From Foreign Policy’s Reality Check,

Last month, an official told the Daily Telegraph that their country “has the greatest concentration of active al Qaeda supporters [in the West],” posing a threat to Britain and “the rest of the world.” The same article cited a fresh and ominous finding from the director of MI5. He estimated his service was aware of some 2,000 “radicalized Muslims” who might be involved in terrorist plots. That figure, of course, doesn’t include the population of plotters who have escaped MI5 scrutiny, like Abdulmutallab. As if to underline the threat, on Jan. 12, the British government banned two of the country’s most notorious Islamist organizations, Islam4UK and Al Muhajiroun, under a 2000 anti-terrorism law.

This goes back to my previous argument on why “preventing Al-Qaeda safe havens in Afghanistan” is a myopic strategy considering the nature of the opponent.  Al-Qaeda is a GLOBAL terrorist organization with members scattered all over the world. I question the notion that keeping them out of one country or two (Yemen) will significantly hamper their operations.

We rarely hear our leaders discussing ways to bolster our relations with Muslims living in Western nations, yet this may be a far greater use of our time and money if we consider the above statements.  I suspect the reason it doesn’t get as much chatter on the airwaves is because it goes against the existing paradigms we have concerning warfare.  Simply put, few people in the American National Security apparatus feel confident operating in this “soft power” territory.

In “The Accidental Guerrilla” David Kilcullen asks the questions that come when reevaluating about these paradigms,

How, for example, do we wage war on nonstate actors who hide in states with which we are at peace, even within our own society?  How do we work with allies whose territory provides safe haven for non-state opponents?  How do we defeat enemies who exploit the tools of globalization and open societies, without destroying the very things we seek to protect?

Christian Caryl of the Foreign Policy article shows the real-life issues that arise as we attempt to answer these questions,

In the 1990s, policymakers desperate to address the concerns of the nation’s Muslims decided to foster the creation of Islamic umbrella groups. They also unwittingly fostered radical ones. For instance, Abdulmutallab invited extremists to speak to his college student group — but doesn’t seem to have done anything in London in contravention of British law. And he is not the only vivid illustration of how the institutions of democracy can dangerously blend with the institutions of jihadism.

Forays into the fight against radicalization in Western countries is a muddy affair at best, but its something that we’d better start figuring out soon. After all, I doubt the people of London would take to kindly to a strategy that involved firing missiles on their city from unmanned drones.

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Former US Air Force pilot and tech entrepreneur John Robb explains in his book, “Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization,” that, “war in the twenty-first century will be very different from what we’ve come to expect.”  Mainly, state-versus-state conflict is over (Creveld’s prophecy).  Nuclear weapons and globalization have created a situation where states have little to gain and almost everything to lose by going to war with each other.

Globalization

Instead we’ll be fighting non-state actors, or superempowered groups, Robb calls “global guerrillas.”   While globalization has unleashed amazing economic opportunities for all of us, it has also allowed for groups like al Qaeda to reap the benefits of low-cost technology, global communications, D-I-Y weaponry and information gathering.  Robb points out, the same tools we use everyday are being used against us by global guerrillas seeking to weaken and de-legitimize the state.

“Airplanes are being turned into flying bombs, cell phone networks are being used to simultaneously detonate bombs from miles away, and critical computer networks are being hacked.”

Rather than openly facing our military forces on the battlefield, most global guerrillas practice fourth-generation warfare (4GW), avoiding our strengths and exploiting our weaknesses.  One path through which they have found the most success in creating chaos is through systems disruption.  For example,

“…one small attack on an oil pipeline in southeast Iraq, conducted for an estimated $2,000, cost the Iraqi government more than $500 million in lost oil revenues.  That is a return on investment of 25 million percent.”

and in Africa,

“In February 2006, Nigerian guerrillas of the amorphous Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta attacked the loading dock on Shell Oil’s Forcados export platform.  The attackers escaped without being captured or suffering casualties.  The estimated cost of the attack was $2,000…The cost to Shell was $400,000 in lost oil exports for an estimated two weeks and the indefinite shutdown of an adjacent oil field.  The estimated lost revenue to Shell was over $50 million.  The rate of return: 25,000 times the cost of the attack.”

