From: The Future of Terrorism by Luke Alison (SmallWarsJournal)

Many groups still view the application of terror as a useful approach. While political dissatisfaction seems largely endemic to the human condition: the thought that new sensational displays of violence might help reorder society is never entirely outmoded. The continued appeal is the notion (at least conceptually) that terrorism can become easier to apply, but harder to counter. Basically, the framework here is a type of schism that increasingly negates strategic prevention, but intentionally courts sanguinary pitched battles. In that respect, someone is always thinking about what comes next, and:

“There are several reasons behind this trend. One is the terrorists' natural tendency to ‘out-do’ their previous attacks, stimulated by the perception that if the present level of violence has thus far failed to succeed in forcing a radical change in the status quo, the campaign needs to be intensified. Another reason is the fact that no matter how horrific a terrorist campaign might be, the intended audiences become desensitized to the current level of violence over time, forcing the terrorists to escalate further in order to maintain or heighten the atmosphere of panic and fear among the general population, and to stay in the spotlight. An escalation in terrorist violence is also sometimes stimulated by the actions of other organizations with which the given group competes for power or popularity. Another reason for the gradual escalation of overall terrorist violence over time has been the formation of new groups. Upon emergence, new violent organizations usually do not undergo the full step-by-step process of radicalization, but rather pick up at the level of violence where other organizations active in the same struggle have left off. Alternatively, many existing organizations can give birth to new formations through the process of splintering, which usually results in the new entity being more radical and more violent than the core group.” (Adam Dolnik & Keith M. Fitzgerald, Negotiating Hostage Crises with the New Terrorists, )

Patience is a virtue...

...Look, what are human, bodily impulses? Are we reactive, better stirred with a wooden spoon?

Bare in mind that some people [scientists, really; from the general hobnob conglomerate for research and data] assert that Jupiter is "vast radio electric receiver more powerful than the sun" (128, Joly Biodynamic Wine Demystified).

We've simulated a world without the sun and even gone so far as to project a timeframe for which such simulation might be realized. But, is there a word shared with consideration for a world without Jupiter (to name one example)? (My line of thinking follows the idea that Earth without Jupiter may be akin to the status of the human body without iodine.)

Joly cites research on the relationships shared between earthly and cosmic forces with a narrow investigation on the vineyard itself. He concludes (along with other likeminded biodynamic practitioners) the following alliances:

Fruiting is a response to heat impulses.

Blossoming is a response to light impulses.

Leaf growth is a response to water impulses.

Root growth is a response to earth impulses.

In general, giving the vine too easy and comfortable a time--that is, through too much manure, or excessively clean soils without competition from other plants, or planting too widely per hectare--i.e. always giving the soil too much strength--will nurture the vines' leaves excessively, giving rise to a rather feeble and spiritless wine." (22, Joly)

Feeble and spiritless, hey Joly?...

Indulge.

Upon Request: A Statement of Study

“A clear defensible statement of goals explaining why such goals can be best met through interdisciplinary means.”

The greatest value I hold to my education is illicit in questioning. At the discursive depth of my scholarship, I credit my understanding to the retorts I make to the prompts of my professors. As the countdown toward graduation begins I will pivot from my position at Appalachian State University to the plot of my profession, and the most nerve I have to my next move is the fact that I will move away from the environment of questioning. Therefore, my goal in declaring Interdisciplinary Studies as my major is to develop the equipment I need to not only articulate the questions that arise out of instinct, but also illuminate the questions hidden in front of me (in newspapers, journals, conversations, etc…).

The interdisciplinary studies major is a mindful way to relieve the tension felt between two, three, four, or a hundred distinct sources of knowledge. Regarding my specific tension, my readings on foreign affairs, declassified CIA analyses on the use of torture, the regiment, treatment, and general regard for the vineyard and its wine, and the extreme measures a man uses when the cogs of history are hardest to stop are as distinct as they are numerous. The specific tension embedded in reading about Osama Bin Laden while relating to a passage about biodynamic viticulture instigated my declaration of major in this program.

On the fuller side of my thesis, I realize the tension that held my mind in contesting dissatisfaction came from a collection of narratives—some in which were recognized with a traditional academic integrity (political science), and others were not (relationships with refugees). In this regard, the interdisciplinary program allows for a larger and deeper analysis to take place between traditional and non-traditional forms of knowledge and thus instigate an interesting relationship with and responsibility for the environment at large. It stems from a personal dissatisfaction with the strength of a lens or the range of motion allowed of a scope, and indeed any package that claims viticulture and terrorism requires flexibility.

As case studies, oenology and international security operate within unique modes of culture, technology, history, economics, and goals. Both realms of research began in respect to the raw capacity of each to sustain itself, all the while maintain and true the efforts made by predecessors. By every account, the security of both vineyards and political relationships require a myriad of adaptations to be sustainable. Sustainability works to ensure the viability of all life forces amidst parasites and improvised explosive devices. Charting the patterns and unique instances of societies in reorganization became a kind of obsession.

