Feral Jundi

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Building Snowmobiles: Franklin ‘Chuck’ Spinney Talks about Afghanistan

Filed under: Afghanistan,Building Snowmobiles — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 2:40 AM

   This was an interesting article, because Chuck was analyzing the situation much like Boyd would have.  And of course Chuck is a member of Boyd’s Acolytes, so I thought this to be certainly befitting of this category.  Enjoy. –Matt

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Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee

The Taliban Rope-a-Dope

By FRANKLIN SPINNEY

July 14, 2009

On July 7, the Times [UK] carried a remarkable report describing the trials and tribulations of the Welsh Guards, who are now engaged in the ongoing offensive against the Taliban in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. It described in riveting detail how accumulating mental and physical stress are grinding down the bodies and minds of what are clearly highly-motivated, well-trained, and competently-led troops. My aim is to elaborate on the Times report by examining its information from a different perspective. My hope is that this will provide a better appreciation of the Taliban’s game.

With the exception of the last sentence in the penultimate paragraph (i.e., “The Taliban fight not to win but to outlast”), which is silly, the Times provides a graphic description of the pressures on the individual British soldiers, and it is an excellent window into the effects of the Taliban’s military art. The information suggests the Taliban’s strategic aim is to wear down their adversaries by keeping them under continual strain and by working on their psychology, or as the late American strategist John Boyd would say, by getting inside, slowing down, and disorienting their adversary’s Observation – Orientation – Decision – Action (OODA) loops. Moreover, the Taliban’s operational art seems particularly focused on the mental and moral levels of conflict. Outlasting, by running away to fight another day whenever faced with superior forces, is a central part of any winning strategy directed toward achieving this aim. (Interested readers can find a brief introduction to OODA loops in the last section of my remembrance of Boyd in the Proceedings of the Naval Institute, Genghis John.

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Friday, July 3, 2009

Building Snowmobiles: In Search of Innovation

Filed under: Building Snowmobiles — Tags: , , — Matt @ 7:50 AM

   I read this article and instantly thought that this belonged in the building snowmobiles category.  Innovation is such an important aspect of a company’s future and welfare, and that includes our industry.  So for those in the companies looking for some inspiration on how to get there, here you go.  Enjoy. –Matt

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In Search of Innovation

JUNE 22, 2009

When companies try to come up with new ideas, they too often look only where they always look. That won’t get them anywhere.

By JOHN BESSANT, KATHRIN MöSLEIN And BETTINA VON STAMM

If you want to understand why some companies lack innovative ideas, think about the man who can’t find his car keys.

His friend asks him why he’s looking for the keys under the lamppost when he dropped them over on the lawn. “Because there’s more light over here,” the man explains.

For too many companies, that describes their search for new ideas, and it pretty much guarantees they won’t go anywhere fast. While such a company can marginally improve what it’s already good at, it misses out on the breakthroughs—those eureka moments when a new concept pops up, as if from nowhere, and changes a company’s fortunes forever.

Those ideas, however, don’t really come from nowhere. Instead, they are typically at the edge of a company’s radar screen, and sometimes a bit beyond: trends in peripheral industries, unserved needs in foreign markets, activities that aren’t part of the company’s core business. To be truly innovative, companies sometimes have to change their frames of reference, extend their search space. New ways of thinking and organization can be required as well.

In other words, they have to look away from the lamppost.

None of this is easy to do. But companies that succeed may just recognize the next great opportunity, or looming threat, before their competitors do. And that’s important in tumultuous economic times with rapidly changing technologies. Indeed, every once in a while, that blip on the horizon turns out to be a tsunami.

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Friday, June 19, 2009

Building Snowmobiles: Turning The Taliban–The Selous Scout Way

Filed under: Afghanistan,Building Snowmobiles — Tags: , , , , , — Matt @ 10:23 AM

   “It was simple and direct. He [the terrorist] had the option of being handed over to the police, after which he would be prosecuted for … offenses related to terrorism. If found guilty he would be hanged. He could, however, change sides and work with the security forces against his former comrades. After a short period of intensive contemplation, the capture elected to change sides. He was immediately given back his weapon, but unknown to him, its firing pin had been removed. The fact that he had been given a weapon astonished … him. [I]t was a shrewdly calculated move designed to sow the seeds of trust. A pseudo group always had to make a hard decision … quickly. Could they trust the ex-insurgent or not? The answer to that question…demanded a considerable amount of moral courage on the part of the team. It meant … placing their lives in the hands of a former enemy whom, having turned once, might very well turn again, and kill and betray them.” -Retired Lt. Col. Ron Reid-Daly, a former commander of the Selous Scouts and author of “Pamwe Chete: The Legend of the Selous Scouts,” on capturing and turning the enemy.

   This is totally building snowmobiles, because this activity totally goes against our current mindset in the war.  I found these two stories, because they both complement each other, regardless of the fact that they were written for two different aspects of the war.  The first story is from Strategy Page, and actually talks about turning Taleban who no longer want to fight for the other side.  Except the turning strategy is not going far enough in my opinion.  We could go further, but it would require some guts and some strong leaders to manage the process.  But he who dares, wins… right?

