Month: January 2003

I’ve written earlier about the new mission for US Special Ops forces, so since Rumsfeld held a briefing yesterday regarding the U.S. Special Operations Command, I figure hey, may as well talk about it some more.

Let’s see. They’re increasing the budget, which strikes me as a rational step, particularly given these criticisms.

He’s giving Special Operations Command a supported command role, which means “the Special Operations Command will have the tools it will need to plan and execute missions in support of the global war on terror.” The Washington Times claims that this implies authority to plan their own assassinations, but that’s kind of unclear to me; if it’s true, then any command in a supported command role had that authority previously. Mind you, I’m still of the opinion that even Bush shouldn’t be authorizing assassinations as an instrument of US policy, but that’s me.

Rumsfeld blithely dodges the question, “is America’s military now capable, if asked, to go to Baghdad and win decisively?” Tsk. Instead, he says “we will recruit, organize, train, equip and exercise so that we will be capable, as a country, of, in two conflicts, near-simultaneously but not completely simultaneous, be capable of winning decisively; that is to say, occupying a country if necessary, and in another case, swiftly defeating and preventing an attack on an ally or friend.” That’s really interesting. Again: “not completely simultaneous.” Also, not two occupations. Next time someone says we can prevent a North Korean invasion at the same time as we invade Iraq, you can tell ‘em Rumsfeld says they’re wrong.

Also: “General Myers and his team […] have come to a conclusion that in fact we are better able to meet our current strategy than we were two years ago capable of meeting our prior strategy.” Which, I dunno, maybe a slip of the tongue? But he’s not saying we can do it, he’s just saying we’re closer to being able to do it. Note that this in itself is praiseworthy; progress towards a goal counts in the plus column. Just let’s be clear about the difference between progress and accomplishment.

He also mentions the tabletop strategies, which may or may not be discredited. It’s OK to go back and try again in a war game, but it’s a bad idea to artificially limit what the opposition can do.

Moving on, Rumsfeld discusses South Korean anti-US demonstrations: “And if you get demonstrators, a handful of demonstrators — I don’t know, what is it? — 10, 100, 1,000 — whatever the number may be at any given time, is that a good reflection of what the view of the country is? I don’t think it is, myself.” Tens of thousands, actually.

Fun times. It’s worth keeping an eye on the briefings; they post ‘em over at the DoD Web site. Get your news unfiltered. For god’s sake, don’t take my word for it — there’s a world of original sources out there.

Oliver Willis has AIM alerts going now. Slick. He mentions in email to me that he’s working on other messaging systems as well; I’d forgotten MSN Messenger as a player in cell phone messaging, but I shouldn’t, since Microsoft wants to be a player in the cell phone OS market.

I’m wondering if anyone’s going to pick up on this for the local elections in 2004. 2002 saw very little Internet action on the election front, even if you count Tara Sue Grubb’s weblog. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more proactive uses of the technology; looks like Tara Sue will as well.

And as long as I’m obsessing about this, I might as well pick up Smart Mobs.

Glenn Reynolds slips into the surreal, saying it’s a good thing the South didn’t win the Civil War because then the United States would look like Europe. Yeah, and I seem to recall there was some other issue involved, too. Can’t put my finger on it, though.

Oliver Willis (blogging maniac) is already pushing the SMS thang, in his unofficial John Edwards weblog. Mind you, it’s one guy, but one guy can have a lot of leverage these days.

Looks like he’s using Upoc to do mass SMS messaging. I guess it’s a start, but he’s going to need to get email and AIM into the mix, too. The legendary Randomness observes, in response to my thoughts earlier today, that “there just isn’t the SMS culture in the States that there is in South Korea, Japan, or Europe.” Truth. But I think it’s gonna be email and AIM on mobile devices that makes it happen in the US.

We don’t have an SMS culture. We do have a serious instant messaging culture. We’re gonna see widespread AIM/email on cell phones before we see a lot of American kids using SMS. The free Nokia I got for signing up with T-Mobile (the 3390) came with AIM built in, so I think it’s hit the commodity point.

Anyhow, I signed up for his group, not so much because I’m an Edwards supporter but because I want to see how it gets used.

If South Korean elections can be swung by smart mobs, what’s that say about US politics? Mind you, the voter turnout was a mere 70%, which is the lowest ever for a South Korean presidental election. Conventional wisdom says that Roh Moo-hyun benefited from text messaging because it helped him get out the vote, but the low turnout seems to contraindicate that. Possibly the turnout would have been slimmer if not for the smart mobs? Hard to say.

Anyhow, here’s the prescription for whichever US party wants to use cell phones effectively. First, don’t telemarket. That’s intrusive. You want to use the communication channels in non-intrusive ways. Second, collect contact info. When you run a get out the vote rally, find out if your voters like SMS, AIM, or email for mobile communication, and get the info you need to send messages via the preferred method. Third, don’t overuse it. Election day, you betcha, send a message asking if they’ve voted yet (and when they reply, mark down the answer; it’s all automatable). Do it again before the polls close, for those who didn’t say “yeah, I voted.” Maybe a few messages here and there in the week before to keep buzz going.

Use messaging more heavily for the activists. Definitely use it on election day. If your poll monitors don’t have some way to take a picture and transmit it back to HQ instantly, you’re missing a big bet — you want to be able to get the word out as quickly as possible if something happens.

Betcha none of this happens by 2004.