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Better to Jaw than War - If war comes, we need the tools to confront aggression

I often listen to the radio; it seems you get a little more in-depth coverage on a given issue. The topic that prompted this blog post was the ethics associated with Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it is applied to warfare, and by extension, the automation of warfare.  The prospect of war is a grim, I dedicate most of my thought on how to prevent it; but if the fight comes, as it has so many times, we should be prepared.  Most importantly, however, we need to effect positive relations with world actors through aggressive engagement, the construction of a world narrative and trade.

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Precarious Cross Roads & the Unstable World Order

Presently, the USA, primarily and NATO hold world hegemony. NATO, of late, has inducted states that are less sturdy actors than the post WW2 “core group”. So within NATO, there are some fissures forming. NATO’s present organizational structure is sluggish to discipline bad actors. While NATO is clearly intact, and clearly the most successful alliance in history – external political pressures have had it appear to be a paper tiger at times. The fact is, in recent history, most “aggressive” military engagement has taken place under the banner of “a coalition” rather than NATO. While one appreciates the level headiness and prudence of NATO’s leadership, if ever there has been a time for a posture of strength, it is now. Greater effort on the part of NATO members to effect adequate resourcing and cohesion is critical.

While the USA and NATO still hold sway militarily, there are potential configurations that could emerge that would challenge NATO.  As was the case pre WW1, where there were four, more or less at par actors with uneasy alliances in play, the world today has a somewhat similar circumstance emerging – or rather, a similar circumstance could emerge if we are tardy in spotting the trend and responding to it. 

      

The Crumbling of the Westphalian Establishment

State sovereignty has been the cornerstone of world order. This order was effective in large measure historically because various modalities of discourse, interpersonal and public, were contained intra-nationally – states populations were to a degree isolated from one another. Even with the emergence of the television mass media era, there was a filter on the data that moved from one population to another. Now, as is widely evident, data moves between individuals nearly seamlessly regardless of jurisdiction.

The tendency is to view the “state” in geophysical terms, a group of people “own” the territory within a set of boundaries and that area is theirs’ to manage.  The truth is more abstract than that, the “state” is really determined by the strength of its narrative and the degree to which that narrative effects cohesiveness in the population or a collective identity.

The combination of these two realities is contributing the Balkanisation of the world order, as well as, introducing disruption and volatility to public opinion.

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Mitigation of threat – engagement engagement engagement and more engagement

Engagement is lacking in many ways, the full engagement between state leadership is lacking, deeper administrative engagement into the second and third tiers of respective administrations and finally, and most importantly, engagement of the world population generally. Engagement of the world population offers the largest opportunity to effect peace via a “shared” narrative and is grossly under-addressed worldwide.

 

A role Canada can play effectively in conjunction with other countries of “like mind” is to begin a concerted, well-financed and sustained effort to inform the world citizens of the value of our system and way of living. The value of personal sovereignty, property rights, the social surplus of markets, secular imperatives and the notion of a progressive thrust in governance. Canada, via the CBC, in a joint venture with the BBC, ABC and others could initiate a worldwide program to aggressively engage populations.  This is the quintessential oz. of prevention; $10 billion here would very likely stave off many of hostilities that loom on the horizon and keep my grandsons from the horrors of war. “Better to jaw jaw jaw than war war war” as Mr. Churchill taught us.  “We”  the “West” have spent trillions upon trillions in preparation for war, I submit, if we had spent 10 cents on every dollar directed to military spending toward evangelising the miracle that is the Canadian way of living, we would have created a functional world narrative and be further away from war now, rather than inching closer.

Militarily Oriented Geo-Political Up and Comers

At the fall of the wall, Russia was open to us and we frittered away the goodwill there. Now, again, rather than engage Mr. Putin, a man of conscience and a strong leader, we’ve alienated him further. We have grown in influence in Eastern Europe, but, at the cost of Russia’s goodwill. There is a growing anti-western sentiment amongst Russia’s young people that is a product of the lamenting of the transformation from the Soviet order to present day Russia and perceived slights from the west.

