What was the one? See a podcast?
This is your host Jack gains. When CA is a product of the
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I'll have those in the show notes, Shadow governments.
What they're doing is they're performing governance but what
they're providing to the resistance or Insurgency is
legitimacy. Welcome back.
This is part two of the interview with Josh Bedingfield
talking about his upcoming paper, the value proposition of
Shadow governments, which should be out at any moment this summer
when it does become available. I will update the show notes and
make an announcement for this episode.
Josh and I continued to discuss his findings and how they are
applied. If you missed part one, I
recommend going back and checking it out first.
But if you insist, let's get started with the show.
This is another reason why I really like K magnussen's theory
on social contract. Because what it says is, you
could theoretically have great systems of Exchange in a really
Stellar performance and services metrics, but if it's not built
on shared values, you're a fraud.
It's just increasingly becoming simpler to determine or at least
question the motives that were presented.
We don't give credit to people's capacity to do that.
That we just wave a way that there needs to be a measure of
sincere shared values and I'll even go a step further, right?
Like Vietnam, the Vietcong actually do.
All right, there's great literature on the fact that they
knew that they did not have struck shared values with the
South Vietnamese people. Really of, in the Vietnamese
people were large, interesting, the concept of Communism of
leninist. Marxist.
Communism does not marry itself. Well to core, and this is a just
according to literature on. Trying to speak on outside of my
mouth, it just doesn't align itself.
Well with core cultural paradigms in the Vietnamese
culture. It actually is directly contrary
to them Concepts like the Mandate of Heaven Concepts,
like, you know, the importance of local spheres of influence
and whatnot, right? The predominance of a desire to
own property. And so when the Viet Cong sent
their Shadow government down into Vietnam, they were actually
specifically instructed, like don't talk about Cummings, don't
do it. Don't bring up the thing that is
going to break our effort to build shared values, right?
But we want you to do is actually play into the values
that we can demonstrate our shared.
So you had a communist government.
Send operatives to to conduct governance activities in South
Vietnam where a big part of their operation was to
distribute land for private ownership, that is
anti-communist, right? It was a core value of the
population so it attracted only the core diet population.
Right? So they took this approach to
say hey I'm going to I'm going to hide it from you.
And what I'm going to do is I'm just going to find out what you
need and I'm going to prove to you that I can get it to you.
Sure. And then when I take power,
that's when I can be like hey you know, that land but I gave
you we're going to collectivize it.
Well it's something interesting. David Maxwell was just
interviewed and he's talking about peaceful reunification of
the two koreas, one thing that he was.
Ending is that South Korea, start mapping, the parcels of
all the North Korean Villages. And then once the reunification
starts to occur, the South Korean start handing, each of
those local farmers and Village members the deed to their land.
Say you own it. Now, this is your pretty face
and his theory is. If you do that, you add
legitimacy to the transition government, as well as keep the
population of place. So they don't migrate out.
Sure, I'll drop a little thought grenade into the conversation
right now is anybody can find the value in communism, but you
give somebody a parcel of land and autonomy over their own
ability to make away in the their lives.
Communism seems weird. You're weird.
Everybody's like, we all own everything until you give
somebody to acres of land and say, you can shape your way
offered the audience. And it's not very many cultures
out there that there's not value.
Sure, that would challenge that perspective and and, and the
Vietcong knew that right? Ho Chi Minh and GAP.
They knew that very smart towards.
And that's part of the reason China became such an economic
power, is that the government started that two-tier system
where they had an economic base? That was more open capitalism
and then they had the governance side on top of it that said, hey
as long as you want to make money, you know you want to run
a business, you want to own a business, find will leave you
alone, pay your taxes paid. Whatever payoffs you have to do,
just don't get into the governance side and sure.
Preachy, you know, it worked pretty well.
The thing is when she took power, he started to see all
that money flow and lack of control and he started to
centralize it and it is caused trying to start peaking
economically as well as in their foreign policy Outreach, which
how Brands fears is going to cause them to be more violent in
their future foreign policy actions.
And actually I was Talking to John kisara.
We just wrote a book about China for he did about seven
indictments on their illicit activities.
