Military Lessons from Syrian Civil War

It is still too early to say whether the alliance of Western, Turk, Saudi, Qatar funded mercenaries and foreign Al-Qaeda fighters will "liberate" Syria the way they did Libya. 

But 2 years gives us some time for observation on modern civil wars.




Observers trying to be neutral in seeing what is happening in Syria start off with a customary disclaimer. "Assad regime is rather shady and vicious, we don't support it but perhaps chaos that will replace it will be worse".

We will do the same. By all means, Assad government is a lot less benign than was the genuinely popular government of Gaddafi. Libya, a country of 6 million (with half of it lasting and maintaining military operations for 7 months under constant NATO bombardment), demonstrates this fact along with the objectively high social/infrastructural spending on the population. Without direct NATO bombardment of Western Libyan infrastructure, Gaddafi's forces would have easily occupied and pacified eastern Libya within 1-2 months and neutralized destabilizing foreign mercenary, special forces, and terrorist elements. In fact, during battle for Misurata, Gaddafi's troops attempted precision targeting of hostile elements rather than current Assad strategy of neighborhood isolation and blanket bombardment. That show of humanitarian tactics ultimately hastened Libya's slide into current sectarian decentralized chaos.

Assad father's semi-reactionary coup within the Baath party in the 1960s greatly moderated socialist factions and allowed current batch of corrupt business elites to ultimately emerge. Assad dynasty has also mismanaged its influx of funds from recent partial opening to globalism and neoliberal theory. Libya mismanaged funds as well but to a lesser degree. History shows us that cold war attempts to find a third way between socialism and capitalism (such as Baath party's fusionistic ideology of socialism, nationalism, pan-Arabism, state capitalism) gradually degrades towards something blatantly fascistic, stagnant, and opportunist due to lack of ideological clarity.

One constant in secular nationalist modernizing Arab republics appears to be strong state and military apparatus that inevitably partially "sells out"/merges with the Western-phile business classes. To be fair, occasionally they genuinely do create social progress via emulating parts of previous experiments (ex: Nasserist, Peronist, Kemalist, Leninist, and FDRist practices).

Another constant is that due to strong nationalist military tradition of these ungodly "third way" hybrid regimes, they prove difficult for the neighborhood. They are just too willful, independent, too sovereign for current process of globalization. Thus we see today's opportunism of neighboring states (local hereditary mafia monarchies, neoliberal Turkey, and Western governments) to ride/redirect the protest wave and overthrow third way regimes to better exploit them. A pattern emerges that when a third way state tries to create a peaceful outreach and make new friends, they get stabbed in the back (watch the interview of Assad by Charlie Rose and note the experience of Libya giving up chemical weapons and becoming more normal only to be stomped).

But it isn't easy. If you fear you may be targeted by ambitious vultures who want to use social unrest in your country to forment regime changing unrest, then you should keep some lessons in mind. Because there is nothing worse than an artificial civil war that doesn't follow the will of the majority (think about alternate history outrage of UK intervening on the side of the Confederacy during American civil war and having Confederates win and occupy the north, makes the blood boil don't it? Or if China was stirring secession unrest among American tea party types with generous funding and advanced weapons, unthinkable!).

However if you got a genuine civil war on your hands that is strictly indigenous and if you got the support of Western capital and weapons and you still don't seem to be winning, then you're definitely on the wrong side of history. You may want to call on French/Saudi/etc military to help you out and take chances with that.

Lesson 1: Outcome depends not on domestic factors but either interference or non-interference of global and regional powers.

The global media bubble of disinformation that Western governments can achieve around a targeted country is monstrously powerful and very difficult to breech. If you are on the wrong side of the transnational slander campaign, you best get powerful friends.

UN is split into faction A) [US, France, UK] that disregards basic UN premise of national sovereignty in favor of corporate transnational neo-feudal police state and faction B) [China, Russia] that fight to protect UN status quo and thus perhaps even UN's legitimacy with a statement of  "what happens inside a country's borders is not NATO's/UN's business". Eventually of course, during UN's evolution we may first see some global police apparatus develop but it'll be more along lines of multilateral government agreements, continental security/economic blocks, and not just one security block arbitrarily browbeating UN to cater to its needs. It may even be possible to have various large security alliances have their own representation in UN as a collection of global gendarmes with their own respective neighborhoods to patrol.

Lesson 2: Military installations deep inside a country need to be better defended since many don't plan on being attacked by well armed civilians or foreign mercenaries/adventure seekers pretending to be civilians.

Many military bases are located in dangerous zones such as by forests or by hills that allows them to be bombarded. This applies to all military bases including the ones inside powerful states like France, UK, US as well. The bases are not civilian proof (due to expectation of civilian areas being safe) and thus could be rapidly surprised and looted. A country fearing attack by NATO pirates and their proxies (Algeria you're next considering France is picking up the war on terror torch) best double cement wall their bases, clear nearby brush, and prevent construction of residential areas in the vicinity. Even a large big name base is ridiculously vulnerable to 100-200 well armed people storming it to grab even bigger guns. Thus installations in countries vulnerable to civil war should copy base protection methodology employed in Afghanistan.

Lesson 3: Give in to protester demands early. :)

Now not just any protester demands (not the demands of the bourgeois children who want free flow of capital, privatization, and "free speech" for their capital) but those demands concerning economic freedom of the poor. Thus, any government in fear of "being next" should make overtures to the local communist party apparatus, secular/socialist community organizers, etc to co-opt them and then use these connections to route out foreign infiltrators and create community support. Rationing should occur immediately to create popular dependence of the poor sectors of society on government for subsistence. This means, bread, sugar, petrol, basic children supplies, etc. Make an economic outreach to Cuba, they may send some help over.

Lesson 4: Determine early whether it genuinely is a civilian protest that can be handled by combination of political outreach and police action or whether it's total national security threat requiring major mobilization to secure strategic areas with triple rings of defenses. Do not gradually escalate and allow insurgents to adjust. If threat is serious and Western hyenas/neighboring government jackals are beginning to side with protesters go to Lesson 5.

Lesson 5: Protect the main cities first to maintain illusion of normalcy, maintain popular support, and create large safe havens from those fleeing the countryside. Gradual isolation of enemy infected neighborhoods in the city of Homs was a success but it shouldn't have come to that. An ounce of prevention (military quarantine of a city) is better than a pound of cure.

As tempting as it is to use all your might to chase a bunch of dangerous religious rednecks across the country and attempt to maintain security across the whole country, that is often is simply not possible. Major cities (and substantial buffer zones around the cities) should be first priority in order to prevent emergence of a center of power for an alternative government (that can then rely on drawing educated cadres within the city). Military installations, borders, arms factories, and energy supplies should obviously come second.

