As I read it, I found myself wondering why, when we know the nation state is not driving the conflict, do we look to our nation state for peace? In Sri Lanka, we went so far as to conclude that the combatants are not only unwilling to end the war, they are unable. This means a peace initiative MUST come from outside the combatant organizations.

Each of us is a member not only of a nation state, but of other groups: family, community, religion, political organization, ethnicity, etc. Historically and culturally, along with nation state and other affiliations like guild, these have varied in importance. As Robb suggests, we will find ourselves exploring these alternate affiliations as the nation state is unable to meet our needs.

Peace is one area in which we need to start exploring. If we are to find and end to this type of conflict, it will come not from petitioning our nation state, but from independent action by one or more sub- and/or supra-national organizations. Just as the combatants have re-thought war, we must re-think peace.

Of course, the nation state will tell us that action outside its purview is treason. It desperately wants to maintain its hegemony over our allegiance.

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/

With respect to the reason these new warriors cannot be defeated, consider: (1) When the goal is violence, a guerilla movement cannot lose, except by being wiped out. (2) When the base of a guerilla movement is ethnic, defeat can only come through genocide. (3) This is the biggie: When the base of a guerilla movement is the poor and oppressed, in war BOTH SIDES contribute to ensuring that they remain poor and oppressed. In short, war favors the guerilla, who gains regardless of what “the enemy” does.

Toffler’s book “War and Anti-War” (1993, reissued in 1995) examined the changing nature of warfare, and concluded that we need to seriously look at new ways of making peace if we are to survive. Unfortunately, I don’t see nearly as much new thinking in that arena as I do in the arena of war. These wars are not unsolvable, but the old methods of making peace aren’t going to work.

I was on a team that made some headway in Sri Lanka. I believe our methods form a useful approach for many such conflicts, but clearly we do not yet have “the answer” or that war would be ended. Yet few people seem to want to discuss the specifics of ending a war. I’ll be the first to admit that it takes hard work and dedication, and is often heartbreaking. It can also be risky, though it’s usually riskier to be a combatant. I find it ironic that so many answer the call to become cannon fodder, yet so few answer the equally patriotic call to get involved in ending the conflicts.

I found his website five or six years (maybe more) ago while running a random search on distributed systems as artificial intelligence (vis a v authoritarian programmed response [note the phrasing] in a hierarchial networked infastructure).

On topic, asymmetrical warfare, thirty-seven years ago today, on my sixteenth birthday, four students were arbitrarily gunned down on the campus of Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard. One was simply walking to class.

What if you knew her and,
found her dead on the ground;
how could you run when you know…