He follows everything from their fit and I'll trade to Oregon
theft and the uyghurs and slavery and all that.
And that's when question I asked him is, do you think that as
they Peak will the dictatorship then lean more into fit and I'll
trade and Oregon transfers and all of the different illicit
activities. They have to make up that
difference. And I'm Wait for him to respond.
So it'll be interesting. It's a great way to frame kind
of one of these little side narratives of what I was working
on about, like just the value of shared values, right?
Building a system where the people are bought into the
system that you're selling, right?
Yeah. This is kind of revolving around
three findings, in my research. So the third finding what is one
of the disadvantages of the Shadow government.
It makes the organizational structure, that is best.
Most poised to get the population to buy into the
resistance or Insurgency, it makes them vulnerable because
they have to be a forward facing organization.
The Taliban Shadow government was partially an effective
because it was actually truly a shadow government.
They didn't have an office sitting there, they didn't have
a structure available for the people to engage with an
exchange, with this alternate form of government.
So they layered on some like, Clandestine Insurgency type
thought on how they built this up when you've got a good one.
One that's actually building legitimacy.
You got something that looks like the Vietcong in Vietnam or
I argued in solidarity, the shadow government was the
national Coordinating Committee and CC, right?
These were the offices that made these Regional protest movements
become solidarity but they were offices.
They were people that existed there to say.
I'm gonna offer you a Will contract and you can come and
talk to me Monday through Friday, you know, 825, I'm
representing you and this exchange that we have.
I'm gonna give you these things through shared values and
performance, and services, and systems of exchange.
And what you're going to give me back is your part of the social
contract. You're going to give me
legitimacy when I tell you to strike and Poland.
I don't want you to worry about the government saying.
Don't strike a way to go strike at a specific time and a
specific place. We need to demonstrate that.
You support the movement and people in Poland, did they had
millions of members? And the first year of them
coming up and it exploded? Because this social contract
that solidarity was selling was very real but it made the NCC,
very vulnerable. So the return on a shadow
government is extremely valuable.
It's novel in terms of resistance and intermittency
structures, you don't get large scale legitimacy through
Guerrilla operations. You get some people will support
you but it's just a different type of exchange, auxiliary, an
underground, same way. So you build a Shadow government
to compete with the opposition within their sphere of control.
You're going to get a large-scale return on legitimacy
if you perform. Good governance.
But it's going to make you very vulnerable because good
governance requires you to be present, it requires you to
exist, in a Real place said a real time.
So the Vietcong knew this, right?
They set up operatives as a part of their Shadow government, that
lived in the hamlets and the towns.
And guess what? That made it pretty easy for
Phoenix to find them and kill them.
Capture them. It made it pretty easy to
determine for US forces in the government of Vietnam to say,
hey, here's where chords needs to go to counter governance,
right? The problem is it took a service
away that supported the core value of those local.
Judges is what you're saying. Yeah, because there's no place
in on it, right? Are you the same thing for like
vso in Afghanistan? So it made it easy for us to
determine where it is. So you've got these resistance
structures gorillas underground, an auxiliary that they can go
out and live in a barn. You don't need to see them.
You just need to know that they're doing their job and you
get the return on their function, Shadow government's,
they have to exist. They have to be with the people
makes them very vulnerable and that's what you saw.
In solidarity NCC was super present, they were there and
jerez else, key get elected and he's like not today.
And overnight thousands of solidarity members are arrested
to include Melissa. All of the, in CC Regional
Offices are taken down there or shut down and solidarity for the
vast majority of its organizational, purpose ceases
to exist in a 24-hour period of time.
That's how vulnerable it could show the government makes you,
right? And that's what And that elster
Smith, who wrote the dictators hand book, argues is that the
current policy of dictators is to kill off any chato
governments to the point where they just, there is no
resistance anymore. Putin is a great example of
this. He and she of spread this kind
of notion around the world which is why you're getting the
problems. You are in the car is that
they're just being brutal to. Any kind of resistance is going
out there. Sure no doubt and that is one of
the two ways. Is that a counter government and
opposition can go about combating, a shadow got, right?
