Security
Polling suggests many Americans fear these things:
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Their children’s life will be worse than their own (28%, 2011 Kaiser-Washington Post poll)
- The American economy is in long-term decline (63%, 2008 Washington Post)
- Global warming is a very or somewhat serious problem (65%, 2009 Pew poll)
- The 21st century will be more Chinese than American (41%, 2010 Washington Post poll)
- Another world war will occur by 2050 (58%, 2010, Pew / Smithsonian in GOOD)
- There will be a major nuclear terrorist attack by 2050 (53%, 2010, Pew / Smithsonian in GOOD)
- Jesus Christ will return to Earth and the world will end by 2050 (41%, 2010 Pew polling)
(This is for a Twitter-based chat today, which you can follow with the hashtag #futrchat.)
This may all mean less than it appears, however, due to a bias toward optimism in applying the future to ourselves. People may hold these beliefs casually or temporarily, or may think that somehow things will still be good in their own lives — as some of the same polls in fact show.
More fundamentally, when it comes to fear, the proximate and the personal — fears around money, family, jobs, health, etc. — may swamp theoretically larger issues like these.
Can fear even have a constructive role in thinking about the future? Or do we want only concern, as true fear is too raw an emotion, inevitably obstructing constructive responses? How does this jibe with the fact that their are outcomes in technology or geopolitics that we should truly fear?
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Follow on Twitter: @Geofutures
Image: Irargerich (Flickr)
I used to wonder whether a society that became so networked that it could support a ubiquitous monitoring system would end up not using such a system for oppressive political control, both because of the flows of relatively free information that the networks would enable, and because the ability to run such a system implied a high level of socioeconomic development.
China appears to be answering this question, by building an immense surveillance system that will “cover a half-million intersections, neighborhoods and parks over nearly 400 square miles,” using as many as 500,000 cameras reporting to a central system, David Brin notes (from an NPR report). The monitoring system is ostensibly targeting crime, but could clearly be redirected for political surveillance — and in any case the line between crime and politics becomes blurred in China, for instance when social order is seen to include suppressing dissent by Tibetans or Uighurs.
Still, while China puts immense efforts into controlling expression on the Internet and mobile networks, these technologies have still provided new outlets for expression that have changed the role of public opinion in Chinese society. China runs a highly oppressive high-tech monitoring system, by some definitions, but it is also clear that new information networks are changing the nature of China’s politics.
So I won’t dismiss my original question about the role of technology. Its oppressive aspects will vie with its liberating qualities in coming decades, shaping human rights this century.
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Image copyright Futureatlas.com — usable with link and attribution
Follow on Twitter: @Geofutures
President Obama’s drawdown of US forces in Afghanistan is a step toward addressing a large gap between US effort in Afghanistan — we are now spending a trillion dollars a decade in immediate costs alone — and the actual importance of Afghanistan. As Richard Haass put it on “Charlie Rose” yesterday, there is a “strategic misalignment” in this policy that will leave future historians puzzled as to why were were so devoted to a sideshow.
As a futurist, I simply don’t see much relationship between what we do in Afghanistan over the next few years and outcomes a couple of decades down the road — and yet we are expending lives and dollars as if something huge is at stake, increasingly against the will of the American people.
The reasons for continuing the war at present levels are not convincing:
- Terrorist havens — Afghanistan is and will be something of a terrorist haven whether we are there or not. A counterterrorism strategy with a much reduced force can ameliorate this, but there are other refuges for al Qaeda, whatever we do in Afghanistan. Additionally, fighting Muslims in Afghanistan in itself bolsters the militant jihadist narrative.
- Afghan society — Afghanistan will be illiberal, corrupt, and cruel by Western standards whether we stay or go. We do not want the worst excesses of the Taliban to return, but that in itself is not worth a full-scale war.
- Regional stability — Afghanistan is a cockpit in which Pakistan, India, Iran, China, and Central Asian nations may collide in various combinations in the future, but that will eventually be true whatever the US does. We can merely tweak the timeframe by a few years. Pakistan’s stability is important to us, but the relationship of that stability to what the US does over the next few years is unclear — and the US role has helped convince the great majority of Pakistanis that the US is their enemy.
- US credibility — Again, we are leaving eventually. Better to do it on our own terms rather than because we are truly exhausted. World public opinion is largely in favor of rapid withdrawal, and elite opinion will be more impressed by sensible strategy than sheer doggedness.
