[movermike] movermike: "The Coming Urban Terror" - City Journal

[Email subscription to blog articles]

Posted by movermike:
"The Coming Urban Terror" - City Journal
http://www.movermike.com/posts/1187029164.shtml


   There's an important article in City Journal: [1]The Coming Urban
   Terror by John Robb, a particularly timely piece in light of Rolling
   Stone magazine that came last week. In Rolling Stone, Punk Rock Fight
   Club, Mark Binelli writes about "a fearless hardcore crew known as
   FSU, with chapters across the United States....The gang has been tied
   to numerous acts of violence and has been accused of intimidating fans
   (at hard rock concerts and clubs), engaging in random beatings, even
   causing other deaths.

   Robb writes

     Most of the networks that we rely on for city lifeâcommunications,
     electricity, transportation, waterâare overused, interdependent,
     and extremely complex. They developed organically as what scholars
     in the emerging field of network science call âscale-free
     networks,â which contain large hubs with a plethora of connections
     to smaller and more isolated local clusters. Such networks are
     economically efficient and resistant to random failureâbut they are
     also extremely vulnerable to intentional disruptions

   It used to be that nation-states had a monopoly on violence. Now,
   violence is democratic. Anyone can use it to great effect. And the
   networks the cities built while efficient are extremely vulnerable.

     ...even small attacks, costing in the low thousands of dollars to
     carry out, can cause tens of millions and occasionally hundreds of
     millions of dollars in damage.

   In our cities, vulnerable as they are, gangs are growing threat,
   challenging governments for control. Besides the FSU written about in
   Rolling Stone, Robb writes about

     the rise of MS-13, a rapidly expanding transnational gang with a
     loose organizational structure, a propensity for violence, and
     access to millions in illicit gains. It already has an estimated
     8,000 to 10,000 members, dispersed over 31 U.S. states

   Robb doesn't worry about WMDs like nuclear weapons and dirty bombs.
   Robb worries that biotechnology will be the weapon of choice for these
   gangs.

     ...in less than a decade, then, biotechnology will be ripe for the
     widespread development of weapons of mass destruction, and it fits
     the requirements of small-group warfare perfectly. It is small,
     inexpensive, and easy to manufacture in secret. Also, since
     dangerous biotechnology is based primarily on the manipulation of
     information, it will make rapid progress through the same kind of
     amateur tinkering that currently produces new computer viruses.

   One way of fighting the gangs, writes Robb, is to decentalize; our
   cities, our communications and our police force. Maybe, another way is
   to reverse the movement to the cities and move to the country!

   [2]City Journal [3]The Coming Urban Terror [4]Mover Mike

References

   1. http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_urban_terrorism.html
   2. http://technorati.com/tag/City%20Journal
   3. http://technorati.com/tag/The+Coming+Urban+Terror
   4. http://technorati.com/tag/Mover+Mike