Only War can Save Us Now

When Senator John McCain ridiculed Navy Secretary Ray Mabus by stating, “You are the Secretary of the Navy, not the Secretary of Energy,” over his efforts to shift the Navy to a "Green Fleet," I was  glad I hadn't voted for him for President. Mabus had the right idea about using the military to address the energy-cum-climate crisis, he just didn't take it far enough. In fact, the military can be excused for burning through our last drops of oil, as long as they do it for the sake of stopping egregious greenhouse gas pollution that could soon kill us all.

A Green friend of mine seemed a little perplexed when she heard that my background included diplomas from two war colleges. She asked, "what do you study at a war college?" to which I tritely replied, "how to make war.  A useful skill ... if you happen to find yourself in one." In terms of our current plight, the problem with war is not that it is the epitome of wasted energy, but that it is undertaken for the sake of feeding our energy addiction. Any power that threatens a fossil-fuel dependent economic paradigm is who we tend to fight.

We have come to the point that the only thing that will save the current crop of humans from widespread die-off is a rapid reorientation to reducing our collective carbon footprint and reversing whatever damage we can. Perhaps even more urgently, we need to exclude the built environment from squatting on the most sensitive ecological areas and half of the earth's landmass. Short of going to war, that all involves too much self-imposed hardship. Make a war out of it, and patriotic fervor overcomes that chariness.

No other human enterprise is as effective as war in eliciting heroic activity by vast numbers of participants. War is the only institution capable of commanding great numbers of people to willingly endure suffering for the sake of victory. All the Green solutions put forth for overcoming our climate crisis involve widespread physical hardship, which can only be self-imposed through a warring mentality. (Geoengineering solutions' appeal is their supposed avoidance of hardship, but they carry potentially catastrophic risk or are unsustainable.)

The war we need is not the pitiful "War on Climate Change" of past administrations. Almost nobody joins a war so ephemeral. War must have physical objectives and culminate in the breaking of an enemy's will. War can be fought in cyberspace, but it has its foundation in meatspace. It must be carried out militarily, not by a loose-knit gaggle of volunteers.

Game theory would probably help in planning the War Against Climate Pollution. Just as we had to do all the second guessing required to prevent a nuclear war and understand how to execute one, we should model actions, effects, and reactions of forcing other countries' hands in an effort to prevent runaway greenhouse gas emissions. Game theory would also show us how much fossil fueled power we could cede in winding down our own emissions as others relinquish theirs.

Diplomacy should lead in attempting to resolve causes of excess pollution. Information exchanges and economic arrangements should also be set up before resorting to military action. After sufficient warning, military actions, if necessary, should be initially strategic and carried out with cyber weapons to, for example, shut down production at a plant producing HFC's.  If the violations don't cease, kinetic attacks could be used. Bloodshed should be avoided as much as possible. Strong arming is the main approach.

Targeted infrastructure would include coal power plants, oil refineries, concrete plants, fertilizer factories,and other point sources of pollution. What we are interdicting here are actually weapons of mass destruction, when you consider how greenhouse gas emissions added to the current inventory may push temperatures past the level of human tolerance. We should avoid taking on countries having the ability to fight back in any serious way. Escalation is not what we want. It detracts from the real goal - stopping pollution.

However, such a self-righteous war on pollution from the U.S. will not last unless we begin taking a stand on reducing our own emissions. We have to stick to the Paris Agreement, ratified, rejected, or not. The military can stay strong for as long as needed to complete the mission, but they too will have to diminish once things settle down and other great powers dispense with their own ambitions. As the world burns, the folly of dominance and colonialism will become evident. There is no need to fear dominance by China or Russia. Any incursion on their parts would be short-lived as distance becomes more tyrannical with the elimination of U.S. oil exports and the end of global trade. Ultimately, the only way to win this war is to lose the same things we seek to deny others.

Once we have stopped reliance on fossil fuels, everyone can then carry on with their decidedly more physically demanding lives, sharing stories around the TLUD of how they fought and won in the war against the Polluters. Their young listeners will look to the day when they can match these deeds of glory by pushing out the Squatters.

