Meta-Warfare

[AmericanPride]

In today's modern, political society, everything is defined by the frame of reference we surround ourselves with, including war. As that frame of reference changes, so do our ideas about war. What I think AP is saying is that, not everyone agrees with our ideas about what a government should look like. Because of that, their definition of "war" is different from ours. As a result of that, how it is fought and, most important, what it takes to win (or lose) is different than ours. We can fight till we are blue in the face, but we are, in essence, not fighting against each other but fighting past each other. I believe that is the crux of the problem both AP and I are thinking about.

I more or less agree with this statement in principle. I would add that I see it in two layers: first, a superficial layer, and second, a core or base layer. In the first, we have different governments like the U.S., Russia, China, et al. Their respective histories, values, and bureaucracies produce different approaches to warfare. But these are all fundamentally similar insofar they are all derived from a similar source: a modern nation-state with a more or less market economy. Each of them have extensive state apparatuses to maintain a large, uniform, more or less highly technical and professional standing army. They arrive at similar conclusions about the conduct and nature of warfare for this reason.

Then you have a base layer; that is the defining political-economic structure underneath all of it. Prior to the modern nation-state, we had feudal political-economic systems. These were defined by personal obligations, small state bureaucracies, small landowning classes, and large dispossessed populations tied to manors. Professional armies, where they existed, were relatively small, and when larger armies were necessary, they were raised and used carefully and temporarily. This perhaps explains why in World War I, when the last of the old era was swept away, that the Austrian-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires failed so spectacularly. The leadership recognized the need for a modern, standing army but their political systems did not allow for it.

I would like to also note that large, professional armies are not necessarily a consequence of modern technology (as opposed to state sophistication). The Roman Army is an example of historical, professional standing army. The Roman state was much more sophisticated than its tribal, despotic, or nomadic neighbors.

So I guess we arrive at another question: is there a particular direction or trajectory of this process or is it haphazard? Will the modern nation-state, as presently conceived, continue to refine and better itself? Or will another political-economic system arise that will also give birth to a new form of warfare?

[TheCurmudgeon]

So I guess we arrive at another question: is there a particular direction or trajectory of this process or is it haphazard? Will the modern nation-state, as presently conceived, continue to refine and better itself? Or will another political-economic system arise that will also give birth to a new form of warfare?

Your question goes far beyond what my small brain is capable of answering.

I will say this (if you believe that God created the earth about 5000 years ago you can stop reading now). Humans evolved with a finite set of psychological capacities that were designed to solve the problems of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. However, our problem solving capacity made the need to constantly hunt and gather food obsolete. We learned to grow crops and domesticate animals. Then we learned how to live that lifestyle. Then our brains solved other problems and we adjusted our lifestyle appropriately. We have learned a lot about how to remove all the problems we used to have. How to ensure we had food and shelter. How to extend our lives with medicine. How to pass on knowledge though the language and writing. But underneath all that, in our motivational and psychological minds, we are still just hunter-gatherers protecting our little space where we hunt and gather and fighting with other little bands to stay alive.

With that as my base assumption, there are only so many ways we can change. We can create new technology, but we can't change what motivates us (although we try like hell to self-medicate ourselves). I would suggest that you look at Professor Schwartz' ideas on universal human values. After years of study, he determined that there are a limited number of values that motivate people. If he is right, then there are a finite number of things that cause us to chose one social structure (including its political trappings) over another. This means that there are a limited number of political systems (even though you will see recurring themes).

My personal belief is that there are two basic themes: either the political system revers the Group as source of all political power or it revers the Individuals as the source of all political power. Variations of the Group include monarchies, theocracies, various autocracies, and communism. Variations of the Individual are Democracies, Republics, and ultimately anarchy. There are mixes, including Socialism, but these are the basic set of options. That is because these are the limits of what our value systems can support.

Is there something beyond this? Perhaps. Some new mix of values. Some way to balance the reverence with the Individual with the reverence for the group. Maybe something completely different.

Just remember, you asked.