   The second story is about the Selous Scouts method for turning enemy combatants, and using them in the war they were fighting.  The author was trying to apply the ideas to Iraq in the early days, but to me, it has equal application to what we are doing in Afghanistan.  The quote up top is classic.  Let me know what you guys think and Pamwe Chete! –Matt

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Foreigners Fighting Foreigners

June 19, 2009

Strategy Page

While the Taliban have been successful with their human shield tactics, they have done so at great cost to the popularity of the Islamic radical group. The Taliban were never noted for their desire to be popular. These guys are on a mission from God, and earthly trifles do not concern them. While the frequent use of human shields has spared the Taliban some casualties, and sometimes made it easier to escape death or capture (mainly because the propaganda value of dead civilians has caused the rules of engagement for foreign troops to become more restrictive), the practice has increased Afghan hostility to the Taliban. This means that the Taliban increasingly find themselves operating in a hostile environment as they move through Afghanistan. This is made worse by the fact that many Taliban units are often half, or more, composed of foreigners. Many of these are Pakistanis, who at least look like Afghans (and only betray themselves when they speak, and reveal a foreign accent). But a growing number of foreigners are Arabs, who are generally disliked throughout Pakistan. This is because many Arabs look down on Afghans, and often do not try to hide this disdain.

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Friday, June 5, 2009

Building Snowmobiles: The Attack By Fire and the Super-empowered Individual

Filed under: Building Snowmobiles,Crime,Disaster Response,Law Enforcement,Tactical Thought Process — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 12:58 PM

“It’s a schemer who put you where you are. You were a schemer. You had plans. Look where it got you. I just did what I do best-I took your plan and turned it on itself. Look what I have done to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple bullets. Nobody panics when the expected people get killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will get blown up, nobody panics. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It’s fair. “-The Joker, from the movie Dark Knight

     This is a building snowmobiles post for the simple reason that no one else is covering this arsonist story or fire in this way (minus maybe War Nerd), or really getting into the concepts of the ‘attack by fire’.  Oyler, the arsonist, is the ultimate definition of the super-empowered individual, and truly symbolizes a modern day Joker.  Fortunately, he will be meeting the same fate as that character.

   Now of course I will not give a DIY class about using the attack by fire, but I do want to give a hint to the reader that this is stuff we need to be thinking about.  Lets just say it should be in your toolbox of ideas, so you know how to defend against it. But according to the Geneva Convention, fire as an offensive weapon has been ruled out, hence why flame throwers are not used anymore. (I posted the protocol below)  But if you read through it, it lists everything a terrorist or an insurgent wouldn’t mind doing to achieve a goal.  So learning how to defend against it, is key.

     But back to the attack by fire and the super-empowered individual.  What Oyler did, is exactly what arsonists do, and that is get off on lighting fires.  He had been perfecting his technique all summer in 2006, and the Esperanza Fire was his so called ‘masterpiece of chaos’.  So what can we learn from this tragic event? I will attempt to answer that question, both from a smokejumper/forest fire fighter position, and from a security professional position, and also delve into the attack by fire from a warfighter and strategist point of view.  

     As a smokejumper, I fought many forest fires throughout the west.  We would fight the small fires, and we would fight the big fires, it didn’t matter.  We would fight naturally started fires(lightening started) and we would fight man made fires (trash fires, thrown cigarettes, etc.).  But the most disheartening and frightening fires, are the ones set by arsonists.  Especially arsonists that know what they are doing.

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Thursday, May 7, 2009

Publications: Destruction and Creation, by John R. Boyd

Filed under: Building Snowmobiles,Publications — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Matt @ 9:27 PM

    This paper rocks, and as you can see, is the basis for a lot of the ideas I talk about here on FJ.  From my social networking ideas, to shared reality, to leadership, to being a better contractor and person, to current military and business strategy.  It is pure Jundism and I highly recommend reading through it several times to grasp the concepts. If you want a foundation for the concept of OODA, then reading this is a must. Check out the influence of these ideas on warfare here, and I recommend expanding out to other sites that discuss these ideas for further learning and research. –Matt 

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From Wikipedia

Boyd never wrote a book on military strategy. The central works encompassing his theories on warfare consist of a several hundred slide presentation entitled Discourse on Winning & Losing and a short essay entitled Destruction & Creation (1976).

In Destruction & Creation, Boyd attempts to provide a philosophical foundation for his theories on warfare. In it he integrates Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics to provide a context and rationale for the development of the OODA Loop.

Boyd inferred the following from each of these theories:

    * Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem: any logical model of reality is incomplete (and possibly inconsistent) and must be continuously refined/adapted in the face of new observations.

    * Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle: there is a limit on our ability to observe reality with accuracy.

    * Second Law of Thermodynamics: The entropy of any closed system always tends to increase, and thus the nature of any given system is continuously changing even as efforts are directed toward maintaining it in its original form.

From this set of considerations, Boyd concluded that to maintain an accurate or effective grasp of reality one must undergo a continuous cycle of interaction with the environment geared to assessing its constant changes. Boyd, though he was hardly the first to do so, then expanded Darwin’s theory of evolution, suggesting that natural selection applies not only in biological but also in social contexts (such as the survival of nations during war or businesses in free market competition). Integrating these two concepts, he stated that the decision cycle was the central mechanism of adaptation (in a social context) and that increasing one’s own rate and accuracy of assessment vis-a-vis one’s counterpart’s rate and accuracy of assessment provides a substantial advantage in war or other forms of competition.

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DESTRUCTION AND CREATION

By John R. Boyd

September 3, 1976

To comprehend and cope with our environment we develop mental patterns or concepts of meaning. The purpose of this paper is to sketch out how we destroy and create these patterns to permit us to both shape and be shaped by a changing environment. In this sense, the discussion also literally shows why we cannot avoid this kind of activity if we intend to survive on our own terms. The activity is dialectic in nature generating both disorder and order that emerges as a changing and expanding universe of mental concepts matched to a changing and expanding universe of observed reality.

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