It would seem to me that the formation of a network dictates the abilities of that network. In being a part of an organization you make an informal agreement. The relative wisdom, or strategy that emerges from a given network will be dependent principally on that group’s ability to independently recognize an effective strategy. For wisdom or strategy to the emerge, there has to be a critical mass of people within that group with both the ability to make good strategic decisions and to explain those decisions effectively to the remainder of the group. The point of the wisdom of the crowd is that within the sphere of action of a group, only the ideologically sticky concepts get enough momentum to emerge. The strategic effectiveness of a group is dependent on the intellectual resources available to it. Al Zarqawi had his own network of people who agreed with him that acted independently of the larger movement he was a part of. In that the more rational strategic arguments against his actions were not properly understood by his followers, and due to the extremely splintered lines of communication, the wisdom of the crowd broke down. There was not enough communication in their network– in large part due to anti-insurgency efforts to specifically target al qaeda communications. It’s not a fault of crowdsourcing– it’s a weakness of al qaeda network communication ability that was strategically exploited, and Zarqawi’s massacres are the result of that exploit, which in turn shows how important freedom and security and comprehensiveness of communication and information is to effective action in general.

1. While I know you said networks lack strategic intent, I think you severely underplay the strategic consequences of networks/emergence. There is more to strategy and decision making than just intent. If you were more widely read in philosophy, particularly moral philosophy (rather than picking and choosing whatever is cool in the continental side of things), you might have known the various other areas, e.g. intent, actions, means, consequences, imperatives, emotionalism, etc. Colin Gray — a Clausewitzian — outlines a good contra-argument to your position for the inter-relationship of small wars and strategic consequences in ‘Modern Strategy’ (chapter ten from memory, the one on small wars and terrorist strategy).

2. I think you’ve also created a strawman and nirvana fallacy of the emergent-sides argument. You’ve stated ‘in the long run’ these groups lack intelligence. Well that’s all well and good, but there isn’t a long run with these groups, and I believe others have already pointed this out. I don’t really get where you are going with that argument. These aspects seem to be inherent to swarm intelligence applied to warfare: it’s a short term hive mind that can create massive strategic consequences. Arquilla and Ronfedlt pointed out this stuff years ago with their ‘pulsing’ strategies, and groups rapidly assembling and then leaving. These authors, and others who have focused on the networked style organisation (sageman, naim, kenney, et al), have also pointed out from the beginning of their writings that many of these groups have hybrid form organisations. I mean who exactly are you talking about here that are making these arguments? John Robb? It sounds like you comparing idealized arguments with the reality of what people are really saying, which is the nirvana fallacy. Can you identity exactly which writers you are talking about, and which organisations they claim are emergent?

3. Searle’s argument was for AI and philosophy of mind. Pretty much nothing to do with crowd psychology. So your argument is a strawman. Crowds also have individuals in them. And once again, if you were familiar with the literature of crowd psychology (see hatfield, cacioppo, and rapson), then you’d realise that there are thinking human beings in a swarm who can sync themselves up to the emotional contagion and drive crowds to some goal.

4. The 4chan/anon example is also a strawman. You are comparing a bunch of prankster kids with a lack of resources who have a history of taking the piss, with military capability (and come to think of it hierarchal nation-states have also said they were going to destroy terrorist groups, and haven’t yet, how does that factor into your necessary and sufficient condition of strategic intent?)

5. I see your David Tucker naval-hierarchy argument, and raise you a Norman Dixon ‘On the psychology of military incompetence’. As someone who actually served in the military I can tell you that Dixon is mostly spot on. The people who spout off crap about hierarchy are mostly pogue colonels and their sergeant major lackeys who are so disjointed from what actually goes on that the hierarchal mindset allows them a measure of controlled chaos over their alternate view of battlefield reality (I have no doubt it is kinda like political administrations). In fact, don’t even bother reading dixon’s book, google the blog ‘Fobbits need ice cream too’ for the military ground truth of the Iraq war. Same shit, different uniform it seems.

Anyway, I’ve had enough of (somewhat) fisking this post.