Create rural pockets where insurgents can operate and herd them into those pockets. If some cities developed an infection already, isolate the neighborhoods and starve them out. Religious extremists are similar to zombies from a bad Hollywood movie only they feed off people's broken hopes and their radicalization once infrastructure and the economy have been destroyed.

Lesson 6: Pay large amounts of money to PR firms of a neutral country so they run ads on news channels of Western countries if possible, wage prolific Internet campaigns. In the era of declining American empire, even a monolithic media offensive will have cracks in it.

Lesson 7: Maintain refugee camps within areas of government control and use the dispossessed males for recruitment. It is not helpful to have them sitting in a neighboring country without supervision or being indoctrinated into the opposing camp. Plan for creation of refugee camps on your own territory in advance, preferably in urban areas where they can provided with physical needs, security, and propaganda umbrella of the government.

Lesson 8: Invest in cheap decoy tanks, airplanes, helicopters which have their own heat signature. Western governments may be feeding satellite information to insurgents and decoy tanks used by Serbs during NATO Yugoslav bombardment were very effective at confusing the enemy. Set up fake targets to attack as traps. Religious insurgents are not too bright to begin with considering their devotion to self-sacrifice and superstition so tricking them will be easier than secular insurgents.

Lesson 9: Maintain illusion that all government facilities are functioning normally but store all vital records underground or in other locations to prevent fire damage from car bombs. Record keeping is essential to maintain food/supplies rationing mechanisms running in a hearts and minds campaign. Relocate some essential government offices to more secure military bases if possible.

Lesson 10: Set up a transnational intelligence sharing center on potential threats from Western powers and their lackeys. Create a database of known mercenary networks. Set up a multi-billion dollar assistance fund in faction B country to use for aid if a foreign backed civil war should happen to you. Don't allow New York Times, BBC, or any Western media agents into your country, they are affiliated with intelligence services. Use Chinese or Russian media channels from Faction B.

Any country may find themselves in danger even if so much time has passed that they think they're safe. Cuba, Venezuela, Algeria, Iran, and every strategic willful country in Africa/Central Asia/Middle East should collaborate on how to prevent humanitarian catastrophe from foreign physical and informational infiltration and NATO bombs from falling on their territory.

P.S. Having said all of this, not all civil wars are created equal. Some governments simply have a more difficult time accommodating opposition due to their feudal structure. Entities such as Saudi Arabia perhaps deserve to be destabilized as these feudal theocratic absolutist monarchies are not a force for human progress by any objective measure. Neither are the other vicious caste based monarchies. Karma will have their way with them when their "subjects" wake up and turn republican or when Saudi extremists refuse to go abroad and turn their attention inwards. Considering that the entire region is similar to pre-WW1 Europe, it is better for all nations in the region to be on the same republican level of understanding and progressing towards greater secularization, fertility lowering education, and modernization. Secular educated people are less likely to sign up to fight in wars and more likely to demand socialist leaning style of development.

And here is an interview with Assad just a couple years ago after he was visited by senator John Kerry and after he made outreaches to Turkey, Qatar, and the West.

Converting Military-Industrial Complex for Civilian Use

Large military contractors can continue to make a killing (no pun intended) for their shareholders if half of their military hardware and development was converted towards social benefit.




Previously, The Pragmatist covered the need to utilize the high tech assembly lines, research and development labs, and sophisticated blue collar job creation potential of the current American military-corporate behemoth. Reasons were given.

Now perhaps it is time to look at a few general things that can be accomplished by the declining American empire to avoid the mistakes that Soviet military-industrial complex experienced. This means setting certain long term civilian procurement goals for the American complex that:

1) keep current technical/industrial personnel in place and employed
2) gently push the personnel towards reorientation and training of others
3) make use of existing assets and existing assembly lines
4) require minimal retooling of assembly lines
5) take advantage of economies of scale and export opportunities
6) create new interesting synergies with civilian corporations and civilian personnel
7) create opportunities for technology transfers from abroad
8) require merger with domestic and foreign civilian corporations to aid in economy of scale creation
9) ultimately improve national infrastructure through raising electrical output, transport efficiency, etc
10) maintain/increase employment within R&D departments so as not to lose scientists abroad yet systematically refocus them towards greater civilian purpose
11) ultimately assist in transfer of non-sensitive scientific research and prototypes to civilian corporations, universities, and start ups with minimal red tape

In other words, the 600 billion a year high tech sword maker is partially remade into a high tech plow maker and assistant/trainer of additional plow makers. Every military branch up as well as exotic weapons development can  be made useful. Ultimately a DARPA equivalent for infrastructure should come into existence to complement and work together with DARPA itself. Some examples:

A fleet of floating federally owned nuclear reactors to power coastal cities and those regions hit by near future super-hurricanes

Large government orders (from companies responsible for design and construction of small fission reactors for nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers) for 30-100 floating nuclear reactors and Alaska bound icebreakers. This ensures not just a continual development of small (and hopefully modular) fission reactors but a way to compete with Russians in this area when it comes to exploiting the north pole. A big export opportunity is of course also created. When the inevitable second wave of the financial crisis arrives, it is vital that key fission reactor core companies are locked into long term contracts of concrete social use (since construction of most submarines, aircraft carriers, battlecruisers, and destroyers will be cancelled/halted). This will preserve the essential core within the physical assembly and nuclear research workforce. Electrical energy will always be needed especially if it is clean and relatively portable the way modular 50-250 MW range fission is. There are of course more uses other than energy such as nuclear desalination and floating material processing.

Older cruisers and destroyers can be converted into floating power plants rather than decommissioned, sold, and/or scrapped. They are well protected and armored. Unfortunately, older aircraft carriers are too function specific and are better off sold.

When it comes to airplanes, Lockheed-Martin's converted C-130J Super Hercules airplane can even be a flying power plant that lands to serve emergency hit areas. In case of plane failure, the bathtub fission reactor can disengage and land by parachute. Once again, the assembly lines have been there for decades, retooling will be minimal. Joining corporate forces with makers of the enormous Antonov transport planes is a good idea.

Using General Dynamics built tanks as high speed rural workhorses to keep the plants from shutting down

It is possible to create giant small fission reactor powered tracked transport platforms by splicing multiple M1-Abrams tank platforms into one. Transport of ore from mines or of very large objects such as additional fission reactors and infrastructure parts comes to mind. General Dynamics need not stop mass production of their war machines, just retool for speedy rural tracked platform development in coordination with John Deere company. Conversion of tanks into heartland workhorses will be psychologically pleasing to large segment of the American population. In fact, synergy can be created in terms of tracked platform production between military and civilian assembly lines, each adding its own unique capabilities.

