The End of Assembly Line War

By explaining the end of manufacturing jobsRobert Reich thereby also provides an explanation for Fourth Generation Warfare:

"Any job that's even slightly routine is disappearing from the U.S. But this doesn't mean we are left with fewer jobs. It means only that we have fewer routine jobs, including traditional manufacturing. When the U.S. economy gets back on track, many routine jobs won't be returning -- but new jobs will take their place.....

The reason they're so easy to overlook is that so much of the new value added is invisible. A growing percent of every consumer dollar goes to people who analyze, manipulate, innovate and create. These people are responsible for research and development, design and engineering. Or for high-level sales, marketing and advertising. They're composers, writers and producers. They're lawyers, journalists, doctors and management consultants. I call this 'symbolic analytic' work because most of it has to do with analyzing, manipulating and communicating through numbers, shapes, words, ideas."

According to current theorists, while the United States today continues to muck around in the Third or even the Second Generation of Warfare, the world is racing ahead into the Fourth or even Fifth Generation. This American backwardness has caused such recent reverses as Iraq and Afghanistan, they assert, adding that - in order to succeed - the US military should progress to a higher generation.

All of which begs the question of why the United States has remained so persistently mired in the Second or Third Generation and why - despite numerous reversals - it has been so difficult to budge.

This difficulty, we would assert, comes not from the military culture but rather from the culture of the greater American society which envelops it. The 20th century United States was the paradigmatic Second or Third Generation society. What was good for General Motors was good for America. Its military reflected this underlying ethos. It is no coincidence that the ranks of the volunteer military have largely come from the blue collar communities that once worked at the steel mill.

But increasingly, this underlying ethos is coming under attack. The current recession is an economic symptom of this attack just as much as the so-called War on Terror is a military symptom. Reich details this economic attack. Reich does not use this vocabulary, but what he is saying is that tomorrow's workforce will require Fourth and Fifth generation type skills rather than the Second and Third type that the United States will rely upon.

Will the United States succeed? Can the American public acquire these new skills more effectively than, say, the Belgian, the Algerian, or the Paraguayan?

Should you or I care? Would it not be more appropriate to network with Fourth and Fifth generation skilled individuals regardless of nationality rather than to waste resources shoring up the sinking nation-state?

Croatian Border Security Fails to Detect Radioactive Truck

A radioactive truck passed through Croatia Monday.

Not surprisingly, it is apparently also easy to pass cocaine through Croatia.

Take That, SEC!

Current investment advice:

"But maybe we can learn a little something from Italy's Mafia. Organized crime is not only lucrative, but also highly cash-based. That means that while many companies around the world are struggling under the weight of bank loans, Mafia-owned companies are flush with cash. As Bloomberg recently put it, they're 'breezing through economic hard times.'"

Fox Attempts to Guard Henhouse

A security firm that had been formed for only two days recently met with President John Evans Atta Mills of Ghana.

First reports of Yahuda Security Management Consulting, "a top United Kingdom security firm," surfaced on Tuesday, May 19.

Reportedly:

They would discuss with national security officials wide-ranging security matters, international trade in drugs including cocaine, illegal arms, armed robbery and links to possible terrorism.

and

As part of the visit, the team would hold high level discussion with officials of the security agencies, explore credible ways for collaboration, and organise a two-day security workshop in Accra.

However, by Thursday, May 21, London-based Ghanaians had determined that this "top" security firm had been incorporated only the day before, Wednesday, May 20.

While Ghana's government did not enter into any contract in this instance, critics have stated this episode reveals a need "to crosscheck the background of people who book appointments to see the President, especially the foreign ones, to ascertain whether they are genuine business people in the field they are claiming to be experts in."

What's Wrong With American Education

"As long as education is driven by technocratic imperatives and the tyranny of the practical, our students will fail to acknowledge that precious goal of Socrates: To know thyself -- and so your own limits and those of your country as well."

So asserts William Astore in his post, "Educating Ourselves to Oblivion," over at TomDispatch.com

As such, Astore is contributing to the long line of laments against the American educational system dating from at least 1980 and probably a good deal earlier. Astore thinks that current American academe is training rather than educating its students, so they cannot use critical reasoning to challenge authority.

