We had a meeting the other day with some Special Oeprations logisticians.  The Special OPS guys specialize in foreign internal defense, counter-insurgency, and clandestine ops.  Much of what they do is secret so can't really discuss on a blog.  However, during the interest roundtable discussion, one officer mentioned the concept of the starfish and the spider.  The idea is that a starfish keeps re-generating no matter where it gets cut.  However, a spider can be killed by cutting at the center.

One thing the special ops guys try to do against adversaries like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Taliban, etc  . . .is to kill the Starfish.  Many of these organizations have leaders, but, in essence are run as leaderless orgranizations.  Instead of trying to continually trying to cut off an arm that goes back, they try to pul the starfish in two directions at one time.  Here is an excerpt from the book that may be more clear

"IT'S A STARFISH WORLD AND MOST PEOPLE DON'T EVEN REALIZE IT

One thing that business, institutions, governments and key individuals will have to realize is spiders and starfish may look alike, but starfish have a miraculous quality to them. Cut off the leg of a spider, and you have a seven-legged creature on your hands; cut off its head and you have a dead spider. But cut off the arm of a starfish and it will grow a new one. Not only that, but the severed arm can grow an entirely new body. Starfish can achieve this feat because, unlike spiders, they are decentralized; every major organ is replicated across each arm.

But starfish don't just exist in the animal kingdom. Starfish organizations are taking society and the business world by storm, and are changing the rules of strategy and competition. Like starfish in the sea, starfish organizations are organized on very different principles than we are used to seeing in traditional organizations. Spider organizations are centralized and have clear organs and structure. You know who is in charge. You see them coming."
 

We work with 3rd Army a lot, both here in Kuwait, and in Qatar, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  In Kuwait, they play a major role in fixing broken/battle damaged/used equipment so that it can be sent to Afghanistan, back to Iraq, or back to the States.  Some photos . . .

Thousands of vehicles and equipment that have returned from Iraq wait to be retro graded in a Third Army lot at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. Not limited to rolling stock, the base receives hundreds of trailer-sized containers a week filled with everything from medical supplies to ammunitions. The 24/7 process of repairing the battle-worn equipment remains a top priority for Third Army as it pushes the repaired and usable equipment into other areas of operation. (9MAR2010)

Heavy Equipment transporters wait to be unloaded from trailers in a lot at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. HETs, along with Third Army transportation units who drive them, are a vital part of Third Army's mission in the Iraq drawdown. The trucks are designed to carry heavy equipment such as MineResistant Ambush Protected vehicles, M-1 Abrams tanks, troop carriers and other HETs.

A humvee is power-washed before being inspected and repaired in a Third Army retrograde lot at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, Feb. 27. The lot, one of many at Camp Arifjan, receives hundreds of vehicles a week that are returning from the drawdown of equipment in Iraq. Third Army's mission to retrieve and repair the battle-worn equipment remains a top priority. After being repaired, the equipment will be sent back into theater to support other operations.