5 ms·

Is World War II so far away that everyone forgets how fucked up the entire world can become - and it doesn't take long for it all to go to hell either. The NSA

by pixie_ 13y ago

Is World War II so far away that everyone forgets how fucked up the entire world can become - and it doesn't take long for it all to go to hell either. The NSA has to get their shit together, but we still need real strategical/tactical intelligence inside and outside of the US. So when it does happen (and it will eventually happen) we're prepared not to lose our country, or even the world to the super nuclear powered genetically modified nazi cyborgs.

jivatmanx 13y ago
In the 20 interwar years, both Communism and Fascism (Business plot, Leo Strauss, etc.) both had an enormous intellectual following, even in the U.S. In Europe, there was an overwhelming sentiment that Democracy was weak and outdated, which is why the Nazis and the USSR saw each-other as their primary threat, and had both fully anticipated and planned for a European war for years prior. There's nothing like that out there today. Russian hatred for Islamism exceeds the U.S.'s, China is panicky about Xinjiang Province/Pakistan. China and Russia pretty much act purely on interests and have no ideology. While there are few parallels to WWII, there are some with WWI. I hope that stark alliances don't form.
justin66 13y ago
It'd be more to the point to remember that we survived the cold war, an era where good intelligence was even more necessary and the dangers to the country were bigger and more immediate, with tighter controls on what intelligence services could do.
- derefr 13y ago
  Did we have tighter controls, or were they just better at keeping their work out of the news?
  - justin66 13y ago
    We had tighter controls. It wasn't really an issue of "their work," it was an issue of what they were allowed to do with it under the law. For example, one of the fake controversies after 9/11 involved NSA and domestic intelligence not sharing as much information as some believed might have been valuable in preventing the attacks, in retrospect. This sharing was prevented - very deliberately - by statute. Those statutes have been weakened since, in the name of security and with little consideration of why they existed in the first place. edit: I was really only thinking of statutory control of intelligence gathering with my comments. Philwelch brings up an interesting point regarding (largely illegal) espionage, but I think the points still stand.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    Research the United Fruit Company, MKULTRA, COINTELPRO, J. Edgar Hoover, the School of the Americas, the 1953 Iranian coup, and it doesn't stop there.
derefr 13y ago
A country starts a war, fundamentally, when they see a resource (land; oil; people) that they think they can claim without destroying its value in the process. However, all the technologies we've developed since WWII that make us more efficient at mass-killing (chemical/biological weapons et al) are politically-blind; Anthrax will infect the conqueror as much as the conquered. The only real advance we've made in the "things that will kill the enemy but leave you alone to sit in their houses and farm their land" field, in the last 70 years, are drones--and, tactically-speaking, they haven't increased the difficulty of war much for the side of the invaded, just made waging a war safer for the invader. So, it's not any easier to win a war against a nation at technological parity with your own than it was 70 years ago. On the other hand, over the last 50 years, besides there having been built within every world-leader a strong awareness of the "final solution" (nukes) available to the major powers to put down any sufficient threat, a true global trade economy has also emerged, with strong economic interdependence between the major powers (China holding US debt &c). Every power is now just as much beholden, economically, to each other power, as if they were an export colony; the US going to war with China, for example, would be cutting off one's nose to spite one's face in the same way that Britain choosing, without provocation, to start warring with America in 1775 would have been. In this situation, I don't see much chance of a major power instigating an empire-building war. Also, unlike in WWI, a country that isn't a major power doesn't have the political weight to instigate a major war--nobody will follow it into battle. Attacking a country in a union with a major power is implicitly attacking that power, and military strategists now treat it that way, instead of thinking they can "just" take the country. Instead, we merely see individual unallied states getting nasty to their unallied neighbors--free radicals bumping into one-another--and having to be calmed down by some third party. I would guess future "wars" all across the globe will look more like the US's dealings in Afghanistan/Iraq than it will like some sort of confrontation between NATO and some new Axis. Another way to put it, is that national political borders across much of the globe have basically annealed down to a rest-state. The resignation to this fact is what seems to have spurred the EU into existence; if you can't invade your neighbor any more, you may as well cooperate and trade. I see this sort of idea spreading (though perhaps without the shared monetary policy aspect, which doesn't seem to be working out too well) as more regions of the world "settle", leaving basically four or five pretty-similar political bodies in a de-facto world-government union, and individual break-away states here or there which are filled up with "peacekeeping forces" by the one or another of the powers. I think this logic is pretty common to people who don't have a dystopian view of the future. Do you see some major flaw in it?
znowi 13y ago
> So when it does happen (and it will eventually happen) we're prepared not to lose our country If it does happen, most likely it will be caused by the US itself. Many threats that exist today are largely created by the US short-sighted foreign policy or even worse - blatant disregard for any nation, but themselves.
jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago
First, total warfare like WW2, in the sense that the majority of the global economy is directed towards people conquering each other, will not happen again. Nuclear deterrence works. Though I and I'm sure many others find this repulsive, it is reality. That means, realistically future armed conflicts are going to be regional border disputes fought with conventional weapons, increasingly delivered via drones. It is clearly not the case that the NSA, in it's current form, is the lynchpin keeping global warfare at bay. There are strong arguments that it is in fact adding fuel to the ongoing smoldering economic and diplomatic conflicts. There clearly is a whole range of possible forms for the NSA between "no security" and "total global surveillance." You also act like human conflicts are exogenous, that they just happen to us like natural disasters. Behind this is the idea that there will always be some other force or enemy that is beyond reason, engagement and diplomacy. That is a particularly ugly and simpleminded view.
- diminoten 13y ago
  > It is clearly not the case that the NSA, in it's current form, is the lynchpin keeping global warfare at bay. I don't think it's all that clear.
chavesn 13y ago
I scanned your comment and read it wrong the first time. I thought you were saying that the NSA is a sign of things becoming fucked up again. That I can agree with. The thought that what the NSA is doing (especially if we limit the discussion to what they are doing inside America) contributes even a little bit to preventing another WWII blows my mind. I don't even know how to argue with that. It seems so obvious that that couldn't be further from the truth.
curiouscats 13y ago
There are many facets to preparation. Intelligence isn't the only one. If you behave in a way where others don't want to see you with total power they will have great incentive to find ways to have you lose power. The risks to the USA from being seen as thinking that might makes right is an acceptable philosophy (and since the USA has the might to pretty much do whatever it wants right now it can get away with doing so). But those that must accept the bully today, will want to find a way out eventually. Currently the USA seems to mainly be aligning with short sited politicians the world over that trade off the rights of their citizens to domination by whatever they USA wants done. This actually works for the short term (to a degree). But it likely creates situations where citizens elsewhere get tired of electing toadies to USA dictates and throw them out. And given the dynamics, those politicians pursuing anti-USA policies from those countries is increased as the flagrant might-make-right actions turn people off. Balancing intelligence with diplomacy is wise. But the USA seems to have totally abandoned the idea that the rest of the world's population (95% of the total) matter. Diplomacy seems to have been abandoned for the much easier and funner (when you are the mightiest) policy of we have the might, do what we say or you will suffer. I agree, that the world can become a huge mess fast. I believe diplomacy is critical in such a system - in order to protect yourself from the result of an out of control mess. But diplomacy is a mess and complicated and frustrating. I can see why you don't want to deal with it if you have the might to tell everyone to bow to your dictates. But I think it is foolish and risky to have limited diplomacy as much as the USA has. This limiting of diplomacy in the USA is not new, the consequences have just become much greater it seems to me in the last 20 years. We only seem to have really had any patience for it at all when dealing with the USSR - because we were worried about the damage that could be done if things went badly.