Would that Astore himself would exercise some critical reasoning - for it does not follow from the proposition that critical reasoning is valuable or even necessary that therefore current higher educational institutions - with their huge rates of tuition - are the venue in which to impart such skills.

Indeed Socrates himself, whom Astore cites, illustrates this point. Socrates did not sit in any sort of university chair nor did he charge anything for his services. Rather, Socrates criticized the sophists, who were attempting to sell their skills. He roamed Athens' agora or attended dinner parties, symposia, where he would engage in ad hoc dialogues with those whom he happened to meet.

I suspect, were he alive today, that he would be denied tenure. After all, he never published anything.

Shipping Companies Going Bankrupt

"More than half of the shipping companies with stock exchange listings could slide into bankruptcy or administration proceedings in the next year as their cash drains away, a senior industry figure has warned."

We can predict that, as their financial troubles increase, their susceptibility to smuggling efforts will likewise increase.

Bloomberg: Mafia's Power Waxes in Italy

Bloomberg contributes to a growing refrain throughout this blog, that Italy's organized crime syndicates, the cash-rich Cosa Nostra, the 'Ndrangheta, and the Camorra are exploiting the economic downturn to increase their grip on Italy.

Interesting factoids:

• Italian organized crime overall boast twice the annual profits of Exxon Mobil.
  
• Italian banks, weakened by the downturn, are decreasing their vigilance against money laundering.
  
• The 500 euro note ( worth about $690 ) has become the item of choice for smuggling cash. It has been used as far afield as Columbia and Mexico.
  

Serbia's Costa del Sol

Serbia apparently is developing an answer to Spain's legenday Costa del Sol, the "Costa del Crime," to whence British and other gangsters would escape to live a life of luxury.

(Recently, Raffaele Amato, Camorra cocaine kingpin, was arrested while hiding in the Costa del Sol.)

According to Balkan Insight, the Serbian resort town of Zlatibor and other resort towns have become havens for Serbian organized crime.

According to Wikipedia:

Situated at an altitude of just over 1,000 meters, Zlatibor is a climatic resort, characterized by a cool mountain climate, clean air, long periods of sunshine during the summer and a heavy snow cover in winter. Tourist facilities include modern hotels, holiday centers and cottages, sports grounds and skiing.

Medical services are provided by the staff of the Special Institute for the Prevention and Treatment of Thyroid Gland Disorders and the Rehabilitation of Patients. Modern methods of treatment are being utilized, including ultrasound techniques, stimulator's, diathermy and iodized and galvanic baths.

Notable successes have been achieved in the diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and prevention of different kinds and stages of thyroid gland diseases.

It is no coincidence that resort towns attract organized crime. A cash intensive business, tourism facilitates money laundering.

Other towns reported to be in Serbia's newly emerging Costa del Sol include Novi Sad, Palic, Kopaonik, Vrnjacka Banja, and Subotica.


Wikipedia provided the photograph in this post.

Northern Kosovo Protests Border Gates

On May 22, in North Kosovo there was a protest against two border gates between North Kosovo and Serbia proper. The road to these gates was also blocked.

Reportedly, "The organizers stated that their intention was to prevent [European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX)] officials passing through Zubin Potok to take over the shift of their colleagues in the border gates and 'not allow them to implement the customs process.'"

This incident supports our prediction that the ethnic Serb majority of North Kosovo would undermine these border gates, which they would view as a threat to their ties to Serbia proper.

Today's article attributes the protest against the border gates to criminal gangs. We can agree that criminal gangs would have benefited.

They Should Have Read MacBeth

A young lawyer discovers that the American Paper Chase dream is not all it's cracked up to be:

In case they haven't noticed, time is the enemy. Time disappears faster than the weird guy dressed as Borat I mistakenly took home from the bar on Halloween. If they are making a habit of billing 2400 hours a year in their 20's, what the hell are they going to do when they wake up at 40 and look back on what they did with their youth? I know that they aren't actually enjoying the doc reviews, legal research and interrogatory drafting, so why are they so comfortable squandering the best decade of their whole entire lives on this crap? Is it because they think the best is yet to come?

