Deep Currents

Quelling insurgency and maintaining strong governance is a naturally challenging task for a superpower. What are the levers available to the U.S. in fighting modern insurgencies who are gaining effectiveness by going open-source? How can it address the temporary autonomous zones created by foreign states’ weak governance? John Robb blogs that militias have also enjoyed surprising success recently by going open-source, but he offers three notes of caution:

• They’re not as attractive as they appear, since they cause as much or more damage to the social structure as the guerrillas or gangs they replace
• Any attempt by a greater power to control them runs a high risk of sapping their essential popular legitimacy, since their effectiveness is heavily reliant on local support
• The benefit they offer is typically short-term, since their independent nature gives them the freedom and inclination to resist the state’s larger project of reasserting control

Written: November 25th, 2007