The world of threats to the US is an illusion

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/04/11/have-seen-enemies-and-they-weak/Cho9J5Bf9jxIkHKIZvnVTJ/story.html

by adventured • 11 years ago

64 60 11 years ago

bostonglobe.com

neonhomer• 11 years ago

This article makes a small case about the military profit complex, but it's also ironic that according to the AP the "Chinese" have hacked their way into all federal employee's information: http://news.yahoo.com/union-hackers-personnel-data-every-us-....

So there are some real threats.

erikpukinskis• 11 years ago

How is someone in China reading about some Americans a "real" threat? When I think of a real threat, I think of a person with an intent to harm a U.S. resident or citizen, a plan to do it, and the means to launch a plausibly realistic attempt.

classicsnoot17• 11 years ago

...so your personal data being compromised by persons unknown is not something you would deem a problem?

jerf• 11 years ago

Remember when everyone was discussing how bad it is for the NSA to know everything, because they can do things like ride in at critical moments in someone's life, like a politician's, and blackmail them with releasing something unless it goes their way?

Same argument holds with China, or anybody who gets the data.

Plus, the ability of attackers is not bounded by your creativity or credulity, or mine. The question isn't whether you or I can come up with something interesting to do with the data, the question is whether anybody who gets their hands on it can.

For the most part, the data really is mundane and irrelevant, sure. I know some government employees I went to college with, none of whom are in any position to do anything all that interesting at China's behest. But it's that .1% percent of data on the movers and shakers, and the people who will be tomorrow's movers and shakers, that is very valuable.

(And I've got a bridge to sell you if you think the full range of the hacking has been revealed yet.)

Edit: Oh, hey, look what I found in my newsfeeds literally one minute later: http://www.wired.com/2015/06/opm-breach-security-privacy-deb... "Federal background checks, after all, are meant to suss out information that might be used by foreign enemies to blackmail a government staffer into turning over classified information. And that stolen information could be used for exactly that extortion purpose, says Chris Eng, a former NSA staffer and now VP of research at the security firm Veracode." They literally got their hands on the forms constructed to contain exactly the information we didn't want foreign governments could get.

zac1944• 11 years ago

Somebody forgot about Edward Snowden breach? Is that real threat to the world?

skidoo• 11 years ago

The talk of need for separation of Church and State is one thing (and absolutely valid), but I think the largest threat to the world, indeed the largest threat the world has ever known, is the marriage between (American) State and (American) Industry. That's what the Snowden leaks have verified most.

mark_l_watson• 11 years ago

I wish that everyone in my country (the USA) would read this article.

War is big business and throughout history war has been the means for the rich to get richer.

Even if we have some economic malaise when the dollar becomes less relevant as the world's reserve currency, we have a lot going for us: geographic isolation and natural resources.

zxcvcxz• 11 years ago

I've come to the conclusion that multiple world governments --working together and against each other-- are attempting and in some cases are able to manipulate the narrative of conversations on the internet to further certain political agendas.

I don't believe most of the crap I hear about teenagers leaving in droves to join ISIS all over the world, this is the red scare all over again. I'm also pretty sure twitter is one of the main social platforms used to manipulate the political/social narrative of the internet. More than half the accounts are probably fake, who knows how many fake "ISIS" accounts there are or even what countries government is making them. I also suspect twitter is being used as some kind of data hub for surveillance because of how fast it caught on in Arab countries and a lot of countries that aren't quite "western", then the western media started to push it in every news broadcast for a while as if anyone in America actually used it.

Surprise surprise! all the terrorists always have twitter accounts. I wouldn't be surprised if the next "home-grown" terrorist has a twitter account.

r0naa5• 11 years ago

I think that this reasoning is completely flawed.

Reading this article, I understand that the author's definition of threat is quite extreme. A threat is not something that "has the potential to annihilate" but is rather "a thing that has the potential to inflict damages".

Dismissing any threats that has not a fully destructive potential as "not important" is sloppy, dangerous thinking.

There is two extremes to this spectrum, you will notice that both have a characteristic in common, they fail to differentiate and nuance threats.