The core curriculum required of the major as well as the curriculum I charted for myself placed me in an environment that allowed me both to indulge the curiosity of my superiors and to indulge my own. Within this attractive framework, I received coalmines of resources, wells of passion, and barns of advice. The orientation, direction, and degree of self-discipline of which this program generally entailed and my research specifically demanded equipped me with the means to further self-enrichment when I no longer enjoy a classroom setting.

Revolution... Refine!

I could study terrorism as a rare element in human behavior, as biodynamic viticulture

I could study the two side by side as elements and practitioners of the necessity of change.

I could study the two as rare occurrences found in specific regions if not, more specifically, measurable by their consistency in countries, states, or capitols (i.e. hot-bed, fertile crescent, axis of evil, old world, new world, etc).

These are practices of devout followers meticulous in their practice and unwavering in theory; radical by some approach, alternative, by others, hoaky still, or resourceful—as it is not the tools of modern technology, or the finances of modern capitalism that equips these people. I would like to study them side by side because I'm curious about what it will do.

Refine. Refine. Refine.

A Sideliner

I want to keep biodynamic viticulture in my research as a kind of educated entity--of its own right--to talk with about issues of 'demographic changes', 'geostrategies', and 'perceptions' and ways of measuring such things.

Exposure to these issues reels through the text of The Rand corporation's report, "The Iraq Effect: The Middle East After the Iraq War".

A Tickled Tilling

The context:

I argue that their relationship to their farming and‘Others’ resembles a form of religious life defined by asceticism, repetition, sacrifice, and an emphasis on spiritualism and purity. Their reserved relationships with the outside world, particularly in communicating their ideas on agriculture meanwhile recall the search for solitude of religious hermits. They reject a strategy of direct proselytising as attempting to persuade may involve compromises, it would mean revealing their difference and alienating themselves further from the wider community, and some of them question their ability to influence people and wider systems.

McMahon 'Biodynamic Farmers in Ireland: Transforming Society Through Purity, Solitude, and Bearing Witness'"

Steiner had a vitalist vision of the universe in which “ethereal” qualities infuse raw matter in order to give it life; this distinguishes living things from mere amalgamations of chemicals, however complex...We must confront this problem, not just as wine lovers and wine writers, but also as citizens who do not wish to live in, nor present to our children, a society in which pseudoscience and esoteric fantasies are considered reality. Irrational thinking, or reliance on mystical gurus with claims of clairvoyant intuition, does great harm to society.

Smith 'Biodynamics in The Wine Bottle"

When terrorist attacks occur and hundreds of people get killed or wounded, is this regarded by Iraqis as comparable to another day of car crashes in the United States?We might think so, because on the surface, life continues on--people go to work, they open up their shops just hours after an explosion on their street, people send their kids to school. But it has had a significant effect in terms of human investment. Those Iraqis--many of them middle class, a lot of the engineers, the doctors, the professionals needed to rebuild Iraq--will look at the headlines and say, "Why should I want to come back to Iraq? What is there to come back for?"

"Anxious Iraqi's Look at Uncertain Future"

The goal of this work is to advance understanding of the regional implications of the Iraq War by offering an assessment of trends, threats, and opportunities in the Middle East, drawing from extensive field-based research and primary sources.

"The Iraq Effect"

My vision (please forgive any and all soupy introductions--the ball on this topic can be pretty heavy):

What if the events in Iraq (i.e. a concluding 7-year occupation and 5 billion dollar investment) are activated on the same level as those Dr. Steiner witnessed in the soil of his prime? What I'm seeing with Iraq is a setting of Democracy that is as invasive upon the viability of its governed as Industrialized Agriculture was for its invested consumers.

Currently, there is a market for exploitation. Potentially we could begin seeing a greater use of warfare as a means of conflict resolution, and it will be attractive (like the oceans for the moon) for those directly and, most crucially, those who are indirectly involved ('sideliners' looking at this kind of environment as a game of double dutch).

This comes to mind in parallel with the model of industrialized agriculture promoting the use of pesticides and chemicals as just tools of employment for wielding crops for food for a growing population.

More, 'hokey' as it may seem, biodynamic viticulture consistently chimes in with one (thus far) redeeming quality for me. It describes a pattern in theory and practice of elements that naturally coincide like oxygen in fire. The terrestrial tessellation remains largely unnoticed as such and therefore is not widely cited as useful information. No matter, these elements will continue to exist (even unnoticed) just as gravity continues to permeate our third-dimension. (Do you think of the tree crashing in the forest, too?--"does it make a noise if no one is there to hear it?")

It is this quality to which I credit my stubborn insistence to let this methodology guide my studies in the realm of international/national security, of the terrorism/counter-terrorism relationship embedded therein, and in the Iraq War.

I realize the harm of superimposing. As of now however, this project is but a learning exercise. My largest concern...What can I infer when the hokey becomes reasonable? Don't hold it against me. After all, we all experiment in college.

Tyrannical Tangents:

I may be looking for a practice that regards terrorism like biodynamics regards wide-scale agriculture. Biodynamics began as a theory by Dr. Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian scientist in the early to mid 1900′s as a reproach to industrialized agriculture.

