Politically, freedom is freedom from vertical controls — the sort that the are known as “Laws” and “Rules and Regulations.” It is the ability to do what one wishes, and a Free society should maximize this. However, all other things being equal, vertical freedom would conflict with security, because you would have many people doing things that are dangerous (murder, homosexualism [1], etc). Therefore, horizontal (societal, peer) controls are needed. A free society does not regulate behavior by passing laws so much as regulate by “frowning.”

Because horizontal controls that are implicit (unspoken) are more lasting than societal controls that are explicit (laid-out) (because implicit rules are generated during Orientation while explicit controls are added during Decision in Boyd’s OODA loop), I favor implicit, horizontal controls as the key to a free society.

One of the many reasons North Korea is a nightmare is that it relies on explicit, vertical controls, leading to a breakdown of civil (horizontal) society and all the benefits that entails.

Your definition of liberal merely as “someone who is less conservative” is strange. Likewise, your comparison of “Christian Globalization” to Crusades is more agitprop than an argument.

Why on earth would you support Kim Jung Il?

I agree that Japan well colonized Korea [2].

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/02/05/2002_new_aids_diagnoses.html
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/12/11/the-commonwealth-of-korea-and-japan-shintaro-ishihara-right.html

Your strong implicit controls are not elements of the four parts; they satisfy what is needed to support our national goals. Your strong implicit controls could: pump-up our resolve, end the conflict on favorable terms, and ensure that the conflict and peace terms do not provide seeds for (unfavorable) future conflict. However, I thought our country was about liberty and freedom for all. I am not sure that is the same as your strong implicit controls. If your strong implicit controls are what is needed for us to win so be it. I do have to say that while you believe you are a part of a 5GW, the Arabs have been dealing with a Christian insurgency for a long time and the Chinese don’t really care. The Chinese believe in a benevolent leader, but I don’t believe they mean the Son of God.

So the Arabs are way ahead of you and the Chinese think they can win a war of attrition. I don’t know about you, but I feel we, as a nation, need a Grand Strategy.

While conservatism is not composed of strong implicit controls such as yours, conservatism covers all people of our nation (liberal is simply someone who is less conservative) and most of the world. I am just saying it might be good to have more than just a Christian Globalization movement (Crusades).

“Spreading the military-industrial complex across the Core may be even better for GWOT and Globalization, because its spreads the financial-incentives for SysAdmin war and Leviathan peace even further.”

Giving our manufacturing sector to non-American sovereigns maybe good, if you were not handing the military-industrial complex to people who have eyes for our “Beautiful Country” as the USA is known in China. Let see, the first colonizers from Britton came over here with beads, trinkets, and disease. How did that turn out anyway? If you have visited Wal-Mart lately or read anything about a bird flue epidemic, then maybe some kind of a winning grand strategy is apparent, who know?

Ah yes Kim’s fall. I realize it doesn’t matter to you if the South will join the North or the North will join the South, as long as converts are able to join the society. However, if the South joins the North, like I predict, do you feel it will be up to the corporations to spread your strong implicit controls to the poor masses of the society? If so, how does that work exactly? In America, corporations exploited the workers until much blood was spilled. Are corporations just more supportive of the North Korean and Chinese people, or do you think they have simply learned their lessons and become more Christian like Ken Lay? If it is not the corporations that spread the strong implicit controls to the poor masses, how do the poor masses differentiate between the corporation exploitation and the exploration by their totalitarian government?

It took me some effort to find the reference to joseonpphiles (I assume it has to do with Joseon dynasty), but you have made a good point. Like our effort in Iraq is basiclly between the Arabs and Persians (or Assyrian and Babylonian) for control of the Muslim holy lands, the conflict between Japan and Korea will probably come down to the continuation of Japan’s occupation of the Korean pennisula. What’s the market price for ears any way? At least Japan will have some type of a working plan for their occupation. Unlike in Iraq. I think our government just figured our solders would figure things out soon enough. Well, for the most part I think they have. Now Bush is cutting the money to rebuild Iraq? Isn’t that money being used to keep our solders safe? Isn’t that money used to empower our solders? What this all about? I guess it is just the old story, like father like son, flip flop, flip flop! Of course a lot of that flip flopping could be taken care of with a Grand Strategy. Not only does a Grand Strategy give the good guys a quick reaction time, it also stops a lot of back-tracking.

Chet Richards quotes Boyd on the four requirements of a “grand strategy” [1]

” * Support our national goal, which at the highest level involves improving our fitness, as an organic whole, to shape and cope with an ever-changing environment
* Pump-up our resolve, drain-away our adversary’s resolve, and attract the uncommitted
* End the conflict on favorable terms
* Ensure that the conflict and peace terms do not provide seeds for (unfavorable) future conflict.”

While moral implicit laws, what I’ve called strong implicit controls [2], are not written outright, they are elements of all four parts of the definition.”