[AmericanPride]

I read an article recently (don't remember the publication) in which the author discussed the consequences of the neural lace, which can potentially transform human thinking (and therefore, I imagine, warfare). I think AI (and human-AI interfacing) will be then next step in political evolution. If scarcity is eliminated, or severely reduced, or if virtually all human labor is made surplus, then the current political-economic system is no longer viable. Automation has been the largest driver of job destruction in the U.S. and that process seems to be quickening. What happens to people if there are no more jobs available? Our values (i.e. "the dignity of work") have not caught up to our technological capabilities.

Automation and AI seems the way forward for capitalism. It eliminates the cost and difficulty of managing human labor and increases profits, efficiencies, and margins. This is already occurring in the financial and industrial sectors. Services, like transportation, are next. The gig economy seems to be the half-way point between old capitalism and AI capitalism. The displaced surplus labor must move somewhere else. The privatization of armies (i.e. Blackwater) and the creation of small, highly capable & technical professional armies seems an accompanying trend to this. Neither of these rely upon a large, loyal population but instead on careerist, technical experts.

[OUTLAW 09]

BTW....it is not globalization that is inherently changing the face of governments and their individual politics...it is simply that we are in the early stages of the "fourth industrialization phase...IE robots" and actually while we write here the world is advancing into the "fifth industrialization phase paralleling the fourth phase...IE AI"...coupled with the 4th....robots......

We see it in the manufacturing and then the repair of say as an example farm machinery where grain harvesters now require a mechanics degree in IT and computer troubling shooting to repair a simple hydraulic leak....as they have five onboard computer systems tied to a central controller computer.

OR in the newest FORD factory that produces cars virtually worker free where the robots do everything and the human watches the control centers...AND where even this position will be replaced next year with AI..as per FORD...BMW has already moved into this new "industrialization battlespace using a combination of robots and AI in building the 3er model here in Germany....

AND BTW....prior wars were all about killing and destruction in order to force your will on your opponent....

SO is a cyber attack and or subtle manipulation of say an election via hacking and an influence ops using fake news...propaganda and disinformation actually forcing your will on an opponent?

So as industrialization changes so does future "wars" of the 21st century...

To argue that "war" has never changed ....flies in the face of 21st century reality....

[davidbfpo]

I do wonder if Western public opinion, which should impact political decision-making, are simply reluctant to consider war - not the almost constant skirmishing in many parts of the world away from them - as being effective for their interests (personal and national) and legitimate.

Long ago our absent member Ken White pointed out when the USA IIRC is engaged in a long war the public gradually start to ask "Is this worth doing?".

We are irregularly told we are in a 'Long War' with jihadist terrorism, reinforced at times by the post-attack media reporting and a good deal of "grandstanding" that builds fear.

Add in our direct involvement in both wars and skirmishing - Small Wars of course - which can hardly be seen as providing meaningful success. No wonder many nations have chosen to reduce military spending and for some a wish to stay out of interventions faraway.

Nor has indirect involvement, primarily "gold", proven to be effective either, unless you consider containment is valid. Somalia being a good example, let alone the Yemen.

[TheCurmudgeon]

I do wonder if Western public opinion, which should impact political decision-making, are simply reluctant to consider war - not the almost constant skirmishing in many parts of the world away from them - as being effective for their interests (personal and national) and legitimate.

Assuming my ideas on 1) the growth of the individual as the center of Western political thought and power, and 2) that war is a group-on-group activity, it follows that 3) war become less likely where outsiders are seen less as groups and more as a collection of individuals. Killing in war (group-on-group) is morally sanctioned. Killing in something less than war (individual-on-individual) is murder. Therefore, those other killings are not seen as legitimate unless they are to either punish those individuals for their past crimes or to stop future crimes.

This is, in my opinion, the foundation of the Democratic Peace Theory - why democracies tend not to go to war with other democracies. Democracies will go to war with autocracies, particularly where it is framed as a war of liberation. The enemy is an oppressive state apparatus. The members of that oppressive state apparatus are seen as criminals. In the minds of the Western Individualist political entities, this is not a war against Iraq or Libya, it is a targeted action against the criminals in the Iraqi or Libyan government. For the liberal individualist, war can never be sanctioned because it goes against their foundational belief in the individual, rather than the group, being the central political figure.