Clothing and accessories

The unfortunate and corrupt trend of police militarization has already created a tendency for the military to equip local police, even when it is ridiculous overkill. With eventual end of the tyrannical drug prohibition and dramatic scaling down of American empire, the military oriented corporations can still continue to mass produce uniforms, bulletproof vests/ceramic armor, helmets, and gear for police units of the North American continent and of those around the world. Russia has recently began a process of large scale conversion of uniforms to meet American standards and there is no reason for American companies to not make money off that. There is also the issue of eventually equipping of international police forces. No other government spends (wastes) as many resources per soldier as US and all that needs to happen is to take advantage of economies of scale for anything ranging from boots to shovels to wearable computer systems. Nothing stops United States from becoming a companion to China in terms of being a "factory of the world" in certain areas. Equipping the entire world's police with cheap, quality, cutting edge equipment also goes further towards standardizing policing practices and making US the global gendarme than current crude aggression. A high tech police state of 310 million people can also flood the market with such mundane things as latest civilian construction helmets, firefighter attire, mining equipment, etc.

Army Corps of Engineers to aid in deconstruction of suburbia, jump starting infrastructure development, and rapid training of civilian cadres for domestic nation building

The current government tendency to reduce youth unemployment and civil unrest through AmeriCorps will take on an intensified desperate form as robotic automation and national rot speeds up. Use of military engineers for crack training serves to empower civilians and provide a real sense of "nation building" while power boosting  infrastructure development. Although it is tempting to hire cheap Chinese labor, rural American peasants have shown an amazing tendency to tirelessly work patrolling streets of Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries. They exert themselves again gladly if given actual domestic programs and empowering teaching/work positions as an "elite" labor class. Army Corps of Engineers should be dramatically expanded with those in the army retrained for it.

Systems Engineering for national renewal

Just the way a map of an occupied country can be broken up into problem areas and stable areas, North America can be broken up into areas needing additional electrification/water supplies/employment/terraforming. A corrupt to the bone declining rotting oligarchic society needs a systems approach for tangible rebirth to start occurring. Only this approach will reduce span of renewal by 1-2 decades rather than extend it into the 2040s. All efforts must be made to prevent Chinese style fascist model from becoming a role model for the world. As noted, US military is the last bastion of national elites that are the most technically competent and that are the least parasitic on the whole social body (surprising as this may sound considering they are also the biggest budgetary burden and physical protector of the banking establishment). Instead of gutting and starving them, making use of them and their functional abilities stands to make the transition period a lot more pleasant.

These are some of the examples that come to mind. We will return to more uses for this gargantuan death machine in the future (over 50 countries killed in the last half a century making US government biggest serial killer in the world since WW2).

Urban Planning of Experimental Satellite Cities

Rapid urbanization in the third world offers a chance to cheaply try out urbaneering with various built from scratch functional "theme" cities. 



A resource rich continent like Africa that is experiencing an average annual GDP growth of 5-10% will soon have a lot of governments with funds to try out prestige projects. Satellite cities offer national elevation into global spotlight, economic usefulness, public works program, access to foreign technologies, and opportunity to leapfrog over the West in some infrastructure development. Other parts of the developing world already see movement towards concept theme cities built from scratch. Notable examples are Abu Dhabi's renewable energy focused Masdar City and China's 80,000 person green tech focused Great City. The latter shows the most likely design for cities of the future, that is, a densely populated walkable high tech residential core that abruptly ends into pure nature. It is more cost efficient for a developing country to surround a compact city with nature than design nature inside a spread out city. The energy inefficiencies of urban sprawl will soon be demonstrated in industrialized regions of the globe and compactness will be planned from the start.

Although an expensive project, a satellite city stands to rapidly pay for itself if it is themed (such as agriculture focused city providing fruits and vegetables not grown in that part of the world to well off people and government entities of neighboring cities). At first, many of the cities will be a net energy and monetary loss. The input will be greater than the output. However, although a drain, they do provide a public works project and a way to experiment and measure what type of satellite city actually comes closest to paying for itself (note the agri-city example above). In this regard early satellite cities are similar to Tokamak proof of concept fusion reactors. Those reactors were necessary to start building ITER. Then of course it stands to rapidly pay for itself once figured out (much better allocation of resources than warfare and mass murder).

Some universities and even mega factories have membership of over 50,000 people. It is not too out there to design a compact city dedicated to a specific task that has a population capacity of 50 thousand with built in room for 100 thousand if needed (in case interest builds for foreign companies to try out a concept requiring service personnel and foreign presence).

City as a printer

A large printing station has hundreds of little parts with room for additional cartridges and paper amounts. A satellite city should be thought in these terms, as a singular unit that produces surplus objects for nearby non-planned cities. In the more distant future, the task based buildings within these cities will be thought of as printers as well. An example is a vertical automated farm building unit that will have hundreds of parts, inside room for expansion/machine replacement, and robotic harvesting/planting/growing systems that are designed to fit the building neatly the way cartridges are (this building has capacity to store harvesting systems coded 400A through 600A). This allows mass production of modular building floors and mass production of various large equipment units that efficiently fit within. The fitting would happen on construction site of modular floor units or at assembly site, whichever is closer.

Modularity from the machines inside the buildings, to the buildings themselves, to the city itself is essential to start tackling insane energy and resource waste generated currently. Although early experiments should and probably will occur in the developing world, first major and perhaps most interesting applications of satellite and planned cities will likely occur at ground zero of resource waste, North American continent.

Deconstruction of old suburban areas

The planners behind the process of satellite city creation should work in parallel with those in charge of removing and harvesting building materials from urban sprawl areas. Clearing paths for nature, total removal of ghost towns and rotting suburban/rust bell areas, and recycling materials from those areas towards satellite city construction is a multidecade global project. It stands to put millions of those displaced by automation to work during the transition period. Unlike some other job creation projects of no benefit being used in Europe currently (bus inspectors for example), this type of public works is essential for social stability and survival. It is also a type of decentralized public works as all levels of localities can begin to engage in the task of deconstruction and compact construction. City mining allows more readily available source of materials than conventional mining. For proper deconstruction to occur, material processing and reprocessing should become a lot more mobile and decentralized (at first, perhaps involving very large ships servicing coastal areas).

ships keep getting larger at South Korean shipyards

But all these grand causal chain reactions of what needs to be done first start with a prestige project of small compact city that focuses on a specific surplus creation task. Political elites of the resource rich third world (we should return to use of this term rather than developing world, since all are developing) have a chance to take global leadership through satellite city experimentation, leadership that they psychologically want but are unable to take due to military and financial weakness.

