All this talk of separatists movements, the generations of war, John Boyd, and William Lind, got you down — or bored (!) ?

What would be more fun to chat about?

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So Serbs in Belgrade have set the American embassy on fire, on international television.

Useful for us, and for Europe. The only European country stupid enough to sign up as a Russian client since the end of the Cold War — Yugoslavia/Serbia and Montenegro/Serbia — is still paying for that action. Today, it harvests the breakdown of political stability that friendship with Moscow naturally entails.

In befriending Russia, they chose poorly

I’m hoping that the serious candidates for President identity Russia as being unhelpful in this situation. I’m pretty confident that two of the three (McCain and Clinton) will do so. If Obama does so as well, I will be pleasantly surprised.

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William Lind recently attacked the concept of fifth-generation warfare (the only well-accepted generation of modern warfare he did not first describe) as follows:

Between February 8 and February 14, four American schools suffered attacks by lone gunmen. The most recent, at Northern Illinois University on February 14, saw five killed (plus the gunman) and 16 wounded. Similar attacks have occurred elsewhere, including shopping malls.

Is this war? I don’t think so. Some proponents of “Fifth Generation war,” which they define as actions by “superempowered individuals,” may disagree. But these incidents lack an ingredient I think necessary to war’s definition, namely purpose. In Fourth Generation War, the purpose of warlike acts reaches beyond the state and politics, but actions, including massacres of civilians, are still purposeful. They serve an agenda that reaches beyond individual emotions, an agenda others can and do share and fight for. In contrast, the mental and emotional states that motivate lone gunmen are knowable to them alone.

The whole “Fifth Generation” thesis is faulty, in any case. However small the units that fight wars may become, down to the “superempowered individual,” that shrinkage alone is not enough to mark a new generation.

John Robb, Mark Safranski, and I have criticized Lind’s article, noting his straw-man attack on 5GW theory.

Lind has earned sympathy from Shlok Vaidya, however, who has previously described 5GW as “an incoherent amalgam of a variety of perspectives.” However, as Shlok’s definition (“the emergent pattern formed by a distributed multitude of empowered individuals acting in concert by acting in their own self interest, without any collaboration“) argues that 5GW is not competitive-cooperative, his concept of 5GW is not war at all.

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Rove, K. (2008). Obama’s new vulnerability. The Wall Street Journal. February 21, 2008. Available online: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120355939956381797.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries.

Karl Rove’s new article on Barack Obama is partisan (of course), but his best paragraph also outlines an attack that Hillary Clinton will use to try to save her campaign, as well:

Mr. McCain, too, raised questions about Mr. Obama’s fitness to be commander in chief. Mr. McCain pointed to Mr. Obama’s unnecessary sabre-rattling at an ally (Pakistan) while appeasing our adversaries (Iran and Syria). Mr. McCain also made it clear that reining in spending, which is a McCain strength and an Obama weakness, would be a key issue.

This is a serious concern. While John McCain and Hillary Clinton have done hard work, such as supporting the Orange Revolution in Eastern Europe even beyond legislation, Obama’s adaption of leftist rhetoric would make foreign states happier being our enemies than our friends. This position is typical of the anti-American left, and if Barack Obama actually believes it (as opposed to pandering to the liberal/left flank of his party that gets him his caucus wins), it is very dangerous.

A best-case outcome for Obama is that he will get us involved in some wars in Africa, helping us build up our SysAdmin Industrial Complex and increasing Army-USMC expertise in counterinsurgency and shrinking the Gap.

In other words, Obama’s substance has been so weak, support for him on international relations have to hope that his race trump his rhetoric — that his ancestry trump his actions.

And that’s too bad.

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Of course, if Obama’s beliefs actually match his voting record (unlikely, I think), this would be a good thing. From Red State:

Relatedly, Adrian (through Google Reader) links to this bizarre Slate piece, which wonders why criticism of Obama as a liberal doesn’t hurt him in the Democratic primaries and caucuses.

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I’ve been struggling on how to write this paper for some time. Now that I have prepared a program of studies for my PhD program that more than fulfills the department’s, the college’s, and the university’s requirement, my adviser asked me for a brief statement on how the doctoral degree would fulfill my requirements. That is, a short statement on what I see myself using my PhD. (If all goes well, I will be All But Dissertation in December.)

My goal is to improve the knowledge base of learners, wherever they may be. Therefore, my objective is to earn a Ph.D. in Psychological Studies in Education.

