Essay to read...
Serious DiscussionDiscuss Essay to read... in the Discussions forums; I found this essay, which I think ultimately details all my concerns of the modern world...
Anarchism and Human Survival: Russell's Problem
Bertrand Russell throughout his long career as ...
I found this essay, which I think ultimately details all my concerns of the modern world...
Quote:
Anarchism and Human Survival: Russell's Problem
Bertrand Russell throughout his long career as a public intellectual and political activist had reason to reflect on the follies of humanity and the real threats to human survival, threats which are self induced. Much speculation and movie making is devoted toward such survival threatening events as asteroid strikes and mantle head plumes. What is totally ignored is the threat to human survival posed by our own institutions. We can notch another one for the propaganda model; it is to be expected that our pathological institutions would not dwell on their inherent pathology. We can expect nothing less of the corporate media.
I shall argue that we face what I refer to as "Russell's problem": “are Homo sapiens an intelligent maladaptive organism doomed to self extinction”? There exists good reason to suppose that a maladaptive, intelligent, organism would indeed cause its own extinction simply because of the destructive potential of intelligence. This is one of the farces of many science fiction stories, such as Star Trek, which posit the existence of hideous innately war like but highly intelligent species. This is not a productive mix; surely any advanced species, in order to reach such heights as inter-galactic travel, would need to be a species that places a premium on cooperation and solidarity. An avaricious intelligent species would only over time succeed in destroying itself and much of the ecological basis for the support of life long before it would be able to traverse wormholes.
There exist three threats to survival namely nuclear war, ecological change and north-south conflict. All three I would argue can be traced to a single source that being the pathological nature of state capitalism. What is frightening is that eventual self induced extinction is a rational consequence of our system of world order much like the destruction of the system of world order prior to 1914 was a rational consequence of its internal nature. I shall focus in this essay on nuclear war, the most immediate threat. In doing so we will come to appreciate the nexus between this threat, globalisation and north-south conflict.
Currently we are witnessing a major expansion in the US global military system. One facet of this expansion is the globalisation of US nuclear war planning known as "adaptive planning". The idea here is that the US would be able to execute a nuclear strike against any target on Earth at very short notice. For strategic planners the world's population is what they refer to as a "target rich environment". The Clinton era commander of US nuclear forces, Admiral Mies, stated that nuclear ballistic missile submarines would be able to "move undetected to any launch point" threatening "any spot on Earth". What lies at the heart of such a policy is the desire to maintain global strategic superiority what is known as "full spectrum dominance" previously referred to as "escalation dominance". Full spectrum dominance means that the US would be able to wage and win any type of war ranging from a small scale contingency to general nuclear war.
Strategic nuclear superiority is to be used to threaten other states so that they toe the party line. The Bush administration's Nuclear Posture Review stipulated that nuclear weapons are needed in case of "surprising military developments" not necessarily limited to chemical or biological weapons. The Clinton administration was more explicit stating in its 2001 Pentagon report to Congress that US nuclear forces are to "hedge against defeat of conventional forces in defense of vital interests". The passage makes clear that this statement is not limited to chemical or biological weapons.
We have just seen in Iraq what is meant by the phrase "defense of vital interests". Washington is asserting that if any nation were to have the temerity to successfully defend itself against US invasion, armed with conventional weapons only, then instant annihilation awaits. "What we say goes" or you go is the message being conveyed. Hitler no doubt would have had a similar conception of "deterrence". It should be stressed that this is a message offered to the whole world after all it is now a target rich environment.
During the cold war the US twice contemplated using nuclear weapons in such a fashion both in Vietnam, the first at Dien Bien Phu and during Nixon administration planning for "operation duck hook". In both cases the main impediments to US action were the notion that nuclear weapons were not politically "useable" in such a context and because of the Soviet deterrent. The Soviet deterrent is no more and the US currently is hotly pursuing the development of nuclear weapons that its designers believe will be "useable" what the Clinton administration referred to as low yield earth penetrating nuclear weapons and what the Bush administration refers to as the Rapid Nuclear Earth Penetrator.
Such strategic reforms are meant to make nuclear war a more viable policy option, on the basis that lower yields will not immediately kill as many innocent people as higher yield weapons. This is known as the lowering of the threshold of nuclear war. The development of the RNEP draws us closer to the prospect of nuclear war, including accidental nuclear war, because lower yields will lower the barrier between conventional and nuclear war. There will exist no real escalatory firewall between these two forms of warfare which means that in any conventional crisis involving nuclear powers, there will exist a strong incentive to strike first. A relationship very similar to the interaction between the mobilisation schedules of the great powers prior to 1914. There exist strong parallels between US nuclear planning and the German Imperial Staff’s Schlieffen plan.
