A Brave New War, Part I

The irony of pro-Palestinian protests ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ April 29, 2024 A Brave New War, Part I “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attacks on the twin towers and the pentagon and the American struggle in Iraq. These events swung American public opinion in our favor” ― Benjamin Netanyahu [Reminder: In case you missed [our announcement]( The Essential Investor has merged with legacy contributors to Agora Financial. The new, larger, more inclusive project is called The Grey Swan Investment Fraternity. If you’re interested in the scope and benefits of our new endeavor, please see what prompted us to merge [here](. If you’ve been a member of The Essential Investor, keep an eye out for your new benefits.] Dear [Reader], April 29, 2024 – “Why is the LGBTQ+ community supporting pro-Palestinian encampments on college campuses?” asks a meme on TikTok. If you take the time to wonder about the protests at all, the question begs for an answer. After all, Hamas, the Islamic faction with whom Israel is at war, forbids homosexuality on the pain of death. Indeed. What curious form of war and protest do we have before us? “War in the 21st Century will be very different from what we have come to expect,”  John Robb forecasted in the preface to his 2007 book, [Brave New War](. In a nutshell: We live in an extremely complex global system – too complex for a single state or group of states to keep under control. Certain people – guerillas – are now intentionally introducing instability into these global systems by attacking both social and economic systems. The manufactured instabilities are almost impossible to control. Additionally, many of the things we have tried in order to stop these negative actors have only made matters worse. We first met Mr. Robb not long after the book was published. At the time, we were still trying to understand what the long-term impact of the U.S. response to 9/11 was going to be on the U.S. national budget. The “self-inflicted damage” had already hurt the U.S. more than bin Laden could have foreseen. “The systematic drag on public and private resources,” James Fallows called it in the foreword to Brave New War, “created by an undifferentiated need to be ‘secure’.” More than the Pearl Harbor-evoking psychological attack of 9/11, al-Qeada had set an economic trap.  “If bin Laden hadn’t fully anticipated this effect,” Fallows recalls, “he certainly recognized it after it occurred.” Fallows: In his statement just before the 2004 election, bin Laden quoted the findings of the Royal Institute of International Affairs to the effect that the total cost, direct and indirect, to the United States of the 9/11 attacks was $500 billion. Bin Laden gleefully pointed out that the attacks had cost al-Qeada $500,000 for a million to one pay-off ratio. America’s deficit spending for Iraq and homeland security was, he said, “evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan, with Allah’s permission. Fallows wrote the foreword to Brave New War in 2006, when the U.S. national debt was just $8 trillion. The War on Terror would be “officially” waged for another 14 years until the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2020/2021 and rack up another $8 trillion in military spending alone… more than tripling the national debt to $27 trillion.  “The US is immeasurably stronger than al-Qeada,” Fallows observed at the beginning. “But against jiu-jitsu forms of attack its strength has been its disadvantage. The predictability of the US response has allowed its opponents to turn its bulk and momentum against it. Al-Queda can do more harm to the US than to, say, Italy, because the self-damaging potential of an uncontrolled American reaction is so vast.” In John Robb’s words, the U.S. had been “super-power baited.”  Below, Robb explains how, following the October 7 attacks, Israel has fallen into the same trap. And by extension, the U.S. and its “war-on-terror” apparatus.  “By the time, the open-source, systems disrupting trans-national crime-fueled sons of global fragmentation come to dominate the front page of your local newspaper,” Robb warned back in 2006, “it may be too late.” We welcome Mr. Robb, thus, a new member of The Grey Swan Fraternity. CONTINUED BELOW... >>ADVERTISEMENT<< Wall Street Stockpicker Names #1 AI Stock of 2024 The greatest quantitative mind on Wall Street just revealed his #1 A.I. pick, 100% free. [Click here to learn more...]( CONTINUED... The Tribal War over Israel [John Robb, Global Guerrillas]( In a last ditch effort, Hamas constructed the perfect trap for Israel. Why was Israel so willing to walk in? The Israeli government says it’s at war to destroy Hamas. It isn’t. It’s in an online war with a global, networked tribe for its very existence. A war it is losing. You can see it in this recent poll (one of many that say the same thing) just after the terrorist attack. Question: Israel’s response to the Hamas attack is fully justified (US citizens by age)? - 65+ 81%. - 50-64 56%. - 35-49 44%. - 18-34 27%. This result tells us that Israel is on track to lose US support in a generation or less. However, given the networked tribalism underway, this result tells us that the US won’t just be unsupportive of Israel; it will be antagonistic to it. Tribalized Moral Warfare The reason for this sudden shift is the rise of tribalized and networked