For now these systems attacks have been taking place in far away lands, but there’s no reason to believe our nation is immune.  Global guerrillas are operating much closer to our border than most of us realize.

Black Swans

Of course, the example that hits closest to home is 9/11 (cost $500,000 to plan and execute) – which brings us to the idea of black swans.  Nassim Taleb explains in his brilliant book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,” black swans are events with the following three characteristics:

• Outlier – “…it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility.”
• Carries extreme impact
• Causes us to “concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.”

The frustrating reality is that black swans will continue to happen and there’s nothing we can do about them since, by their very nature, they’re impossible to predict.  In an increasingly interconnected world, the problem with black swans is that their impact can multiply exponentially.  Crisis in one country can easily lead to regional and global distress.

For example, the collapse of the Thai baht in 1997 led to a financial crisis all across Asia and was further linked to economic slowdowns in developing countries, the drop in oil prices, Russia’s default of 1998 and the collapse of Long Term Capital Management.  Regarding our extremely complex global system Robb warns,

“It is too complex for any single state, or group of states, to keep under control.  As a result, most of the systems we have built over the last several centuries to dampen the excesses of instability – enabled by markets, travel, communication, and other global systems – are now ineffectual.”

Resilience

How do we protect ourselves as a nation in an age marked by global guerrillas, increasing interdependence and financial volatility?  By building resilience into our networks and country.  The highly-centralized bureaucracy that characterizes much of our national security apparatus can barely keep up with the decentralized, rapidly evolving, open-source insurgencies at work around the world.

Robb feels, “the only way to ensure security in the future will be through survival and decentralized resilience.”

The term survival tends to invoke the image of surrender to impending doom, but before you go thinking this sounds like raising the white flag, Robb explains,

“A focus on survival and decentralization isn’t as simplistic or naive as it seems on first glance.  It doesn’t mean that we don’t pursue criminals, terrorists, and other threats that face us – far from it.  The state should pursue these individuals with all the means at its disposal.  It also doesn’t mean that we should attempt to remake the world in our image or attempt to fight grand battles for the hearts and minds of the world.”

At the state-level resilience means:

• Not allowing nationalism to destroy international trade
• Decentralizing security and emergency response efforts
• Decentralizing utility networks like the electrical grid – allow individuals to become both energy producers and consumers (see here)
• Thinking in terms of ecosystems and open-source networks
• Increasing sustainability, decreasing dependence

Some will dismiss Robb’s ideas and advice as far-fetched or “gloom and doom,” but they do so at their own peril. The world we live in today provides many of us with limitless possibility and freedom, but there is a collection of individuals, looming just below the surface of this new world order, who threaten to hijack globalization for their own aspirations – we must adapt to meet the challenge.

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If you are married you can be certain that there will be conflict. Conflict can either destroy a marriage or make it stronger, it all depends on how you view it and how you choose to deal with it. My last marriage post, Top 5 Reasons for Marital Conflict, dealt with the primary sources of contention. As Aaron Stern, pastor and close friend, is fond of telling married couples, “All conflicts are the result of unrealistic, uncommunicated or unmet expectations.”

This post is about knowing how to do conflict well. It may seem like an oxymoron to some, but there is a good way and a bad way to do conflict. The bad way ends in avoidance, hurt, frustration and unresolved issues. The good way of doing conflict ends in greater trust, love, understanding and a resolution. Stern gave my wife and I the following rules just before we were married and they have allowed conflict to help, rather than hurt, our marriage.

RUMBLE RULES:

Don’t hurt each other – physical or otherwise, this is non-negotiable. If you cannot fight without hurting each other there are serious issues that need to be resolved quickly. Seek a good marriage counselor.

Don’t bargaining/threaten – For example, if you don’t do this I won’t have sex with you. Individual rights are secondary to the health of the relationship. The definition of love is a laying down of your life for the benefit of another. A healthy marriage is one where both partners understand that they have essentially given up their individual rights in service of their spouse. As with most aspects of marriage, this only works when both people are operating under these parameters, constantly trying to out-serve the other.

