<nettime> A scenario digest [Rob Myers, Heiko Recktenwald, John Hopkins]

[nettime's dr doom <nettime@kein.org>]

----- Forwarded message from Rob Myers <rob@robmyers.org> -----

From: Rob Myers <rob@robmyers.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime>  A scenario for World War III
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:22:59 +0000
To: nettime-l@kein.org

On 05/03/10 10:52, Keith Hart wrote:
> 3. The place of World War III has already been chosen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_2000#Original_setting

Armageddon is a luxury we won't be able to afford the reassurance of
much longer.

- Rob.


----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Heiko Recktenwald <heikorecktenwald@googlemail.com> -----

From: Heiko Recktenwald <heikorecktenwald@googlemail.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> A scenario for World War III
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:00:40 +0100
To: Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>, nettime-l@kein.org


> very irrational decisions may be
> made in politics - see Yugoslavia (*)
>   
<...>
> (*) However... my fast-lane commentary on the 'Yugoslav situation' used to
> be: "Look, they had the choice between structural adjustment without end,
> or war. What would _you_ have chosen?"
>   

That case cannot be generalised and it was a SMALL problem. There could
be no "structural adjustment" without the Yugoslavs and after Tito's
death there werent anymore any -- long before their civil war. There was
a chance for a clear language to the Serbs, it was missed by "Europe"
for historic reasons and then the U.S. had to decide
.


H.

----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net> -----

From: John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net>
Reply-To: jhopkins@neoscenes.net
Subject: Re: <nettime> A scenario for World War III
Organization: neoscenes
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:42:20 -0600
CC: nettime <nettime-l@kein.org>

Hi Brian!

>A look into the robotics labs of any major research university
>(UCSD is a good place to start) will reveal the possible answer to
>this objection, already concretized in drone warfare and soon to
>be visible in the form of autonomous vehicles patrolling wartorn
>streets. The awful thing about war is that it can be used as a way
>to impose central economic planning, the very trick the US learned

I think one issue with this scenario is that the US no longer has the energy 
input into its system that is necessary to maintain the highly complex (and 
energy intensive) total infrastructure necessary to produce and deploy and 
stratigically operate such a military "force." The move from a UCal lab to a 
deployable and coherent force is non-trivial, and despite the strong present 
and historical linkages between edu-mil, I think the wide-spread usage of 
robotics in anything other than tactical support (vs. replacement of 
boots-on-the-ground) is not possible. The techno-social infrastructure 
needed to produce systems of such complexity is globe-spanning (extractives 
and energy industries supporting manufacturing and production) and is no 
longer under US control/domination at all.  When the DOD is having to source 
chips for their devices in China (among other places), and when China holds 
a monopoly on rare-earth metals, and the internal US infrastructure is 
collapsing, (etc, etc) combined with a disaffected and polarized government 
and a population increasingly unwilling to do anything about anything except 
for extreme self-interest (of a localized kind, not even empire-spreading or 
empire-holding anymore), it is really hard to imagine this scenario except 
in the wet-dreams of the late-born Military-Industrialist babies or 
ultra-nationalist sci-fi freaks...

jh

----- End forwarded message -----

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