Out of the Box Thinking on Pakistan…

…at Unqualified Reservations. You won’t read anything like it elsewhere.

Information Security and the Market-State

From SecurityFocus:

In June 2006, renowned legal expert Mark Rasch analyzed the proposal and suggested that it represents a dangerous trend of turning private companies into proxies for law enforcement or intelligence agencies against the interests of their clients or customers.

A transition to a Market-State from a Nation-State will not be easy. I am not sure it is desirable either.

Lessons for Fighting Terrorism from Fighting Pirates

Via REDDIT, Legal Affairs has an article titled The Dread Pirate Bin Laden:

What is needed now is a framework for an international crime of terrorism. The framework should be incorporated into the U.N. Convention on Terrorism and should call for including the crime in domestic criminal law and perhaps the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. This framework must recognize the unique threat that terrorists pose to nation-states, yet not grant them the legitimacy accorded to belligerent states. It must provide the foundation for a law that criminalizes not only terrorist acts but membership in a terrorist organization. It must define methods of punishment.

Coming up with such a framework would perhaps seem impossible, except that one already exists. Dusty and anachronistic, perhaps, but viable all the same. More than 2,000 years ago, Marcus Tullius Cicero defined pirates in Roman law as hostis humani generis, “enemies of the human race.” From that day until now, pirates have held a unique status in the law as international criminals subject to universal jurisdiction—meaning that they may be captured wherever they are found, by any person who finds them. The ongoing war against pirates is the only known example of state vs. non-state conflict until the advent of the war on terror, and its history is long and notable. More important, there are enormous potential benefits of applying this legal definition to contemporary terrorism.

AT FIRST GLANCE, THE CORRELATION BETWEEN PIRACY AND TERRORISM seems a stretch. Yet much of the basis of this skepticism can be traced to romantic and inaccurate notions about piracy. An examination of the actual history of the crime reveals startling, even astonishing, parallels to contemporary international terrorism. Viewed in its proper historical context, piracy emerges as a clear and powerful precedent.

The article is worth a read.

In addition…an emerging Market-State like the US should think abut issuing Letters of Marquis (to give legal cover) to PMCs/PSCs to carry out specific anti-terrorist activities with prizes (like bounty hunters) for carrying out specific missions. I like the direct effect that would have…I also like the effect that would have in messing with the minds of the bad guys.

The UN Should Contract Out Dafur/Sudan PeaceKeeping to a Private Security Corporation

Via Real Clear Politics, Max Boot Writing in the LA Times says:

Pieces of paper, no matter how promising, require power in order to be enforced. The question is: Who will provide that power in Darfur? The African Union force deployed in 2004 has proven woefully inadequate. Its 7,000 soldiers lack the numbers, training and equipment to patrol an undeveloped region the size of France. They don’t even have a mandate to stop ethnic cleansing; they are only supposed to monitor the situation.

If you listen to the bloviators at Turtle Bay, salvation will come from the deployment of a larger corps of blue helmets. If only. What is there in the history of United Nations peacekeepers that gives anyone any confidence that they can stop a determined adversary?

and

My point here isn’t to indulge in U.N.-bashing for its own sake but simply to suggest that we should temper our expectations for the peacekeeping force that is due to arrive in Darfur in six to nine months’ time. The drawn-out timetable itself suggests how ineffectual the U.N. is. Even under the best of circumstances, the janjaweed militia will enjoy another half-year of rapine without serious interference.

He then suggests sending in Mercenaries (aka Private Military Corporations PMC aka Private Security Corporations PSC):

Send a private army. A number of commercial security firms such as Blackwater USA are willing, for the right price, to send their own forces, made up in large part of veterans of Western militaries, to stop the genocide. We know from experience that such private units would be far more effective than any U.N. peacekeepers.

This sounds like a reasonable idea and very much a market-state response to Peace Keeping / Sys-Admin needs.

The Private Security Corporation force would be specialized and motivated – they want to make money and win future large peacekeeping/sys-admin contracts.

What is key though, is these forces, since they are working for the UN should wear the Blue Helmets and a UN ID/Patch (in addition to any corporate ID/patches) and have all of the same legal protections and statuses of UN Peacekeepers that come from a uniformed service of a member state assigned to peacekeeper mission. They would not be “Mercenaries”, they would be United Nations (or other appropriate super-national organization) agents.