China has been extremely successful in converting from a fully command and control economy to a partially free market economy. Much of their success has been due to access to western markets. China has an operating model that parallels the operating model that brought the British Empire to prominence, authoritarian government and corporatist socio-economic structure.  There may have been an opportunity through the course of China’s evolution for the west to impart its core values in a stronger way, in some instances we’ve failed.    

Click Here: CHINA'S PROGRESS - LESSONS FOR THE WEST

There are a number of other geopolitical areas of concern that threaten world stability, their exploration is outside the scope of this document, it suffice to say for the purpose of this document, that their threat as a causal agent in igniting a large confrontation is recognized – by way of example – the dynamics that emerged between the US and Russia in recent events in the Middle East.

The reason I call attention to Russia and China is that they’ve taken a “competitive stance” with the west. Competition can make us better; the challenge is that the ultimate competition, the unbridled confrontation between two or more global actors is a terrifying prospect.

Resolve – if a fish rots from the head, civilisations rot from the core, or rather, the disintegration and diffusion of core ideals.

The progression of Western civilisation has had, as an ostensible core value FREEDOM and this core value has been shored up in large measure by governance that has, under the adversarial realities of democratic government, hybridized social policy with a fairly well supported “free” market. This uneasy association has generated a standard of living unparalleled in human history. One thing that is most concerning today, however, is the willingness for this core element of western society to be compromised, prostituted or directly attacked within our society and its abuse ignored in jurisdictions outside our ambit.

The freedom from coercion and the freedom to act (complete liberty) as a core value, has advanced all people in the west. It was the dream of the “founders” of the enlightenment to create a state of being whereby people have a choice in belief, to build their lives founded on the discoveries of the critical mind, love and the metaphysical contemplation of their preference.  The protection, enhancement and propagation of this core value will make the unparalleled prosperity we’ve enjoyed in the West available to the rest of the world.

Churchill once said “courage is the most important virtue of all, as it guarantees the rest”, the core value of freedom, is the core value that ensures all the advancements the people pursue, and as such, it is the most important core value. It is our obligation to take this inheritance that has come at so much cost, by so many, and care for it. If this is true, and if all means of peaceful resolve are gone then perhaps war will become the only means to protect it.      

The Ultimate Competition – What are you prepared to do? - The Hammer  

War is an event that occurs when all else has failed, it is the ultimate failure in human relations. When it occurs, our participation should have been motivated by the desire to defend that which we hold dear. Defining what we hold dear is a key element of understanding the various thresholds for taking a war footing, defining what we hold dear is outside the scope of this document as well – people usually know good from evil because they taste it.

The Canadian Military is charged with defending Canada. In the context of world order, we derive most of our security from our association with NATO and our proximity to the US. Defending an area the size of Canada with a population the size of ours is a challenging at best; particularly so if Canada had to “go it alone”.

AI and automation are critical components of any future military development. I would argue that wars of the future will be won on a given participant’s ability to hold a reserve of raw resources and convert those raw resources into actionable assets the fastest.  To my mind, the question is how to use AI and automation, rather than whether to use them. The ability to leverage resources and minimize the use and risk exposure of personnel should be pursued with vigour – we need to be the best and the fastest, period.

Perhaps what we are prepared to do in our defence should be determined by what others have done in the past. We know that in history there have been actors willing to breach all international protocols in the unbridled pursuit of power. We know that in the face of that aggression “we”, “the West”, used Nuclear weapons in warfare. The answer is, in the ultimate competition, we have to be prepared to do anything necessary to win. Are there morally dictated gradations of engagement? Yes, however, ultimately, our actions are determined by the zeal of the aggressor.

OTHER THINKING ON THE SUBJECT

Islam More Pain or More Solution

Isis - Russia Dark Clouds are Forming

Islam & West Contemplations on way forward

Ottawa-shootings rational response, please

    

Islam & the West – Contemplations on a way forward.

