By Maarten Van Horenbeeck

While I was driving to work this morning, there was a great song on the radio. "Silent Running" is a classic Mike & The Mechanics hit, dated 1985. It was their first song, and hit 6th place in the US Billboard Hot 100 and 21st place in the UK charts.

It was written in the same era as Sting's "Russians", which has perhaps after all these years has retained a little bit more of its hit value. Dated in the mid eighties, both songs had very much of a cold war feel to them. They were written at a time when the prospect of foreign dominance (not so much invasion) was a real threat, even in the United States and Western Europe.

The lyrics of  "Silent Running" make you think about some aspects of information warfare:

"Swear allegiance to the flag
Whatever flag they offer
Never hint at what you really feel
Teach the children quietly
For some day sons and daughters
Will rise up and fight while we stood still."

This piece of pop culture clearly identifies an important warfare aspect that everyone knows and believs they understand, but is generally not taken into account. You can dominate militarily, without actually repressing people's souls. The latter is what comes back to haunt you, especially if you have alienated  the population. People made songs of this in the 80's, when they were at risk themselves. When it applies to others, it's disregarded. Despite cultural differences and simplification, this is an important lesson.

Another brilliant piece of text:

"Take the children and yourself
And hide out in the cellar
By now the fighting will be close at hand
Don't believe the church and state
And everything they tell you
Believe in me, I'm with the high command"

Hide out in the cellar, and only come out when opportunity rises. Believe in the High Command. This is typical for network centric operations - groups are only linked through a central ideology, and arise when they feel their assistance is required to further it.

Click on the links above to see the Youtube videos for these tracks, and enjoy a completely different view of the world than the common one today. If you then feel like reading an insightful piece of work on the issue of persuasion and winning "hearts and minds", have a look at RAND's Strategic Influence and the Struggle against Terrorism.

By Maarten Van Horenbeeck

Last year at university I was studying different models that attempt to explain revolution, a state which Stinchcombe in 1999 defined as being "periods in which the rate of change of power positions of factions, social groups, or armed bodies change rapidly and unpredictably". Plenty of scholars have studied the roots of this type of societal change, and I tried to add in my 2 cents by looking at why Zimbabwe had not yet shown this behavior, despite the existence of virtually everything one would expect to trigger the event - increasing poverty, lack of outlook, massive inflation and government repression.

There are two significant things lacking from the Zimbabwe situation, which were present in several other, similar nations where revolutions did take place. One of them was resources. Several studies have shown that capability (as in 'financial resources') is a much more important driver than any form of frustration has ever been. The other item is more recent, and is likely to contribute at least as much. It's communication. In the late seventies, when the Shah was overthrown in Iran, this was very much due to imported tapes with the word of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, which were spread in various  small but populous Bazaars, Masjids and Hey-ats.

A more recent example took place in the early 90's in Mexico. An organization dubbed the EZLN or Ejército Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional, called out for autonomy for the Chiapas region of Mexico. This type of event would have generally have been responded to with the necessary force, but due to the organization's smart use of media and NGOs to distribute its message, the Mexican government was convinced to take them slightly more serious. In all, despite only a very small base of active insurgents, Mexico still counts 32 so-called 'rebel autonomous zapatista municipalities'. The internet played an extremely large role here, immediately reporting on any hostilities, causing them to be aborted quickly out of fear of international protest.

This makes the Myanmar protests even more interesting. In the recent past, the Southeast Asian nation has been led by the State Peace and Development Council, a military "junta"  or committee which has full control. This does not necessary mean that the nation's people want it to be that way. During 1990 People's Assembly elections, the National League for Democracy, a pro-democracy party led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won over 60% of the vote. Regardless, the military National Unity Party annulled the election results and took power.A subsequent international outcry caused the arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent 13 of the following years under house arrest.

Myanmar also has some of the toughest internet controls in place. In essence, most internet users only have access to the internal Myanmar intranet. There's also e-mail content control, and URL blocking to sites of opposition parties.In recent days, however, it has become clear that despite this massive blocking, the internet has been a valuable tool in agenda setting. By merely keeping outsiders informed of the internal situation, news outlets worldwide were briefed of the emerging protests, and significant power was placed in the hands of opposition parties.

Myanmar has cracked down on its buddhist monks in the past, but only to a very limited degree. These people are highly respected in the country, and anything too violent would likely cause a very instable situation amongst the country's population. When about 2000 monks decided on Saturday to leave an established protest trail, and pass by Aung San Suu Kyi's home, the Myanmar military could not intervene violently, and let them pass. A similar attempt on Sunday, be it smaller, did get blocked, but once again not in a violent manner.

This is an important stage in the protests in this nation - in the past, us in the west learned about these issues days after the facts. However, the internet has ensured that the issue stays right in scope. Currently, there are several hundred known Myanmar based bloggers, many of whom are getting their message across.

This is an interesting event. The resource level in Myanmar is still very low: 1,691$ per capita, as compared to Zimbabwe at 2,607$ per capita. Communication-wise, it is more ethnically diverse than Zimbabwe, with 135 ethnic groups as opposed to Zimbabwe's 82% Shona tribe members. However, Myanmar is united in respect for the buddhist monks - over 90% of its population are buddhists.

Looking at how things turn out for its population will help us learn about revolutionary events. "Tipping points" in how people interact, really. It also gives us a good view of how the internet helps echo, amplify and attenuate signals - whether they be sent by pro-democracy activists, the Myanmar government or actual Burmese citizens.While this exceeds the importance of our daily activities by over a tenfold, no doubt we can learn something here from a sociological risk assessment perspective.