Threat or Opportunity: non-violent protest?

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Bob's World,

This is why I find recent DoD thinking on Cyber and A2/AD so scary. ome domains opened by breakthroughs in technology require the power of a big state to play in. The Sea, under the sea, the air, and space all to varying degrees. But Cyber? This is a democratic domain where all have equal access.

We have created tremendous cyber-based capabilities over the past 20 years, and have created equal cyber vulnerabilities in stride. Instead of doubling down on those bets in pursuit of broad new missions in an age of declining budgets, we need to refocus.

Cyber enables individuals and poorly resourced groups to wreck disproportionate havoc on a range of potential targets from Corporations to governments. The power of advanced States to attack their adversary's cyber systems is a little frightening.

Are we maximizing the cyber domain to conduct our core operations and activities? I think SOF has some work to do there. Are we still trained, organized and equipped to conduct those same operations and activities if forced to play unplugged? I fear not.

What happens when the Sat Comms go down, the GPS data stops, the Drones all drift out of control, the Op center screens go black and all neck down to a couple FM or HF channels and a map on the wall; the computers in the fire direction centers black out; Are we ready? No cyber defense, certainly none we can afford, can prevent this. We need to be ready to continue the mission when the lights go out.

We can pretend we'll just go back to HF comms in SF, but the reality is quite different. It will take time to adapt our C4I systems (and just as importantly our command and control procedures, since we're now accustomed to a high degree of micromanagement). We're also accustomed to near real time comms, video feeds on targets, and GPS guided weapons. None of these challenges are insurmountable, but the transition period would leave us vulnerable to an aggressive enemy who was capable of exploiting our confusion.

when breakthroughs in technology favor big states, there isn't much disruption. But when they involve information and favor the individual??? Time to hang on tight, this ride is going to get interesting. "Non-violence" is not limitied to putting flowers in gun barrels and standing in front of tanks; it also includes kicking the plug out of the wall on state and military capabilities as necesary to make one's point. It won't be the "rise of the machines" that takes us out, it will be the "rise of the individual."

The rise of the individual is important, but it is wrong to dismiss the potential disruptions that can concur when States acquire certain forms of technology. They can be just as significant, if not more so, than the rise of the individual.

[davidbfpo]

Protest has not gone away, although in Europe it is not so rife, except in Greece:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17505944 and with the odd reminder here in the UK:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17496073

Here is an event at London's Frontline Club: 'Events Feed On the media: 'The protesters toolkit - revolutionary apps':http://www.frontlineclub.com/events/...e-media-1.html

Governments and security forces are becoming increasingly wise to the role of social media in organising and enhancing protest movements. As a result they are developing new ways to block, hack and track citizens tweets, Facebook and other social media tools in order to prevent unrest.

Protesters and citizen journalists the world over are able to stay one step ahead, however with the help of Open Source developed phone apps that allow them to communicate effectively without being tracked as easily. From letting friends know if you've been arrested to getting your story public, there is an app for all possible situations.

[davidbfpo]

An interesting commentary on Stratfor 'Protest Movements as Political Strategy':http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/prote...tical-strategy

It ends with nice prose that is hardly new:

By understanding how a protest movement works and how well it targets and exploits the weaknesses of the state it is demonstrating against, we can assess how successful movements are likely to be.

What struck me as curious is that it was published on the 5th July 2012 and has not one mention of 'protest movements' in the USA, a nation-state that arose from a protest movement and had just marked that the day before.

[davidbfpo]

Art sometimes appears on SWC, so this current exhibition in London, at the V&A, fits in:http://www.theguardian.com/artanddes...-objects-vanda

First:

some of the most powerful exhibits are the simplest ones – things that engage with the more theatrical side of a demonstration and show how the balance of power on the street can be swung with just a bit of mischievous wit. In one corner, a cluster of gigantic inflatable cubes hangs above a line of placards, like metallic clouds. These are inflatable cobblestones, made by the Eclectic Electric Collective, and used in worker protests in Berlin and Barcelona in 2012, as a way to outwit the authorities.

"The police just don't know what to do with things like this," says Grindon. "Do they throw the inflatable back, in which case they're engaging in this weird performance? Do they try to bundle it into a van and arrest the cobblestone? Or do they try to attack it and deflate it?" Either way, as accompanying footage shows, they end up wrongfooted and humiliated, their authority brilliantly undermined by an ingenious reference to the traditional tool of the street protestor.

The linked article expands on the inflatable theme, although it is hard to see what effect it had in one film clip of a protest in Berlin. The photo below is I think from Paris.


The Poles have always a strong sense of humour, so to them next:

A similar tactic is embodied by another object, an orange felt hat: 10,000 of these were worn at a 1988 protest against communist rule in Poland by members of the Orange Alternative. Declared by its anarchic organisers to be the "Revolution of Dwarves", the demonstration resulted in the police having to round up and arrest thousands of people in dwarf hats – a farcical scene not lost on an image-hungry media. A statue of a dwarf, dedicated to the memory of the movement, stands today in the city of Wrocław, where the Orange Alternative has its origins.

[davidbfpo]

The actual article's title is 'How anti-Vietnam War activists stopped violent protest from hijacking their movement' with a sub-title: 'Governments welcome violent protests and know how to deal with them. It’s a lesson the anti-Trump movement should remember.' The author is a Quaker.

Maybe rather historical, but this is the only thread that it fits in. I have not read anything on the Vietnam protests, although some imagery remains in my memory. Then it offers some advice for contemporary protestors, so fits in well here.
Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/robert-levering/how-anti-vietnam-war-activists-stopped-violent-protest-from-hijacking?

Yes I have re-opened this thread.

[davidbfpo]

Via Open Democracy and a timely republication of a 2014 article after the clashes in Catalonia last weekend between national police forces and those who wanted to vote in a referendum on independence:

Nearly 900 people were injured as the police, trying to enforce a Spanish court ban on the vote, attempted to disperse voters.Thirty-three police officers were also hurt.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41540994
The sub-title:

Spain, one of the European countries at the sharp end of imposed austerity measures, has also been in the vanguard of imposing restrictions on protest against them.

This is a classic silencing tactic:

When there is a peaceful assembly the police usually carry out a collective identity check, asking each of the participants for ID and recording their details. Some might find out weeks or months later that they have been fined for participating in an un-notified demonstration or for obstructing traffic.

Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/opense...-its-citizens?

[davidbfpo]

Via an academic website 'The Conversation' and with a long title, a different view of recent events in Catalonia:

Violent scenes in Catalan referendum were not the return of Spain’s Francoist police

The author adds, sympathetically:

But it did not make much sense to send 10,000 police to stop two million protesters and oversee 4,000 polling stations – a useless and impossible task that could only inflame the situation and discredit the police.

Link:https://theconversation.com/violent-...-police-85073?