Social Media and Unconventional Warfare

[davidbfpo]

A different angle to the article - which I have yet to fully absorb - and from journalists, complete with podcast and from the summary:

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.

Link:http://www.frontlineclub.com/events/...e-media-1.html

[Bob's World]

Of course "social media" are just one arrow in the modern quiver of information tools that are reshaping how seriously governments everywhere have to take the perceptions and concerns of the populaces they affect (their own and those that belong to other nations alike).

To overly focus on "social media" is to miss the larger point. UW is simply leveraging and enhancing the insurgent conditions within some populace or populaces of a country who's government one seeks to coerce, influence, overthrow, etc. We have a traditional bag of tools, tactics, techniques and procedures for doing that based largely upon the lesson's learned from various operations in WWII. Technology has advanced since then, but UW is the same. The question for the US as a whole is "do we appreciate how organizations such as AQ are counducting UW today with more modern tools, techniques and procedures to attempt to leverage conditions of insurgency among many dissatisfied populaces, primarily in the greater Middle East" (or do we simply lump them as a terrorist organization consisting of "Al Qaeda and its affiliates and adherents" as in the National strategy for Counterterrorism)?

For SOF, are we updating our own thinking, doctrine, plans, etc to more effectively leverage the tools of our times? For our policy makers are they updating their thinking, policies, programs, etc to more effectively advance US national interests in a manner least likely to provoke popular blowback or trigger a "resistance" effect among the affected popuulaces?

The times are changing, the tools are changing. Governments, Policies, doctrine, plans, etc are all lagging far behind.

[max161]

Not directly related to Brian's excellent article but this 8:51 minute You Tube video is worth watching (it is the one that Daniel Drezner is referring to in his article below). I hear 20 cents bouncing on the floor as the traditional paradigm is breaking!! :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSZqP...ature=youtu.be

I have seen the future of teaching and it scares the bejeezus out of me
Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - 12:46 PM Share
http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/pos...ezus_out_of_me

I like to think of myself as a pretty good teacher. I've been doing this for more than 15 years, and while I've dabbled in the fancier technologies, I've concluded that the meat and potatoes of podium, lectern, chalk, and blackboard have worked the best.

At last week's International Studies Association meetings, however, I participated in a panel on "Transnational Politics and Information Technology," in which Charli Carpenter delivered the following presentation:

(link above)

Now, I'm clearly pretty comfortable with Web 2.0 technologies, and some of the themes Carpenter touches on in this presentation echoes points I've made on this blog and... co-authoring with Carpenter. To be blunt, however, if this is the standard to which future international relations teaching pedagogy will be held... then the future is going to kick my ass.

Seriously, watch the whole thing.

[Bill Moore]

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Posted by Max161

I like to think of myself as a pretty good teacher. I've been doing this for more than 15 years, and while I've dabbled in the fancier technologies, I've concluded that the meat and potatoes of podium, lectern, chalk, and blackboard have worked the best.

Dave,

Please check out the link above, and actually take one of the math modules to get an idea of how it works. It has been updated since I last checked it out, and now they have quite a few history classes (haven't checked those out yet), but I can vouch for the math modules. I was able to use them to refresh some skills so I could assist someone, and then got them hooked on the KhanAcademy.

Agreed you're a good teacher, but now imagine instead of teaching a class of 20-40 students, and like all people they only hold their attention to one topic for so long, and they're attention may have drifted when covered a critical point. Hopefully they'll pick it up in their reading assignments, or when conductinga group study. This method has worked for years, still works, but now imagine the future and the future is now.

You're an internet star teacher, you're still using your blackboard, but it is a digital blackboard, and students can replay your teaching modules/lectures repeatedly until they feel comfortable with it, and by the way you now have students around the world. The military is experimenting with this, but most of their classes in my view are overly dumbed down and not challenging or progressive in nature, but more of a check the block training requirement. If you buy into the argument we need more disruptive thinkers, and that higher education that challenges your current perceptions is what helps develops those disruptive thinkers, and we're getting people into those classes too late in their careers, well here is another venue to expose all our soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors to challenging higher education. They can pick the topics they like, the goal isn't a degree, but developing a crtical thinker.

In some respects this does relate to UW. There was a relatively recent study on public places and social mobilization. Most revolutions used public spaces (schools, churches, mosques, public squares) to mobilize people to their cause. In areas with repressive governments a revolutionary had to carefully develop a clandestine network whose communication was very channelized, encrypted and security was more important than transfering the message (protect your clandestine organization at all costs), at least until you can generate a popular uprising. While I think you still need a clandestine body (perhaps a shadow government that is pulling the strings), now you can anonomously communicate with the masses when the masses have access (or access to those who do) to the various forms of media. You can reach out to them, make a convincing argument (equivalent of Anwar Awlaki messages reaching out to a global audience), and provide instruction on they can do for the cause. You wouldn't know who was doing it, it would be a nightmare for security forces to disrupt, and their actions in themselves could gain enough momentum to achieve your political aim, if not they'll provide a major distraction for security forces while your more formal organization undertakes more decisive action. There are hundreds of ways this can play out. I hear all the warnings that the government can shut it down, but I don't think it is that easy, and of course there are ways a savvy operator can continue to work. They won't shut down this means of communication for any length of time in a high tech socieity without doing serious damage to the economy.

Just some thoughts on the potential, while not dismissing the challenges.

[max161]

Bill,
That is Dan Drezner's quote from the article not mine!

[Dayuhan]

You're an internet star teacher, you're still using your blackboard, but it is a digital blackboard, and students can replay your teaching modules/lectures repeatedly until they feel comfortable with it, and by the way you now have students around the world.

The problem that nobody's yet solved with this, relative to a physical classroom, is that the teacher can't see the students, can't see if their attention is drifting, can't see if someone looks confused, can't alter the pattern of the lesson to suit immediate verbal or non-verbal feedback from the class. The teacher can't ask questions at key moments to see if the message is getting across, can't respond on the spot to student questions, can't get students to engage in discussion among themselves, guiding and observing that discussion to determine the extent to which the students are "getting it".

We've all seen how the inability to use non-verbal cues results in misunderstanding in online discussions... that's as much a factor, potentially more, in online educational environments.

[Bill Moore]

Dayuhan,

That isn't a problem, it is a challenge. You're living in the Philippines, so you may be out of touch with the reality of our education system. In many of our schools, especially in economically depressed areas the teachers are subpar, work in dangerous conditions, and the kids who desire to get an education can't (parents can't afford to send them to private schools). At a minimum this allows students to "augment" lessons in the classroom.

I saw a special where one school was using Khan Academy in the classroom. Obviously not a depressed inter city school, because every kid had a tablet and was taking math classes at their own pace, with the teacher monitoring their progress on her tablet and assisting students who were still struggling. She said it revolutionized teaching the results were outstanding.

As you well know a lot of people are self-educated, they key to learning is the desire to learn, then the environment. I'm not arguing your point, but simply pointing out that doesn't make this technique anymore obsolete than reading a book.

[davidbfpo]

A superb headline and title on FP Blog, with a focus on the response of the Syrian state electronically and the recent Executive Order on supplies to Syria:

President Obama is on the right track with Monday's executive order, but the United States needs to get tougher on the global digital arms race.

Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...ance?page=full

I shall leave aside the clear and present danger at home for weapons of mass surveillance.