War is a driver of evolution.So much of Civilsation is shaped by the mother of all needs …War.
War itself has clearly evolved with Nuclear weapons making War only possible between nations that either don’t possess them or between nations in which only one possesss them.
In the past , throughout our shared history, wars were waged with the belief that they were winnable…hence the effort.Now Wars are becoming less winnable. And they just don’t pay like they used to.
Loot is hard to come by( compare the cost of War to any possible ‘loot’).The US , UK , Saddam Hussein , Taliban and OBL all lost money( and more ) on their latest round ..theMother of all Wars 2 , the of the Titans…or civilisations ..or TWAT.(Packaging was thoughtfully put together).
The US , the mother of all militaries , will only wage war if it knows it will win..( the Powell Doctrine)….hence only minor opponents need apply .The funny thing is that small players also know they will lose militarily but that they only have to turn the US Might into a ‘might not bother to finish ’ to declare victory.
Is War evolving itself out of exsistence.Contrary to the WSJ types…Irans nuclear capability will make war less possible than more probable…look at the hot heads of the Sub-continent and see how they just can’t go to war now.
Economic damage is the way forward.Economic gain from war has had its day.The bombing of Gaza’s factories are the way forward ( from a point of evolution …not my personal desire ).
If we can’t do it militarily …it will just have to go to the new economic arteries of the age …the internet.
The US is marking time with the video gaming model of UAVs.The Chinese are going for the new model….the jugular..the internet itself.The war does’nt carry on online..it is for the line.
Economic damage through mutually assured destruction (M.A.D) through Government bonds will hold the pair in freeze for the moment though.
But Maximum Economic Damage Warfare is here to stay.(M.E.D for short).
The Chinese ( or Russians )will have an uphill struggle with net warfare .The net itself is a evoltution from ARPANET , a US military project ….designed specifically survive warfare.
The Archilles heel will always be the internet behemoths..like Micrsoft that are lazy about innovation and just primarily concerned with milking an elderly cash cow…Windows.
Thats why I see large companies like Google and Microsoft as a weakness of the market ..like the oil barons of yesteryears.Not a signature of a healthy market.
Sorry about post….I felt like a waffle.
An afterthought..the waffle continues….
How could the ICANN or WWW consortium be populated with politicians and then we have a new weapon.Remove a country from the Web and trash its economy as punishment from breaking some UN rules.What if the UN security council demands it.If a weapon exists…it will find a user.
I don’t see the web as a uniter of people..its free as Air and about as unifying as the air ‘we’ breathe.But remove the air…we have a killer.
Reasons for the Iraq war
The Chilcott Inquiry has reminded of those days again.
Now the dust has settled….I agree with Guardians analysis that Blair’s motivations lie between his two large ears and nowhere else.
He wanted a place in history , just like the towering figure of Thatcher who was his role model .Blair may as well have carried a handbag on his foreign trips , he so closely followed her footsteps.
For the Americans..its a more simple maths at play.
Israel.Not as instigator or as the hidden hand.But as an example of what the US could achieve if it was’nt bound down by the legal niceties of the World (UN) ..it could unipolarise the Middle East just like it had ( it thought ) unipolarised the wider World.
Israel did it.With small forces and lightening strikes by a nimble strike force ( Rumsfelds new doctrine ) .No need for overwhelming forces ( The Powell Doctrine ….thats just so yesterday) .Just imagine , the Neo-cons mused for a decade , what they could achieve , with the resources they had , if Israel could achieve so much dominance with so little.
They were itching to try it out.Convert that dominance into supremacy.The World was tying the hands of the US , the neo-cons were going to untie it.
So….The US/neocons were influenced by the example of Isreal ( not by Isreal) and half or more of the neo-cons actually enjoyed dual US-Isreali citizenship.
So…The Blair neurons were influenced by the example of an old lady .He actually met her before his election.Quite unprecendented for a Labour wannabe to visit the hate figure of the Left before the election.But he did.He was paying homage to his idol .But unlike Thatcher, who was her own self , Blair bought himself into a narrative , that of an old lady from the past.