Gordian Knot
This section constitutes the Alexandrian Defense Group's flagship academic area wherein sophisticated and disciplined learning is engaged with the complexities of discerning the dark heart or corner of violent politics where both terrorism and insurgency find their life. Accordingly, rational necessity demands that cultures, ideas and that dearest of all human needs, faith, are carefully and objectively examined. For, if one is to counter an insurgency or a global terrorist conception, such as Al Qaeda, one needs to recognize, at foundational levels, what it is that one is dealing with; this can only be accomplished through the most rigorous study and analysis. In the past, governmental attempts to 'short-cut' in this critical area have always come to grief as insurgent factions rebound and fire up again as a result of an intellectual failure to truly come to grips with what they are. ADG has been most fortunate in having at its disposal several internationally recognized experts who well discern the critical nature of such study, academics such as Dr. Tom Marks and Dr. Mark Moyar, for example. Likewise, this good fortune continues in the fact that Fr. Dennis Dickson brings a most rigorous and disciplined mind, trained at the doctoral level in human psychology, to this prestigious and most necessary section.
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The Book of Mozilla - Hidden Messages in the Operations Process
By Dr. Terry Tucker
It is "historically" common to compare "now" with "then" in the operations process and many of the analogies we use have an irresistible allure.
Criminalizing the Female in Swat (April 7, 2010)
by Khalid Aziz
The research into the causes of growth of militancy in Swat since its merger into NWFP in 1969 has identified a number of factors that were responsible for the breakdown of governance and the loss of control that took three decades to mature before reaching the break down point in June and July of 2009.
Text of Remarks by Prof Kishore Mahbubani at the International business Council of the World Economic Forum in Geneva on 27 August 2010.
Please let me begin by confessing that I face a serious dilemma in my remarks today. The goal of any speaker is to make his audience feel good at the end of his remarks. However, the world that is coming will be a world that will be outside your comfort zones. If I am going to help you prepare for this, I should make you feel uncomfortable when I have finished. I may succeed in this. Hence, to be true to my Asian roots, I will have to apologise to you in advance if I succeed in making you uncomfortable.
Read More ... Free Access [Posted 09 Oct 11]
DSR 2011: Workshop
The Logistics of Perception: Paul Virilio and the Concept of Pure War
by Eric Wilson
Paul Virilio (b.1932) is a recognized architect and urbanist as well as a philosopher, having studied under both Henri Matisse and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Although commonly associated with that which is generically labeled 'post-modernism', Virilio's primary intellectual concern has been with the relationship between strategic doctrine and political economy, yielding a new post-Clausewitzean paradigm that he denotes as Pure War; Virilio is one of [the] few French thinkers to have abandoned the language of philosophy or sociology in favor of…war discourse.
A Soldier of Democracy
Preventing Insurgency through Democracy-Building by Dennis Dickson
You are a soldier of democracy. You belong to a military force for one of the world's 89 functioning democracies.[4] You are male or female, a commissioned or non-commissioned officer, a technical expert or private soldier.
During your training, you were taught to apply military force in the service of your country. You have used weapons under orders for peace-making, peace-keeping; and according to different rules of engagement.
At a personal level, you experienced the profound rewards of your profession. You learned about the passion of combat and the brotherhood of arms. Someone once described American football as chess with an ambulance at the sidelines. Military combat is chess with ambulances and hearses in the rear. Because death is so near, combat generates an adrenaline rush that is like no other. The danger of combat, combined with the comradeship of arms, creates friendships that are like no other. The loss of friends will remain with you always.
Counterinsurgency's Gordian Knot
At a 2006 counterinsurgency conference sponsored by the United States government, David Kilcullen talked effectively about how to improve inter-agency cooperation. His paper was titled "Three Pillars of Counterinsurgency". Of particular interest was his second diagram, labeled "Inter-agency Counterinsurgency Framework", which grouped counterinsurgency agencies into the following three categories or pillars: "Security", "Political" and "Economic".
Security agencies were responsible for "Military", "Police", "Human Security", "Public Safety" and "Population Security".
Political agencies were responsible for "Mobilization", "Governance Extension", "Institutional Capacity" and "Societal Reintegration".
Economic agencies controlled "Humanitarian Assistance", "Development Assistance", "Resource and Infrastructure Management" and "Growth Capacity".
Kilcullen's model should be studied carefully by anyone attempting to understand government counterinsurgency operations. However, as Kilcullen warned, his diagram provides only a rough framework. It is not a rigid template. It provides "an aid to collaboration rather than an operational plan". He also warned that the three pillars must be developed in parallel. Every society is an integrated or holistic undertaking. If there is no balance between the three pillars, the effectiveness and legitimacy of counterinsurgency efforts will be undermined by significant failures in the weakened pillars.
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