I argue in the paper. I essentially say listen, you
got either a kill capture or counter governance approach but
kill capture only works if you really good at it it only works
if your total right, it's very trunky a and its approach,
right? Right to trunk.
Yeah. In French Algeria, he does coin
and he has cruelly good coin in a great task knitting interviews
with the now. He's like, no, we just we just
we killed everybody. Yeah, right, everybody right.
You were associated. You got killed or captured
period and it was very comprehensive in its approach,
it's not very palatable for us in the west to acknowledge that
good coin, that is relying on kill capture ideology.
Historically, speaking is really only effective if your total
about it, and is it in a long-term form effect?
Because the French still struggle with any kind of
cooperation in Algeria and other countries around the North and
South. Yeah.
Great question. Right, what's your Horizon on
success? Is it you know next year or is
it 10 years from that? Or is it 50 years?
You may be able to bludgeon yourself into cooperation but
there's a long history and the Locals are those Nations often
tell stories down to their children and their children's
children about it until there's a point where the legitimacy
starts to creep back out. Yeah, which is why I say if
you're going to go about that approach, just acknowledge how
it works and how it doesn't work, it's more nuanced than
we're getting out to them work. More kind of being a little
sound bite me in terms of the takeaways from it.
But well, it's a podcast again, finding a little, exactly.
I am committing a cardinal sin or not, you're doing a podcast.
That's what you're supposed to do.
And the other approaches, the counter governance approach and
that's hard for us too. Because when we say Phoenix go
and conduct your task, right? I get these great metrics of
performance that are very military palatable.
Sure in an eccentric operation. I get to tell you how many
people I captured? I could tell you how many people
I killed. It makes sense to everybody.
I'm not going to say I like it because we like it.
I'm going to say I like it because it makes sense.
If I'm measuring the delta in the variance between how much
legitimacy I have taken away from from a shadow government
and that's difficult for me to conceptualize and I've studied
it for you, right? And I, I will tell you that the
idea of building a nice little white paper one page report for
status rep to a commanding officer walking into her office
and saying, man. Here's what I've done over the
last three months of my counter government operations, I don't
know if I could build that product, because it's very
nuanced, right? And you're not going to get very
good feedback. When you say, it's hard to
measure. It's difficult to measure right,
but it's partially difficult to measure because we don't have a
framework for it right again, going back to that, it
governance is only the activities of the government.
Then we have these great examples of chords and vso in
Vietnam and Afghanistan of counter governance.
What exactly are we doing, right?
Counter governance is not just strengthening gyro or government
from South Vietnam. It's also getting after that
shadow government breaking its legs metaphorically speaking,
And making it less palatable to population.
That's counter governance that I need metrics.
I need measures of performance and measures of Effectiveness to
demonstrate that. There's been a change based off
of my inputs into that system and we can't start building
Frameworks like that. Until we institutionally
acknowledge that governance is more complex than the activities
performed by the government. Yeah so here's here's the fun
question. What you're describing is
exactly the same as what went on in the macro political Realm of
the Cold War and the u.s. in competition.
But what was a system versus system competition.
The Cold War, I see residents also in the global strategic
competition that we're doing now with China and Russia and well,
the four plus one do you see competition as a form of Shadow
governance, where were competing for the global markets and also
Do you see a strategy to where the us could be using targeted
core values with our partner Nations and Target Nations that
we want to build as partners as a way of outcompeting these
competitors, I'm going to answer your question by not directly
answering your question. Oh, thank I'm going to running
for that to tell you why. I'm not going to directly answer
it because I do not think that it's what I will say, is this, I
think it's very important. Ain't for Army, Special
Operations forces. And frankly, the Department of
State and some other other governmental agencies to get a
little bit smarter on how to build support and neutralize,
Shadow government's. I think that when they exist,
they're very dangerous. Westmoreland actually said that
they might just be more important than the gorillas back
in Vietnam. And he was, I would argue
correct because they sell hope to the population.
Sure they'd sell a lot of things but definitely, definitely.
Threat. So we need to get smarter on
building them. We're on apprehensive about
saying why we would want to build them.
It is hard to to proxy this kind of stuff.
I don't think that building a shadow government is the kind of
thing that we can send some Bob's over say building the
shadow government today. Team.