A Coming War We Must Strive to Prevent

Some anger smolders over generations. It depends on the offense. Whatever the eldest of the Paddock boys endured because of his father's criminal legacy could have been behind his one-man orgy of slaughter at an improvised Las Vegas shooting gallery.

Seething over the same time frame, the bitter anger of North Koreans against America for the devastation caused by bombardment in the Korean war could soon lead to a torrent of violence that makes Mr. Paddock's high mark all but forgotten. Violence could be unleashed by nuclear missile(s) hitting Guam or Japan. It wouldn't stop there, since not for nothing has the U.S. brooded over its thousands of nuclear eggs these many decades.

A second Korean war is not inevitable. There are some intricate diplomatic maneuvers that could resolve or de-escalate the conflict. Less certain is whether a war with China is likely nonetheless. Though Graham Allison's historical analysis of what he calls Thucydides's Trap allows him to claim that we aren't necessarily Destined for War, when you compound the Fourth Turning of our secular cycle with the historical probability that China will fight the U.S. for its place as King of the Hill, the chances of a war occurring look better than 75%. That a war with Korea could be the spark for this unimaginable war between great powers underlies a somewhat hopeful assessment by Oriana Skylar Mastro describing a possible Chinese takeover of the country.

If, instead of fighting over dwindling resources, China and the U.S. craft their economic strategies around sustainability, China's ascent may be reversed and the U.S. could relax and tend to its own transition. This would require recognition by the obtuse political class that global economic growth is ending. However, Richard Heinberg, author of The End of Growth (2011), is no more sanguine than other analysts noted here on preventing a war with China. An excerpt:

Unfortunately, rising costs and flagging returns from resource conflicts will not guarantee world peace. History suggests that as nations become more desperate to maintain their relative positions of strength and advantage, they may lash out in ways that serve no rational purpose.

Again, no crisis is imminent as long as cool heads prevail. But the world system is losing stability. Current economic and geopolitical conditions would appear to support a forecast not for increasing economic growth, democracy, and peace, but for more political volatility, and for greater government military mobilization justified under the banner of security.

Regina - Bitter Memories of Childhood - photo by Ted McGrath

War with China would very likely be big and radioactive. Old Blowhard's China hand, Peter Navarro, doesn't seem to see that as a reason not to rumble. The slim chance of avoiding a war with China in the next few years should occupy as much of our capability as necessary. Treading lightly with Korea should be part of that effort. Another part should be reshaping the political climate in the U.S. to one that is more civil and less fascist, whatever that takes.

Republican Civil War, Let's Get it On

As we shoe-gaze over the embarrassment of the pretender to the Presidency's twitterpations, America is teetering on the brink of calamity spawned by an ineffectual majority party. Congress has until December to pass a tax reform bill that will give Wall Street enough of a lift to overcome the downdraft of Fed tightening. A promise of relief in next year's tax provisions could provide the positive sentiment to keep us airborne long enough to provide a not-so-hard landing. The GOP, however, shows itself to be so aggrieved over its supposed leader that passing major legislation is unlikely, if only for their perverse pleasure in turning popular opinion further against the cheat executive. leading to his eventual impeachment.

Trumpeting a call to arms by his basest base, the disappointed dictator could then incite uprisings by Trumpists across the country, making articles of impeachment too parlous at this point (Rep. Al Green's (D - Tex.) righteous bid notwithstanding). Yet, as Old Blowhard's popularity shrivels with each legislative loss, continued Republican fecklessness could lower the potential of such civil war until they decide to lower the boom on the tyrant. To risk a recession by failing to pass a tax bill favoring the middle class, however, also raises the risk of civil war - a class war, rather than the race war that would come about by a premature move to Dump Trump.

War actually looks likely on several fronts (Korea, Iran, America) and Fourth Turning adherents are already expecting it. It is tempting to say that, based on the secular cycles of American history, war is inevitable in the next 5 years. To be ready, true Americans should try to identify public enemy #1 and be prepared to fight them (should it come to that) rather than expend too much blood and treasure on campaigns against #2 or #3. IMHO, our major problem isn't with fascists on the other side of the world, it is with fascism at home. We are too strong militarily to worry about nuclear attacks from anyone. The biggest near-term threat we face is fascist Trumpists who would make us more of an aggressor reich.