From this fallacy, we can classify the two end of the spectrum as:

- The "paranoid", who genuinely end-up thinking that "the end justify the means" and propagate their hysteria to the rest of the group, effectively becoming the biggest threat to what they were trying protect.

- The "naive", who dismiss anything that has no fully destructive power as "trivial", effectively allowing threats to turn into actual damages, grow to become "fully destructive" (at which point it is too late) or cause a chain of events leading to destruction of what they were effectively trying to protect as well.

Let's not be fooled for a second by the "alliances" and "historical relationships" between the US and its allies.

Nation-States are engaged in a game for survival which is directly linked to growth and domination. A game-theoretic analogy would be the "non-cooperative" game, defined as "a game where players play independently and where any cooperation must be self-reinforcing".

There is exceptions to that rule but they are such of limited scope and impact that we can safely consider them negligible.

Since "Nation-States" lack a system of belief, they are free from the constraints that Humans self-impose onto themselves. A Nation-State will do anything to further its own interest, they are in essence, cold-blooded machines.

The author of this article is forgetting about the 195 other countries in the world who are also playing this game.

Obviously not all of them have credible chances to become big players but you can bet on the fact that all of them will fight tooth and nail for their part of the pie, no matter what it takes.

Zirro2• 11 years ago

"Saying that the US has no threats is forgetting about the 195 other countries in the world who are aspiring to be as much powerful as possible."

I believe that this is exactly the way of thinking that is being criticized in the article. Very few of those 195 nations dream of removing the US from the position of world power, and even fewer are capable of it.

classicsnoot17• 11 years ago

So are you of the opinion that if the US made an exit from the world stage today, there would be no power struggle?

r0naa5• 11 years ago

I have re-formulated my comment to correct some grammar mistakes etc...

I agree with you but I think I failed to convey the point I was making. It is very US-centric perspective, any country has to deal with rivalries and struggle for power. Depending on their size and existing power those struggles are fought at the local, regional or worldwide level.

vdaniuk2• 11 years ago

"In the Nation-States Game, you either win or die", it is a non-cooperative game

By definition of non-cooperative and cooperative[0] game, nation-states are playing cooperative game.

Also, nation-states are not atomic entities that can be considered "players".

Also, world is too complex to be described by rule-based model.

[0] In game theory, a cooperative game is a game where groups of players ("coalitions") may enforce cooperative behaviour, hence the game is a competition between coalitions of players, rather than between individual players

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_game

r0naa5• 11 years ago

By definition of non-cooperative and cooperative[0] game, nation-states are playing cooperative game.

I pondered using either of those concepts. The reason behind my choice is that while there is indeed a multi-level struggle for power where we have coalitions playing against coalitions, there is also some inter-nation rivalries that highlight the fundamentally non-cooperative nature of the "game".

The US weakening the influence of the French leader Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s for example is an example of such tension between members of a same "coalition". The US will first and foremost (legitimately) defend its own interests over those of its allies.

Also, nation-states are not atomic entities who can be considered "players".

I disagree. The decision-making apparatus whether democratic or dictatorial of nation-states is similar to the brain of a player. See my third point.

Also, world is too complex to be described by rule-based model.

I agree and it was not my intent to describe the world using a single rule-based model. That being said "non-cooperative games" fully capture, what is perhaps the most important property of our world's geopolitics.c

makeitsuckless2• 11 years ago

This kind of thinking scares the crap out of me.

There's not even any point in arguing with it: you see me and mine as a threat because I exists. Or in your words: we "are also playing this game".

