Stoopid Stuff

...and Everybody Gets a Share

I'm pretty sure this is not a good sign.

More and more non - governmental, non - sovereign entities are fielding political, diplomatic and yes, even military organizations. They have no allegiance to any nation, they operate across international borders, and their funding sources can be quite diverse, indeed, can be the most effective of criminal organizations, not to mention governments either sympathetic to the ideological causes they espouse, or more sinister, paying tribute to avoid becoming a target.

Now, sure, guerrilla armies and political militias are nothing new. But now we're getting into a new creature altogether - less shadowy, more capable, well funded with complex political and propaganda operations. It's a combination of post-colonial, post-modern politics, ethnic identity movements, terror as a political tool, globalization, the internet, satellite communications, air travel - indeed, it's as if every advance of the last fifty years has been designed specifically to contribute to this trend.

When a small, well-funded transnational organization was able to launch a devastating attack against the United States on September 11th, 2001, a new era began. Military threats that could neither be deterred nor retaliated against militarily. Somewhat parallel to global climate change, it is the law of unintended consequences writ large, with every possibility to change the world on a massive scale.

Here you have the next logical step. The US has decided, at least over the last ten or so years, to be an imperial power. But in a prosperous society, without conscription, you cannot put enough men under arms to support an empire, no matter how efficient and lethal your combined arms forces might be. The solution? Again, private armies.

So now, the next step in the trend. Blackwater, one of America's private mercenary armies, is now purchasing fighter planes. A private corporation, right here in America, will now have ground attack/close air support capability. The chilling question that hangs over this entire endeavor is Why? Under what circumstances can you imagine Blackwater requiring strike aircraft? Border operations? Riot control?

Bear in mind, that entirely unlike American military and police forces, these people have sworn no oath to the nation, it's constitution, it's people. They are merely a corporation, beholden only to the contract, and always available to the highest bidder.

To try to imagine the world of 20 years from now, or 50, is nearly impossible, for we are seeing so many unsustainable paths that lead to dystopian horrors of global proportions, so many interwoven dynamics that cannot be controlled, outcomes that could never be predicted. Climate change, economic collapse, food, water and energy shortages, religious fundamentalism, atomic weapons, desperate, sick displaced people challenging the safe and greedy for a chance at a future for their children.

Indeed, we have crossed so many Rubicons by now it's hard to judge the significance of any one event. But it's at least possible that a historian in some future world will look back at the day that Blackwater decided they could buy an air force and say "at that point, that civilization was finished"....

posted by mikey @ 9:43 AM