moral warfare. - Until recently, Israel was largely unopposed in its ability to wage moral warfare, both on and offline. - It was able, with the support of its diaspora, to control the flow of information and the moral framing of its wars, and any attempt to wage moral warfare in opposition to Israel was shut down by labeling it anti-semitism. - This control provided them with support from Western governments and their institutional media. Support (from $ to weapons to military intervention to diplomatic cover) they need to survive. That’s over. - Networked tribalism, similar to what we have seen with anti-racism/fascism/etc., has rapidly emerged to wage moral warfare in opposition to Israel. - This tribal moral warfare routes around the traditional media, and in some cases, it coerces media companies into alignment. - Moreover, networked tribalism connects people to this conflict through empathy triggers that forge fictive kinship, turning billions of people unrelated to the participants in real life into partisans. Black Lives Matter and Free Palestine movements collude in the global netwar No Peace Tribal moral warfare isn’t a political contest. Solutions and compromise aren’t possible. Peaceful outcomes are an anathema. - In networked tribal warfare, the sides are framed as absolute good vs. absolute evil. Opressor/oppressed. Peaceful citizens/terrorists. As a result, tribal moral warfare dehumanizes the opposition. - Debate immediately devolves. Since networked tribes only come together to oppose an enemy and not about position goals, they won’t acknowledge or even ‘see’ the evil acts of their side. They fall outside of the oppositional pattern they are using to make sense of the conflict. For example: The charges “You are defending terrorists who behead babies” or “You are defending a country that blows up and starves babies” aren’t even heard by the people they are used against. - Networked tribes don’t deal in nuance. They are maximalists. They can only imagine the destruction of the opposition. The problem for Israel, and those who support it, is that this isn’t a fair fight. The Tactics of Mistake On January 11, 2024, South Africa will start to make [its case]( that Israel has breached the 1948 Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice (of which Israel is a signatory). The vote on provisional measures to provide protection and aid to Palestinians in Gaza (and potentially the West Bank) could take as little as a week. Regardless of the outcome, this is a disaster for Israel. This isn’t all; this war’s length, brutality, and complexity have led to an ever-increasing amount of damage to Israel. Here are a few examples: - The tunnel network and the bombing campaign (rubble) have combined to turn Gaza into an unforgiving battlefield that is a cross between two of the most deadly battlefields of WW2: Iwo Jima (tunnels) and Stalingrad. As a result, hundreds of IDF soldiers have been killed and thousands critically wounded (long-term care), damaging IDF morale and discipline. - Extensive tunneling has made it impossible for Israel to effectively ID Hamas targets, which has led to a very messy bombing campaign, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian deaths. These deaths have fueled the growth of anti-Israel networked tribalism across the world (a generational time bomb for Israel within the US) and prepared the ground for South Africa’s action. - The complexities of this prolonged war have led to an increasing number of self-inflicted incidents that have damaged Israel both internally and externally. For example, in a complete breakdown in discipline, the IDF killed three shirtless Israeli hostages waving a white flag. The reason things have gone so badly for Israel is that this war was a trap. A trap laid in a last-ditch move (just before the normalization of relations between Israel and much of the Arab world) by a weak adversary with few other options. A perfect trap that Israel was compelled to walk into. Why Terrorism Works Terrorism succeeds — in the rare times it does work — when the target state overreacts to the provocation and damages itself by doing so. The trick to knowing when it will work (and when it will be devastating) relies on one insight from Sun Tzu. If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. What does knowing your enemy mean? It means that you understand how your enemy makes decisions. [~~ John Robb]( So it goes, Addison Wiggin, The Wiggin Sessions P.S. Tomorrow, The Anti-Israel Swarm. John Robb digs in to explain why Anti-Israel protests are showing up everywhere. Censorship, police crackdowns, and social threats (e.g., you won't get a job) aren't working. (How did we get here? Read the financial, economic, and political history of the United States up to this point in our collective history: [Demise of the Dollar]( through [Financial Reckoning Day]( and on to<> [Empire of Debt<>Â]( all three books are available in their third post-pandemic editions.) (Or… simply pre-order<> [Empire of Debt: We Came, We Saw, We Borrowed]( now available at [Amazon]( and[<> Barnes & Noble]( or if you prefer one of these sites:[Bookshop.org]( [Books-A-Million]( or [Target]( Please send your comments, reactions, opprobrium, vitriol and praise to: addison@greyswanfraternity.com. The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. 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