Wicked Coolness

I realize that neither of these two links have much -- if anything -- to do with things maritime, but they show coolness that must be widely shared. 



And this:

System D at Sea

At its core, Seapower involves the defense of economies - large and small. But not all markets work the way we might assume. Journalist Robert Neuwirth describes the $10 trillion globalized black market economy as System D. The concept is worth examining from a maritime perspective, if not for its size and rate of growth alone. The first point to understand is that there is a thin gray line between the informal System D economy and criminal activities. System D maritime businesses include local fishing, oil bunkering (especially in West Africa), and unregistered vessels moving goods and people to undeveloped ports. System D also includes some forms of smuggling at sea, but not obvious maritime crime such as illicit trafficking in narcotics, weapons, or piracy. Perhaps the way one defines System D depends on the scale of the activity. For example, illegal fishing is a 23.5 billion dollar global industry. Clearly, not all of this economic activity is “lost” especially to the persons profiting from it and fishermen selling their catches in local markets.

For an interesting example of System D in action, watch the “River kids” risking their lives trying to make a living in Amazonia. The first two minutes will give you the idea, but the entire story is worth watching.


Budding entrepreneurs or pirates in the making?

Why is it important for naval professionals to understand System D? First World Sailors might view these activities as unusual, but the fact is, paying customs fees, registering motor vessels, licensed and regulated fishing, and other rule of law issues we take for granted are anomalies for most of the world's population.

Modern navies operate around System D whether or not they realize it. MCAST Sailors or Coast Guardsmen working to develop nascent navies must understand that in many cases their counterparts are underpaid by their governments and feed their families by their activities in the shadow economy. They may even use government owned (and even US tax-payer funded…) naval vessels to support their System D businesses. In addition to patrolling coasts and rivers, small craft may be used to catch fish, smuggle goods, or provide private security. Moreover, practically every US Sailor making a port call abroad has participated in System D buying goods from street vendors; some of whom sell licit locally-produced merchandise, while others hawk pirated or counterfeit knock-offs.

In his book, Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy, Neuwirth argues that instead of attempting the impossible - to close down these informal economies - that the developed world should co-opt them. Rather than judging the débrouillards making their livings by First World standards, we should realize that the informal economy on the world's waterways is vibrant, necessary, and not going away any time soon.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Africa Maritime IW Potpourri

AQIM Maritime Terror Plot Disrupted: Algerian officials recently detained three terrorists from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb plotting a COLE-like attack against U.S. or European ships in the Med. Had this attack been executed, it would have represented a significant escalation in AQIM’s tactics, which thus far have been mostly focused on kidnapping Westerners for ransom and smaller local bombings.

al Shabaab Flees to Sea: Numerous reports have discussed al Shabaab's use of the sea as a means of travel both up and down Somalia's long coast and to and from Yemen. These stories demonstrate al Qaeda's continued interest in maritime attacks and the sea as a means for movement and support. They also reflect AQ's strategic shift out of the FATA into Africa as drone strikes have successfully hammered the networks's core leadership in Pakistan.

Also from East Africa:
Pirate/Human Smuggler Nexus: This is an interesting twist on the Pirate/al Shabaab nexus and demonstrates the extent that pirates have entrenched themselves into Somalia's illicit economy.

Finally, some new news on Africa's river wars: “A new 2010 Cooperative Framework Agreement, now signed by most of the key upstream abutters, would give all riparian states (including the Congo, where a stream that flows into Lake Tanganyika is the acknowledged Nile source) equal access to the resources of the river. That would give preference to large scale upstream energy and industrial, as well as long-time agricultural and irrigation uses.

Egypt and Sudan have refused to sign the new agreement, despite years of discussions and many heated meetings. Given climate change, the drying up of water sources everywhere in Africa and the world, Egypt, which is guaranteed 56 billion of the annual flow of 84 billion cubic meters of Nile water each year, hardly wants to lose even a drop of its allocation. Nor does Sudan, guaranteed 15 billion cubic meters.”

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Three Bits

1. My book manuscript is finished (for better or worse), so I soon hope to be using the space that Galrahn has graciously granted for something more than self-promotion. In particular, I plan to return to the idea of writing a series on seapower in fiction. However, also expect some more book reviews, mostly associated with recent work on the airpower manuscript.

 2. Until then, self-promotion #1: I jabber about airpower and Syria with Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network, in Episode III of Foreign Entanglements: If you're interested, you can also "Like" Foreign Entanglements on Facebook.

 3. Self-promotion #2: In this week's WPR column, I think about how a 1947-style restructuring of the national security bureaucracy might go down:

Most of the time, when confronted with the clear shortcomings of the system in place, we choose to muddle through. Since 1947, the United States has undertaken a series of minor revisions to the national security bureaucracy. The most significant change came with the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which affirmed the value of jointness and attempted to remedy the problems of inter-service conflict created by the National Security Act. After Sept. 11, the United States tweaked its intelligence bureaucracy by creating the position of Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, although these latter reforms represented more an effort to create cover for the intelligence failures associated with Sept. 11 than a genuine reform. On rare occasions, however, we have the opportunity to revisit national values and to redesign the institutions that constrain our policy choices. These contingent moments come when the accumulated weight of years of muddling, combined with geopolitical and technological changes, leave us with institutions fundamentally out of sync with the strategic environment the nation faces. There is reason to believe that the United States now faces such a moment. The strategic, political and technological challenges facing the Obama administration -- and potentially a successor Romney administration -- differ so dramatically from the environment that faced Harry Truman and Acheson at the time of the “creation” that they now risk pulling the national security bureaucracy out of shape.

UAV Swarms Will Change Warfare Forever

Those who aren't convinced that UAS will change warfare permanently need to watch this video, posted yesterday:


Pardon the cliche, but this technology is truly transformational. For some interesting commentary on swarms, check out John Robb.

The naval applications are there, too. How could AEGIS, RAM, ESSM, CIWS, or any other envisioned air defense system defend against a lethal "suicide" drone swarm aimed at a ship, especially when they come in from all directions and mass before attack? Jamming might work to some degree, but there are countermeasures for countermeasures. What about swarming surface or undersea weapons? The fact that this technology was developed by a university, not by DARPA, NAVSEA, or a major defense contractor, demonstrates that open source systems such as these will soon be available to non-state actors, some of them with malevolent intent.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.