MS-13 Emergent Intelligence? (Updated with Video) Tim Reed : Msthirteen.com : December 10th 2007
I read an interesting book recently. It was John Robb’s Brave New War. Overall, the book discusses what Robb calls, “open-source warfare” and focuses mostly on events in Iraq to demonstrate his points. The main point being, that new global, networked, tribes of entrepreneurs, Islamic extremists, criminals, technologists, and individuals now challenge the legitimacy of the nation state, and will ultimately force nation states to change from hierarchical organizations to dispersed networks. Those that don’t, he asserts, will become more and more obsolete.
An interesting sub-focus of his discussion was what is called,“emergent intelligence”, which is the type of intelligence that exists in a bee or ant colony. Put simply, emergent intelligence mean no group of bees is planning or directing the effort in a way most would intuitively recognize. However, the colony is built, supplied, and defended as if one of the individuals was planning it. This is facilitated by complex social interactions and stigmergy. Stigmergy is a biological term which means the use of environmental mechanisms for coordinating the work of independent actors. Robb cites as examples of this, such as ants using pheromones to mark a trail to food. Similarly, humans might use a web link to direct others to a source of information.
Within a highly complex, networked organization like an insurgency or gang these stigmergic information systems can become so complex that they produce emergent intelligence. In short, the intelligence of the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Hence, though no one is an identifiable leader and there is no written standard operation procedure or line and block chart. The whole organization will pursue goals, adapt, innovate, and attack. Robb identifies several stigmergic information systems that have allowed to the Iraqi insurgency to display emergent intelligence. He cites, but doesn’t fully explain, 4 main types:
Marker based – these are signs left by insurgents for others. Robb uses the example of a successful insurgent attack reported by the media, which signals other insurgents to try that same type of attack. Another example could be that as insurgents search for new technology on the internet the useful finds are highly linked, and hence more insurgents find it, etc.
Sematechtonic – These are changes in the environment. Robb describes how increased security on a particular target set can act as a signal to potential attackers to select another target.
Quantitative – These are also changes in the environment. This describes how the size of the security force response provides information to the insurgents about the effectiveness of the attack.
Qualitative – This describes how information about the method, type, location, time, and target of an attack lead others to the most effective next steps.
Now that I’ve crudely described the stigmergic information systems exhibited by the Iraqi insurgency as reported by Robb. The question begs. Is there any stigmergic information systems associated with MS-13, which facilitate emergent intelligence?
We know that MS-13 is a complex organization. Probably not as complex or as dedicated as the Iraqi insurgency, but still amply complex. We know that they form cliques, which are primarily geographically based. We know that they use social networking sites like myspace.com. Within these sites, we know that inter-clique transfers of information take place. We know that they probably on some level are influenced by the media. Given this, are there stigmergics at play? Sorry, I haven’t determined that yet, or even determined the quantity of emergent intelligence MS-13 displays if any.
My purpose in focusing on emergent intelligence in this post is to highlight a new paradigm for conducting MS-13 analysis. In the past, me and others have analyzed MS-13 with only a loose network, or top down hierarchy in mind. Moving forward, I think it could be useful to keep these two models but add to them the emergent intelligence stigmergics. My first guess is that MS-13 probably exhibits a mixture of all three of these models depending on where you look.
Update: More on ant colonies and stigmergy from the Technology Entertainment Design (TED) Conference.