In short, a relatively quick departure seems in order.
(A sidenote: In the short term, Karzai’s erratic threats to turn against NATO forces should remind us of how the Soviet Union ended up in a pseudo-invasion of that country. It didn’t just suddenly swarm across the border; Soviet troops were already fighting alongside the Afghan government against an insurgency. The Soviets came to view their ally with distrust, and the Afghans began to distance themselves from their patrons, and so the Russians moved to replace the government, partly with forces already in place. One can now imagine that circumstances might provoke the US to stage a similar “invasion,” except that we would already have the forces within the borders. At this point, though, we might simply not care, and use it as an excuse to leave even faster.)
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Image: Courtesy ISAFmedia (Flickr)
As tiny unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) of all kinds proliferate — here’s one the size and layout of a hummingbird — one can imagine that they could inspire a curious revival.
For some time to come, the best countermeasure against small UAVs might be a living creature. Specifically, a bird of prey such as a falcon, which could be trained to detect and destroy such devices. I doubt that the US military is going to have the specialist job 14F–Falconer, but one can hope.
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Follow on Twitter: @Geofutures
Image courtesy Jan Smith (Flickr)
A number of analysts have called for humanitarian intervention of some kind in Libya — a no-fly-zone at least, as suggested by the International Crisis Group, with others implying something more.
While such an intervention might become morally essential, several factors should give us pause:
- The anti-imperialist card — Any military intervention would greatly enhance the “foreign conspiracy” narrative in the region. All protesters would be more readily tarred with the accusation that they are agents of Western plots, seeking to invite in foreign domination. Given that even Mubarak brought up the theme, it would certainly be used to the fullest in Iran or Syria.
- Secondary costs — Western forces operating anywhere in the Muslim world would be seen by at least some fraction of Muslim publics as engaged in part of the “war on Islam,” no matter what the facts are.
- Encouraging passivity — That Arab publics believe they themselves can change their countries for the better is a crucial aspect of recent events. It is a backstep if outside intervention comes to be seen as necessary.
- Moral quagmire — Remember Somalia in the 1990s: moral certainty can rapidly evaporate on the ground. An intervening force might simply find itself backing one side in a tribe-on-tribe civil war.
- Difficulty — It appears that interventionists think an intervention is doable at little cost. That might be true with a no-fly zone (which is not likely to be very effective), but sending in troops might not go well. A few million Sunni in Iraq fought the main effort of the US military to a standstill for years, and some fraction of the populace might remain loyal to the former regime, even forming majorities in some areas. Recall also that only a few years after Saddam was overthrown, a majority of Iraqis approved of attacks on US forces.
This is not a one-sided calculus. Other factors could overwhelm the considerations above:
- Human rights violations could reach the scale of a true mass-atrocity event.
- It could become clear that Libyan opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of intervention — there are already people calling for it on the streets.
- The Arab world could clearly and decisively endorse such an intervention.
With luck, this will all soon by moot, and the regime will disintegrate, with something less than civil war on the other side.
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Image copyright Futureatlas.com — usable with attribution and link
The powered armored battlesuit is a staple of science fiction, and is getting increasing attention from real militaries. They are the future of warfare in Friedman’s The Next 100 Years. But how close are they to reality? The science fiction site Io9 has broken down the capabilities of the battlesuit in “Iron Man,” and how much it would cost to replicate (sort of) such a suit. Their breakdown:
- Exoskeleton — $10 million
- Head-up display — $54 million
- Portable power source — $36 million
- Jet packs — $400,000
- Wearable computers — $20,000
- TOTAL: $100 million
Io9 correctly notes that this is roughly the cost of an F35 fighter plane. Given that such a suit has capabilities much greater than such a fighter plane, why aren’t we making them? Because we can’t.
- Power: We don’t have anything that can generate anything like the output of Iron Man’s power pack, so the suit would be far weaker than the movie version.
- Flight: Because of the power problem, a flying suit could not fly long or far.
- Armor: Today’s exoskeletons are not armored. Even if we could build a powerful suit, it could not stand up against even small-arms fire, much less cannons and missiles. And the more we armor present-day exoskeletons, the slower and clumsier they’d be.
