(((Hey, great setting for a bang-up sci-fi adventure novel.
Kind of a shame that all the readers are dead and the publishers are on fire, however.)))
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/Pubs/display.cfm?pubID=867
(((Purloined direct from GLOBAL GUERRILLAS, where John Robb seems a little peeved to find respectable military theorists stealing his clothes without citing him. It's the price a visionary pays, John.)))
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/06/journal-neo-feu.html
Link: From the New Middle Ages to a New Dark Age: The Decline of the State and U.S. Strategy.
"Underlying the change from traditional geopolitics to security as a governance issue is the long-term decline of the state. Despite state resilience, this trend could prove unstoppable.
If so, it will be essential to replace dominant state-centric perceptions and assessments
(what the author terms “stateocentrism”) with alter-
native judgments acknowledging the reduced role and diminished effectiveness of states. This alternative assessment has been articulated most effectively in the notion of the New Middle Ages in which the state is only one of many actors, and the forces of disorder loom large. (((Kind of a corporate neo-feudalism, except without even the corporations. Apparently you have to just drag Warren Buffett out of Omaha and dress him up as a Medici.)))
The concept of the New Middle Ages is discussed in Section II, which suggests that global politics are now characterized by fragmented political authority, overlapping jurisdictions, no-go zones, identity politics, and contested property rights.
(((Some helpful hints:)))
http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2008/03/notes-for-a-pro.html
Failure to manage the forces of global disorder, however, could lead to something even more forbid-
ding—a New Dark Age. Accordingly, Section III
identifies and elucidates key developments that are not only feeding into the long-term decline of the state but seem likely to create a major crisis of governance that could tip into the chaos of a New Dark Age.
Particular attention is given to the inability of states to meet the needs of their citizens, (((Katrina))) the persistence of alternative loyalties, (((Christian fundamentalism))) the rise of transnational actors,
(((US multinats and offshoring))) urbanization (((East LA)))
and the emergence of alternatively governed spaces, (((malls, rentacops, gated communities, airport terrorspaces, rendition jails)))
and porous borders (((especially for huge flows of cash))).
These factors are likely to interact in ways that could lead to an abrupt, nonlinear shift from the New Middle Ages to the New Dark Age.
This will be characterized by the spread of disorder from the zone of weak states and feral cities in the developing world to the countries of the developed world. ((("The war comes home.")))
When one adds the strains coming from global warming and environmental degradation, the diminution of cheaply available natural resources, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the challenges will be formidable and perhaps overwhelming....
