¿Qué es el swarming? ¿Es la guerrilla global lo que está eclosionando en Europa con los suburbios de París como ensayo? ¿Hay similitudes entre lo que sucede en Irak y en París? Es cierto que en un lado hay misiles, bombas, armas ligeras, y en el otro, de momento, cócteles molotov. ¿Se han fijado como las nuevas tecnologías de la información propagan lo que sucede por todo el planeta? Vengo pensando desde hace unos días en todo lo que está pasando y no creo descabellada esta posibilidad. No sé, ni me importa, si algún medio de comunicación español ha caído en la cuenta, pero todo apunta a que uno de los objetivos de Al Qaeda es transformar el terrorismo convencional en una suerte de guerrilla global de sabotajes contra el sistema -da igual que sean corporaciones infraestructuras, mobiliario urbano, propiedades como automóviles, lo que sea- todo con el objetivo de desestabilizar los mercados. El acceso a estos recursos objeto del sabotaje es fácil (la sociedad es permisiva y tolerante) y Al Qaeda no tiene problemas en reclutar mercenarios en la población joven desarraigada. Todo esto está, como no, en un blog, el de John RobbJOURNAL: The Trouble With Systems DisruptionFrance: the torched car index declined slightly overnight Monday to 1,173 (down from over 1,408 the previous night). There was also a substantial decline in major property damage (likely due to the efforts of local community leaders to protect them). That's the good news. Here's a more mixed picture:
It's clear that the type of violence we see in France is substantially different than what we see today in Iraq. Both involve angry young men and autonomous groups using hit and run swarm tactics. However, one is clearly westernized. What I mean by westernized is that while it is clearly meant to weaken, delegitimize, and coerce the state, but it lacks the blood and guts of true guerrilla war. The young men running the streets of French cities aren't killers, by and large. They haven't made that leap. To make their war, they unconsciously chose a clean 21st Century technique of warfare: systems disruption.
Lucky for us (and the French in particular), their methods of system disruption are crude (mostly in their choice of targets since even simple Molotov cocktails are excellent weapons in this type of war) -- their destruction of cars and buildings didn't have a system wide impact. Despite the limited loss of life, the use of bloodless systems disruption on a nation-wide scale should not be discounted. If their targets had been electrical substations or other critical infrastructure the impact would have been severe. How many days of systems attacks of that type would be needed to seriously impact France's economy? In our hyper competitive world, not many. Even this crude effort dropped the Euro to a two year low against the dollar.
Will we see disruption of the dangerous type in the future? I'm not hopeful. The movement has clearly learned the organizing principle of open source war. If history serves as a guide, this loose organizational structure will produce a substantial number of tactical innovations in the near future. Of course, if these innovations are employed in a future conflict, the reaction of the state will be severe. It won't stop the attacks, but the fight could quickly devolve look much more like the conflicts we have endured in Chechnya, Iraq, Palestine and other garden spots. There are plenty of hard men waiting in the wings to help it along.
Posted by John Robb on Tuesday, November 08, 2005 at 07:03 PM