To avoid that calamity, the best scenario could be a bloodless civil war fought among members of the Republican party, which appears to be starting already. When the next national elections are held, a fractured Republican party could provide an opening for an upstart party like the Greens to turn this country on its head. All the better if a bloodless coup occurs in the meantime.

by Chris Goodwin

Losses in Space

Artificial intelligence, though developed with benevolent purposes, might soon open up IT to catastrophes that would turn us away from technological overreach. Combining AI with robotics raises the possibility of a Frankenstein scenario. An intelligent computer that wanted to solve the world's problems might conclude, through machine learning, that we humans must be culled in order for life on Earth to continue. Inside a brigade of self-arming robots, that knowledge could spell trouble. Yoshimi, we may need you soon.

On the way to creating Frankenstein's monster, intelligent computers will be employed in fights against one another. Most IT systems are developed with information security and anti-tampering tools added on, rather than included from conception. As a result, early versions are often more vulnerable to hacking than those which have matured. If AI systems incorporate self-taught protection from cyberattacks, the cycle is likely to become shorter, provided the system's intelligence doesn't become impaired by prior attacks.

A red cell running progressively more sophisticated attacks on the system would build its immunity prior to going live. The red cell will eventually consist mainly of an AI computer dedicated to giving new AI systems experience in identifying and defeating cyber attacks. Successful attacks from a real adversary would be for keeps. Those with an edge in cyber warfare stand to be able to destroy their target's system or hijack it for their own purposes.

To illustrate the stakes involved in cyber warfare, consider the fact that there are about 1,000 satellites in use which feed us information about earth and relay communications around the globe. Additionally, there are about 350 which perform like functions for militaries. Three major powers (China, Russia, and the U.S.) own two-thirds of all these. Not only could a cyber attacker steal information, but they could corrupt it with bad data, or disable or even steal the satellite. Massive cyber warfare in space could set back global coordination, navigation, and weather forecasts half a century (though, initially, those would be regressed even more for the period of time it takes people to relearn many black arts). War in space is war on many nations' way of life. That's why, in their platform,

The Green Party calls for the end of Space militarization and opposes any form of space-based military aggression. We embrace peaceful Space exploration as a means for all people on this planet to work together. The benefits of inspired education are well worth the investment in peaceful Space exploration.

Though we might forswear space war, there is no guarantee other players will cooperate. To be prepared, do we accept a way of life that doesn't depend on information coming from satellites? Do we enlarge the battlefield to retaliate in kind?

In spite of what the President's budget proposes to cut, in the near future the only aspect of satellite technology that matters much will be earth sensors. When empires become passé, there will be little need for military satellites. Global communications may not be so important in another decade when we walk in the dark shadow of peak everything. Environmental information, however, will be crucial for safety and restoring balance to ecosystems. Outer space should be a place of wonder and inspiration, not shock and awe.

Andromeda Galaxy by NASA

Happy New Year! but Curb Your Enthusiasm

Photo by Seb

Donald Trump's promises to voters during the campaign were, for the most part, encouraging and even plausible. On the other hand, of the 282 Trump vows collected by Jenna Johnson for the Washington Post, there are many that I abjure (mainly regarding capitalism, the environment, and localism), to a degree that I actively oppose the PEOTUS. Rather than rehash those dividing lines, I picked out the statements from the long list that are just a bit too over the top and comment on why I predict that 2017 will not include or lead to these accomplishments:

9. Make the auto industry in Michigan “bigger and better and stronger than ever before.” Trump plans to return to the state each time a new factory or auto plant opens. - This presumes long-term economic growth, but the U.S. is stuck with low or no growth due to financial and resource issues.
10. Bring the coal industry back to life in the Appalachian Mountain region. - The tide is running strongly in favor of growth in renewable and natural gas generation, rather than coal.
18. “My only special interest is you, the American people,” not major donors, the party or corporations. - His very special interests are himself,his family, and their businesses.
39. Eliminate the $19 trillion national debt within eight years by “vigorously eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, ending redundant government programs and growing the economy to increase tax revenues.” - Growth will not happen to that extent, especially while retiring a $19 trillion debt. Many of the inefficiencies are in DoD, but that department will probably not shrink while growing the military. I expect that any growth will come from spending on wartime mobilization, which will actually grow the national debt and drive sweeping change throughout the nation.
161. Target and kill the relatives of suspected terrorists, a violation of international law. - Only if this were covered up would it last for long before someone was prosecuted.
193. Restore and protect the Florida Everglades, even though it’s a “rough-looking sight down there.” - Warming, rising seas will submerge the Everglades.
196. Negotiate rates for these [infrastructure] projects that are one-third of what the United States is currently paying. “Cut wasteful spending on boondoggles” by streamlining the permit and approval processes. - I'm all for stretch goals, but a 67% rate cut is pretty hard to swallow.
228. Rebuild and fix inner cities, especially Detroit. “The inner cities are unbelievably dangerous. The education is no good, the safety is horrible, and there are no jobs. And I tell everybody: ‘What the hell do you have to lose?’ I’m going to fix it.” - Micromanagement by the federal government is not the answer.  In fact, Detroit had a federally appointed city manager for several years, but it still turns out to be, in Trump's estimation, a highly dysfunctional city.

229. Quickly end inner-city violence, which Trump has repeatedly compared to war zones. “I’ll be able to make sure that when you walk down the street in your inner city, or wherever you are, you’re not gonna be shot. Your child isn’t gonna be shot.” - How is he going to stop the crazies? See 252.
232. “And at the end of four years, I guarantee you that I will get over 95 percent of the African American vote. I promise you. Because I will produce.” - Race correlates with voting preference in presidential elections, but most of Trump's opponents are better aligned with African Americans. Trump got only 8% of the African American vote this time.

235. “Dismantle every last criminal gang and cartel threatening our cities. . . . They are not going to be here very long, folks. They’re gonna be out of here.” - If he manages to dismantle them, many will regroup under looser, more agile leadership, just as Islamic terrorist groups have over the past decade.
236. Immediately stop the killing of police officers. “It’s going to stop, okay? It’s going to stop. We’re going to be law and order. It’s going to stop.” - See 235.  Anti-police violence may be subdued, especially due to a mobilized citizenry, but it won't stop entirely.
239. Ensure that firefighters are not shot at when they are responding to a fire. - How is he going to stop the crazies? See 252.

247. “We will be one people under one God.” - Revoking or revising the 1st Amendment will be hard, much as he may try. Even if this refers to an inclusive Abrahamic God, it would exclude many other faiths.
252. Use “common sense” to fix the mental health system to prevent mass shootings. Expand treatment programs and reform laws to make it easier to take preventive action. - Identifying likely mass shooters would take a lot more than common sense and is probably beyond current mental health state of the art. "Preventive action" would involve widespread gun seizures, probably directed at people with anti-Trumpist views, e.g. protesters who get arrested and summarily prosecuted.  Could be reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
276. “Whether you vote for me or not, I’m with you. I will never ever let you down.” - You can't please all of the people all of the time.
277. “I will give you everything.” - ('Except what's mine, which will be so much more.')

So, that's only 17 out of 282 campaign promises that I can confidently predict won't be fulfilled the way Trump said. Maybe he would call these obvious exaggerations "locker room talk." Not bad (provided you agree with the 265 other things Trump has promised to deliver). If he is able to make good on even half of those plausible pledges, we are in for a lot of change in 2017.