Reclaiming nature and construction of sustainable futuristic compact urban areas is the infrastructural "moon landing" of this century. All other infrastructure projects get enormous boost from such a goal. As JFK noted, "... that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.." 

A focused society is a powerful society. There is no need to wait until China becomes a hegemony to create a focus for the human herd in the West. The theme of "reclaiming nature" through urban wasteland deconstruction (much easier to rapidly do than compact city creation) is very likely to capture the imaginations of the young, especially in the Western world. Thus we have two exciting processes that mutually play off each other, one happening in post-industrialized areas and one in the pre-industrialized areas. Much of the task of generating new electrical energy for Western re-industrialization is a simple matter of bulldozing and harvesting suburbia and heartland towns (that are currently in the process of depopulation).

After a certain point, humanity's measure can be which % of population lives in planned areas versus those living in old unplanned areas. 

Future of Kurdistan

Major challenges for the Kurds: The world's largest ethnic group without its own country sitting in a region resembling pre-World War 1 Europe and United States winding down its global oil based empire due to becoming energy independent.



Poor Kurds. Living in an era that requires novel supranational construction and deepening international cooperation on regional, continental, and global levels (to make up for US built global system unwinding over the next 20 years as American elites attempt to gradually socioeconomically re-organize and re-industrialize without a major collapse).

Poor Kurds. No country for them even when tiny Scotland is about to vote on political independence (not just autonomy) while remaining within continental framework of nations. And even Spain's Catalonia is moving in this direction.

Poor Kurds. Kurdistan sort of looks like Poland of the Middle East (pre-1914 once again), partitioned yet with potential for large expenditure of human herd energy if unified. Pre- 2003 invasion political structures in Iraqi Kurdistan for instance were more futuristic and advanced than those in Baghdad itself. A key component of solid nationalism is not only belief in uniqueness and belief in gently superior functionality of the ethnic group's way of life but actuality of this functional superiority. Even their insurgent groups and banned parties seem a bit futuristic. It is interesting that the most effective pan-Kurdish political party in the region, PKK, is secular and socialistic in nature (at a glance, like a more effective Baath party which explains why it was less tolerable for them to live under a regime perceived as less civilized). Let's go further with gently tongue in cheek analogies: If Poland is also the Ireland of central Europe (Catholic and long under the boot of fellow white skinned oppressors) then Kurds are a bit like their Gaelic cousins as well as their Polish cousins (even the supposedly more "primitive" mountain Kurds in Eastern Turkey compared to their Turkish overlords in Istanbul got that highlander thing going).

But let's get serious.

click to enlarge and read the pure madness

Unlike with say, Western Ukrainians, there was never an attempt by a regional power to artificially bolster Kurdish nationalism at any point (Soviets for instance even created alphabets for some people in central Asia to create artificial nationalisms for political reasons). This desire for a Kurdish nation is primordial and real. It is not postmodern economic nationalism as it is with the above mentioned Scottish case, as seen with some Northern Italians, or as was the case with Bellorussians seceding in the early 1990s. It is genuine nationalism born from centuries of struggle and many partial victories.

Poor Kurds. Having higher birthrates in Turkey than Turks themselves and expanding their share of the population (from over 15% in 2000 to over 18% today) yet having their activists and journalists taught the meaning of freedom in the crudest of ways. As Slavoj Zizek points out in the passage to the left.

And even for those Kurds outside Turkey (whose fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers haven't repeatedly fought Istanbul), there is a danger that Syria will soon disintegrate into Libyan style enclave chaos resulting in former Syrian territory coming under Turkish sphere of influence if not outright partial occupation. The new post-Kemalist neoliberal Turkish regime of Erdogan is even more abrasive in its belligerence in many ways due to being new and growing. Turkey has been rivaling Saudi Arabia in human rights abuses recently which we don't hear about it due to it being a NATO member. As American imperial perimeter continues to shrink and controlled chaos destabilization wars of Obama are left lit, we should see Istanbul begin to really flex its muscles for the first time in a long while (we see the start of this in Istanbul's slightly more abrasive tone with Israel and its adventure in Syria). This should rattle Kurdish nerves throughout the region. If Assad's very multicultural regime is to survive in some form, it may depend on Kurdish cooperation.

A More Rational Middle Eastern Map?

Once oil and gas from oil/fracking becomes plentiful and cheap (there is roughly 7 times more oil and frack gas in the world than of current traditional deposits and technology to extract it gets better and cheaper by the day), lots of monarchies in the Middle East are likely to get replaced by republican forms of government due to instability. The Pragmatist has done a very in depth article when it comes to oil price and its relation to violence when it comes to Iraq. The hereditary mafias of various Middle Eastern kingdoms left behind as British-American proxies during the Cold War will be in for a rude awakening (especially considering half their populations are borderline slave migrants). Shale oil stands to lower price of oil to as little as $50 per barrel (in today's dollars) before 2020s (with US and primarily Texas as the epicenter of this revolution). Gas price may dramatically tumble even further as US becomes LNG exporter again.

These developments in energy markets should allow pan-Arabism to re-emerge as a way out of the crisis and for construction of a pan-Arab economic union as a supranational device for regional economic survival and instability management. Once solar, small modular fission reactors, and thorium reactors come online and Middle Eastern budgets completely messed with, we should see remnants of regional monarchic absolutism end fully. Frankly speaking, tourism to medieval anti-social libertarian destinations wont save the various chubby "princes" and "kings". The list of tangible demands that The Pragmatist offered to the Middle Eastern protesters should have included Republicanism.

What does this do to the map of the Middle East?

The end of Jordanian monarchy may make Jordan the true center of a Palestinian state considering the roughly 2 million Palestinians residing there and the multiculturalism of the kingdom. If Gaza isn't swallowed up by Egypt, Jordanian territory with remnants of West Bank should provide more than enough resources for a functional Palestinian nation with Gaza being a sort of Kaliningrad-esque exclave (Gazans should really look at vertical farming tech).

But the Kurds?

Return of Pan-Arabism when it comes to construction of a regional economic union does not interfere with emergence of Kurdistan too much. Arab on Kurd clashes occur on periphery of the Arab world and it is the Persians and the Turks who will have to deal with the Kurdish question most fully.

