Quote Originally Posted by rmills View Post
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One last point before I hit post and wait for the flaming arrows (as an academic, I've had to develop thick skin )... One of my former students and I were trying to get a paper published on some approaches to operational targeting. The paper was rejected because a subject matter expert told the editor that our paper didn't describe "how they really do things." I thought that was quite interesting for a couple of reasons: (1) there was nothing in the open literature about "how they do things", (2) "how they do things" is apparently good enough, and there's no need to discuss further. Contrast this with the VOLUMES of articles talking about nuclear deterrence, strategic bombing, air campaign planning, land warfare, etc. We ultimately published the paper in a different venue and received good feedback. So even the experts disagree, which is why we need more academic research, publishing and discourse in these areas.

cheers
Bob
Bob, one thing I can recommend is not to pay any attention to the "how they do things" people more than whatever content they offer. Way too often the reality is that they're speaking of how they think they might do things, not in fact how they actually do things. That because they never actually do any of it.

If they are really so good as they want to claim, why is it that it took my friends and I to literally invent hacktivism by way of one example. I will readily grant that I wish Assange wasn't a complete ass hat, but years of arguing about ethical extremism has been like arguing with a stone wall too. This is way more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than anyone seems to understand. The idea of 'what would you do if?' with respect to the more decent nations of the world is not a new question for the guy. Nor are the resulting arguments anything new to him either. Irrespective of the mess he's made, there's huge heaps of online activism going on that's missed by people distracted by other events. Most nations have been very, very slow to develop ways to facilitate useful hacktivism, as well as deal with hostile activity. It's clearly an area that the US for instance is still lurching around with, that over a decade after the first serious promotions of hacktivism were done.

Non-IO activities are in some respects in an equally sad state, and that's part of the reason why there's more focus on it now than ever before. So much of that "how they do things" BS has been flying around unchallenged for so long it's landed us in a very obviously woeful state. So when people come off with that completely self serving drivel, it's useful to note that they're the ones responsible for the very mess we're now trying to be more realistic about. Here's a clue though, no one gives a damn about the "how they do things" when they're your opponent. They care about what they can do, not what you're vaguely claiming you could do, but never will. These are NOT nuclear arms, and if you run around treating them as if they're some icon in a high temple that should never be removed from the altar, I'm going to laugh at your constant lack of results. The result of that sort of thinking & (in)action is that well now the US & other countries are stuck with a huge developmental deficit. The results of that kind of attitude do way more harm than good, and that at this point is a proven fact.