Well, I'm not prescribing that as well.
I'm just saying that, well, I say that there's humor in it,
right? But there's a complicated
history with our support of regimes.
Me, Kermit Roosevelt and Iran? I mean, a lot of things, right?
I'm going to keep it real vague, so it's complicated, but if
we're doing good shared values, it's not us doing it.
Where it's really important for us to understand why to do it is
when we talk about our partners who are integrated resistance
Training Concepts and to their defense plans, right?
If we look at Ukraine and we say, hey, we've had an
investment within Ukraine for a period of time and a part of
that. Speaks a part of the success
that we're seeing is a bi-product of the investment
that we put into there where you've got these great reports
coming out saying hey that offensive that came down from
the North and the opening days of the conflict that wasn't
really stopped unilaterally by uniformed Ukrainian forces.
They were territorial defense units that stood up and held the
line at a very critical access of approach.
Right? There is local populations that
were throwing Molotov cocktails on trucks and vehicles and And
absolutely, right, that's resistance if we're building
resistance Concepts into partner and allies structures of defense
and a part of that is acknowledging that in the event,
that there's a scenario where we can't hold the line or they
can't hold the line and we've really got to lean into this
resistance as defense concept, which is what the Rock is, this
is my trying to speak out of turn here.
There are nations that are our allies that Have really leaned
into the Rock and I encourage it.
I think it's great. I think it's a fantastic
approach to use limited means to to get outsized returns in terms
of Defending territory. Sure.
And you acknowledge that you're going to seed from that
territory then and if you acknowledge, you're going to
seed from a bit. Then we're looking at a scenario
Like Glue, Hans. And what are the than place to
compete? With this occupation regime that
is in charge of that area? It's a shadow government.
That's the organization. That's the resistant structure
that we're talking about that. It's going to compete with that
occupation regime and it's in saying that out loud makes it
very real the threats to that organization become very
palatable. We acknowledge where we'll be in
play in the conflict that we're all very focused on right now,
right? I said it out loud.
Knowing full, well, that I'm I'm saying there is a value return
for people with in luhansk to say, I'm going to set up shop
and I'm going to act on behalf of the Ukrainian government to
perform a governance function that is at odds with my
occupation, you're painting a Target on your back, right?
I don't know how to make that more palatable because it is the
reality of the situation. Sure.
But how cool would it be if we knew that or we built it into
the Rock ahead of time? That's how nice would it be?
I'm sorry. What do you mean by Rock the
resistance operating concept? Okay, thank you.
So the research sobbing calm said, yeah sure not the Republic
of Korea. Okay.
The resistance operating concept we're doing a good job or that
multinational concept built in cooperation with the joint
Special Operations. University does a great job of
saying, here's how you build gorilla and auxiliary and
underground type functions in advance as a part of a
territorial defense plan. Sure.
And we're good at supporting building those because it aligns
with our existing Doctrine, but there's a return and a function
there that I argue is important for us to just equally
acknowledge when it's necessary to build support or neutralize
and that's a shadow government. And if we're doing this ahead of
time, we're setting these things up ahead of time and helping our
partners, develop them and integrate them into their
defense plans. Then it's probably incumbent on
us to at least acknowledge That there's a value here, there's a
value of saying, you're going to do G activities, underground
activities and auxiliary activities, I know, by the way,
you guys need to work out, however, if it's within your
system of governance at a national level that if this
region becomes occupied, who is continuing the line of
governments that is demonstrating that the insert
partner or Ally State. Here is still the legitimate
Authority in this area, giving people the opportunity to make
that choice and The porch step to make sense makes told us that
that's how we'll answer. I think it's a great non-answer
but I do like the idea of focusing on the core values of
Nations that you're trying to build better relationships with
and it may not be building a shadow government.
In might be just good diplomacy to reach out and focus on core
values and building Mutual door, shared ideals.
So at the The macro Global rule law system.
I think that might be a better way of competing against You
know, Nations that basically promote corruption and violence
to compete with the current rule of law system.
Yeah. So I think that might be the
attractor that we've just not paid attention to when designing
Global competition and counter malign influence.
Yeah, I think it's all tight end.
