History is back, with a vicious vengeance
and troubling portent for the world, which had hoped that technology and the
spread of homogenous popular culture would mean less geopolitical turbulence.
The terrorist attacks have been numerous, well-organised, and seemingly so
random that even great powers are having to scramble to even make sense of
them, let alone roll back what seems to be a resurgent armed force of Islamist
militants.
The rapidly executed attacks, from bringing
down a Russian aircraft over Egypt, to the simultaneous gun and bomb attacks in
Paris, to the hostage taking in Bamako, seem designed to harry and debilitate
traditional powers. They also seem to be designed to prove that the group
variously known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Islamic State, or
Daesh, has now reached a position of enough capability that they can take the
fight to their enemy, even as they are being pounded daily by air strikes in
their Levantine heartland. The attacks of the past few weeks recall the
terrorist attacks Kenya was subjected to between 2011 and this year.
The lessons for economic and corporate
planners are not so much in how to deal with terrorism, but what the events of
the last few years can tell them about their planning and response to rapidly
changing strategic environment.
The first one is the one that is always
forgotten whenever strategic decisions are made in a hurry. The immutable law of
unintended consequences seems to have struck again. The current iteration of
Daesh seems to have been formed in the chaotic years after the American
invasion of Iraq. The Iraqi army was disbanded, unleashing thousands of young
men into the unemployment rolls. The second mistake was to take the most
militant of these young men and throw them into prisons in the desert, where
they got busy radicalising each other and setting the stage for the current
crisis.
All too often, the best-laid plans come a
cropper when faced with an unplanned-for reality. Companies and countries are
fond of coming up with intricate plans and policies that look good on paper,
but do not account for the vagaries of events. Look, for example, at the tax
policy that lowered the prices on motorcycles. The policymakers may have
thought that this would lead to a slight bump up in business and employment
opportunities for young people. They did not foresee, however, that these
motorcycles would become the menace they are today. They have torn apart all
the rulebooks on traffic management, as well as given criminals an easy and
anonymous way of getting away from their crimes.
The second lesson is that the tools created
for one purpose (often the most benign), often turn malevolent in the hands
people with malign intent. Technological tools that make it easier to
communicate at both personal and corporate level have become terrorists’
favourite recruitment and planning instruments. Whereas a few years ago an
impressionable young person would need to find like minds, befriend them and
take months to be radicalised, now they can do that sitting alone, and only
interacting with a computer or mobile phone. Radicalisation videos have made radical
preachers globally influential, and blueprints for the tools to wage war can be
downloaded from online sites. This not only makes the job of policing that much
more difficult, but it also means that serious suggestions have been made to
roll back technology, and make it slightly less capable. The heavily encrypted messaging
platform Telegram was developed by a Russian technologist who wanted to have a
forum away from snooping government eyes. Telegram, though, with its almost
unbreakable level of security, has become a boon to terrorists, who use it to
plan and organise with little fear of technological infiltration. The company
has now scrambled to block channels used by terrorists, while facing calls to
make the platform accessible to government investigators. The technology
company Apple also faced similar calls when it equipped its mobile phones with
encryption that meant that no one, not even the company itself, could access
messages sent by users.
Perhaps the third, and most obvious, lesson
is that there is no such thing as the inexorable march of progress. Ancient
beliefs and prejudices have struck at the heart of a Europe that had thought of
itself as postmodern. Similarly, banks and other companies are realising that
technology, which they had hoped would replace human interaction, may not
deliver all it promises. The highest tier of customer service is the one where
there is a personal relationship manager, and a banking hall where the client
is treated to such analogue perks as a cup of tea.
Interesting times are here with us, and one
hopes that decision makers are watching and listening carefully, lest history
strikes at them as well.
Also published in the Daily Nation on November 24, 2015
Comments
Post a Comment