Kurds are on the periphery of the Arab world and
future Pan-Arab economic unions. They also
partially straddle the Shiite-Sunni border 

Iraq's future is in jeopardy since its intelligentsia has fled, since Baghdad has been ethnically cleansed of Sunni and Ba'ath remnants, and since Iraqi Kurdistan is autonomous enough to have provided a political safe haven for an Iraqi Sunni vice-president who fled a death sentence made by the current Iraqi ruler, prime minister Nouri al-Maliki (leader of a former insurgent organization that sided with Iran during Iraq-Iran war[!]). This means that the only thing preventing Iraqi Kurdistan from declaring full independence is unsettled questions over the oil spoils on Iraqi soil and of course fears over a military alliance of Baghdad and Istanbul to co-invade and re-integrate Northern Iraq in the manner that Saddam Hussein would be proud of.

Don't think that such things don't happen. Recently, an Arab Spring spill over revolt in Bahrain by Shiites was brutally crushed by Bahraini government with tanks sold to it by Germany. With US leaving the region (some of the more radical artificially created "fiscal cliff" solutions involve up to 30% closures for American military bases abroad), we'll see major regional players taking matters into their own hands regardless of what the American powered "West" thinks. Iraq may survive though, language is stronger than religion and Iraq is mostly Arab even if it's dominated by Shiite Arabs. Thus Iraq is the fuzzy border zone where Pan-Arabism ends much like Ukraine is the fuzzy borderzone where Russia sort of ends. Persians and Turks face two difficult options.

Either:

Kurdish flag.. Got a cool sun in the center

1) Create a very complicated and sophisticated 21st century pan-Islamic (including all Islamic branches) economic zone that extends influence into Turk and Persian language influenced Central Asia. Turkey is 20% Shiite and Turkish-Iranian cooperation would allow a major counterbalance to re-emergence of Pan-Arab structures if it also takes Kurds into account as relevant players. Kurds have a strong Sufi representation although most are Sunni. This option means keeping Kurdistan fragmented yet with Kurds receiving more cultural and economic rights and advantages. Some pan-Islamic understanding will be necessary anyway for regional stability. For either Istanbul or Tehran to press for cooperation based on it should provide prestige and political magnetism. Just like Europe from Ireland to the Urals has a unifying Christian heritage, policy makers in Middle East and Central Asia (who are all secular hedonists like any intelligent person) will have to reach a similar understanding. Even under rapid, inevitable, Internet led secularization (individualism building "corruption") of the younger people, Pan-Islamism is still a tool to co-opt conservative Muslim groups.  [This option is also ridiculously optimistic pie in the sky given Turkish-Israeli-American cooperation for a long time preventing Turk-Persian cooperation and considering residual imperial influences from US, Russia, China, Europe, etc. and human nature. There is also the issue of secular reversals in the name of stability.]

2) Shrink as nation states and give up any efforts at securing imperial regional "depth" and growth in the vacuum created by absence of Anglo-American forces. This means allowing Kurdistan to exist in greater and more tangible form, parting with parts of territory, and allowing Chinese and/or Russians to become the new diplomatic mediators in the region. This option is a rather involuntary one forced upon Istanbul and Tehran by economic necessity, level of Kurdish resistance, and outside pressure. [In the end, giving up imperial pretensions may allow Persian and Turkish people to have dramatically higher standards of living IF this reduces violence in the region or conversely if reduction in level of violence makes giving up imperial pretensions/territorial control more palatable.]

In the end, Beijing and Moscow will be key players in deciding how Tehran and Istanbul acts towards the Kurds (and correspondingly, how Baghdad and Damascus acts). SCO nations do sufficient levels of business with both capitals and will be left to clean up Washington's mess for years to come (in 2009 I speculated about the Afghan war being an integrative welfare life support system for the obsolete NATO structure). Although Washington's attempts to destabilize the region (if they cannot control it) may create a temporary brain drain beneficial to the West, there should be enough brains left to create a more permanent and indigenous regional security structure and to neutralize Islamic radicalism from spreading (just as it was in 1990s following Soviet defeat in Afghanistan).

Poor Kurds. Or maybe in the future, Cool Kurds? (can't believe the analysis is ended like that)

Myers Briggs Personality and Evolution of Leadership

16 MBTI personality types roughly correspond to different breeds of self domesticated human primates. Humans evolved to travel and feel comfortable in packs of 150-250. How has leadership among them evolved to the present day and what does it mean for the future of democracy?




Recently, I rather optimistically touched upon how direct democratic structures can emerge in the 21st century. One article covered the concept of a "virtual polis" that political scientist Robert Dahl brainstormed will be possible once communication technology advances enough (he wrote in the late 1980s). This polis will allow a randomly drawn jury duty type community of people to co-legislate in political units regardless of how large the population of the unit is. The other article touched upon possible groupings of people (the concept of "rogue NGOs" and some rogue think tanks) which may help organize the first virtual polis experiments and provide the organizing cadres, human talent, funding, and technological infrastructure.

Now it is time to take a more cynical look and list a few key problems with democracy in general so we can approach direct democratic architecture construction with the right tools in the future. Democratization isn't going away and such well rounded discussion is especially key in very large unwieldy states like China and India. China will first democratize the 80 million plus ruling party apparatus before moving on to allow pluralism in the general population (there are more Christians living in China than in USA, so if another large opposition party ever arises its characteristics may appear rather surprising to outside Western observers). India will have to deal with democratization at the lowest level that it currently lacks (the world's so called biggest democracy currently resembles Britain in late 19th century in terms of democracy for elites only).

The first major problem of course is that although democracy of 1 man 1 vote may exist, it does not provide results due to incredibly disproportionate amount of resources available to these men and women. A good analogy is voting within a large corporation where 1 man 1 vote obviously fails due to different number of shares per shareholder.

The second problem directly relates to the first in that the disproportionate resources allow advanced propaganda techniques to sway the 20% of population that is very suggestible, 60% of population that is semi-suggestible, and even parts of the 20% of population that is relatively immune to suggestion. It doesn't help that 80% of population is psychologically prone to status quo mentality, making the programming task all the easier.

everybody got a cutesy nickname

These two will need to be tackled head on without too many radical arbitrary solutions (like only giving college graduates the right to vote as well as professions critical to societal functioning like teachers, soldiers, social workers, police, engineers, medical personnel, etc).

The third problem is biological and is root cause of the first problem and the topic of present article. Human herds have, are, and will continue to be led by coalitions of aggressive, novelty seeking alpha males/females who drag the rest of the population behind them. Let's take a brief look at evolution of these leadership dynamics.