If we talk about this from the perspective of what my findings
were Shadow governments are offer a really great return for
resistances, right? They offer something that other
resistance organizations don't and that's legitimacy.
If you build enough legitimacy, you're going to Your odds of
success and short-term, that's Victory and long-term.
It's less likely you're resistant.
Once you re-establish control. That's good second.
They're very vulnerable if you do them.
Well, they're very vulnerable and that's just a statement.
The takeaway is, you need to protect them, right?
They can't just exist, unprotected.
He had to find a way to protect an outward facing organization
and if we're looking at disrupting them or neutralizing
them, M. Then there are two approaches to
do it. There's an enemy Centric one
where it's kill capture which aligns itself with coin Doctrine
kind of what we did in the last 20 years in Afghanistan and
there's a counter governance angle kill captures hard to pull
off but if you do it well you can just squash it like winning
a fight like overwhelmingly. Don't just get into a fight with
bully like you know you gotta break his kneecap and he just
want to fight. You get right?
Like you got to do it really well really quickly.
But since that's kind of hard for us to do not because it's it
were not good at it because or pretty practice at it right now.
It's because it's hard to do period and it's kind of
unpalatable and Western doctrines.
I think we should just focus on the counter governance angle.
Sure. It's a little bit of a slower
approach, but if we flip my hypothesis backwards and say,
all right, well, the shadow government gets you legitimacy
and legitimacy increases your odds of success and decreases
your odds that you're going to face a resistance.
Once you're successful. The hypothesis kind of holds
true on counter governance as well.
Counter governance is meant to delegitimize, a shadow
government and legitimize the government that you're acting on
behalf of, wouldn't we be able to equally say that we are
increasing the odds of the government that we are
supporting them succeeding and building legitimacy by
encouraging people to buy into that system of governance.
It sounds like you're taking the best of the North Vietnamese
plan and flipping it to where it can be used for.
Either resistance to a dictator or trying to build a Shadow
government to help go after dictators and oligarchs
basically. Yeah, generally speaking just
support our national objective, the tactics and strategies that
you're discussing would be applicable for the u.s. out
competing with line. Actors.
Absolutely. Right.
And these structures to I'm saying, hey this way learn about
Shadow government and to answer your question more directly if
we're talking about a global competition for influence like
what is Great power competition. Look like, well, in my opinion,
historical allegory is the Cold War.
What was the currency in the Cold War?
It was influence. Yes.
Who can wield their influence within a series of operations,
or a steer of the world better. But that really blouses bows
down to his legitimacy. The number of people who are
willingly obeying a democratic regime versus a Communist
Regime, right? The challenge with the Cold War
though is that a lot of countries played both sides.
Absolutely. Right.
Because they didn't know who was going to win.
So they're gonna Give good grace to both sides.
And then, as one became more dominant, they started to switch
and support. Its kind of point is the formula
holds and just get rid of Shadow right?
If governments perform governance as non-governmental
entities are quite capable of doing right.
Little knock on wood there. If governments, perform
governance than the return that they get is legitimacy.
Sure. And if they're in competition
with something else then what better way to increase your odds
of success then by Forming good, governance and increasing your
legitimacy with the population because that's the Target and
legitimacy population Centric operation.
And for every five people that see me is legitimate, that's
five less than C use Legend. There is a point of time T
value. T the it's zero-sum five people
that are obeying me or obeying you that's a zero-sum exchange.
It's a very powerful shift in who wields the means the people
at any given point in time The interesting point is when there
are swing population and they're actually using the services of
both sides to see which one they like better.
Sure. And that's where I will
acknowledge my research fails, a little short is because I have
to use the word support without spending a huge amount of time.
Looking at what the word support mean this material support is
this. I'm going to make a sign out
back with a fist on it and says, you know, down to the fascists
like what exactly does this mean, what does support look
like? Maybe support looks like I just
stay home that day and I don't support the government.
Owing to support you by not supporting your opponent.
Is that support? And I would say, I don't know, I
think there's a lot of ways you can support something, I think
that there's a lot of different metrics we can look at it,
there's material support, there's moral support.