That can't be the case, because all I have to do is take a look at the ashen-faced, graying, mid-level partners around here to realize that there's no light at the end of the tunnel. It's not like working your ass off now will result in some sort of distinguished freedom in 15 years.

To this day, television shows still portray lawyers as sexy crusaders for social justice. However, as the above quote indicates, there is little about a legal career that was not well stated by Shakespeare's MacBeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

We Heve Not Planned For Pirates

The Somali pirates are important, not because they are "terrorists" nor even because pirates are legendary, semi-mythic figures from our own past.

They are important because they foreshadow a major aspect of 21st century naval warfare - commerce raiding - to which our and other navies are poorly structured to respond.

A recent article in the Small Wars Journal supports this thesis.

The United States Navy needs more and smaller vessels to combat emerging asymmetric threats, Claude Berube asserts in The Post Oceanic Navy, the New Shadow Zones, and the U.S. Navy’s Force Structure Challenge.

Today's United States and other navies feature declining numbers of large ships, he states. Gaps in naval forces are therefore resulting. He states:

In a global period of disharmonic convergence where declining Western navies can no longer operate in great numbers and other navies lack the strength and/or experience to replace them, expanding maritime security gaps will provide opportunities for asymmetric threats and operations by criminal and hostile belligerent forces.



The Post-Oceanic Era could focus in part on maritime security gaps or “shadow zones.” The term “shadow zone” traditionally has been used to describe a set of environmental conditions in underwater acoustics in which sound cannot - or can only minimally - penetrate and area thereby providing a safe operating area for submarines. The term could also apply these modern maritime security gaps – littorals near a failed, failing, or belligerent state that no navy has the strength, experience, or authority to patrol.

Berube discusses several options:

• Maintaining order through NGO's.
  
• Develop "brown-" and "green-water" platforms
  
• Acquire corvette-sized ships from foreign shipyards
  
• Build non-traditional support ships.

He concludes:

There should be no question that the U.S. needs carriers, cruisers, and advanced aircraft andestroyers, but there are coming realities unless there are unexpected shifts in policy and funding. Without an investment in modern smaller craft en masse, the federal budget will continue to constrict the Navy’s size, limit its abilities in the littorals, and allow non-state actors to rise, hone and possibly share their skills with other actors.

It is truly remarkable that the Navy has gotten itself into this sort of bind. Commerce raiding dates to the 16th century, when Huguenot corsairs, British sea dogs, and Dutch sea beggars raided the Spanish main. The tradition continued. Much of the United States' naval activities during the Revolution and the War of 1812 were commerce raiding against the British. The Confederate Alabama was a famous commerce raider as was the German WWII Graf Spee.

So how the navy could have overlooked a revival in commerce raiding is remarkable.

Political Strife Impairs Customs Controls Between Kosovo and Serbia

Efforts by the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) to establish customs controls in North Kosovo between the generally recognized border between Kosovo and Serbia are drawing protests.

North Kosovo is a part of Kosovo largely inhabited by ethnic Serbs who generally consider themselves to be part of Serbia, not Kosovo.

EULEX is a European Union agency intended to assist Kosovo with its police, judiciary, and customs.

EULEX established these two North Kosovo border crossings last December. This February these drew protests from local ethnic Serbs, who viewed them as a threat to their connection with Serbia, not Kosovo.

In its latest action EULEX announced, as of May 20,

EULEX Customs will start copying the IDs of drivers of incoming commercial vehicles only, and will take copies of any commercial documents accompanying the loads. In addition, to reduce the amount of fraud and smuggling at the Gates, EULEX Customs Component will also stamp a copy of the commercial document. Copies of all data and documents taken by EULEX will be shared with its counterparts in Kosovo and Serbian Customs.

In response, President of the Serb National Council of Northern Kosmet Milan Ivanovic stated that he expected Belgrade to respond to EULEX's copying and that there would be a "sharp reaction."

We should note that Kosovo generally is a region notorious for organized crime and smuggling; so there probably is fraud and smuggling at these two gates. On the other hand, when the local population is actively hostile to efforts to control customs, these efforts probably won't work very well.

