Friday, October 08, 2004

William Lind is on the hunt for the spread of Fourth Generation Warfare (the generation of warfare that the increasingly sophisticated methods of global guerrillas falls into).  He finds it in Nigeria and a recent meeting in Honduras.  If, or rather when, the U.S. gets nuked, that is how the bomb will most likely be delivered: not by missile but by some Central American gang. Why? Because those gangs have the best delivery system for anything illegal. Mara Salvatrucha is already waging low-level 4GW in the U.S., as many a police department could attest. And gangs, by their nature, are for hire. A few million al Qaeda dollars could easily rent Mara Salvatrucha’s delivery system. 7:49:17 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

CSM.  In addition to the record budget deficits, here's some more financial fall-out from the war in Iraq.  Basically, the loss of 2m barrels of Iraqi production (including illicit shipments) transforms every disruption into a major pricing event.  A major disruption (Saudi Arabia in late November) would put the price into orbit. Home heating this winter is now expected to cost consumers an extra 50 cents a gallon even before the first snowflakes hit the ground. This means those who heat their homes with fuel oil or natural gas may pay $500 more this winter to stay warm. Economists are lowering their growth forecasts for next year as they factor in the surge in oil prices. Every one-cent rise in the price of crude, which is up 60 percent so far this year, costs the US economy $3 billion. "The big question is when do high oil prices push us into a recession," says Mr. Chan. "We don't know yet. There is no target price, but as you move to $60 a barrel, it gets very, very dicey and even the Federal Reserve will begin to question what it's doing." Today, Stephen Roach added: Oil is now at the price point that could provide a serious shock to an unbalanced world economy; if WTI oil prices hold at around $50 for another 10 weeks or so, the risk pendulum should swing toward global recession in 2005. 8:21:10 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

I guess the iPodder stuff is wasted on me.  I don't have an iPod and unlikely to get one before I get more cash flow. 6:16:14 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

Jamestown (a great collection of regional specialists, but it lacks any expertise in the theory of guerrilla/terrorist warfare):   The ouster of the Taliban and al-Qaeda from Afghanistan gave a new lease on life to various criminal, sectarian and religious groups in Pakistan that were finding it increasingly difficult to survive due to international pressure. The September 11 attack had forced the Pakistan government to ban several organizations, close down their offices and freeze their bank accounts. Many of these groups would have faced a natural death had al-Qaeda and Taliban elements not taken shelter in Pakistan following the U.S. attack on their Afghan strongholds. These groups provided al-Qaeda and other groups with the logistics support to regroup in Pakistan, developing in the process a new coalition of terrorists. Complicating this picture even further is the ambiguous relationship between the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment and these local elements that have now befriended al-Qaeda. 6:01:09 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

Baby Steps to Space  The difference between Rutan's (or should I say the XPrize) approach and NASA's is that it will build a commercial business around every step of development.  Here are the steps (and my best case timeline estimate): Edge of Space (now -- the next 2 years).  The simple space plane (that won the XPrize) was interesting enough for Virgin to invest in as a space tourism business.  Extend Zero G time (4 years).  The next step is to extend the time in zero G while reducing the cost. This will grow the market.  Motivation:  commercial need. LEO Orbit.  After that, it will be a full push to circle the globe in orbit.  Again, it will be space tourism that drives this.  A prize of $100 m would help accelerate things ($50 m has already been pledged). Commercial micro satellites (5-6 years).  At that point, modifications of the vehicles will be made to insert LEO micro-satellites.  With a record of reliability and low costs (proven via space tourism), Rutan's vehicles will eat this market up.  It will make lots of new satellite business available due to the business opportunities offered by this low cost solution.  Motivation: commercial need. LEO station/hotel (12-14 years).  Add docking capability and orbital manipulation to the vehicle and you have a way to get back and forth from permanent structures in LEO.  That makes it possible to build a business in orbit -- a hotel or work facility. To build this facility, a low cost moderate payload lift vehicle would need to be built (the facility would be manufactured in space vs. the prefabed module approach used in the past).  A $1 billion prize for a private facility continuously manned by 10 people for a year would accelerate this.  OTV to GEOSYNC (13-14 years).  At that point a reusable orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) will be built to bring payloads from LEO to GEO.    Zoom time (15 years?).  Business will boom.  Heavy lift vehicle will be built to take advantage of the demand.  Asteroid belt mining.  Moon tourism.  So much is possible once this low cost commercial  infrastructure is built. This is an exciting time. 4:14:29 AM    Comment_ Trackback []