Sunday, August 15, 2010

The Allergy Method.

John Robb analyzes Wikileaks from an open-source insurgency model:
In Julian's analysis above, there's also a hint of John Boyd (America's best military thinker). Julian's focus appears to be on disrupting/slowing the decision making cycles (OODA loops) of organizational opponents through a "secrecy tax" (a tax that is radically increased through leaks). Like Boyd, he maintains that any organization unable to respond to environmental changes, due to very slow decision making cycles, will eventually succumb to competitors.
Robb also makes a point that Wikileaks is an important innovation in "non-violent" warfare. The key to the Wikleaks strategy is to do as little as possible to make your opponents do as much as possible, as with traditional insurgencies. The difference is that, compared to other insurgencies, the provocations are less and less virulent, yet produce very large, confused responses. Call this the allergy method of warfare. Soon, they'll have the Pentagon doing mole hunts every time a pizza gets delivered to the Pentagon at an odd hour.

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