Tunisia: catch all

[Bob's World]

Cliff,

Ok, you came up with one example: China.

"Suppressed Insurgency" is not the same as "no insurgency." The Uyghurs in the west, the situation in Tibet, the growing divide between the cities and the countryside, the haves and the have nots. China is a ticking bomb. Long before China is apt to become a power that can truly challenge the US it will likely implode due to their own suppressed internal problems. The conditions of insurgency are very high there, but reaction to them are suppressed. The same is true in Saudi Arabia and many of the Arab states that are currently in the news, or getting ready to come into the news. So China really is not a good example. Any others?

As to ideology you miss my point. You have full access to all forms of insurgent ideology, past and present, every day. This is what comes with freedom of speech and freedom of the press. And yet it has no impact on yourself or the vast majority of Americans to act out in the form of illegal politics. Even the Tea Party opts to take legal actions to speak out, to assemble, to put candidates on the ballot and get them legally elected into to office. Ideology is always there. But Ideology does not cause insurgency. So logically it must be something else.

[carl]

Cliff,

Ok, you came up with one example: China.

How about North Korea?

[Bob's World]

How about North Korea?

North Korea is a tough read. My "never been there, don't know much about their culture" assessment is that the conditions of insurgency should be fairly high, and in turn, highly suppressed by the government.

NK is unique, however, in how isolated that populace is information-wise from the rest of the world. They may actually perceive their situation to be "normal", and therefore have relatively low conditions of insurgency. Perceptions are relative, and with the advent of ever increasing speed, volume and access to information the standards expected of governments increase. In NK, however, things still move at stone-age speeds.

My prediction on NK is that as the populace gains greater access to information the pressure on the government to evolve will increase. Of course their entire model of governance may collapse before that ever happens.

Info technology and its advances are critical to the understanding of insurgency, particularly for foreign powers that subject the populaces of others and their governments to external controls. The later Romans, once their network of roads were built, could not get away with what the earlier romans could. The Holy Roman Empire found it's systems of controls under increased pressure once the Printing press was invented. The British came under greater pressures from their holdings once they connected their empire with telegraph cables. The Soviets lost control of Eastern Europe as those populaces gained greater access to info; and today the systems of controls the US established as part of its containment strategy and to ensure global commerce is under growing pressure as cellular and satellite comms and social networking sites continue to improve.

The world is changing, and the expectations of governments are changing along with it. Power once "monopolized" by states is becoming more democratized instead. Sovereignty means less than it used to, and non-state actors from corporations to AQ are acting more independently from such sovereign controls and with greater power that states are ill-equipped (currently) to counter or deter.

We live in dynamic and fascinating times. Facing these times armed with a COIN doctrine derived from centuries old colonial intervention strategies as our primary tool for managing them is probably not the best idea.

[Surferbeetle]

Glad to see you back on the board...

Thanks, like what you have done with the place, Prost/Cheers…another Johnny Walker Black Label all around

My guess -- and it is no more than that -- is that most of the Eastern European experience wil not be transferable to North Africa or the ME. Just as Malaysian and Indonesian Muslims differ and both those are quite different than the Arabs of the ME, geography and demographics shape destinies and attitudes.

As you rightly note, paying attention to the nuances of market segmentation often results in benefits for those who do. In pursuit of a key informant from the financial world who can provide us with some more insights regarding Tunisia I cruised on over to the website of the Financial Times in order to see if Dr. Gillian Tett or Mr. Gideon Rachman had posted anything regarding the goings on. Their particular focus during this reporting cycle was on the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Dr. Tett provides an interesting and quick read regarding the practice of social anthropology while gathering insights into the networking practices of Davos Man. Her article is entitled A Social Network, and is dated 28 Jan 2011. (Site registration provides one access to ten free FT articles per month if memory serves). Mr. Rachman provides an interesting article, dated 28 Jan 11, entitled What’s on the Mind of Davos Man? Unfortunately Davos Man wasn’t speaking on record for these two articles regarding Tunisia. Instead, Egypt seems to be a greater concern as discussed in the 28 Jan 11 article entitled Geopolitical Worries Move up the Agenda.

Both the FT and the BBC have a report regarding the return to Tunisia of Rachid Ghannouchi, of the Nahda (Renaissance) movement from his ~19 year exile in London. The BBC also does an excellent job, as usual, with it’s breakout of key Tunisian politicians and parties (Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) party, Nahda, Congress for the Republic, Movement of Socialist Democrats, Party of People's Unity, Unionist Democratic Union, Renewal Movement (Ettajdid), Democratic Initiative Movement, Social Liberal Party and the Green Party for Progress ) as well as some background regarding the Tunisian Army’s Chief of Staff, Gen Rachid Ammar.

For assessments of potential and/or predictions of possibilities and probabilities, great familiarity -- let me emphasize that 'great' -- with a region and its people will enable a reasonably astute prediction when coupled with quantitative and qualitative data whereas the date sets alone will not suffice. Passing familiarity (my two years in the ME or four in Korea for example) do not equip one to make competent judgments. It takes long experience with actually living in a culture to do that -- and all peoples separate into cultures...

With only two years in the ME, and over a decade spent in Europe, I agree with your analysis. I would add that taking the plunge and learning the language(s), (DLI, SOLT, FSI, University, Instituto Cervantes, Goethe Institute – they even have one in Tehran, etc.), is key. Language abilities provide for a day versus night level of understanding. I know that I am preaching to a DLI grad on this point…but I’ll still throw it out there for anyone else who will listen.

That's the difficulty with even phenomenal brainpower as in Sachs and Shreve applied to people problems, they miss the nuances -- and cannot stand the quirks...

Managing/empowering high priced talent is not easy. When being in a position to choose…runners seem to know how to turn things off…but that’s not a hard and fast rule…more of an opinion on my part.