[ via NTK ] In which fighting terrorists is compared to staking vampires:
While uncertainty is the dominating motif, the “Buffy paradigm” has the following additional characteristics:
- What expertise there is consists largely of bad or uncertain advice and old, flawed, and
confusing technical data.
- The importance of any given threat changes constantly, past threat behavior does not
predict future behavior, and methods of delivery keep changing.
- Arcane knowledge is always inadequate and fails to predict, detect, and properly
characterize the threat.
- The more certain and deterministic an expert is at the start, the more wrong they turn out
to be in practice.
- The scenarios are unpredictable and have very unclear motivation. Any effort to predict
threat motivation and behavior in detail before the event does at least as much
- Risk taking is not rationale or subject to predictable constraints and the motivation behind
escalation is erratic at best.
- It is never clear whether the threat is internal, from an individual, or from an outside
organisation.
- The attackers have no firm or predictable alliances, cooperate in nearly random ways, and
can suddenly change method of attack and willingness to take risks.
- All efforts at planning a coherent strategy collapse in the face of tactical necessity and the
need to deal with unexpected facts on the ground.
- The balance between external defense, homeland defense, and response changes
constantly.
- No success, not matter how important at the time, ever eliminates the risk of future problems
The writer leaves out:
- Every season has a Big Bad (bin Laden) and a Little Bad (Saddam!)
- The idiot sidekick is funnier than Bush.
- Sometimes the Big Bad is one of your own. (Though compairing Ashcroft to Willow is insulting to Willow)
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