In simpler pre-agricultural world, detail oriented sensory experience was a lot more important than intuition. There are even theories that modern tight communication between left and right side of the brain is a relatively recent thing. Hunter gatherers lived in the moment and the Myers Briggs personality that fits them best is ESTP. Besides fitting the modern role of a soldier, ESTPs fit into caveman/tribal world neatly:

1) Heavy parietal lobe dominance for rapidly grasping and understanding tool use

2) Heavy extraversion to go outwards towards the world of food, prey, and mates and to be energized through heavy social interaction.

3) Right hemisphere dominance to rapidly switch attention from one spot to another to look out for danger and food/mating opportunities.

We can relatively safely say this is the oldest breed among us. Even emotionality of ESFPs and ESFJs is a more recent development during transition to less aggressive and more providing mating selection. Early social leadership thus probably had ESTPs use bursts of energy (which today would unfortunately be labeled by some silly "disorder" such as bipolar, borderline, manic, hypomanic, etc). The ESTP would gesticulate to others excitedly and then be the first one of the pack into the jungle. Although this breed would be on the cutting edge of the pack, the actual day to day organizing, consolidating, and leading of the pack would fall to more left hemisphere dominant and organized ESTJs. Development of left hemisphere comes with age, strong alpha parental role modeling, and discipline. Although all human babies are born with very powerful right hemisphere perception (P of 100) to learn as much as possible, inevitably the pack splits into roughly 50/50 left and right dominance.

So the pre-agricultural situation had ESTPs serve as a sort of Lewis and Clark/Columbus explorers who provided leadership by exploring brand new terrain while ESTJs provided leadership by consolidating the newly discovered terrain and marshalling the human resources of the pack to settle in it.

When a number of primate packs joined forces to engage in large scale warfare, this usually occurred when a super alpha emerged from one of the packs who provided leadership to alphas of other packs. In theory one could have a pack consisting of 150-250 alpha male leaders temporarily led in an alliance. We see examples of such tribal gatherings well into the modern times. It is hard to say whether ESTJs or ESTPs provided the most super alphas due to the complexity of such an alliance. Although it is possible that left handed/ambidextrous primates existed even back then as a sort of "bridging leaders" between alphas with left and right brain dominance.

When agriculture made human societies complex and allowed large scale primate domestication and enslavement, intuition became increasingly super important. Thus the best warriors and hunters and consolidators remained ESTPs and ESTJs but further up the hierarchy, ENTPs and ENTJs took over the leadership role. Once again, ENTPs explored new terrain, only this time in the arena of primate domestication and infrastructure development. Once new theoretical ground was broken, ENTJs led others to consolidate and make use of it. Lets use the example of Lewis and Clark again, only this time in the role of ENTPs. Here's an illustration. In earlier "caveman times", ESTPs would lead the pack of men to a new river when chasing after an animal and begin to cross the river without waiting while ESTJs would stop and figure out a way for everybody to systematically cross that river and then return to the river later as needed. As society transitions to post-nomadic exploitation farming society, we see a long line of ESTJ consolidators (who would now send out ESTP brothers to the frontier to defend it rather than be led by them) gradually father more and more ENTJs and ENTPs. The ENTPs would go forth and get packs of alphas excited about building or constructing something new like a large irrigation canal, a tall wall, a dam, etc. Like Lewis and Clark they would often be the restless early settlers of a new area and marshal ESTPs to scout it, measure it, and then proceed to device schemes for new construction. The ENTJs and their ESTJ right hand men would then undertake the boring task to fully develop and build the area to its full potential, defend it, expand it, etc.

Around this time civilization becomes complex enough that some leisure time develops at leadership level and we start seeing more and more introverts appear on the scene.

You've guessed where this is headed.

21st century society is so complex now that previous leadership types (organized as loose, often openly antagonistic, alpha mafia clans if you look at it crudely) cannot fully run it anymore. Just as at some point we had an uneasy transition from ESTP explorer led packs to ENTP explorer led packs, INTPs are the best explorers of where society should be heading in terms of technology, interpersonal relations, etc. INTJs are the consolidators of their thought. Most macro level problems in the world today can be attributed to ENTJs remaining firmly in charge and INTPs being sidelined. At some point in the ancient world, ENTJs and ENTPs have figured out a way to allow ESTPs and ESTJs to remain as warrior figureheads (since detail orientation of parietal lobe makes their weapon ability second to none) while pulling the strings behind the scenes and then in the open. We're now reaching a point where INTPs and INTJs and various other introverts are doing the same to their extraverted excitable outward grasping primate cousins. Amount of introverts in the global herd has now risen to 30% in the Western world (along with rising corresponding propaganda!) and we even see stranger new breeds come on the scene every day. The whole autism phenomenon may be a new stage in evolution to navigate complex new technologies.

Intuition is a simple symbol manipulating system in the brain. Thus up to 6% of the herd today is often classified as "crazy" since ENTJs and ENTPs rapidly arrange data in new novel ways and then extrovertedly (and often excitedly!) act upon it. INTPs and INTJs have the same thing going on, only their lack acting on it makes them appear tame. At some point in the 21st century, INTPs will be able to become more extroverted using advanced pharmacology, genetics, cybernetics and then political power will swing in their favor for the first time. It will be an interesting development to watch as former ENTP explorers get publicly sidelined and outmaneuvered for the first time.

However, this transition will not be an easy one in a world of accelerating trends, when old timers hold on to their political posts for decades at a time in many parts of the world. Builders of direct democratic structures will have to take seriously into account biological inequality due to neural/brain diversity. As a starting point we will require a minimum of heavily modified proportional representation democracy as was suggested earlier to take into account biological herd pluralism. Then, every one of the 4 major Myers-Briggs groupings  (SJs, SPs, NFs, NTs) can have a political party where they will feel comfortable. Coalition can be forced upon proportional representation by constitutional limits on how much a party is represented in parliament (say a maximum ceiling of 40% representation always forcing a coalition government). There are many other tweaks that are possible. Even a sort of "psychological assembly line" is possible when it comes to crafting social policy in working groups by utilizing the talents of each breed.

Mind you, this is a starting point since even the party system has a host of its own problems as noted by one famous North African theorist:

"The existence of many parties intensifies the struggle for power, and this results in the neglect of any achievements for the people and of any socially beneficial plans. Such actions are presented as a justification to undermine the position of the ruling party so that an opposing party can replace it. The parties very seldom resort to arms in their struggle but, rather, denounce and denigrate the actions of each other. This is a battle which is inevitably waged at the expense of the higher, vital interests of the society. Some, if not all, of those higher interests will fall prey to the struggle for power between instruments of government, for the destruction of those interests supports the opposition in their argument against the ruling party or parties. In order to rule, the opposition party has to defeat the existing instrument of government."

