As Thomas L. Friedman describes in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, individuals are ‘super-empowered’ by their access to technology and connectivity, allowing them to act and interact globally. This environment gives them access to an open-source marketplace of ideas and the potential of organizing with others who share their attitudes and ideologies. These organizations may expand knowledge, share music and video, debate obscure topics or act on issues that their members feel strongly about, such as the environment, globalization, religion or politics. With this in mind there is the fascinating possibility for these groups to form and act toward a common goal, possibly becoming practitioners of Fifth Generation Warfare in the context of a decentralized organization.
Imagine a Fifth Generation Starfish, engaging in netwar on a global stage. Imagine an organization that through open-source and parallel design methods incrementally manipulates systems and rule-sets, swarming critical nodes and key decision-makers with multiple, self-organizing attacks that shape responses and influence actions by simultaneously eliminating and offering choices.
Ideology and Doctrine:
The glue that holds together the organization is its ideology and its doctrine. It defines why and how the organization acts, uniting it in common purpose and intent. Members are drawn together because they feel strongly about the purpose of the organization and have a vested interest in it. Fifth Generation Warfare doctrine imposes a long-term planning horizon and a strategic outlook, an ideology married to this sort of mindset has the potential to create powerful and lasting change.
Open-Sources and Circles
The basis of the decentralized organization is a networked collection of individuals who organize themselves into circle, cells or groups. Modern connectivity allows these circles to coalesce from like-minded individuals across the globe, pooling the skills insights and resources of people from many different cultures all united by their common ideology. Members may, in fact, belong to one or more circles, shapers of the organization as their individual skills and resources shape their methods.
Parallel Design
The goals of the individual circles in a starfish organization may be the same, defined by the ideology shared by the members of the organization. The doctrine may also be the same, guided by 5GW thinking. However, the actions of individual circles may be very different, especially if the circles use a parallel design model. The various methods explored through parallel design best capitalize on the available skills and resources of each circle. Members who belong to more than one cell may pass along information and knowledge throughout the network, reinforcing the methods that work and cautioning against methods that have proven unreliable or dangerous or just ineffective. Members may also be moved through the network to places where their skills are in need or may be better utilized.
Security
Starfish organizations offer a different sort of active security. This type of decentralized organization does not offer many targets of consequence and when attacked the loss of an individual arm (or circle) does little lasting harm to the larger organization. The starfish organization makes adjustments in its network and reorganizes, usually becoming more decentralized and consequently more resilient in the process.
Secrecy
Starfish organizations have an inherent secrecy because, in a certain sense, each circle serves as a cutout for every other circle of the organization. Working according to 5GW doctrine this effect is reinforced as each circle organizes its own cutouts, pawns and proxies. Should an operation be traced back to its cell of origin all that is lost is an arm of the starfish, the rest of the organization is unharmed.
Related Reading:
The Lexus and the Olive Tree – Thomas L. Friedman
Networks and Netwars – John Arquilla
The Starfish and the Spider – Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom
Related Links:
Wow, parallel thinking. I've just posted a couple comments on previous entries, and this post is right in line with the my thinking of the moment.
The collective intelligence of a project like this is very interesting to observe and be part of.
In what ways does the community around this blog act as a 5GW starfish organization?
Arherring,
Very good post. I wonder why no one else has responded?
A few observations:
I think this is a double-edged sword; or, if you like, a coin with two sides. While I agree that a "vested interest" may lead to the formation of active groups, I'd also caution about something else that may occur: Many people in many locations who buy into the ideology, ideas, and so forth, but who do not act directly and consciously to create a system with that ideology or those ideas preeminent.
This reminds me of ideas I explored in Flu(n)x. The so-called neo-tribalism that occurs may merely be virtual rather than actual in many cases; groups converse online -- "Hey, dude, I so agree!" -- and feel 'connected' to large groups and by large groups, but never actively promote or support the ideology/meme. This also reminds me of an old discussion on the difference between avowed morality and real morality; i.e., many people may virtually agree about common problems, common solutions, and common views but keep on acting according to ye ol' meme sets. (Example: Global warming is happening; humans are causing it; great human suffering will only grow greater because of it; but, hey kids, let's tour the U.S. in our R.V. that gets 10 miles/gallon, and buy lots of bottled water!)
Similarly, according to the Barnettian 5GW (as I understand it), many people will buy into the new rule-sets without ever consciously working to establish and maintain them. They, and others, may well act in a way that helps to establish and maintain the new rule-sets, but their activity may not be coordinated nor consciously in support of those rule-sets; if they have a common vision, they may not realize that they do, especially to the degree that new rule-sets become fairly automated and largely subconscious.
So separating out the 5GW operators and the 5GW prawns by using the descriptions you have given for a 5GW Starfish...becomes a little difficult. Some ingredient, or several ingredients, are missing.
Having said that, I like this post a lot. I particularly like your consideration of parallel design: it reminds me of a certain OODA doodling:
"While trying to grasp the concept of an iterative development process, I ran into this difficulty: in a parallel development process like those already mentioned, each distinct group of actors, however diverse, may be working toward shared or very similar goals — may recognize useful innovations made by others, as well as the failures of others — and so, in an open-source environment, each group’s operation appears to be one iteration of an iterative process spanning that environment, viewed from afar. In an open-source environment, the distinction between a parallel development process and an iterative development process may blur or fade altogether."