That said, War ain't what it used to be ... so who knows.

[TheCurmudgeon]

AND BTW....prior wars were all about killing and destruction in order to force your will on your opponent....

No, that is a 19th century updated explanation of the purpose of war. It is an explanation founded in the 19th century European Socio-Political framework.

Ten centuries earlier no one would have cared anything about the will of your opponent. Your opponent would either be dead or your slaves.

Similarly, today's 21st century Western definitions of war is restricted by today's Western socio-political and ethical standards. Killing and destruction are secondary to war's ultimate aim, which is political. Where that aim can be achieved by other means, so be it. However, this is really not war. It is coercive demagoguery. There is little or no threat of death or dying.

I don't like referring to "war" in the 21st definition, because I think that psychologically, war still means killing and dying, even if in practice, 21st century war does not require it.

[OUTLAW 09]

BTW....it is not globalization that is inherently changing the face of governments and their individual politics...it is simply that we are in the early stages of the "fourth industrialization phase...IE robots" and actually while we write here the world is advancing into the "fifth industrialization phase paralleling the fourth phase...IE AI"...coupled with the 4th....robots......

We see it in the manufacturing and then the repair of say as an example farm machinery where grain harvesters now require a mechanics degree in IT and computer troubling shooting to repair a simple hydraulic leak....as they have five onboard computer systems tied to a central controller computer.

OR in the newest FORD factory that produces cars virtually worker free where the robots do everything and the human watches the control centers...AND where even this position will be replaced next year with AI..as per FORD...BMW has already moved into this new "industrialization battlespace using a combination of robots and AI in building the 3er model here in Germany....

AND BTW....prior wars were all about killing and destruction in order to force your will on your opponent....

SO is a cyber attack and or subtle manipulation of say an election via hacking and an influence ops using fake news...propaganda and disinformation actually forcing your will on an opponent?

So as industrialization changes so does future "wars" of the 21st century...

To argue that "war" has never changed ....flies in the face of 21st century reality....

Recently I was into a book by Max Boot on US small wars and then onto the industrialization/globalization driven by all things WW1.

If the thesis is correct that WW1 actually drove the initial beginnings of globalization and say the beginnings of the second industrial revolution of mass assembly lines and the firming of the US financial power going in 1913 from a debtor country to in 1917 the foremost world's banker which did not change until the early 1980's flipping the US back into a debtor country.....the flip in the 80s was the direct financial impact of VN seen long term.....

And actually with each new "war like political engagement" the US financial abilities weakened even more.....Desert Storm....Iraq and AFG and now Syria....but the resulting modernization of the industrial base did in fact advance along with a massive leap in technology....all driven by computerization....

Which actually could be now seen in the generation one of cruise missiles...prior to Libya VS generation two post Libya cruise missiles....

Actually wagging tongues say the US Navy literally fired up all the first generation cruise missiles in order to restock with the new generation...if one compares the number of misfires..."lost missiles" and duds on impact in Libya VS this recent attack with 59 out of 59 hitting there is something to this wagging tongues rumor....

Maybe far more research on wars and how they drive globalization and industrialization is necessary before one moves into a "no war" concept....

Because actually if one takes WW1...then WW2...then the Korean War and finally VN....you will actually see not so subtle shifts in financial power and industrial power .....both keys to understanding the long term effects we are now seeing in 21st century.. where from a cost perspective...major wars are a thing of the past....

Hybrid wars regardless of how they look and feel are actually "a cost saving "war" feature"......

A laptop.....TOR and the darknet is a minor investment that can reap massive "wins" and informational warfare conducted by a group of twitter accounts driving fake news can potentially "win elections" and the costs are nothing really...costs far less than a single tank...and or a cruise missile.

BTW...one cannot discuss meta-war without understanding clearly and concisely what we are now seeing as the two cornerstones of the 21st century;......

1. cyber warfare
2. information warfare

Both are going to be the hallmarks of the 21st century as even the simple common man on the street can drive both and not be connected to any nation state....