Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 03:59:31 -0400
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
Subject: Battlespace By Richard Thieme
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Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:30:38 -0400 (EDT)
To: freematt@coil.com
From: richard@thiemeworks.com
Subject: Islands in the Clickstream. Battlespace. Sept 18, 2001

Islands in the Clickstream:
Battlespace



The mind of society - how it is shaped, how it is governed, how it is 
aimed - is
both target and weapon in the new battlespace. As a consequence, spiritual
warfare with all of its dimensions is fused more deeply than ever with the
waging of war.

I gave a speech last July for the Black Hat Briefings, the intelligence and
corporate security forum sponsored by Def Con, the computer security/hacking
convention, in which I said:

"The world is a theater and a chronic state of warfare is our current script.
Some parts of society, however, know this more than others."

Now we all know.

The September 11 attack was theater. The timing of the second hit to be visible
to television cameras was impeccable. The terrorists counted on the networks to
show those images again and again, reinforcing their impact in a way 
that turned
the networks - filters for the mind of society - into implicit 
allies. They used
the mind of society to aim terror at the mind of society.

The carnage was intended to be both real and symbolic. The Romans under
Vespasian "slighted" Stonehenge, leaving it as a visible wound. The Nazis left
French cathedrals damaged but standing. Stonehenge was a symbol of Druidic
leadership, the cathedrals were symbols of French nationalism, and the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon were symbols of America.

"The ideal war," I said at Black Hat, "is one which no one realizes is being
waged, which is mostly invisible, not because its actions are camouflaged, but
because they look like something else.

"War need never be declared again," I concluded, "because we are 
always at war."

This is the war in which we are currently engaged.



"Martial arts teach us that anything can be a weapon," said a friend 
with a long
history as an intelligence analyst. "You see an ashtray, I see a blackjack. You
see a natural gas pipeline, I see a weapon of mass destruction."

The mind of society, he suggests,  must learn to see itself from a different
point of view. Just as the enemy studies our open society with its remarkable
inclusiveness and generosity of spirit and uses its strengths as weaknesses, we
must study the mind of the enemy and use asymmetric warfare right back at them.

"See them from their point of view," he said. "Their humorless pride will
destroy them. We need to deflate that false self."

The manipulation of human perception is both preparation for war and the aim of
war. Sun Tzu advised military leaders never to come to the battlefield unless
the war had already been won in the mind of the enemy. Psychological 
operations,
information attack, deception, and all the means of dissimulation available to
attackers prior to military operations determine the outcome of battle.

In its largest sense, all war is cyberwar. Data, information, and belief are
primary attack weapons.



At the Black Hat, I used "space war" as a metaphor for how war on the 
ground and
in the air has been recontextualized by war in space which includes holographic
image projection, cloaking devices, multispectral camouflage, and the creation
of synthetic environments which the attacker believes to be real. Those are
metaphors for how war is waged on earth as well.

Terrorism moves by stealth, pretending to be what it isn't. Therefore learning
to see the real patterns implicit in the movement of people, material,
information and how they are linked by human motivation and intention are
critical. But that is not the task of officialdom only. The task of every human
being is to see clearly.

When society itself is the theater of battle, all citizens are engaged. Only
clear seeing can precipitate right action. That's why the battle for 
confidence,
courage, and community is primary.

There are no guarantees, but this war has the potential so to redefine the
global landscape which has gotten very blurred, what with its morphing borders
and powerful trans-nationals, that a sense of identity and purpose beyond
nationalism and borders can unite people committed to an open civil society.

I have been vocal in identifying ways we all collude with necessary evils to
create a gray world. That world includes all sorts of behaviors that are less
than ideal, but - and it is a huge but - none of them threaten the foundations
of society itself. All of us participate in evil, in other words, but some are
more evil than others. Down in the trenches of real life, it is all very murky,
but nevertheless,  certain kinds of evil are intolerable. The 
terrorists stepped
over that line. If their way wins, society is no longer viable. It is the real
difference between the United States with all its flaws and the world of the
Taliban where women who commit adultery and homosexuals are murdered by the
state.

Many people have written to tell me how our past actions contributed to the
antagonisms of the present. Yes yes. We too are in a learning curve. But there
is a time and a season for everything. The time will come for America 
to reflect
on the consequences of its policies. But all of the historical and political
analyses in the world do not explain away one essential fact:  Evil in its
purest manifestation is uncaused. It rejoices in chaos for its own sake and it
must be challenged.

All of the good in humanity and all of the evil are going to show up. There are
real rocks up ahead in the rapids, but as a friend once said, look at 
the rocks,
you hit the rocks. Look at the water between the rocks, you go where the water
goes.

Spiritual warfare transcends nationalities, religions, ideologies. It requires
using all of our mental, emotional, and spiritual capabilities, all levels of
awareness, all means of being conscious, to see the flow of the water so we can
go where the water goes.



Islands in the Clickstream is an intermittent column written by Richard Thieme
exploring social and cultural dimensions of computer technology and 
the ultimate
concerns of our lives. Comments are welcome.

Richard Thieme is a professional speaker, consultant, and writer focused on the
impact of computer technology on individuals and organizations - the human
dimensions of technology and work - and life on the edge."

Feel free to pass along columns for personal use, retaining this 
signature file.
If interested in publishing columns online or in print or employing 
Richard as a
professional speaker, retreat leader or consultant, email for details.

To subscribe to Islands in the Clickstream, send email to
rthieme@thiemeworks.com with the words "subscribe islands" in the body or
subject heading of the message. To unsubscribe, email with 
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in the message. Or subscribe at the web site www.thiemeworks.com.


Islands in the Clickstream (c) Richard Thieme, 2001. All rights reserved.

ThiemeWorks on the Web:  http://www.thiemeworks.com and
http://www.richardthieme.com

ThiemeWorks  P. O. Box 170737  Milwaukee WI 53217-8061  414.351.2321



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