I tend to agree with  you.

Robb's concept of "a new more resilient approach to natiaonal security, one built not around the state but around private citizens and companies will change how we live and work" isn't so innovative at all.

All you need to do is just go back to the Dark Ages for a similar model: a ragtag array of warlords and minor despots ruling over their small turfs, exploiting their impoverished subjects, and continually making war upon each other. Or if you want a more current model, look no further than urban street gangs. Same basic idea. Robb's little private entities are not much more than slightly  better developed versions of the Cripps and the Bloods.

It doesn't take too feverish of an imagination to picture two neighboring self-contained armed gated communities making war on each other over such things as access to water, roads, waste disposal, etc. Or in resolution of incidents in which a member of one community claims to have been wronged by a member of another one. How does that get resolved and by whom?

So this is supposed to be the 'new way'?