We'll of course return to tackle the above issues. It may be time to start conceptualizing democracy as less of one giant hammer but a collection of scalpels working together.

2012 China Political Transition and Global Economic Uncertainty

China's 5th generation leadership is status quo prone due to lack of development in the West.




It has been been a few years since we looked at the rising east with China Mercantilism and New Global Economic Order article. Forgive that article for a certain tone of Western geopolitical chauvinism (that will be explained below).

Time to refresh.

The new Politburo Standing Committee is a leaner 7 member group with an average age of 63.4. I guess the red "princelings" in China are more in Prince Charles style. Whereas the average age in legislatures and highest committee bodies has been falling in the wider Western world (with an exception of United States), the new Chinese leadership will be prone to gerontocracy along with its tied at the hip American tango partner.

Xi Jinping, one of the youngest at 59 is a trained chemical engineer (which is serious business much like Angela Merkel's doctorate on quantum chemistry and people with such backgrounds are often benefit to the public). Another old member, 67 year old Yu Zhengsheng, has missile and electronics engineering training. Two engineers and the rest of the 7 member group are economists, statisticians, and propagandists. All very wealthy of course. This is going to be a very cautious status quo bunch and the generation that will finally start making major mistakes. It is irrelevant whether mistakes will stem from general generational/class divide, overconfidence, above mentioned gerontocracy and cautiousness, or having to make the first major uncertain step into the darkness as a regional hegemon. No country has gone longer than 30 years on such a breakneck pace and on such scale without a major misstep or at least slide into some stagnation. Even with Washington DC and Moscow "reorienting" towards the far east, a vacuum will still be opened in the region due weakness of both powers in the area (US navy is currently being gradually strategically pressured/forced out of Western pacific with Chinese "carrier killer" and "satellite killer" missiles).

The China Mercantilism article threw many analogies around concerning China. Here are some of them that we're all familiar with at this point:

1) The ruling center finally effectively centralizing after warlordism chaos period of the 1920s-1940s which is reminiscent of unification of large pieces of feudal France under 18th century monarchic absolutism. Thus effective first time creation of a modern nation state for China.

2) The current rapid Chinese industrialization and neo-mercantilist rise reminiscent of rapid rise of Germany within a multipolar world of the 1870s-1914 period. With current Anglo-American empire of today naturally playing the role of a deindustrializing British Empire hegemon of yesteryear.

3) The neo-mercantilist practices from Beijing attempting and aiming to be futuristic, evolving, and cutting edge (Deng Xiaoping was mentored by Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew [who is still alive!!] on Asian illiberal capitalism of the future). Thus Beijing aims to borrow and improve on the best of evolving neo-mercantilism of pre-1990s stagnation Japan, Kaiser's Germany of old, and of course smaller neighboring modernizers like Taiwan, South Korea and survivalist dictatorial city state of Singapore. Mercantilism, state sponsored industrialization, and protectionism have been observed to work again and again historically and so the previous article saw most of the world being pulled into the Chinese system and orbit.

[Sidenote: we may even add a new analogy of China partially learning from desires of Hamilton and Quinsy Adams in terms of development and rapid achievement of autonomy from a global hegemon. In any case, Beijing learns and absorbs from all corners much like Moscow does. This is a sign of health. The mass scale chaos and butchery from mid 19th century lasting into the 1960s taught them to never repeat such a time of troubles at any cost.]

The conclusion of the article was cold and geopolitical one since it was assumed China is becoming predictable along its heavy great power path much like Britain became predictable in 19th century. This would allow the Western progressive elites in conditions of a global crisis to out think and outmaneuver Beijing since they would know where Beijing would want to head next. The advise of the article was to use the rather narrow 10-15 year widow of opportunity for the West to get its act together and to co-divide the world in terms of influence on the southern hemisphere countries (to put it in the crudest terms).

The window of opportunity refers to time period from the present to when China moves up the value product chain and begins to effectively compete with Siemens, IBM, GE, Boeing, and EADS when it comes to manufacture of advanced value added complex products like transatlantic super heavy passenger jets, high speed electric cars, high speed train wagons (and not just construction of amazing rail lines with Western assistance), super computers, rocket engines, small next generation fission reactors, tanks, robotics, stealth jetplanes, genetic medicine, etc. Even if a second wave of the financial crisis in the Western world triggers an American 1930s depression style event in China, such harsh transition and taking advantage of Chinese window of opportunity for West to unite remain relevant suggestions. Regional, semi-global, and global unification and globalization (taking new forms) remains inevitable but it would be nice for various unifications to have more individual and human friendly political ideology. Current Chinese state capitalist illiberal dictatorship model must be resisted and much of humanity should have access to alternatives. It is up to large swaths of the Northern Hemisphere (even totally stagnant regions) to develop such alternatives.

Admittedly the article was written on May 19 of 2009 and focused on how to make Europe the "first among" equals" pole in a multipolar world arrangement (with best case scenario being Europe on friendly terms with both US and Russian Federation and perhaps even gently playing them off against each other the way Yugoslavia did with Americans and Soviets). The focus on preserving Europe as island of stability was because of European elites still having energy and desire for experimentation (unlike Americans) due to the sophisticated supranational nature of project they were engaging on (similar to what American elites of early 19th century faced). In a world of great paradigm shift due to automation, third industrial revolution, and very slow paradigm shift to post-scarcity, it was and still is very important to keep one continent as a fortress of civilizational safety with a dynamic cluster of elites overseeing it.

Now of course that was before the beggar thy neighbor currency wars between US and EU and the rest of the world, before the perpetual debt crisises born from private debts being socialized, and before it became clear of the sheer paralysis within American and European politics (although much less so in Brussels than in DC). China has moved along swiftly since then, bypassing Japan as #2 economy, humiliating Western powers at Copenhagen conference, and beginning to compete in high end products like solar panel technology with dramatic increase in subsidies. In global conditions where Western leaders decided to kick the can down the road, it is not surprising that China decided to do the same with election of the current Politburo Standing Committee. It appears Western elites don't yet fully appreciate the historical magnitude and paradigm shifting nature of the financial crisis they are facing and will not make major moves for another few years allowing China to bypass US by 2015 (the most recent estimate). Then we may see history repeat itself as a farce with Westerners asking to be financially bailed out (it has already been indirectly happening at G20 meetings) by the Chinese development and foreign investment banking organs. A Politburo with a lower average age might have stirred some worry in Brussels, DC, and Moscow.

