After a while, people would get sick of evacuating and change the protocols, so even if the effect of disrupting the economy of the west peters out, now our guard is down and we are more vaulnerable to a real threat.

That analysis has been confirmed. The US didn’t take the opportunity to withdraw during this window of controlled chaos. Now it is in the middle of a civil war.

Here’s the original brief for those that are interested.

“Loyalist Paramilitaries”
October 3, 2004
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/10/solution_decent.html

Note: I put quite a bit of thinking/models for resiliency through decentralization into the book.

I wonder if this would also work with the American public in our homeland defense. I’m thinking of the Army of Davids vs. the Jihadi’s loose network

Look for a response sometime Sunday on resiliency….

The rub comes from trying to reintegrate these surrogate forces into a stable security apparatus once the dirty work is done. Look at the example of the Afghan mujahadeen or (potentially) the janjaweed in Sudan. I don’t think the government in Khartorum has the will or means to bring them to heel, and armed nomadic mobs whose main source of entertainment is raiding may end up destabalising the government that originally set them loose.

Chirol: Two comments – one, I think the tree works, except I don’t see why the arrow for “Failed-No Publicity” goes to System Disruption. If they neither succeed nor get publicity, that seems like a total failure on their part.

Two – I very much disagree with Robb’s suggestion about Shia militias as a counterinsurgency in Iraq, for a variety of reasons. First, the domestic Sunni insurgents are responding very positively to Maliki’s reconciliation initiative, and don’t want to lay down their arms primarily because of the Shia militias.

Second, the Shia militiamen, especially the Mahdi Army, are terrorists themselves and are more of problem right now than the native Sunni insurgents.

Third, this resorting to vigilantisim would defeat the point of establishing the rule of law and empowering the Shia through the regular army, both to intimidate the Sunnis and keep the Shia in the state. This is more important than anything. We’ve made a lot of progress, and taking down the Shia militias is one of the main challenges ahead.

Anyone wanting to understand the dynamics of the situation in Iraq better should, I humbly suggest, check out my current writings on the subject at ThreatsWatch.

i think that pretty much answered Curzon’s question.