That's terrifying way of looking at the world. I know people that have survived wars and oppression that aren't anywhere near this paranoid, not even towards their former enemies.

ende2• 11 years ago

You're projecting this on the mentality of individuals, I don't believe that's what is being referred to but rather nation states as agents on the international stage. It's not a comment on how people think but rather the behavior of states.

r0naa5• 11 years ago

I think you got me wrong. I was referring to the dynamics of power between states not people. They are fundamentally different entities, and I agree that it would be quite a horrible society to live in.

rakoo3• 11 years ago

Interestingly, I just watched an analysis [0] of foreign policies, and the speaker makes an excellent point: the USA is a privileged country in that it only had few "conflicts" on its soil:

- Independence War

- The war of 1812

- The Civil War

And then 9/11 happens, giving Americans this new feeling of being vulnerable, that threats to the USA are a real thing. But if you actually take a look at the US presence in the world and at how even physically isolated from potential threats it is, you quickly understand how overrated the threats are.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk369bmw4o8

classicsnoot17• 11 years ago

This article is poorly written. It provides no background or supporting references to bolster its claim. I find it frustrating in the extreme. Threats do not have to be overtly threatening. A person in the room that dislikes you and has a lot of money and time can be just as threatening as a person in the room claiming to have a gun at home and an aversion towards your faith/gender/culture.

I come from a place where people blindly believe the US is the best[sic] nation in the world. Anyone that disagrees is obviously some "egghead/pinko/etc" who can't appreciate the sacrifice of others. This, the opposite extreme, is a s frustrating as the words of the dullard who penned this piece. I confront it constantly in an attempt to represent the middle path. In my years of argument, discussion, and reassessment, i have come to realize that nothing is quite what it seems. To make absolute statements, for or against anything, is to place oneself in an inherently weak position intellectually.

The author shrugs at Russia's expansionist aggression, pointing out their economic weakness as a reason they are no threat to the US. The approach to China and Venezuela is similarly misguided. Threats != weapons. Europe's relative peace since world war 2 is largely because of the US being extremely security minded.

...but who knows. Maybe Russia bullying its neighbors is just as symptom of it being misunderstood. Maybe China steals technology and data because they are just in that adolescent "acting out" phase. Maybe the world is really a nice place and the US is ruining the party for everyone.

cyphunk2• 11 years ago

It is an editorial in the opinion section. agreed references help but ive always assumed words in the opinions section of papers can be regarded as just that

bane• 11 years ago

This is basically correct, but it's shaped by a few historic factors (note I don't necessarily agree with all of these, just putting them out there):

1 - The U.S. was almost constantly engaged in a domestic or near-territorial war of some kind from its founding until quite a few years into the 20th century. [1] During the time period the U.S. massively expanded, strengthened itself by defining borders and internally squashing various kinds of rebellions. Since then, the U.S. has basically been at war continuously. America is, believe it or not, a kind of warrior culture.

2 - The U.S. usually is able to claim some kind of victory out of most of its military endeavors. Thus military engagement is seen as a tempting, low risk, policy tool. The historic level of military success the U.S. enjoys is almost unprecedented in history. By selectively choosing engagements it knows it can win, the U.S. can continue the development of this legend.

3 - Domestically, Americans tend to think of our military actions as generally being benevolent in nature (e.g. stopping communism, fighting nazis, freeing subjugated peoples). The outstanding economic success of many countries who's soil we fought on and then built strong alliances with (Germany, Korea, Japan, France, etc.) feeds into this mythos. The post-war alliances we've formed help to "encourage us" to get involved.

4 - The modern state of the world's powers, an outcome of WWII, is one in which the U.S. is militarily uncontested by any power on the planet. The relatively few conflict deaths post-WW2 [2] seems to imply that U.S. military dominance brings peace, stability and prosperity and helps drive the notion of the Pax Americana [3]

5 - The failures and generally poor outcomes in countries under other major power's influences and policies feeds into this as well. For example, at one point a majority of the land-mass on the planet was engaged in Communism, under Russian control (as the U.S.S.R.) or influence. Despite access to tremendous natural resources (and short lived modernization programs), the Communist countries failed to produce economic successes and were often engaged in tremendously damaging internal conflicts.

6 - Pax Americana is viewed by Americans as a "good thing". Even though Americans don't view themselves as expansionist colonial powers, they view the expansion of the Pax via the export of American culture and influence as a good thing. This implies then that the current state of American dominance is a good thing, and that anything that even looks like it might be vectoring towards threatening that status quo (e.g. belligerent Russia, rising China, trouble on Allied borders etc.) needs to be aggressively halted or stopped.