by pixie_ 13y ago

jivatmanx 13y ago

In the 20 interwar years, both Communism and Fascism (Business plot, Leo Strauss, etc.) both had an enormous intellectual following, even in the U.S. In Europe, there was an overwhelming sentiment that Democracy was weak and outdated, which is why the Nazis and the USSR saw each-other as their primary threat, and had both fully anticipated and planned for a European war for years prior. There's nothing like that out there today. Russian hatred for Islamism exceeds the U.S.'s, China is panicky about Xinjiang Province/Pakistan. China and Russia pretty much act purely on interests and have no ideology. While there are few parallels to WWII, there are some with WWI. I hope that stark alliances don't form.

justin66 13y ago

It'd be more to the point to remember that we survived the cold war, an era where good intelligence was even more necessary and the dangers to the country were bigger and more immediate, with tighter controls on what intelligence services could do.

derefr 13y ago
Did we have tighter controls, or were they just better at keeping their work out of the news?
- justin66 13y ago
  We had tighter controls. It wasn't really an issue of "their work," it was an issue of what they were allowed to do with it under the law. For example, one of the fake controversies after 9/11 involved NSA and domestic intelligence not sharing as much information as some believed might have been valuable in preventing the attacks, in retrospect. This sharing was prevented - very deliberately - by statute. Those statutes have been weakened since, in the name of security and with little consideration of why they existed in the first place. edit: I was really only thinking of statutory control of intelligence gathering with my comments. Philwelch brings up an interesting point regarding (largely illegal) espionage, but I think the points still stand.
- philwelch 13y ago
  Research the United Fruit Company, MKULTRA, COINTELPRO, J. Edgar Hoover, the School of the Americas, the 1953 Iranian coup, and it doesn't stop there.

