Global Guerrillas as Petty Realism
by tdaxp ~ April 24th, 2007
John Robb’s new book is the talk of the town (see this review over at Haft of the Spear, for example). While I still have not read his work, I did read “Hollow States” from John’s blog, Global Guerrillas.
The post reinforces my notion that “Global Guerrillas” is a generic term for those who seek to maintain a balance of power on the sub-state level. They sacrifice wealth and prestige in order to prevent the emergency of a leader and retain freedom of movement. “Global Guerrillas” are well known. They are called realists.
The problem, of course, is that Realism can only work when geography trumps movement. Realism worked in Europe, for example, because the mountains and peninsulas of that continent prevented maneuver warfare until the late modern era. However, Robb’s talk of a virtual state amounts to little other than the fact that geography doesn’t matter. And so global guerrillas — these petty realists — have no hope.
Unable to hold territory, and unwilling to join a minimal winning coalition capable of achieving victory, all global guerrillas can do is generate violence. All they can do is make some other group even more attractive, if that group promises to end or reduce the violence.
On an individual level, global guerrillas can break things kill people.
On a state level, global guerrillas can make non-guerrilla groups more politicall attractive.
And that’s it.
Global guerrilla theory is rightfully interesting to those who to study how people die or how insurgencies end. Likewise, Robb’s book will surely be interesting to those who are interested in the personalities of our little niche of the blogosphere, which is why I plan to buy it. But “global guerrillas” as some sort of self-sustaining phenomenon, and they are in no way new.
April 24th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Dan,
Have you seen this?
http://www.radioopensource.org/globalizations-double-edged-sword/
April 25th, 2007 at 12:00 am
I received the book yesterday and have started reading it. I hope to have a short review up soon at D5GW.
“However, Robb’s talk of a virtual state amounts to little other than the fact that geography doesn’t matter.”
Utterly brilliant. But because geography doesn’t matter, wouldn’t it follow, also, that the realist nation-state developments are by nature weakened, having emerged according to the limits (and strengths) imposed by geography? I.e., their foundational premises no longer apply.
However, the “Eeyore” outlook (HT: Haft of the Spear) is only one operative outlook, complaining about the Pooh Bears and Tiggers, and so forth. Everyone in the 100 Acre Wood must avoid the destructive tendencies of Tigger, but most succeed in doing so and fixing what he has done — or coming to the conclusion that his disruptions are not all that terribly disruptive.
Meaning, that so far in my reading of the book, I detect a skewed perspective, which I’ll try to address in the forthcoming review!
April 25th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Jay — yeah, very cool!
Curtis — could you rephrase? Your analogy is too dense.
April 25th, 2007 at 12:00 am
“”However, Robb’s talk of a virtual state amounts to little other than the fact that geography doesn’t matter.”
Utterly brilliant. But because geography doesn’t matter, wouldn’t it follow, also, that the realist nation-state developments are by nature weakened, having emerged according to the limits (and strengths) imposed by geography? I.e., their foundational premises no longer apply.”
Nice extrapolation. However it isn’t quite correct that distance doesn’t matter -it’s that the transaction costs of distance, to varying degrees, have been eroded and most of all in regard to information.
Formerly insuperable barriers are now…well…”superable”. That doesn’t always mean cheap or easy, much less ” free”, but many more things are now in the realm of the realistically possible than in 1980.
April 26th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Dan,
My 100 Acre Wood analogy suffers from a poor memory of Winnie the Pooh books/cartoons, which is why I copped out by using the analogy! Essentially:
Haft described Thomas Barnett as “Pooh” and Robb as “Eeyore.” At ZenPundit, I asked who Tigger is. Mark may have claimed that title… but when I wrote the comment here, I had in mind that Tigger is the the GG. So Robb, as Eeyore, complains not only about what he sees as a too-rosy outlook coming from Barnett (Pooh) but also about the fairly incomprehensible but very freely moving and self-interested Tiggers (GGs) he sees emerging. However, most people either fix what Tigger does or get used to it and largely ignore it, letting him b-bop around the Wood. (Not likely, for GGs.)
I suppose a full 100 Acre Wood analogy could be drawn to include the other characters. Interestingly, if memory serves, although each character welcomes the presence of the others, on the whole, they also remain very insular and consistent — i.e., never change character.
Incidentally, I once looked at three archetypal Weltanschauungs [1] and suggested that the Tigger-GG’s (really, in the post, the Islamic Jihad) were the primary exponents of individual freedoms: free to go where they want when they want and do what they want, even if they would not allow the same to everyone.
Mark,
Good call on transaction costs. I wonder though if we should not dismiss geography altogether (total freedom) or focus on the cheapening of transactions (more freedom than before), but rather begin to wonder if a new set of limitations, different limitations, occur, so that realism can endure but must change its focus.
[1] http://www.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2005/10/triune_disunity.php