It's just one of those things that cannot be avoided. Even the SWC is not immune to this phenomenon and I'm a little surprised that something that has been posted straight out of the SWC's overall recommendations to read throughout the forums by members is virtually ignored on this part of the book. As far as I know I'm the only one that has posted anything about this particular part of the book and the SWC itself out of concern. As with the topic of the insurgencies throughout the book, as the SWC grows in membership, it will or already has fallen victim to Robb's axiom. It is beginning to give the appearance of the same things we find fault with on topics such as COIN and the war on terror. Too much bureaucracy with sets and subsets. A think tank that has grown into a group think tank.

1. Illusion of Invulnerability: Members ignore obvious danger, take extreme risk, and are overly optimistic.

2. Collective Rationalization: Members discredit and explain away warning contrary to group thinking.

3. Illusion of Morality: Members believe their decisions are morally correct, ignoring the ethical consequences of their decisions.

4. Excessive Stereotyping: The group constructs negative stereotypes of rivals outside the group.

5. Pressure for Conformity: Members pressure any in the group who express arguments against the group's stereotypes, illusions, or commitments, viewing such opposition as disloyalty.

6. Self-Censorship: Members withhold their dissenting views and counter-arguments.

7. Illusion of Unanimity: Members perceive falsely that everyone agrees with the group's decision; silence is seen as consent.

8. Mind guards: Some members appoint themselves to the role of protecting the group from adverse information that might threaten group complacency.

And as with a vast majority looking at mistakes and solutions for COIN, the SWC should be avoiding group think, and taking a look at Robb's description of the downfall of an online group in order to maintain effectiveness:


# The group should be made aware of the causes and consequences of group think.

# The leader should be neutral when assigning a decision-making task to a group, initially withholding all preferences and expectations. This practice will be especially effective if the leaders consistently encourages an atmosphere of open inquiry.

# The leader should give high priority to airing objections and doubts, and be accepting of criticism.

# Groups should always consider unpopular alternatives, assigning the role of devil's advocate to several strong members of the group.

# Sometimes it is useful to divide the group into two separate deliberative bodies as feasibilities are evaluated.

# Spend a sizable amount of time surveying all warning signals from rival group and organizations.

# After reaching a preliminary consensus on a decision, all residual doubts should be expressed and the matter reconsidered.

# Outside experts should be included in vital decision making.

# Tentative decisions should be discussed with trusted colleagues not in the decision-making group.

# The organization should routinely follow the administrative practice of establishing several independent decision-making groups to work on the same critical issue or policy.

Instead, the SWC has gone from a think tank to another online forum with the life expectancy of effectiveness no different than any other online group as Robb describes.