-- i.e., a parallel design may describe these individuals when we consider them "alone, together" or operating mostly as solitaire groups although they occasionally communicate directly to exchange information; but the entire process, when viewed afar and over an extended time, may well seem iterative as the system keeps getting pushed from all sides -- and often, nudged back a bit -- toward a very common endpoint.
Why, Ryan, what do you mean? ;)
There is a certain semi-hostile blogger, who will not be named nor linked in this comment, who has recently made similar accusations.
Addendum:
Arherring:
Something that has bothered me in this idea of a "decentralized network", especially as it seems to have been described in comments to previous posts, in which ideas spontaneously (?) form in multiple locations, leading disparate and diverse groups to act upon those ideas and in accordance with them.... I wonder where those ideas will emerge first, or most strongly, and how they will then travel, whether they will lead to the formation of hierarchical organization or constant inter-group warfare as memes evolve, change, go through slight shifts, and so forth. (Judaism, Christianity, Islam....) Distinguishing between 5GWops (?) and the simple emergence of memes within prawns only too willing to follow the instructions of the chain letters...
Also, btw, I think this is one of my favorite posts you've written, Arherring. You have made a leap toward actually operationalizing 5GW, or the theory of it in action. How diverse groups will be "managed" and how memes may be controlled -- how chaos may be used -- hasn't quite been developed by any of us yet.
----
Ryan: That last comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek. In truth, we might suppose that any blog with a following (of whatever size) is functioning as a 5GW apparatus. Such thoughts always bring to my mind the tension between 1) wanting to belong, believe, and work with others, and 2) wanting to be free to go one's own way, free from too much exterior influence, etc. At the end of the day, a 5GW world seems to demand that we not care overmuch whether we ourselves are "5GWops" or "prawns" or whatnot --
Interestingly, a sidenote I've had in mind for a month or so: the concept of "reverse co-optation in 5GW." I did allude in the post on "Defending Against 5GW" the fact that I thought that beginning a 5GW of one's own, as a defense against another 5GW, might include accepting the influence of others as you try to maintain focus on your own objectives. For some time now I've been thinking that one might insert oneself into a 5GW organization by being co-opted by it; from there, the prawn begins to work out his own 5GW against the unsuspecting 5GW enemy. In practical terms, this means appearing to go with the flow of unfolding circumstances, by all appearances, but subtly adding alterations as one progresses. It is a usurpation of the 5GW attacker's efforts although that 5GW org might not realize it is happening until too late.
And all this really means, is that a blog like this blog has readers and contributors who take whatever they like from the blog, then run off to develop it in ways that have not been prescribed here; their memes, developed away from here, may come back to influence D5GWers. ;)
As it is described in The Starfish and the Spider (if I remember right) many decentralized organizations start out as two seperate ideas or memes that come together, usually through some sort of catalyst. For example, the internet and music sharing spawned a host of different downloading methods and processes. The catalyst being the guy who put it together first. In the case of 5GW starfish, one of the common elements would be that which super-empoweres the members, and a 5GW doctrine for action. The other elements would be the unifying ideology (insert cause here) and the guy to put it all together. True after it has initially formed, a starfish may seperate and grow into multiple organizations but such is the nature of starfish. Otherwise, there is the counterpart to the catalyst (who is usually not a leader), the champion. The champion may also not be the leader bhut does serve as an embodiment of the ideology of the organization and serves as a rallying point. My favorite example of this is Adam Selene in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. He wasn't the leader, he wasn't even real, yet he was what visibily held together the Lunar Revolution.
Heh,
For a post that was largely a bunch of notes from my Heads or Tails research that didn't make it too my original post I think it turned out pretty good too. I'm glad you like it. As for operationalization, give it time.
Arherring:
"individuals are ‘super-empowered’ by their access to technology and connectivity, allowing them to act and interact globally."
I really like this....the whole article is excellent! This is getting past theory.
Curtis: oh-no...here comes another photo montage.
FYI: I just submitted this to DIGG and REDDIT.
And there, Arherring, is the thought I've had since this discussion of non-manipulated decentralized 5GW actors began building in steam.
While most catalysts may be nothing more than very interested and somewhat creative individuals within organizations; and while those organizations may, as a matter of course, adopt new ideas for "their" own, or quick-cycle the innovations by co-opting them, so that even the innovators are often forgotten; and while this may mean that catalysts are not necessarily 5GW operators conducting a 5GW plan; still, those who are able to do this, or indeed who are able to induce others to innovate, in whatever ways, attempting the largest ultimate effects on the system -- in many domains, in disparate ways -- may be the 5GW operators.
My general feeling is that the wish for a 5GW world without preeminent manipulators is a wish-fulfillment proposition borne from a desire to feel truly free. In fact, we are manipulated daily by our neighbors and others, and such is an ongoing dynamic that has existed for as long as humans have been (self-)conscious.
Also, I've often had in mind the fact that 5GW, by "going deeper", is little more than a focusing in on many on-going dynamics in a way that is refined, focused, planned. Additionally -- and this is a post I've considered writing before -- whereas previous generations of war may have developed superiority through a more refined, focused, and innovative use of technology/weaponry, 5GW would treat other humans as tools, weapons, technology: The Human Technology.