On the positive side, one could build a highly capable head-up display for a fraction of $54 million, so the battlesuit wearer would be able to see which insurgent with a $200 AK-47 knockoff was going to take him down.
The power and armor problems are not insurmountable, but a battlesuit that is fast, agile, powerful, and armored still seems to be decades away.
(Image courtesy BobbyProm, Flickr)
The AP reported last week that some “Tea Party” leaders and Oklahoma legislators are discussing forming a militia to defend against encroachment by the federal government.
There are other indicators that extremism is finding new purchase.
In February, a man used his light plane to launch a terrorist suicide attack on a government office in Austin, Texas. He appeared to be a troubled man acting alone, but that is the case with many people who are also political terrorists, such as the Fort Hood shooter Major Hassan. Stack invoked politics directly as a motive:
I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.
Stack is citing classic insurgency theory as well: trigger an overreaction that fuels a rebellion.
His manifesto is also highly reminiscent of much of the rhetoric emanating from factions of the Tea Party movement, which brings us to the question: is that movement symptomatic of a threat to American stability? There are a number of worrying signs:
- Scale: There has been a right wing of this ilk for decades, but this incarnation seems larger and has more tendrils into the “mainstream.” If even a tiny fraction of turned toward violence, they might number in the tens of thousands.
- Celebration of violence: Tea Partiers have formed ties with “militia” groups that have preparing for violence as their central activity.
- Lack of restraining mechanism: In the past, mainstream media and the Republican Party provided dampers on the spread of right-wing radicalism. Now, extremists can confirm their views with them own media (which includes some corporate media entities as well). And the most of the Republican Party is either silent in the face of extremism, or actively panders to or reinforces it.
- Irrationality: The strong role of anger, and the strange visions of socialism and / or fascism, are also worrying. One could have a perfectly rational (or at least reality-based, if passionate) movement that favored radically downsizing government, but this doesn’t seem to be that movement. Many seem to have headed straight for the black helicopter rabbit holes.
Foreign terrorists can do the US harm; domestic extremism is orders of magnitude more dangerous, as it can undermine fundamental stability.
And the danger does not have to involve violence: a competent and trusted government is rare in the world, and one’s of America’s biggest competitive advantages. Destroying that trust and dismantling that competence would deal a severe blow to American prospects.
The Economist held a debate earlier this week about taking military action against Iran’s nuclear program.
In favor of military action was General Chuck F. Wald, a director at Deloitte. Dr. Emily Landau, a senior research associate at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, opposed the option.
For military action
General Wald offered these forecasts:
Wired reports that the Air Force is developing tiny, armed drones.
The articles quotes a military document reporting the development of “a Micro-Air Vehicle (MAV) with innovative seeker/tracking sensor algorithms that can engage maneuvering high-value targets.” Such a system could allow precision and stealth, with small charges replacing relatively indiscriminate munitions such as the Hellfire missile.
Such systems could be enhanced much further. They might use small projectiles rather than explosives, and their targeting could be refined. Before too long, a killer MAV might even use facial recognition (with shades of the hunter-seeker anticipated in Dune).
Non-state combatants may have their own options that could rapidly equal many military capabilities. See this drone helicopter with visual feed and augmented reality gaming options for a hint.
Hobbyists have already developed model aircraft with intercontinental capabilities, and it is quite unlikely that governments are currently capable of stopping an albatross-size vehicle flying low over the ocean or a border.
Applications go beyond warfare, of course. See this post about human rights monitoring and journalism, for instance.
(Picture courtesy US Air Force)
Yemen has now joined the list of prominent theaters in the battle against Islamist extremism. This is no surprise to anyone who had noted its place in governance rankings.
Where next? Here’s the basic list: the 20 least-stable countries in the world, with those in play in that battle in red, and others with large Muslim populations in green.
It’s not that simple, of course, as receptivity to extremism varies widely, and recruitment can go on anywhere, as the apparent Nigerian underwear bomber illustrates, again. But this is a starter list of places that might matter in terms of instability, and where global Islamic groups might look to build safe havens.
Other than Bangladesh, they are all in Africa. Some, such as Sudan and Kenya, could serve to expand existing zones of instability. Others could provide new foci: Nigeria forms the border between West and Central Africa, and has about 60 million Muslims. Recent polling data suggests that about 26 million of these are potentially sympathetic to extremist causes.