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It is difficult to improve human action if you’re totally attached to a fixed set of beliefs. The migration of destructive human action to constructive human action requires the ability to manage innate human modality, it is innate in us to adhere to the “program set” we’ve been handed and to the people that share it.

One of the most constructive elements of a free market is the presence of “creative destruction” and the resulting “disruption” in the market place – it winnows out decadence, permits change and feeds dynamism. This phenomenon has advanced the material well-being of western society more than any other, its existence has been contingent on the acceptability to change course. The stasis that is effected by the dogmatic adherence to scriptures of any kind, precludes this important force to come to play in the advancement of human relations. This is in no way a call for a nihilistic bent in the approach to religions, but rather, a call to allow approach to modify in view of new knowledge while in pursuit of improved outcome.

Inherent in all advancement is heuristics, here again; the stasis that is effected by the dogmatic adherence to scriptures of any kind precludes this important force to come to play in the advancement of human relations. The rigidity placed on populations by religion tends to generate inertia, inertia of actions that are both good and bad. There has been inability on all our parts to break the cycles that are causing discord. 

Religion tends to want to “silo” human existence, in this way it fractures us and erects territorial boundaries, which become barriers to harmonious coexistence. Clearly defined and material territorial boundaries can normally be addressed with tit & tat, metaphysical territorial boundaries  bore of religion are ephemeral, ill-defined and come with a complex of beliefs and morays that reside nearly at a sub-conscious level – when these boundaries are breached, our identity and or state of being is challenged.

“Because religion seeks to give meaning to our lives, it’s bound up with all the components of our understanding of who we are; as individuals, as members of families, of communities, of nations, peoples; even as part of the whole cosmos. And when, in those contexts, we feel threatened or under siege, or lacking in respect or alone and humiliated, then we will utilize that which seeks to give meaning to defend ourselves.” Rabbi David Rosen

The challenge is to bring all parties to a place of commonality, to identify a common substrate on which human interface can take place, a means by which to leave erect the silos that religion has  built, but reach through their walls in a non-threatening way. There are many commonalities in the human condition, safety and security is one, the advancement of the one’s we love another. The one point of commonality that all are dependent on is the assembly and collection of material goods – this is the one point of commonality that religion strives to separate us from. Many in the peace movement see materialism as the enemy, the mere satiation of human desire, theirs’s is a pursuit to rise above the physicality of it all, to avoid being sullied by material want; there maybe or may not be merit in this as a personal pursuit, but it scales poorly and worse, it ignores the reality of the majority of earths inhabitants who scratch to subsist.

“Every day we are reminded of our differences and the reasons why there is confrontation and violence in the world. But what is truly needed is the opposite: to emphasise what unites us. Once we realise that every human being has the right to lead a dignified life our differences become less important. On this common ground we can work out how to live with our differences and take advantage of the positive opportunities that reside within them.”  HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway

Perhaps a commitment to a general state of dignity for humanity is the answer. Dignity is offered here in contrast to a largely a comparative assessment, but rather, as the human right to a “quality of being worthy of honour or respect”. It is certainly the case that in an intracultural circumstance a sense of dignity tends to be derived by a comparative assessment and absent a compelling rationale to see otherwise this is true of an intercultural assessment of dignity as well. So when addressing a negatively affected population, it is critical to provide a compelling rationale for a reduced state of being on their part; this is achieved by offering recognition for the sources of the negative outcome being endured.

  

Dignity is rarely present when material needs are unmet. We, in the west, live in a state of relative prosperity when contrasted to most of the world and certainly the majority of the Muslim World. This reality is a by-product of historical occurrences that brought European prominence to the world and much of the Muslim World. In many ways, the management of Europe’s withdrawal from the Muslim World at the fall of the Ottoman Empire left discord and marginalisation in the region and fear by the west of a resurgent Muslim World precluded the fair remuneration for resources extracted from Muslim territories. If a component of dignity is rooted in the material well-being, perhaps the provisioning the means to prosperity would focus human action on the acquisition of material well-being and away from violent action; thus harmonising the human enterprise and neutralising  theology a source of antagonism. 