Broadly, psychology can be divided into three general traditions. The first, academic psychology, focuses on a social organization of the science of the mind primarily centered around programmatic research. The second, clinical psychology, focuses on the care and repair of injuries to the mind that are outside of normal variation. The third, educational psychology, focuses on the improvement of the mind by adding to procedural, declarative, and conditional long-term memory. Psychology can thus be thought of as a Venn diagram, with these units both distinct and overlapping.

Educational psychology is the only branch of psychology that provides methods for helping most people most of the time: academic psychology studies people, and clinical psychology helps people if they are injured or otherwise hurt, but only educational psychology delivers broad-based tools to improve what typical people know, what they do, and how they do it. While academic and clinical perspectives certainly are valuable, actually improving the performance of general populations is simply outside of their focus. Nonetheless, in most situations, the best way to help people is to use educational psychology to add to what they know.

For its part, university training progresses through three stages. The first, the bachelor’s degree, provides a learner with enough knowledge to understand the most important terms of a science. The second, the master’s degree, providers a learner with enough knowledge to understand how the science of a field progresses, and to be able to read and criticize new and classic research in their field. The last, the doctorate of philosophy, allows the learner to use the core concepts of the field to develop new techniques. To be as effective an educational psychologist as I can do, I need the training required to earn a Ph.D. in the field. My goal is not simple to learn how to act according to the best research in this or that circumstance, or even to learn how to apply the newest research in a certain situation. Rather, I need the ability to utilize,manipulate, and explore the deep principles behind educational psychology. I need not only to be able to take an article and apply it to learners, but also to device, test, and analyze new approaches.

I have tried to keep this “purpose statement” on a high level. I do not discuss my specific classwork or research here, though I hope their purpose is clear. My objective is to improve the knowledge base of learners, my goal is a Ph.D. In Educational Psychology, and my program of study has been designed to make that possible.

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Catholigauze’s post about the sad fate of Fort Totten, Washington, DC includes this warning to would-be travelers:

Today the fort is along Fort Totten Drive right near Fort Totten Metro. Things have changed like the farmland giving way to townhouses. A roadside sign and a plaque which is in risk of being grown over by plants mark the site to no one in particular. Though it is a short walk from the metro no tourists come to visit as they have to pass through an area known as “Rapesville” to some. If locals come to visit it is to drink their beers and not take in history. Students at the nearby Catholic University of America expressed no interest or even knowledge of the fort. The fort and its presences on the landscape is marked yet forgotten.

Rape, at least among that tenth of the population that generally does not feel empathy, is likely the result of the following calculation

• Forcible mating is physically enjoyable
• Imprisonment is not

Even assuming a functioning criminal justice system, however, one variable predicts the weighting of both these factors: general intelligence. People of low intelligence discount future events more and put a premium and immediate events. In other words, the dumber an unempathetic male is, the more he figures he will enjoy the rape, and the less he figures he will hate the imprisonment.

About half of the variation in intelligence within a culture is explained by genetics. Indeed, as physical and social conditions become more similar, the variation explained by genetics (through both general intelligence and other factors) will increase.

Now that the easy portions of the Gap have been transitioned into the New Core, would-be-Systems-Administrators will increasingly face causes of state failure, violent crime, and general Gappishness that have genetic routes. The more these causes are not addressed, the more the states of the Gap will always be dependent on oversight by the developed states of the Core. As labor from the Core becomes increasingly expensive, Core states will naturally transition from labor-intensive methods of Sysadmin work (such as patrols, invasions, etc) to capital-intensive means (infrastructure development, eugenics, and so on).

This is true whether the Gap we are talking about is on the other side of the world, or just a subway stop away.

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Major props to both CitiCards and Dell for unexpectedly good, kind, and prompt customer service. Citicards waived a late fee for a check that really is (I hope!) in the mail (send off on the 21st, and never cashed). Meanwhile, Mike from Dell contacted me on my blog post, made some calls, and generally has been extremely helpful.

Thanks Citi! Thanks Dell!

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What is the difference between tactical retreat and maneuver warfare?

Fabius Maximus refuses to answer questions over at ZenPundit stemming from his post “Surrender in Al Anbar province,” except for these two paragraphs. The first snarky:

This is not the place for that technical a discussion. Except at absurd level of simplicity. Like tactical advance and holding in place are not tactical retreats. You might read some books about WWII or the Korean War for more about this.

The second deep:

4GWs move through social space like maneuver war moves through space, so there are only incidental overlaps or similarities.

So: how do maneuver warfare, 4GW, retreat, defeat, and surrender relate to each other?

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Hat-tip to Brendan of I Hate Linux.

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