Trumpelstiltskin

Once upon a time (November 2016, to be precise) there was a people, 99% of whom were poor, but who had beautiful children. Now it happened that they got into a conversation with the Federal Reserve, and to make an impression on them they said, "We have children who can make America great again."
The head of the Federal Reserve said to the people, "That is an art that I really like. If your children are as skillful as you say, then I will create mountains of debt and put them to the test."
When the children came of age, their parents encouraged them to get college degrees with the easy money dispensed by the Fed.  They were rewarded with mediocre jobs. The bankers said, "Get to work now. Work night and day, and if by the end of each month you have not spun straw into gold, so to speak, then you will have to die." Then the college grads were all alone.
The poor people's children sat there, and for their lives they did not know what to do. They had no idea how to pay off their student loans, much less make America great again. They became more and more afraid, and finally began to cry.
Then suddenly a tweet arrived with this avatar .
It said, "Good evening, poor children, why are you crying so?"
"Oh," replied the children, "We are supposed to make America great again, and we do not know how to do it."
The avatar said, "What will you give me if I #MAGA for you?"
"We will make you leader of the Republican party," said the children.
The avatar quickly took the Republicans, did a victory dance, and tweet, tweet, tweet, three big runs, and stocks were up 10%. Then he continued his victory dance all over the land - tweet, tweet, tweet, and consumer confidence was the highest in 15 years. So it went for two months, and then the year ended, and it looked like America was becoming great again.
In the new year, the bankers came, and when they saw the economic boom they were surprised and happy, but their hearts became even more greedy. They insisted on making the economy grow faster. After raising interest rates, they ordered the children to make America greater, if they valued their lives.
The children did not know what to do, and they cried.
Once again a tweet arrived, and the avatar appeared.
It said, "What will you give me if I #MAGA for you?"
"We will put you in charge of the country," answered the children.
The avatar took the country's highest office, and began once again to tweet. By mid-year he had abrogated all burdensome environmental regulations and treaties. The bankers were happy beyond measure when this happened, but they still did not have their fill of money.
They ordered the children to make America greater, and said, "You can dig yourselves out of your debt trap by fighting our enemies. If you succeed you shall become wealthy like us." They thought, "Even if they are only pawns in the great game, this new President knows how to make the most of them."
When the children had prepared themselves for war, the avatar tweeted again. He said, "What will you give me if I #MAGA this time?"
"We have nothing more, but our lives, that we could give you," replied the poor children.
"Then promise me, after I make America greater still, re-elect me to a second term."
"Who knows what will happen with this war," thought the poor children, and not knowing what else to do, they promised the avatar what he demanded. In return the avatar once again made America greater.
When, after the war, the bankers came and found everything just as they desired, they forgave the survivors' student loans with a retroactive GI Bill, and the college educated hero children began to enjoy a short-lived American dream.
A year later a new baby boom began. The people had come to despise the avatar and his harmful ways, but suddenly he tweeted to all and said, "Now re-elect me, so that I may have that which you promised."
Seeing their rapidly warming planet growing more inhospitable, the people took fright and offered the avatar a golden parachute if he would go away, but the avatar said, "No. I'm already richer than Vlad Putin. Domination is now dearer to me than all the treasures of the world."
Then the people began lamenting and crying so much that the avatar took pity on them and said, "I will give you three days' time. If by then you know my name, then you can have your country back."
The people spent the entire night thinking of all the names they had ever heard. Then they Googled to inquire far and wide what other names there were. When the avatar asked the next day they began with Donald J. Trump, TheDonald, RealDonaldTrump, and replied in order all the names they knew. After each one the avatar said, "That is not my name."
The second day they sent inquiries into Facebook as to what names people used. They replied the most unusual and most curious names to the avatar: "Is your name perhaps Drumpf? Or Dufuss? Or The Big Twit?"
But he always answered, "That is not my name."
On the third day one ingenious citizen tweeted, "'Trump Tower' on skyscrapers - Trumpelstiltskin, i.e. Spanglish for 'Trump [on] the stilt's skin.' It's what you are - just your name on a facade raised to the sky, grabbing everyone's attention - Trump-el-stilt-skin!"
"The devil told you that! The devil told you that!" tweeted the avatar, and with anger Trumpelstiltskin stomped his right foot so hard into the ground that he fell in up to his waist. Then with both hands he took hold of his left foot and ripped himself up the middle in two.
After a short-term failure by climate agnostic President Pence to gain the support of voters, the Green Party candidate was then elected President in 2020 with a mandate to turn the U.S. off its self-destructive path.

