Swarming For Social Order and Disorder

A swarm is a large number of organisms generally in motion.  According to Swarm Theory, the collective exhibits superior intelligence or abilities beyond that of any individual.

Swarms are powerful forces that we see in our society today in everything from the worldwide riots of 2011 to crowdsourcing on the Internet–to put it simply as they say, “there is power in numbers.”

And swarms and their immense power dates back to the Bible, where the 8th plague sent on Egypt in Deuteronomy 10:14-15 was the plague of locusts:

“And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt…for they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees…”

This past year, we saw the power of swarms in the riots around the globe–from Tahir Square to Occupy Wall Street. In the case of Egypt, Mubarak was deposed after ruling for 30 years and in the case of Wall Street, the Occupy movement sparked protests around the globe lasting for many months.

Similarly, swarms are being put to the test in multiple military applications from the Army’s Future Combat System (since renamed) that envision brigades of manned and unmanned combat vehicles linked via an ultra-fast network creating a highly coordinated and maneuverable fighting force to DARPA’s iRobotSwarm Project creating a mesh network of mobile robots with sensors that can coordinate and perform surveillance and reconnaissance gaining dominance over the battlefield.

The power of the swarm is not just a physical phenomenon, but also a virtual one where crowdsourcing is used online to do everything from building incredible sources of knowledge like Wikipedia to soliciting citizens ideas for solving national problems such as on Challenge.gov.

Traditionally, the power behind the swarm (in nature whether bees, ants, or locusts) was the collective behavior of so many to attack an enemy, build a colony, or ravage the landscape. Today however, the swarm is powerful because of its collective intelligence–whether in pooling information, vetting ideas, or just coordinating activities with such sophistication that the group can outwit and outmaneuver its opponents.

Wired Magazine  has an article for the new year (January 2012) called “Crowd Control” in which the riots of 2011 are viewed as  both “dangerous and magnificent”–they represent a disconnected group getting connected, a mega-underground casting off its invisibility to embody itself, formidably, in physical space.”

“Today’s protest, revolts, and riots are self-organizing [and] hyper-networked”–and just like a swarm, individuals deindividuate and base their ideas and actions on the shared identify of the group and therein, a social psychology takes hold and with basic communication and social technology today, they can spontaneously form potent flash mobs, “flash robs,” or worse.

The age old phenomenon of swarming behavior is intersecting with the 21st century technology such as smartphones and social media to create the ability of individuals to gather, act decisively, disperse into the crowds, and then reconvene elsewhere to act again.

The power of this modern swarm is no longer about “sheer numbers,” but about being interconnected through messaging, tweets, videos,and more.

Many today are finding the power of the swarm with both friends and foes.  Friends are using swarming to try to accomplish new social and scientific feats.  While foes such as Al Qaeda are utilizing swarming for hit and run terrorism–moving agilely between safe havens and targeting their victims with tools of terror such as IEDs, car bombs, and other flash attacks.

Swarming is not just a behavior found in the animal kingdom any longer, today it is a fundamental source for both social order and disorder.

Swarming is now a strategy and a tactic–we need to wise up and gain the edge with social swarming behavior and technology to “outwit, outlast, and outplay” those who want to threaten society, and instead use it to improve and secure it.

(Source Photo: here)

SIMON Says Open

Discovery Channel has a series called Future Weapons.

This is part 1 from Israel and Richard (Mack) Mackowicz, a former Navy SEAL show us “The SIMON.”

SIMON is a high-tech, advanced rifle grenade for breaching virtually any door in hostile environments.  

It is made by Rafael, one of the largest and most innovative Israeli arms manufacturers.  

SIMON is in use by both U.S. and Israel armed forces. 

Essentially, a bullet-trap slides over the muzzle of a conventional assault rifle like an M-16. 

A regular bullet propels a grenade up to 30 yards into a door, and the blast wave from the detonation breaches the door and any locking mechanisms–with minimum collateral damage and keeping troops out of harms way. 

Breaching doors in urban warfare is one of the most dangerous tasks in any mission as troops may be walking into anything from the spray of gunfire to booby traps.

Well as Mack says: “SIMON says open door;” It is an “instantaneous key to any door.”

What I like about SIMON is the combination of its simplicity and effectiveness. 

On one hand, it works with conventional rifles and bullets and is light and compact to carry. It’s as simple as slide, aim, and shoot–and the door is breached for troops to enter and either rescue hostages or get the bad guy. 

With whatever technology we are building–whether computers or weapons–they need to be user-centric and mission focused. 

Israel has a history of innovation–everything from defense to medicine and making the desert bloom–and I think this has to do with that their survival is constantly imperiled. 

The lesson is that we ought to recognize the dangers out there and respond to them with immediacy and vigor, as if our lives depended on it–because in many cases, they really do. 

>Information Warriors and Enterprise Architecture

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In the digital age, information is critical to decision making. This is the case in the board room as well as on the battle field.

Information superiority is critical to our warfighters ability to intelligently and efficiently defeat our enemies. Many of the Department of Defense‘s modernization initiatives are aimed at getting the right information to the right people at the right time. Unfortunately, there are still some information gaps.

National Defense Magazine, December 2007, reports “troops in digital age, disconnected.”

Apparently, not everyone in the military is getting all the information they need (at least, not yet).

“The problem often is described as a ‘digital divide’ between the technology haves—the upper echelons of command—and the have-nots—the platoons and squads that are deployed in remote areas. These small units for the most part are disconnected from the Army’s main tactical networks and only are able to communicate with short-range voice radios…[however,] at the top echelons, commanders can tap into loads of data—maps, satellite images, video feeds, and reams of intelligence reports.”

Often though it is the small units on the front lines that need to send and receive critical information on combatants or other situational updates that can have life and death implications. This is why the net-centric strategy for virtually connecting all units is so important to achieving the vision of true information dominance.

Here are just a few important ways that information can help our warfighting capabilities:

• Providing information to soldiers to locate enemy combatants (such as from “live video from unmanned aircraft)
• Enabling location tracking of soldiers to save lives when they are endangered (such as from GPS locators)
• Sending information updates back to command for coordination and enhancing decision capabilities (such as from streaming voice and video, instant messaging, etc.)

The good news is that there are a lot of new information technologies coming online to aid our military, including the Future Combat Systems (FCS) and Joint Tactical Radio Systems (JTRS).

To ensure the success of these technologies, we need to manage the solutions using enterprise architecture to validate requirements, reengineer the processes, and effectively plan and govern the change.

1. Requirements management—“how to identify essential needs for information as opposed to providing information indiscriminately”
2. Business process reengineering—according to Marine Corps. CAPT Christopher Tsirlis “it’s not just about the latest and greatest technology but also changing the organization to use new technology.”
3. Planning/governance—we need link resources to results;“the technology exists, the question is how we resource it, and what is the right amount for each level.”

With a solid enterprise architecture and innovative technologies, we can and will enable the best information warriors in the world.