Russia Trained Somali Pirates?

A retired rear admiral of the Soviet navy reportedly admitted today that some Somali pirates had been trained at USSR naval academies.

Smugglers in Turkey are Changing Their Tactics

An apparent decline in Turkish smuggling means not that there is less smuggling but rather that smugglers have changed their methods or routes,according to Turkish customs undersecretary Emin Zararsız.

Speaking yesterday, Zarasiz said that the smugglers are always one step ahead. No sooner do the authorities identify a new smuggling method than the smugglers develop yet another.

Turkey is the starting point of the "Balkan Route" through which narcotics - including recently cocaine - can reach Europe.

Guinea-Bissau Too Poor to Investigate Death of Its Own President.

Guinea-Bissaudoes not have enough money to investigate the twin assassinations of its president and army chief of staff, its state prosecutor said Tuesday.

Both men were killed on March 2, 2009, in separate incidents.

Guinea-Bissau has become a major transit point for the import of drugs into Europe from Latin America.

Clearly, if Guinea-Bissau cannot investigate the assassination of its own president, it can hardly police drug smugglers.

Corruption in Croatia Could Lead to More Narcotics for Europe

Citing corruption in Croatia, Natasha Srdoc and Joel Anand Samy said in Wall Street Journal that Europe could become more vulnerable to illicit smuggling should Croatia achieve EU accession.

They state that Croatia is part of the "Balkan Route," through which organized crime imports drugs, weapons, and trafficked humans into Europe.

Croatia's corrupt government is failing to solve this problem, they state.

Shipowners Remain More Scared of Lawyers than of Pirates

Confirming our prior assertion that shipowners fear lawyers more than they fear pirates, maritime experts and ship owners said on Monday:

Arming sailors or deploying mercenaries on board ships to combat pirate attacks would escalate violence and create a legal minefield.

MarineBuzz.com: rsibles for Cocaine Smuggling | MarineBuzz.com

According to MarineBuzz.comTorpedo shells will replace self propelled semi submersibles for cocaine smuggling
.

Apparently, towing these torpedoes would be harder to detect.

Leading Cocaine Importer Arrested

Raffaele Amato,"the principal, or one of the principal importers of cocaine into Italy", was arrested in Spain Saturday.

He had been living under a false name in Spain's Costa del Sol.

Amato had been head of a Camorra clan, Scissionisti di Secondigliano that had participated in a violent feud in recent years.

The photograph comes from Wikipedia.

Update: The Los Angeles Times provides extensive background on the Spanish milieu in which Amato and other Camorra operate.

Sierra Leone's Freetown-Lungi International Airport

Sierra Leone ranks next to Guinea Bissau as cocaine smugglers' favorite African entry point. Sierra Leone's Freetown-Lungi International Airport has become notorious.

According to Sierra Leone's government's report, Corruption, Mismanagement, Financial and Infrastructural Difficulties: A Report on the Vulnerabilities of the Freetown International Airport, dated July, 2008:

Airports in Africa are normally saddled with infrastructural problems, but the Sierra Leonean case stands out such that even basic infrastructure like electricity, water and transportation to/from the airport are in short supply. Until recently, electricity at the airport was very irregular, especially at the runway-edge, and therefore a potential source of danger to landing aircrafts. This also creates opportunities for criminals to tamper with passengers’ luggage and break into cargo shelves at the cargo/freight section of the airport. The irregularity of electricity at the airport also encourages crimes of a transnational nature, such as drug trafficking, diamond smuggling and child and arms trafficking and even facilitates dubious financial activities and money laundering.
...
Apart from these basic problems mentioned, there is a huge deficit in most of the essential security apparatus. Glaring examples include the absence of; diamond experts, diamond testing machines, metal detectors, scanners, sniffer dogs, functionally efficient walk through metal detectors, hold baggage x-ray screening system, etc. Without adequately addressing these shortcomings, the country will be exposed to drug couriers, smugglers and other perpetrators of transnational crimes.

The report also cites widespread corruption amongst airport personnel. Virtually every one of its 46 pages is an eye opener.