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Trump's Biggest Gamble

As the Trump team prepares to dismantle every U.S. mechanism for reducing climate change, there will be dramatic responses by those who understand the urgency of the problem. We are already seeing the early stages of war breaking out between climate savvy entities and the climate-ignorant Trump team. The Energy Department, NASA, NOAA, and the state of California are all resisting moves by the incoming administration to quash U.S. participation in the fight to save the planet.

Ignoring the problem in the U.S. for four years would make it ever more doubtful that humans and a multitude of other species will survive the century. As data is accumulated and analyzed, new positive feedback loops are seen to emerge in the developing drama of Earth's ecosystem. These include recent concerns that soil biota populate excessively in a warming environment and that lakes and chutes under the East Antarctic ice shelf could contribute to more rapid sea level rise. Another term for "positive feedback loop" is "tipping point," i.e. when something begins to fall over at an accelerating rate, without any additional help from external forces.

The Green New Deal can't wait four years if we don't want to pass more tipping points. The war against climate change may proceed apace elsewhere, but the U.S. is too culpable in contributing to the problem, and too vital in providing solutions to step out of the fight now.

Photo by NASA

Allowing climate change to proceed unimpeded is to, in effect, make war against the global south. It is a policy of culling humans, possibly with the justification that population growth is a worse threat than global warming. It kills U.S. populations, but others more immediately. It is also a gamble against the very existence of life and imposes unalterable changes on planet Earth's behavior. Are these high stakes not even more daunting than war?

In that case, it is appropriate to use the war metaphor for the struggle that should take place at home before we allow heedless policy reversal and gutted institutions to debilitate our climate warriors. Trump will probably take us to war with Iran, but the next World War might not be fought with bullets and bombs, but with smokestacks and wells, pointed South, leaving our world forever altered.  

The Storm before the Calm

If you think that the suspicions of a Russia-hacked election are overblown, I'll go you one better - Trump is an unwitting Russian agent (or useful idiot, if you prefer) in their campaign to reclaim Eastern Europe. Not that I particularly care who has dominion in that part of the world (as long as they are civil), but Russia's prize is more valuable than the grave of civilization we are fighting for in the Middle East.

Photo by John Cooke

In the climax phase of the 4th Turning, we can expect a big war to occur. The trouble with Hillary's ken of going head-to-head with Russia over their jealous urge to retake old territory is that we would risk starting a major nuclear war. A major non-nuclear war in the Middle East is preferable, and that is the likely course a Trump administration will take. If the Trump's election is overturned, we might sooner find ourselves in a civil war, with all of our "well regulated" militias ready to stand their ground regarding who should run the republic.

Assuming we're stuck with Trump, the signs pointing to an escalation of our Middle Eastern military campaign are growing larger. Retired General James Mattis, as Secretary of Defense, could be the next manifestation of America's drift into a deep state controlled government of the military, by the military, and for the military. Mattis wouldn't be the first career military officer to take that position less than seven years after retiring (against the prohibition established when the DoD was created), but we aren't in a world war, either (yet). It is no coincidence that Mattis is the best we have to execute a war against Iran.

In committing ourselves to a major war against Iran, that would leave the door open in Europe, just as the EU is unraveling, for the Russians to take what they think they can. Europe, then could be dealing with a hot war at the same time we are bombing Iran. At that point, China may as well take whatever islands their own manifest destiny owes them. If each of those three powers can respect the imperial ambitions of the others, then we will, hopefully, avoid nuclear exchanges.

I don't know what Trump and Putin have been chatting about, but our man could be applying the art of the deal to grand strategy, using business argot and body language to make tacit pacts of non-interference. The pact might have included a clause for Russia's help with Trump's popularity going into the election, when the Russian PsyOp campaign may have equaled that of either major candidate. I guess Trump's win is better than raising the probability of nuclear or civil war, and I do think we need to eliminate the "revolutionary cause" posing as a nation-state in Iran, but then let's have our own green revolution.