While industrialized agriculture satisfies a human race well-endowed in number it is an inefficient way of farming for nourishment. His theoretical bedrock came not from full bellies, but from the malnourished and exploited condition of the soil; a reality that effects the quality of the soil adversely and results in a sterile produce. In other words, industrialized agriculture fills the stomach but requires you receive nutrients elsewhere. The practice he incurred employs earthly and cosmic forces in the correlative relationship that both forces enjoy, but in which the human race stopped using–and, Dr. Steiner retorts, much to their disadvantage. And why? Why should we extort resources and time into a food that only satisfies hunger? Our food should be exemplary and imbue the precious mineral of ‘invested time’.

On this course, my exploration would persist on an analogy: Counter-terrorism is to Terrorism what Industrialized Agriculture is to Food. I am not quick to suggest that we cannot stretch sustainable agriculture to fill the mouths currently feeding off industrialized farms, but in order for such stretch to be successful new eating habits may be required (with consideration to the idea that obesity is as inefficient and harmful to the body as the farming practice that allows it). The innovation and research of food, terrorism, and numerous other age-old suchities have coursed through the minds and fingers of many akin. However, it is not my intention to insist upon the forfeiture of 'Big Macs'. NAY, heed caution! I would like to learn from the biodynamic theories and practices on the vineyard and the success it maintains in its mission to restore nutrient-starved food, and apply the methodology to engaging more efficient ways of countering terror.

On a side note, I would like to further my project with the such vulgar homologies as "Old World" and "New World" as they regard the political atmosphere of both viticulture and terror. As well as how geography intersects at strategy and character.

But more on that later. Rest your eyes. I suggest cucumbers.

Filing Citations

At present, I seek exposure to both fields of biodynamic viticulture and terror (academically speaking, of course) to develop a sound statement of intention.

There is an interesting draw in both 'New' Terrorism and Biodynamics to cite cosmic forces as they manifest on Earth. I cannot imagine the cosmos in time or space: a call for a new method of approach distinct from one which is linear (i.e. time/line).

Access to valid experiences with Biodynamic wine is fairly restricted. But this morning I came across a new link on the World Cat database to a vineyard in Oregon that is fairly forward with their application of biodynamic viticulture[!!!!].

On y va...

Top-Pick!

THE BIODYNAMIC VITA-CULTURE OF TERRORISM AS THIS MEANS OF PERSUASION REGARDS THE UNITED STATES AND HER PLATFORM FOR THE ‘WAR ON TERROR’ IN IRAQ.

Justification: My path of exploration will follow the coalescence of the literal and reclaimed meanings of ‘biodynamic viticulture’ and the means to reveal and establish a new dimension of measuring terrorism. My allocation for place and time (The United States, Iraq, and the new millennium) will narrow my attention, and hopefully allow for a reasonable endeavor to complete within a semester.

Not From Concentrate. (no pulp, either)

The fields of International Security and the vineyards of Oenology are the investments of my college career. What’s more, I have marked off a smaller plot to care for with greater attention. Before I list the coordinates of my design, I need to massage the fibers and branches that begin this root-bound endeavor.

While the origins of interests are never so clearly marked as a fire hydrant, I can faithfully say that a spark turned blue with heat in a white, 15-seater van en route to a Purdue Chicken Processing Plant during one of many Georgia summers. Buckled inside were 10 young Iraqi men—all fresh with leather shoes, starched collars, and manicured hair, 1 older man from Sudan, 2 teenage Nepalese siblings, my superior—a beautiful Kenyan refugee, and myself. The mission was resettlement and self-sufficiency by way of employment. We were in the car no more than 2 hours, a time lost between Rockabilly and Arab pop music, and the day was ours for spending. Once within a 5-mile radius of the chicken compound we no longer had the lung-capacity for music. The smell was foul (literally), lingering in the city’s summer haze, and it wrapped around everything—your grocery store and friendly, neighborhood ‘Mick-a-dee’s’ included. I then became conscience of how strange it was to engage those Iraqi men in particular as refugees in a resettlement plan of The United States—the invading and occupying republic of their homeland. The sentiment, “I’m sorry about the war, but we’re glad you’re here” was washed over with contempt. Watching the confident, sharp-looking Iraqi men walk into the processing plant for casual job interviews while the last shift filtered into the parking lot adorned in plastic smocks and fitted knee-high galoshes was awkward to say the least.

While my interest in international relations extends in many other directions, an occurrence of this sort was most poignantly felt and raw.

The vineyard on the other hand is the aesthetic outlaw of my academic career. After spending 9 months upon the French terroir, 4 of which spent under the instruction of my university in Paris and Bordeaux, I preserved interest in one insight: Wine is alive, a singled embodiment of the earth that engrossed its seeds. Never in my adolescence had I considered wine to be of any great consequence—spare, of course, for bad breath and the occasional headache. But never mind that—wine is geopolitics incarnate! The distinction between a Cabernet produced in the same country on different terrain in different soil amidst different vegetation and animals stimulated a very cordial setting of relationships. In a way very much like, “Oh, so this is how it works,” I set off to envelope the ambiance of this setting in that of my topic to follow.