Sure. The one thing that's striking me
about what you're saying, that reminds me of an economic model,
the the startup model that you bring in a new product that
disrupts the current market and takes it over.
Uber was a disruptive governance system in a way that displaced
taxis which were an older expensive and unofficial n't
system and displaced it with a newer economic model, and that's
kind of what you're also talking about is bringing in services
that better fit the population. So that they're so attracted to
it that they want nothing to do with the old government and its
taxiways, they want to go with the new hip government with.
It's Uber ways because it's cheaper and it removes the pain
in their life of having to get from one place to another with a
lot of hassle. Yeah, I mean, you're treading
dangerous water that I would definitely agree with.
If you were actually doing it openly by saying that
corporations can perform governance like hundred percent
by Into You. Well, when Zuckerberg went to
Congress, a couple years ago, one of the complaints that
Congressman had, is that sound like Zuckerberg was representing
a population as if he was the government and he certainly
represents a social contract with his users.
He does Like your homeowners association does you know?
I mean, you can't have a chicken coop.
What do you get for that? Well, they get onto your
neighbor for leaving their trash cans out more in one day, right?
That is governance and that is shaping.
That is a social contract that you buy into is supported by
fake or real shared values, but to betting on your homeowners
association and how that's run systems of exchange and services
in performance and is a governance structure from a,
from a non-government entity. The you buy into and that you
can fight, if you don't want to do it, right?
You want to talk about like a really great case study, what
somebody should run somewhere that's not employed by the US
government resisting the HOA. What like, that's it a try?
You sure, we have all failed and what a great way to test some of
these structures. What how does that manifest in
terms of my geez? Hillary or my underground my
shadow government? Do I have like a another HOA
that just sits there and performs the functions?
I love the HOA. When that be a fun social test,
the shadow government HOA and pre senior competing with them
on Services. A yeah, you're competing with
them on services and now that whole 0 something makes it make
herself perfectly logical right right for every Linda and Bill
that's a man you know the existing HOA to not really give
me what I need. I like this other social
contract better. I'm not going to pay my dues,
I'm going to pay my dues to the other HOA.
I'm just going to violate my social contract.
That's a zero-sum exchange of legitimacy.
Well and it would also become a court battle.
Yeah, I mean sure sure. Of course every government has
its its backing and HOH it's the legal process.
Absolutely. If you were to launch a shadow
HOA and have a similar contract with them that bypass the other
contract, then Court battle. Very interesting one.
Yeah, but it makes a lot more sense when we say Court battle,
right? History tells us that there are
international courts and or bodies that will adjudicate the
aftermath of seizures of territory, just the same as a
local Court, will adjudicate a shadow HOA.
Sure, there was an international body that was stood up in the
aftermath of World War Two. That said hey we're gonna go
back to the way things were and oh, by the way things are going
to change a little bit and redistribution that's no
different than, you know. Circuit Court, 506 coming in and
being like well, existing HOA, you guys broke your contract,
you didn't provide you Services, I told my word, right?
But you did do decent, you know, cetera, cetera cetera.
Again, we're on this trail of non-government.
Entities can perform governance and that gives us great ways to
frame this in terms of this return and efficiency things
that we can test not. We meaning me but just that are
testable is very interesting. Sure.
So, do you have any last thoughts or summary on the
paper? You'd like to put out there now,
I'll just say, you know, if didn't in reading the research
in total, it will be published on TGs Digital Library, some
time. At the end of summer, I will
send a link once it gets published, if you're interested
in Reading anything else that I've written, there's also
another thesis from my time at CGS, see, on there that I'm very
interested in Sharing out there so about a concept called rice
As Weapons. It's all that.
I'll just say it was a great conversation.
I really enjoyed the time, and thanks for thanks for having me.
So, anytime I You getting on thanks for listening.
If you get a chance, please like And subscribe and rate the show
on your favorite podcast platform.
Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an
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I'll have the email and see association website in the show
notes. And now most importantly to
those currently out in the field, working with a partner
Nations, people or leadership to forward us relations.
Thank you all for what you're doing.
This is Jack, your host, stay tuned for more.
Great episodes one, see a podcast.
This is Jack, your host, stay tuned for more.
Great episodes one, see a podcast.