OTHER THINKING ON THE SUBJECT

Islam More Pain or More Solution

Isis - Russia Dark Clouds are Forming

Islam & West Contemplation on way forward

Ottawa-shootings rational response please  

Foreign Policy - Demographics & the Evolving Perspective

The millennials (1980-1996), the Generation X (1965-1979), the Baby Boomers (1946 – 1964), the Traditionalists (1900-1945) – Foot in his book Boom, Bust, Eco, called the Millennials – Ecos, so the name changes from one futurist to the other, but the facts are the same, we are now three generations away from the people who fought WW2 and lived through the depression.  The Canadian identity-building apparatus has created a culture largely based on being other than “American” and on “diversity” along with other dribs and drabs. The societal “eye of the tiger” that had Canada provision 1 million people and build the third-largest navy in the world to put down tyranny in WW2 seems absent now. I believe we need to get it back; this is in no way a call for exuberance in the pursuit of war, but rather a societal willingness to “throw down the gloves”.

I have tremendous affection and respect for the Millennials & Generation X, I am a late boomer so my life experience resembles Gen Xers more than Boomers. The Millennials are idealists, this is a good thing – the willingness to pursue the best of humanity is admirable. The Challenge is that the world is evolving into a more complex place, multi-polar and dangerous. Boomers and, Gen X to a lesser degree, had their worldview forged by the Cold War – the world was largely bipolar and everyone else took upsides. The Millennials had their worldview shaped by euphoria generated by the fall of the wall and the miss-framing of the most recent middle-east confrontations.

There is less of a willingness to support military action; this “anti-war” sentiment could be even more deadly than a more hawkish stance on foreign policy. We need to remember the cost of the hesitation of Roosevelt and Chamberlin in WW2, weak-kneed policy generated an emboldened Hitler, who then took advantage of hesitation to build massive forces, with the net result being more people dead than if the West had been more aggressive. The modern version of this was the premature removal of troops from Iraq and scaling back in Afghanistan, we are paying the price for political pandering now, as the vacuum left by western withdrawal in the Middle East is being filled by ISIS & the like. It is grand to want “world peace”, the peace that made life grand for the Boomers, Gen Xers and Millennials was earned by fighting and winning; that is the paradox of peace – it must be fought for. Simply putting other nations’ aggression on ignore or failing to respond to emerging threats is the road to disaster.

The challenge is that the affects of poor policy are buffered from the decision-makers, the voters. Most challenging, the political process confounds a clear and concise message to the public – this is a particularly damaging externality of our political system.  The challenge in the Middle East is generations in the making, it will take generations to remedy and we have governments attempting to generate outcomes inside election cycles. There are violent, aggressive state entities at play in the world, unless we confront them, by force if necessary, and force them into the world community, they will gain mass until they can threaten or take away our way of life. Let history be your teacher, it keeps playing out with violent changes in power; the only time there is sustained peace is when there is a clear hegemon – the preservation and enhancement of a hegemon requires societal consensus and clarity in policy. The west’s hegemony is U.S. lead, and they are conflicted both generationally and politically; beyond that, other NATO players are fractured in their preferred approaches – internally and internationally.

There has been too little effort between western allies to solidify a long-term policy by consensus, when we were in a bipolar circumstance with the extreme threats we acted more or less in solidarity. Given the “pre WW1” circumstance now, multipolar and dangerously unstable – but with far less resolution – the world's security is insidiously slipping away.  

There needs to be strong leadership in clarifying the threats to our way of life and communicating them to people. People having been isolated from serious confrontation in their own space for generations are losing touch with the realities of power and what it means to them in their daily lives. It is important that people have a clear assessment of threats and outcomes, or apathy will rule until we all find ourselves stepping off a cliff, like so many Lemmings before. This is an issue that requires long-term policy in the face of a changing circumstance, this is a place where political action can direct policy, however, political action should be withdrawn from policy actuation – the debate needs to be had and consensus achieved before crisis hits.