fill the gaps in formal systems, and that this unregulated market works smoothly and effectively, with its own codes and unwritten rules.
Combining a vivid travelogue with a firm grasp on global economic strategy—along with a healthy dose of irreverence and skepticism toward conventional
Comments
I'm quite sure that today's world does <i>not</i> allow old norms and ideas to be challenged any more effectively than in the relatively recent past. That is due mostly to today's imposed -- often self imposed -- variations of nothing more than tired political correctness.
The world is not becoming more complex. We simply communicate more rapidly, efficiently -- and promiscuously. That last is a bow to the partial stories, ignorance and half baked ideas that can flash around the worlds spreading confusion in seconds.
Those mouse builders deserve no attention.
Shorter version: Dayuhan is correct, above and below. American 'thinkers' who believe they understand the cultures of others are a large part of our recent and current problems...
Fair questions, and I'm not prepared to answer them definitively. I am at the point where I think there has been a substantial change that has been enabled by technology, and substantial changes in society and politics are often not clearly visible until years later. The advent of printing press changed the world by enabling the spread of ideas. I think an argument can be made that radio and then T.V. changed society based on their access to select information. For example, T.V. was responsible for standardizing the Italian language (there are still dialects), enabling Italians over time to be able to effectively communicate with each other regardless of what province they hailed from. I can't help but think (but again I can't answer your questions off the cuff) that web 2.0 technology that enables people to interact in real time globally, to include sharing files, videos, photos, etc. doesn't enable social changes that previously were not possible, or happened at a slower pace.
You may have read McMafia and Illicit, and in those books the authors make compelling arguments about the impact of our new global finance system, where we can move money globally in a matter of seconds, and how this among other changes due to the "new" aspects of globalization have enabled a huge illicit economy, and its side effects.
On the other hand, the communists were effectively agitating globally in the 1920s without modern technology. There were revolutions throughout the world that were supported in varying degrees by various foreigners (non-state and state), and so forth, so it is challenging to clarify exactly what is new. Perhaps after exploring this further I'll retract my second sentence, but for now I suspect the changes are substantial. More to follow, back to my thinking box.
Is it true that today's world "allows old norms and ideas to be challenged more effectively than in the relatively recent past"? I'm not sure that it is. It's said so often that it's become accepted without question (like the equally questionable mantra that "the world is becoming more complex"), but it remains a largely speculative contention.
After WW2 there was a sweeping global challenge to the old order of colonialism. It was successful. That gradually shifted to a global challenge against post-colonial and neocolonial dictatorships, often loosely connected by a socialist or communist ideology that managed to push its way into the historical high ground of supporting change and challenge. That had qualified success: the ideology did not prevail, but the dictators are for the most part gone. Concurrently we saw the emergence of global non-state issue-based movements aimed at changing "the old order" of environmental policy, human rights policy, etc. All of these movements emerged and had real impact long before the supposedly game-changing technologies emerged.
Are today's challenges to the old order better organized, more influential, more effective? I see no hard evidence supporting such an assumption. Certainly there are new tools and they will be used, but I see no cataclysmic change. If anything I suspect the global challenge to old norms that peaked in the 60s and 70s was more comprehensive and more effective.
I realize that there's money to be made in postulating a dramatic shift, slapping some buzzwords on it, and selling analyses and "solutions". If you can't make a better mousetrap, convince people that a better mouse is coming over the horizon and sell them a trap for it. I can't blame those who take that route - it's long been known as an effective career-builder - but I'm not going to pay them much attention.
Putting the title of the blog post a side, the referenced books do provide some insight into the limits of the State throughout history, but now more than ever the role of the State due to globalism and technology is changing. Our Cold War view of the world focused on containing hostile states, which not only included the potential for high end symmetrical warfare, but also containing or supporting irregular actors such as insurgents, rebels, etc. because they were considered to be in one camp or the other in a bi-polar world. That view was wrong then, and it is definitely wrong today. The increase of the social consciousness trend is due to information transparency and technology, and it allows identity groups to form in cyberspace, thus they are not constrained by geographical boundaries, and in some regards you can stretch the imagination to view them as nations without borders, or nations within States. I think arguments can be made this is not a new trend, but a trend that is greatly empowered by information transparency, technology and globalization. This allows old norms and ideas to be challenged more effectively than in the relatively recent past. These groups can support political, religious, environmental, ethnic, economic and assorted other issues that can serve as rallying points. Beyond movements forming that seek change, other groups form and interact in ways that create parallel economies that intentionally or not weaken the State. These parallel economies to facilitate their needs when the state based economy fails to do so. The rapid expansion of the parallel economy in size and supplies/services (organs, weapons, basic necessities, knowledge, etc.) does create the conditions for what John Robb calls an open source insurgency, but this is new global market is hardly limited to supporting insurgents, it can support a wide range of state and non-state actors.
Once we actually understand what is changing, whether a brand new trend, or an accelerating trend, we can begin to access the shortfalls in our legacy Cold War doctrine, which is what FM 3-24 and other FMs still largely represent.