American policy is generally framed as #6, with 1-5 as a supporting framework. If thought of on purely military terms, American military expenditures and actions can't really be rationalized. If thought of on terms of #6 they make all the sense in the world. There's a lot of self-filtering involved too. Americans ignore the failures and negatives surrounding military action, and the various excesses that come with pouring something like half of the government's discretionary funding into the DoD.

But the illusion of continued threats is one that we've created in order to continue on justifying with what we generally believe is a better world under our influence than the one that existed before.

You can hear most of this echoed when fairly sensible ideas like "maybe Americans should pull out of Europe and let the Europeans, who are economically and technologically able, to deal with defense needs for themselves" are floated. Responses (even from Europeans) are often along the lines of "no, European countries can't be trusted to cooperate well enough" or "remember the last time Europe was left to sort things out?" and so on.

This also ignores entire continents like Africa, where Americans just simply can't figure out what to do at all. Our national notion towards Africa is basically to just ignore the continent and work on Middle-East containment instead. These days when Africa comes up at all, it's usually in terms of growing Chinese influence.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...

2 - https://vimeo.com/128373915

3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana

vinceguidry2• 11 years ago

This also ignores entire continents like Africa, where Americans just simply can't figure out what to do at all. Our national notion towards Africa is basically to just ignore the continent and work on Middle-East containment instead.

Squeaky wheel gets the kick. Africa doesn't have a history of ramming planes into buildings.

classicsnoot17• 11 years ago

So i guess the whole AIDS thing was just a fluke? We just stumbled into billions invested and millions treated?

vinceguidry2• 11 years ago

Future peace requires taking [Russia's] security concerns seriously rather than treating the country as an enemy that is always seeking to best us.

The problem with this is that Russia's security 'concerns' cannot be separated from their nefarious geopolitical ambitions. We can't win with Russia, give them an inch and they take a Crimea.

tonypace• 11 years ago

But this article is straightforward isolationism, a very old current in American political thought. The implied answer to your question is, 'So what? America is safe, that's all that matters'.

makeitsuckless2• 11 years ago

Isn't the same kind of thinking not just dominant in the US foreign policy, but also the same thing that explains much of it's internal issues?

From militarized police, the massive prison population to the proliferation of fire arms, doesn't it all lead back to seeing the world in terms of "threats"?

atorralb• 11 years ago

The last time the U.S was invaded was when Pancho Villa came from Mexico to the U.S to steal some horses from Texas. In, March 9, of 1916,Pancho Villa entered the U.S to kill some soldier in the city of Columbus and steal some horses, then in the next day Pancho Villa returned to Mexico to brag about it. That was the only time the U.S was actually invaded. Since 1947 the U.S "ministry of war" was renamed to "ministry of defense" and its "budget of war" was renamed to "budget of defense"... the name, is still a mistery to this day. What an irony, those countries that fear to be invaded, are actually the only ones that invade other countries. Regards

classicsnoot17• 11 years ago

War of 1812 was fabricated

dataker• 11 years ago

The largest threat to America is America itself.

For the past decades, America appears to be moving away from principles , objectiveness and liberty.

More and more, we see a 'democracy' ran by delusional ideologies and even blind nationalism.

classicsnoot17• 11 years ago

The history of the US is not that rosy. We have always been a nation of criminals, robber barons, and capitalist mercenaries. It was only after WWII that the idea of being a benevolent super power came into being. After that war, the US stopped seizing territory and began to go about forming the structures of cooperative peace.

The question, as i see it, is which is better: small, consistent conflicts lacing the developing sections of the world, or large, sporadic conflicts wrecking the developed sections of the world?

douche2• 11 years ago

In the nuclear age, full-out shooting wars between developed countries are a non-starter. Hence the 45 years of small-scale proxy wars between the U.S. and Soviet Union throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia.

codecamper• 11 years ago

Germany and Japan were able to become powerful again, post WW2 because they were not even allowed to spend money on any sort of army.

classicsnoot17• 11 years ago

...which they could do because their territorial integrity was guaranteed by a country that spared no expense militarily.

The world of threats to the US is an illusion

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