4GW and angry Swedes

[drcuriosity]

After seeing something on the television earlier about "Fourth-Generation Warfare", I felt compelled to do a bit of reading on the subject. What I read seemed to lend more credence to some of the suspicions I've had for a while about where the nature of war has been headed in recent decades. Events such as those on September 11th last year only help to drive home the point - in the future, anywhere may be a battlefield. There will be a blurring of the lines between civilian, governmental and military. The front lines may be our back yards, our intelligence, our technology and our very culture.

These quotes struck me as particularly interesting:

"Armies will be replaced by police-like security forces on the one hand and bands of ruffians on the other, not that the difference is always clear even today. National frontiers, that at present constitute perhaps the greatest single obstacle to combating low-intensity conflict, may be obliterated or else become meaningless as rival organizations chase each other across them. As frontiers go, so will territorial states..."

"Where does this fragmentation leave the national military, including the United States Marine Corps? As we have seen in Lebanon, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere, when the nation fragments so do its military forces. We could end up with two, three, many Marine Corps: white Marine Corps, black Marine Corps, Christian Marine Corps, possibly even a gay Marine Corps. These fragments would compete with other organizations to provide the security that counts: security for the individual person, family, home, and neighborhood. In effect, the future Marine could be a rent-a-cop."

Certain novels, articles and game worlds of that genre that I've looked at in the past are increasingly appearing to be eerily prescient. Not every future is a viable one, certainly, but many are coming into sharper relief with every passing terrorist act, diplomatic incident, or legal precedent.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Cyberpunk.

Well, I do believe democrazy
Is good for you and me
Everyone needs a nuklear bomb
And we can all maintain the peace
This could be a hobby
This could be a ball
This could mean equality
Equality for all

Comments

[murnkay.livejournal.com]

And while it does look more and more possible and I haveto agree with many of the points you've raised ... do not discount the ability of things to take a radical sharp turn from where they were going due to some unknownk at this time "thing" be it a person/invention/event.

[drcuriosity]

Nothing ever turns out exactly as forseen, even if you're a mysterious Sith lord. Certainly, nothing in the future is a graven-in-stone certainty. New things seem to break old paradigms all the time.

[murnkay.livejournal.com]

for example: Jar Jar

Damnit there I go, derailing a serious thing. Sorry.

[eudaimonia-nz.livejournal.com]

A couple of comments from the Eudaimonia psyber-net,

While many are likening September 11 to a significant historical turning point, it far too soon for this to be necessarily apparent. A common phase after S11 was the claim that the world would never be the same again. On an emotional level such comments were absolutely understandable, but at the time I wondered if it was likely to be true in a historical sense.

For example S11 is not the first time that civilians have been the target of an enemy attack. I would argue that this was most significantly apparent during WWII. For example the use of V2s on London by Germany, the bombing of Dresden by the British Air Force in the last throws of the war and the use of nuclear weapons on Japan by the US.

One thing that occurred to me soon after S11 was that Mr bin Laden's terrorist network is in effect a private army, whereas for the last 200 or so years the armies of states have been so much stronger private armies have not been worth having. The resusitation of the idea of private armies may be one possible significance of S11 in the future. IMHO the Microsoft infantry is a scarey thing to contemplate.

One thing that does concern me is that many politicians around the world are claiming that as 'the world cannot be the same after S11' populations should accept significant restrictions on civil liberties and increased spending on defence and security. The real question that should be asked here is would those changes have been seen to be acceptable pre-Sept 11, and if not why not. Are these changes an effective method of dealing with terrorism or are they simply a traditional conservative agenda? For my way of thinking, acts of evil should not necessarily change society, otherwise we are giving the terrorists a victory. Check out my tribute to Mark Parker on my journal for more of my thinking of the 'war on terror'.

[drcuriosity]

For me, S11 was just another example, rather than a crucial event - just the first one that came to mind that most of my readership would know. It, or something like it, was bound to happen sooner or later. It's a signpost to some, a wake-up call to some, and a tool of manipulation to others.

Some of the spin-doctoring going on is a definite worry. It's a lot easier to control people when they're afraid, and as far as I can see little effort was made in the U.S. at least to stop the people from being afraid. The government response went straight to belligerence, and used that fear quite well to garner more support both domestically and internationally. The "Land of the Free" seems to be becoming progressively less so.

Oh, and hi. Didn't realise you had a journal :-)

[isaacfreeman.livejournal.com]

Events such as those on September 11th last year only help to drive home the point - in the future, anywhere may be a battlefield.

I think this has been the case at least since World War Two.

What is perhaps new about Al Qaeda is that they are an transnational organisation. They are particularly suited to fighting the USA, because the US military and government are still operating on a nationalist worldview. The more the USA blunders about trying to do everything on their own the more they offend other states and make themselves look evil.

The more our challenges, whether military, economic or environmental, shift to the global level, the less effective national responses become.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Cyberpunk.

Cyberpunk generally assumes that as the old role of the nation-state dissolves, no new role will be found. Global power will be ceded to whatever organisations are prepared to act globally, generally the transnational corporations. But in reality there is an alternative: build a federation of nation-states on a global level. The United Nations, the European Union and even the USA in its time have all been part-way steps towards this.
The trend to federation is often less visible than the apparent collapse. But we already have most of the apparatus of a global federation in place, and most of the world's states are generally in favour of the internationalist project.
The USA must eventually take part in globalisation. The longer it delays, the weaker and more irrelevant it becomes.

[drcuriosity]

[nod] It does tend to assume that nation-states become marginalised and are virtually powerless to adapt and evolve. I don't see that happening. I do think the lines between states that work together could become a little more blurred - this is already happening to some extent in the European Union. This is a time in which countries cannot afford to not look outside their borders, because the world can and will continue growing and changing around them.