Don’t bring up the past – love keeps no record of wrongs. Too often people in a relationship keep a running tally of offenses in their head to use as ammunition in future fights. “Go into relationships with eyes wide open…get married with eyes half shut,” says Stern. It is best to approach each issue on its own rather than hitting your spouse with an avalanche of grievances.

Don’t attack the foundations – For example, starting out with a disagreement over paying bills on time or showing up late to dinner and jumping straight to “you don’t love me,” or “you don’t trust me.” The conflict may have been quite small, but by attacking foundations you now just poured gasoline on it and lit the match.

Don’t go out looking to drum up support – Don’t go out and tell your friends, “Guess what my spouse did the other night!” The purpose of marriage is to protect your spouse not to throw them to the wolves. Also, it is rarely a good idea to bring your in-laws into your conflict. Their bias towards their own child makes the situation sticky.

Set up Systems – Do whatever you need to ensure the conflict is productive and safe. If you have a bad tendency to interrupt each other, go elementary-school style and use a talking stick. Whoever is holding the stick has the floor and the other person must sit silently and listen until they have the stick. If one partner needs 10 minutes of cool-down time before discussing the issue, make allowances for that.

Don’t exaggerate/polarize – Avoid using terms such as, “always” or “never,” which are rarely accurate and polarize the conversation. The tendency in any fight is to take an extreme position to emphasize your point. The result of this, your partner then takes their position to the extreme opposite side making it much harder to find any sort of middle ground.

When my wife and I first started dating we got into a huge fight over whether she would stay at home with our kids or not. Things started off fine (our views were actually quite similar), but went downhill quickly. By the end she was vowing to never have kids and I was demanding 10 children and that she stay barefoot and pregnant doing housework the rest of her life. In reality, this was not what either of us wanted, but in an effort to prove our points we exaggerated greatly and polarized the discussion.

Even the word “conflict” makes some people shudder. The idea of confrontation is uncomfortable, but by learning to fight clean you can take the sting out of conflict and make it a very useful and valuable aspect of your marriage.

Other useful marriage posts:
- Say What You Need
- Top 5 Reasons for Marital Conflict

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After publishing my last post dealing with marriage, Say What You Need, I received some feedback indicating that more content in this area would be appreciated. Since I want this blog to be incredibly useful to my readers I started to look at my marriage and discern what has made it so successful thus far. As I indicated in my last marriage post, a lot of credit must go to Aaron Stern, pastor of theMill in Colorado Springs, CO, who led us through our pre-marital counseling and put tools in our hands to build a marriage that will last.

If you are married there is one thing that is certain: there will be conflict. It is impossible to live with someone day after day, for years on end without having some type of conflict. One of the keys to marital success is adopting a view that conflict is good! What?! Yes, conflict is good! Conflict always presents an opportunity for couples to work through issues and come out stronger on the other end. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating you start picking fights with your spouse for fun, but taking the fear out of conflict goes a long way in helping couples confront their issues.

Some of you may be reading this getting ready to bounce because you are not married and don’t feel this will apply to you…wait…if you are ever even thinking about getting married some day, this information will be useful for you as you begin surveying the land for potential mates.

The following is a list of the top five reasons for marital conflict:

1) a failure of communication

2) financial difficulties

3) sexual difficulties

4) problems with in-laws

5) disagreements over child rearing

“All conflicts are the result of unrealistic, uncommunicated or unmet expectations,” explains Aaron Stern. If you are already married, these should highlight areas to openly discuss often with your spouse. What are your expectations in each of these areas? If you disagree, how do you intend to work things out?

If you are unmarried, look at these as things to discuss with your boyfriend/girlfriend or fiancee before starting marriage in order to work out some ground rules before jumping in without clear expectations. Don’t wait until you get married and then realize that while you had always wanted 10 children your spouse doesn’t want any. Discussing your expectations clearly, early and often in each of these areas will go a long way to strengthen your marriage.

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