You are right that I’ve not done enough on strong implicit controls and winning the Global War on Terrorism. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’ve danced around the issue, talking about Imperial Christianity [3] and neocons-theocons [4], but it deserves further examination. Again, thank you. Comments like yours make tdaxp a better blog.

War will never end – as wars as we have known them set, 5GW-style conflicts [5] will rise. Globalization’s conquest of the world should be largely complete within a century.

Remember that Christianity operates as an insurgency, [6] as it has in the past. [7] Status-quo, or traditionalist, solutions are often not “Conservative” ones. [8] Conservatism is a political movement more than a state of mind.

Spreading the military-industrial complex across the Core may be even better for GWOT and Globalization, because its spreads the financial-incentives for SysAdmin war and Leviathan peace even further.

There’s an interesting post to written on international marriages after the fall of Kim. A lot of abusive, materialistic joseonpphiles will find perfect mates in abused, materialistic North Korean women.

[1] http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/boyd_grand_strategy.htm
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/04/12/controls_vertical-horizontal_strong-weak_implicit-explicit_s.html
[3] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/07/10/caiaphas-and-diocletian-did-know-better.html
[4] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/06/09/the_neocon_theocon_axis_winning_and_losing.html
[5] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/07/20/dreaming-5th-generation-war.html
[6] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/05/17/pmp_4gp_fusion_the_christian_right.html
[7] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/07/10/4gw-tactic-love-your-enemy-as-you-would-have-him-love-you.html
[8] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/03/28/abortion_and_global_roadsterism.html

A quick fix appears to be one year of American occupation. It can be pushed farther, but the friction from anything longer becomes harmful for the politicians we want to encourage. After a decade it becomes harmful for the long-term characteristics of the nation.

It doesn’t matter if a year or a decade isn’t enough time to do it right. The British had the will, the social cohesion, to do it right. We don’t.

We love sending the Marines to Tripoli. But that’s far different from leaving behind a functioning, connected states. How many times have we sent the Marines to Haiti? (Many) How many times have we left behind a country worth creating? (Never)

We don’t particularly like fixing the problem by paying blood and will, even though it might be cheaper in the long run.

I absolutely agree that we need to make Blackwater et al creatures of US foreign policy. This is why we need a Military-Industrial-SysAdmin Complex. We should have no more to fear from Blackwater than Boeing. If the Military-Industrial-SysAdmin Complex joins the Military-Industrial-Leviathan Complex, the MISC will be tethered to Washington through the flow of money, just like the MILC is. The MISC will constantly be paid for ongoing work, while new work generated by the Leviathan will “surge” the MISC, creating even higher profits. In this way the MISC will be a force for more Leviathan operations, because the MISC never has more jobs than the Leviathan can generate.

For example, during “peacetime” the MISC will be used for ongoing security relationships with Afghanistan, Kosovo, Thailand, etc. Much of this work will be low-risk/high-reward “feather bedding,” just as NASA serves as low-risk/high-reward feather bedding for the MILC when Leviathan work is slow. But when the Leviathan operates, the MISC surges, with money pouring in, MISC forces being used more efficiently (pulled off of feather bedding into real work) and more broadly (more work = more employees = more money, etc).

Larry,

Dr. Barnett uses “a future worth creating” to refer to a capitalist, democratic, peaceful, socially liberal world (in that order).

I share Dr. Barnett’s grand strategy of shrinking the Gap. Indeed, I also share the reverse domino theory with him. I disagree with how his SysAdmin would operate, as I outlined in parts II and III. This post, however, adds to his theory by usefully encorporating Military-Industrial Complexes. I do not believe “you have no grand strategy, you are only picking apart someone elses” is a fair criticism.

Why would it be too late to add the MISC to the MILC? Whether we are in a time of normal controversy or revlolutionary remodeling, all things are continually changing http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/11/21/globalization-is-water-the-magic-cloud.html. There’s no stasis, and even if there was there’s no reason we must stay in one!

Thank you both for this discussion — I hope it continues! And any lurkers out there, please join in!

I would suggest that quick fix = the shortest of available solutions because the US does like solutions. We like putting the marines on the shores of Tripoli to end the Barbary pirates. We don’t particularly like managing the problem by paying ransoms and protection money even though it might be cheaper.

So what is the quicker fix? Is it the route of letters of Marque and Reprisal? That’s really what you’re talking about from a Constitutional point of view. The problem with Blackwater et al is that unless you’re hiring them full time, you’re letting profit seeking private agencies loose in a world with lots of bad actors with sufficient cash. What keeps these guys on the side of the angels? Right now it’s the fact that they can’t stand up to the Leviathan force the US fields. What keeps the US from using these guys from Leviathan duty and getting a nice peace dividend? Nothing. I actually like the idea of letters of Marque and Reprisal. I just haven’t found a way where the independent dogs of war we feed today don’t come around and bite us tomorrow. If you have, let us all know.