Category Brave New War

Reminiscent of attacks on the Italian state during the 1970’s and 1980’s by leftist Red Brigades and Mafia, the drug cartels of Mexico are hobbled neither by antiquated Marxist ideology nor old-time, rustic, crime family traditions. They are adaptive, professional,…

Many of the Web 2.0 crowd are clearly smart, but what they do is far removed from the current focal point of global change. As a result, indulging in clever Web 2.0 thinking is akin to eating intellectual fast food,…

John Robb on how small terrorist attacks can disrupt an entire system. The networks of our global superinfrastructure are tightly “coupled”—so tightly interconnected, that is, that any change in one has a nearly instantaneous effect on the others. Attacking one…

From Bruce Sterling, commenting on the recent deluge of rain in Texas. In other and even weirder Texan news, Texan state officials ignore the incompetent feds and rely on big-box commercial retail outfits to respond to weather emergencies. Can secession…