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| One for Boris and Natasha |
| 2004-03-17 |
| When we speak of a global information revolution, the effect of video images is more immediate and intense than that of computers. Image trumps text in the mass psyche, and computers remain a textual outgrowth, demanding high-order skills: computers demarcate the domain of the privileged. We use technology to expand our wealth, power, and opportunities. The rest get high on pop culture. If religion is the opium of the people, video is their crack cocaine. When we and they collide, they shock us with violence, but, statistically, we win. As more and more human beings are overwhelmed by information, or dispossessed by the effects of information-based technologies, there will be more violence. Information victims will often see no other resort. As work becomes more cerebral, those who fail to find a place will respond by rejecting reason. We will see countries and continents divide between rich and poor in a reversal of 20th-century economic trends. Developing countries will not be able to depend on physical production industries, because there will always be another country willing to work cheaper. The have-nots will hate and strive to attack the haves. And we in the United States will continue to be perceived as the ultimate haves. States will struggle for advantage or revenge as their societies boil. Beyond traditional crime, terrorism will be the most common form of violence, but transnational criminality, civil strife, secessions, border conflicts, and conventional wars will continue to plague the world, albeit with the "lesser" conflicts statistically dominant. In defense of its interests, its citizens, its allies, or its clients, the United States will be required to intervene in some of these contests. We will win militarily whenever we have the guts for it. There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing. -- Col. Ralph Peters, USA (Ret), "Parameters", Summer 1997 |
| Posted by:mojo |
| #4 There is a degree of truth in the article, but OP's right: extremely simplistic. I'm not privvy to OP's info on War College article stats, but I'd bet my ass he's right. OP's points regards technology advances are spot-on, too. I have had to "re-invent" myself about every 18 months for the 9 years I've been doing Internet stuff. Hell, I'm signing up for more classes NOW - and I've been programming for 30 yrs and doing work in the Internet world since before the WWW even existed - and I was a dedicated user of Mosaic before there was a ripoff of the code called Nutscrape. Taxpayers have paid for this and SCO and Linux and a host of other computer system products. Gates at least bought DOS from Tom Green at Seattle Computing, although $50K smacks of the $24 in beads for Manhatten Island, nowadays, heh. Sorry for the O/T, but everyone should see the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds at least once. I can post the transcript of the show if anyone wants to read it. What Col Peters contends is pretty obvious, on the whole. Haves vs have-nots is the historical us vs them equation - and without a ton of additional depth and current-day implications, with a healthy pile of researched footnotes, is less than one would expect to have passed peer review. Is there something missing, here? One would think so. Though the "authoritative" sources decry the statement that we are in a "clash of civilizations", I am unable to buy their logic. Indeed, the religious indoctrination of 1/5th of the world's population (to use the popular numbers) being hijacked by the Wahhabi "extremists", effectively unopposed by the mythological moderates, with the clearly stated aim of destroying all other ideologies -- well, heh, that makes it clear to me that it is, indeed, correct to characterize it as a clash of civilizations. Nothing less fits. And I see no references to the apocalyptic-level end that becomes inevitable when the implacable wave of zealots, by acquiring and bending our technology to their ends, forces the hand of civilization to defend itself from annihilation. What he DOES get dead-right is: "We will win militarily whenever we have the guts for it." |
| Posted by: .com 2004-3-17 5:40:36 PM |
| #3 LOTS of problems with Col. Peters' assumptions, if that's who really wrote this. First, it's extremely simplistic. The typical War College article covers about 3500 words (this is under 1000), has dozens of footnotes, and contains at least two major references. It also has to meet peer review. This is one man's opinion, period. Doesn't matter who the man is, it's still JUST opinion. Col. Peters leaves out several cogent points: 1:) Information technology is expanding at a rate that could never have been imagined in the 1980's. Today's military is linked on the battlefield, and the rest of the world is linked in every other environment. People that ten years ago had little access to computers are daily users today. The number of people using computers on a regular basis is ten times the estimate of only five years ago. 2:) Computer technology has expanded so rapidly, and so strongly, that computers are no longer ONLY a "textual" media, but include audio, video, and other compbinations only a few were dreaming of in the 1990s. 3:) Nothing is "static". Today's allies may be tomorrow's adversaries - on the battlefield, in the marketplace, politically, or in some other arena. 4:) Finally, I doubt Col. Peters or any of his contemporaries were ready for the explosive nature of religious controversy in today's society, from militant Islam to slinking Christianity, to the degradation of western culture by such phenomenas as "gay marriage", "gay bishops", and the surrender culture of Old Europe. All things change, and usually in the way least expected. Murphy's Third Law of Disaster |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-3-17 2:56:16 PM |
| #2 There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. In other words, everything's back to the pre-Cold War norm. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-3-17 2:49:25 PM |
| #1 Will this effect cause some Internet dabblers to post incoherent statements and poorly constructed poetry while claiming irrelevant restaurateuring expertise on a Warblog? |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-3-17 11:48:12 AM |