The Chinese "overconstruction" has not been an issue so far (it is rather hilarious when economists are puzzled why China is building entire cities with nobody yet living in them). Considering how many Chinese still live in medieval conditions of poverty, eventually this infrastructure and residential areas will be filled. Yes, Japan dumped a lot of money into infrastructure in the 1990s to get its GDP and stock market growth back up without results but it didn't actually hurt the people since they got newer and faster roads, tunnels, transport, shelter, etc. In fact, preemptive dumping of mass resources and/or fiat wealth into seeming infrastructural bubbles of residential "ghost cities" is rather prudent considering robotic workers will soon make the concept of the "cheap Asian laborer" obsolete (and cheap African laborer and most of humanity for that matter. AI software and miniature electronics are finally catching up to make practical cheap robot workers possible and ever-present). These obsolete humans will need to live somewhere and Chinese may as well construct the shelter during the current paradigm. Talk of residential housing bubbles is as ridiculous as talk of bubbles in food production and such talk is a product of a sick global socioeconomic system (consider the millions of houses sitting empty in United States and the amount of the homeless). That is a story for another day but China may be one of the first countries facing the brunt of a new automation paradigm shift first and head on and with potentially the most painful of consequences.

The average age of the new politburo doesn't help with bringing potential flexibility and finesse when it comes to reacting to major issues. The accumulated wealth buffer (to be readily dumped on the problem as in 2009) is being relied upon instead of having rapid reaction flexible human leadership tools. Although most of the members of the new Politburo were not born directly in coastal provinces, their upbringing and the great power trajectory of the country will still push them to favor more resource expenditures on coastal integration than Western provincial development. The focus on the Chinese coast may allow China to play a civilizational role within trans-Pacific space that America played in trans-Atlantic space in later half of the 20th century (and that China could have played as far back as 500 years ago if it chose to). However, it will be very important for them to not forget infrastructural links with Central Asia, not forget to increasingly allocate resources to the Western provinces to create a societal shape more like Japan's than Brazil's or America's (olive shaped as one Politburo member said), and to push forward with high speed rail towards Europe.

We will return to China and look deeper after observing some of the moves this new bunch makes.

Internet Voting and Direct Democracy

The active and engaged consumer will transform into an active and creative political actor through omnipresent ability to conduct online voting and with the help of rogue NGOs



There is a current semi-troubling trend that will evolve and mutate into a much more benign trend of direct democratic electronic voting and popular societal management. It starts with today's process of far sighted corporations allowing their customers to crowdsource creation and design of not only products but marketing for these products (thus saving money and bypassing scientific research and focus groups) . However these "creative consumers" as the linked article calls them need not be useful idiots for shareholders of large transnationals forever.

[Sidenote: Deeply sorry for linking to The Economist. The Pragmatist usually has a boycott against that neoliberal mouthpiece magazine for a variety of reasons.]

[Sidenote #2: This process of consumer participation, direct democracy over some narrow corporate market design aspects, immediate feedback, beta testing, etc. IS actually dramatically improving quality of products and raising the standard of living for millions even if certain modern corporations try to gloss over the free labor provided as some sort of empowerment. Encouraging a paying customer to vote on the shape of his or her favorite vitamin juice bottle shape for a chance to win a spot on some volunteer designed free commercial still leaves an odd and not entirely pleasant feeling about the whole process.]

Considering that political candidates throughout the world are increasingly becoming glossy packaged well marketed human products onto which much of the public can project their societal aspirations and psychological states (as was the case with recent examples of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Barack Obama), a certain disconnect is growing. The disconnect is between:

1) On the one hand, the world of actual consumer products like electronic gadgets and restaurant food stuffs over which the masses have substantial growing voting clout (at the very least, influence over the products once they are forcefully introduced into the public domain)

2) On the other hand, the world of political consumer products like Obama and Berlusconi that the public has no influence over and in fact has diminishing influence over (how can one have crowdsource voting power over an amorphous multifaceted postmodern Ronald McDonald-esque corporate shill?)

The psychic frustration from this disconnect is so far manifested in the same way that many other frustrations are. That is, snarky sardonic memes about the political "products" and people voting on popularity of the memetic criticisms or viral praise of candidates. In this regard, a modern political product is akin to a movie as well as the actor playing within this movie (both being examples of popular consumable entertainment products). The e-voting currently is no more effective than people deciding whether shareholders of studio A or B will get the money for delivering a certain blockbuster.

But we knew that already.

The breakthrough in direct democracy (primary goal and hope of Internet voting) will NOT occur when creative people outside the establishment start delivering blockbusters of their own and when the establishment begins to co-opt the way new things are done (another analogy to movies is current embryonic trend of crowdfunding of an independent movie with substantial popular control over the content and direction). The breakthrough will have to come from outside actors that tap into the disconnect frustration mentioned above.

NGOs spreading democracy in the "free world"

The last article mentioned the concept of a virtual polis that acts as a sort of massive shadow government/cabinet that eventually begins to co-rule with existing legislatures. Something like this does not appear overnight.

Once the generation trained from young age in pro-active consumerism, social network voting, and embryonic e-democracy reaches a certain age, it will then be possible to then evolve the concept of pro-democracy NGOs into directly democratic parallel micro governments with various pools of physical resources and power projection abilities. They will then be in position to negotiate with power.

The ironic thing is that many political scientists and the educated youth in the Western world currently serve as foot soldiers in destabilizing foreign countries and foreign governments via Western government/think tank/elite funded NGOs. See the examples of color revolutions in Serbia, Thailand, Ukraine, Georgia, and current work in the Middle East. These foot soldiers (many children from well to do and/or intelligentsia families) are getting experience in parallel governance that will be turned against their sponsor masters eventually by some of them.

Today, Washington DC and London and various global think tanks are encouraging democracy/neoliberalism spreading NGOs to get creative when wrestling with authorities abroad. US state department went as far as to fund portable high speed Wi-Fi/satellite devices. This is so NGOs and opposition groups they work with in the Middle East can create mini Internets in case authorities totally block net access as happened in Egypt. Native groups and NGOs helping them are pushed by circumstance and need to cooperate to find better and better ways to find consensus, engage in direct action, network, and market destabilizing viral propaganda. Of course the various governments not yet in the neoliberal fold also get creative in suppressing such activity and we see a process of each side learning from each other rapidly.


The political science/international relations majors that today find meaning in their lives by destabilizing governments in Africa and Eurasia in the name of Anglo-American style "democracy" will grow up and return home eventually. That is when things start getting interesting.