derefr 13y ago

A country starts a war, fundamentally, when they see a resource (land; oil; people) that they think they can claim without destroying its value in the process. However, all the technologies we've developed since WWII that make us more efficient at mass-killing (chemical/biological weapons et al) are politically-blind; Anthrax will infect the conqueror as much as the conquered. The only real advance we've made in the "things that will kill the enemy but leave you alone to sit in their houses and farm their land" field, in the last 70 years, are drones--and, tactically-speaking, they haven't increased the difficulty of war much for the side of the invaded, just made waging a war safer for the invader. So, it's not any easier to win a war against a nation at technological parity with your own than it was 70 years ago. On the other hand, over the last 50 years, besides there having been built within every world-leader a strong awareness of the "final solution" (nukes) available to the major powers to put down any sufficient threat, a true global trade economy has also emerged, with strong economic interdependence between the major powers (China holding US debt &c). Every power is now just as much beholden, economically, to each other power, as if they were an export colony; the US going to war with China, for example, would be cutting off one's nose to spite one's face in the same way that Britain choosing, without provocation, to start warring with America in 1775 would have been. In this situation, I don't see much chance of a major power instigating an empire-building war. Also, unlike in WWI, a country that isn't a major power doesn't have the political weight to instigate a major war--nobody will follow it into battle. Attacking a country in a union with a major power is implicitly attacking that power, and military strategists now treat it that way, instead of thinking they can "just" take the country. Instead, we merely see individual unallied states getting nasty to their unallied neighbors--free radicals bumping into one-another--and having to be calmed down by some third party. I would guess future "wars" all across the globe will look more like the US's dealings in Afghanistan/Iraq than it will like some sort of confrontation between NATO and some new Axis. Another way to put it, is that national political borders across much of the globe have basically annealed down to a rest-state. The resignation to this fact is what seems to have spurred the EU into existence; if you can't invade your neighbor any more, you may as well cooperate and trade. I see this sort of idea spreading (though perhaps without the shared monetary policy aspect, which doesn't seem to be working out too well) as more regions of the world "settle", leaving basically four or five pretty-similar political bodies in a de-facto world-government union, and individual break-away states here or there which are filled up with "peacekeeping forces" by the one or another of the powers. I think this logic is pretty common to people who don't have a dystopian view of the future. Do you see some major flaw in it?

znowi 13y ago

> So when it does happen (and it will eventually happen) we're prepared not to lose our country If it does happen, most likely it will be caused by the US itself. Many threats that exist today are largely created by the US short-sighted foreign policy or even worse - blatant disregard for any nation, but themselves.

jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago

First, total warfare like WW2, in the sense that the majority of the global economy is directed towards people conquering each other, will not happen again. Nuclear deterrence works. Though I and I'm sure many others find this repulsive, it is reality. That means, realistically future armed conflicts are going to be regional border disputes fought with conventional weapons, increasingly delivered via drones. It is clearly not the case that the NSA, in it's current form, is the lynchpin keeping global warfare at bay. There are strong arguments that it is in fact adding fuel to the ongoing smoldering economic and diplomatic conflicts. There clearly is a whole range of possible forms for the NSA between "no security" and "total global surveillance." You also act like human conflicts are exogenous, that they just happen to us like natural disasters. Behind this is the idea that there will always be some other force or enemy that is beyond reason, engagement and diplomacy. That is a particularly ugly and simpleminded view.

diminoten 13y ago
> It is clearly not the case that the NSA, in it's current form, is the lynchpin keeping global warfare at bay. I don't think it's all that clear.

chavesn 13y ago

I scanned your comment and read it wrong the first time. I thought you were saying that the NSA is a sign of things becoming fucked up again. That I can agree with. The thought that what the NSA is doing (especially if we limit the discussion to what they are doing inside America) contributes even a little bit to preventing another WWII blows my mind. I don't even know how to argue with that. It seems so obvious that that couldn't be further from the truth.

curiouscats 13y ago

There are many facets to preparation. Intelligence isn't the only one. If you behave in a way where others don't want to see you with total power they will have great incentive to find ways to have you lose power. The risks to the USA from being seen as thinking that might makes right is an acceptable philosophy (and since the USA has the might to pretty much do whatever it wants right now it can get away with doing so). But those that must accept the bully today, will want to find a way out eventually. Currently the USA seems to mainly be aligning with short sited politicians the world over that trade off the rights of their citizens to domination by whatever they USA wants done. This actually works for the short term (to a degree). But it likely creates situations where citizens elsewhere get tired of electing toadies to USA dictates and throw them out. And given the dynamics, those politicians pursuing anti-USA policies from those countries is increased as the flagrant might-make-right actions turn people off. Balancing intelligence with diplomacy is wise. But the USA seems to have totally abandoned the idea that the rest of the world's population (95% of the total) matter. Diplomacy seems to have been abandoned for the much easier and funner (when you are the mightiest) policy of we have the might, do what we say or you will suffer. I agree, that the world can become a huge mess fast. I believe diplomacy is critical in such a system - in order to protect yourself from the result of an out of control mess. But diplomacy is a mess and complicated and frustrating. I can see why you don't want to deal with it if you have the might to tell everyone to bow to your dictates. But I think it is foolish and risky to have limited diplomacy as much as the USA has. This limiting of diplomacy in the USA is not new, the consequences have just become much greater it seems to me in the last 20 years. We only seem to have really had any patience for it at all when dealing with the USSR - because we were worried about the damage that could be done if things went badly.