USA version 3?

TDAXP has a post suggesting that Mexico (each Mexican state and the special Federal district as 32 new US states) join the USA:

America is a “melting pot,” in which cultures cannot be kept distinct and separate.

and

America (the United States of America) and Mexico (the Mexican United States) were both conceived as multinational economic and political unions, no less than the European Union. Growth, expansion, and geographic union are in the DNAs of our Unions. With different Constitutions and different political traditions, the USA and MUS were born as complex adaptive systems — pragmatic attempts to create liberty and happiness for the North American people.

and

Combine the American United States and United States of Mexico into one political union under the US Constitution. Our way works — that’s why Mexicans are coming here — so why not export our rules over there?

Also reader Taylor has this comment:

I have always said, if the United States wishes to become the first empire not to fall, they would have to make everyone around the entire planet American.

I can definitely see some logic to this plan. If integration between Mexico and America is happening anyways, why not embrace it and veer it toward an outcome that Americans like me can be ok with?

My concerns with it revolve around maintaining the nature of the current American Identity, which I define as having these driving forces (I may to think on this some more):

• Liberty/freedom as driving secular religion
• Democratic capitalism as driving political philosophy
• Equality of opportunity (not equality of outcome) meritocracy
• Predictable legal system
• Transparent republican government at all levels
• Colonial and Anglosphere heritage/history
• English language
• Security Independence and Preeminence

I do not suggest that the above are universal values of each culture. I suggest they should be.

Note it doesn’t include: arts, theology, or specific ethnic heritages.

Dan TXDAP says in the comments:

“…that over the long term english would predominitate as it is the “the language of opportunity”.

That covers some of my concern on a large influx of non-English speaking American citizens.

As Taylor would describe, I am an American Chauvinist. I do want to have to everyone around the entire planet American (in the sense of having the driving forces I listed above).

When the earth is all American, the Democratic Peace concept suggests the earth will be for the most part peaceful. The US will loose economic preeminence, but that is okay. Conflict among nations will be in the nature of sporting events, theatre entertainment, and Earth Idol (not war and conquest). That is quite a ways off.

What is being proposed here is USA version 3.

USA version 1 was Colonial era through Civil War (USA as nation-state confederation)

USA v2 was Reconstruction through the present (USA as strong federal Nation-State).

USA v3 could be: USAv2 + Mexico as a Market-State (ref1, ref2) (note to self: that concept needs a Wikipedia entry). This is only one possible USAv3.

A competing potential USAv3 would be a USA that embraces Transnational Progressivism (ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4) / Folk Marxism. That is not the USA I want.

The roadblocks to a preferred USAv3 outcome are:

• corruption / imaturity of mexican institutions and rule-sets
• integration of Police forces, armed forces, and intelligence services
• home grown insurgencies in southern Mexico
• how many Mexicans want to integrate with USA vs. reconquer?
• Language preferences
• Creating a shared historical identity for celebration

I am sure there are more, but that is what I am thinking of off-hand.

It might make sense for USAv2 to take certain actions pre-USAv3 to start paving the way:

• US Constitution changes to add super-majority for spending bills, term limits for Congress and Supreme Court, sunset provisions required for all legislation, and a line-item veto of sorts (really just to beak out legislative bundles for veto purposes)
• SysAdmin services to Mexico for improve institutions
• US Training exercises for Mexican armed forces, intelligence services and police forces
• Real campaign finance reform (only natural persons can contribute, only to their districts, instant transparent reporting for press vetting)
• Move Mexico away from Castro and Chavez

Update: I left this comment to the TDAXP post (trackbacks are having a problem):

I can definitely see some logic to this plan. If integration between Mexico and America is happening anyways, why not embrace it and veer it toward an outcome that Americans like me can be ok with?

What is being proposed here is USA version 3. USA version 1 was Colonial era through Civil War (USA as nation-state confederation). USA v2 was Reconstruction through the present (USA as strong federal Nation-State). USA v3 could be: USAv2 + Mexico as a Market-State.

My concerns with it revolve around maintaining the nature of the current American Identity (I am an American chauvinist) and corruption / immaturity / incompatibility of Mexican institutions and rules-sets (time for an inter-american SysAdmin force and an application of domestic PNM theory), and lastly the Reconquista / Mexica / Aztlan mindset (USAv3 as 5GW effort by the Mexica/Aztlan movements).