Lowering the threshold of nuclear war will also enhance pressures for global nuclear proliferation. If the US is making its arsenal more useable by working towards achieving a first strike capability, then others such as Russia and China must react in order to ensure the viability of their deterrents. Moreover, the potential third world targets of US attack would also have greater incentive to ensure that they also have a nuclear deterrent.
It is also understood that the development of these nuclear weapons may require the resumption of nuclear testing, a key reason for the Administration's lack of readiness to abide by the CTBT treaty, which is meant to ban nuclear testing. The CTBT is a key feature of contemporary global nuclear non proliferation regimes for the US signed the CTBT in order to extend the nuclear non proliferation treaty (NPT) indefinitely. Abandoning the CTBT treaty, in order to develop a new generation of more "useable" nuclear weapons that will lower the threshold of nuclear war, will place the NPT regime under further strain and greatly increase the chances of further nuclear proliferation. There exists a "deadly connection" between global weapons of mass destruction proliferation and US foreign policy.
One may well ask what has all this to do with state capitalism? Consider the thinking behind the militarisation of space, outlined for us by Space Command; “historically military forces have evolved to protect national interests and investments – both military and economic. During the rise of sea commerce, nations built navies to protect and enhance their commercial interests. During the westward expansion of the continental United States, military outposts and the cavalry emerged to protect our wagon trains, settlements and roads”. The document goes on, “the emergence of space power follows both of these models”. Moreover, “the globalization of the world economy will continue, with a widening between ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. The demands of unilateral strategic superiority, long standing US policy known as "escalation" or "full spectrum" dominance, compel Washington to pursue “space control". This means that, according to a report written under the chairmanship of Donald Rumsfeld, "in the coming period the US will conduct operations to, from, in and through space" which includes "power projection in, from and through space". Toward this end, Washington has resisted efforts in the UN to create an arms control regime for space. As a result there will inevitably arise an arms race in space.
The importance of this simply cannot be over-emphasised. Throughout the nuclear age there have been a number of close calls, due to both human and technical error, that almost lead to a full scale nuclear exchange between Washington and Moscow. These glitches in command and control systems were ultimately benign because both sides had early warning satellites placed in specialised orbits which could be relied upon to provide real time imagery of nuclear missile launch sites. However the militarisation of space now means that these satellites will become open game; the benign environment in space will disappear if the militarisation of space continues. Thus if the US were to "conduct operations to, from in and through space" it will do see remotely. Technical failure may result in the system attacking Russian early warning satellites. Without question this would be perceived by the Russian's as the first shot in a US nuclear first strike.
Consider for instance a curious event that occurred in 1995. A NASA research rocket, part of a study of the northern lights, was fired over Norway. The rocket was perceived by the Russian early warning system as the spear of a US first strike. The Russian system then began a countdown to full scale nuclear response; it takes only a single rocket to achieve this effect because it was no doubt perceived by Russian planners that this single rocket was meant to disable their command and control system as a result of electromagnetic pulse effects. To prevent the loss of all nuclear forces in a subsequent follow on strike the Russian's would need to launch a full scale response as soon as possible. Because the US itself has a hair trigger launch on warning posture a Russian attack would be followed by a full scale US attack; the US has a number of "reserve options" in its war plans, thus such an accidental launch could trigger a global chain of nuclear release around the globe. Calamity was averted in 1995 because Russia's early warning satellites would have demonstrated that there was no launch of US nuclear forces.
If these satellites were to be taken out then this ultimate guarantee disappears; the Russian ground based radar system has a number of key holes that prevent it from warning of an attack through two key corridors, one from the Atlantic the other from the Pacific. In the future if an event such as 1995 were to occur in space the Russians no longer would have the level of comfort provided by its space based assets. The militarisation of space greatly increases the chances of a full scale accidental nuclear war.
The militarisation of space is intimately linked with US strategic nuclear forces, for the previous command covering space, known as Space Command, has merged with the command responsible for nuclear forces, Strategic Command. Upon merger, the commander of Strategic Command stated, "United States Strategic Command provides a single war fighting combatant command with a global perspective, focused on exploiting the strong and growing synergy between the domain of space and strategic capabilities." The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff added, "this new command is going to have all the responsibilities of its predecessors, but an entirely new mission focus, greatly expanded forces and you might even say several infinite areas of responsibility."
In other words, we are witnessing the integration of strategic conventional, nuclear and space planning into the command responsible for overseeing US nuclear forces. In turn these forces become an ordinary facet of US strategic planning, severing the break between conventional and nuclear war.
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This IS NOT the complete essay - its only approx 50%,
so I strongly recommend those who enjoy the read, to refer to the link and read the complete essay.
Im interested in reading anyones opinion or dissetation of the piece.
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