Center for a New American Security

Last night's CNAS 5th anniversary celebration was a tremendous amount of fun. Although the precedings were off-the-record, I don't think I'm breaking any rules by confirming numerous reports that Gen. Marty Dempsey called out this blog a number of times, wryly noting the way I've given him a hard time for his reading list and for his Pentagonese. 

It says a lot about the health of the United States and about civil-military relations that the most powerful military officer in the country is willing to have a good-natured back-and-forth with a blogger who has criticized him. (That's not the case, for example, in Egypt, the recipient of $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid, where the military leadership is so lacking in confidence that it throws critical bloggers in jail.) The United States has the most powerful military in the world, and it sends a strong message to military officers in other countries when our officers hold themselves accountable to the people they serve. (And have a sense of good Irish humor about it in the process.) 

It also says a lot about Twitter and other new media that @Martin_Dempsey noted I rather liked his speech at Duke and is willing to use social media to have a conversation with the public. A few months ago, I marvelled at a back-and-forth between former senior State Department official Anne-Marie Slaughter and George Washington University student Dan Trombly on the Responsibility to Protect. How cool, I thought. Any medium that facilitates egalitarian conversations between generals and bloggers on the one hand and between the former head of policy planning and an international relations student on the other hand is pretty darn amazing. 

I felt really blessed last night to work at a place like CNAS. But I also felt blessed to live in this kind of country -- and at a time when technology is democratizing the public discourse to an extent never seen before.

Organizing a protest or boycott has always been a difficult affair. After all, the individual logic simply doesn't add up. For example, "why should I boycott a product that I like when it causes me harm but is unlikely to cause harm to a company or change practices that I don't like? "

(see, for instance, Dogbert's great quip to Dilbert about buying a fuel efficient car)

A new application for Facebook may provide a model by which to change the rules of the game and, when employed as part of a coordinated campaign, change the underlying personal logic of mass protest.

The application, called "Ultimatums," allows users to establish a threshold of people boycotting or protesting that the group believes will be sufficient to change the behavior of their target. Users then pledge to act, but only when the threshold has been crossed.

For instance, a local store places an anti-immigrant sign on their door. Local high school students then develop a protest based on boycotting the store. They use the Ultimatum App and post their ultimatum on Facebook. "Take down the sign, or your store will be boycotted." They can then set a threshold of 2,000, feeling that the small store would balk or fold at this level of protest in the community. The store could follow along to see if its stance is actually bad for business.

Of course, there are problems in the model. No one has proven that a commitment made by all the beautiful, intelligent, and extroverted personalities of social networking sites translates into action by living counterparts in the real world. Also, in the case of the small store owner, he may not care if 2,000 people sign up for the protest if 95% of them are empathetic high school students from a different zip code who have never shopped at the store.

On mass issues, however, such as Walmart and healthcare or the presidential elections, it may offer the ability to mobilize masses of people--and may be able to stimulate change by the threat of mobilization. Beyond that, it offers counterinsurgents fighting in less wired lands (and, of course, their enemies) an insight into how to mobilize people. The logic for an individual family to resist the insurgents does not work. However, if we can gain commitments to participate in self-policing at a certain threshold and demonstrate our ability to meet that threshold, then perhaps we can change the individual logic of fear.