Where Goes The Enemy?
Where Goes The Enemy?
Here we are at the beginning of the 21st century (dependant on which point in time you want to start from) and the race has started to beef up nuclear weaponry. At this time it must seem strange to many people that with the demise of USSR doctorial communism which was originally seen as the prime potential enemy of the cold war and is now a ‘friendly’ power, just what do saps need nukes for? The mythical peace dividend that was hyped in the 80s has not really materialised. There has been cosy European ties with Russia and its ex regional satellite states promoted by their importance as producer and corridors of energy but there has been no real switch of defensive resources into non destructive activities.
Today, Blair’s UK commits to renewing nukes – submarines and sub sea surface to air nuke missiles at a underestimated cost of £ 20bln +. The dispute now is what is the justification for such a decision when there is no longer an obvious state enemy and the MAD scenario against their use still applies? That the UK has an independent nuke capacity is debatable given that the keys are held by the USA, never the less having access to nukes gives clout. Why the labour party is now so pliant for nukes has nothing to do with whether they are needed or not for the defence of the UK, it is all about political credibility and the need to stay in power. Neither they nor any other party would have the strength to give all up and dismantle nuke weapon capacity, even the liberals party being always apposed to nukes would not be allowed to disarm. So the decision to renew the UK nukes store has little to do with knowing an actual potential enemy or the argument that with the future being uncertain, it cannot be known from where a threat may come from. So for now it’s about retaining the actual and public credibility of the capability to keep the country safe.
Although understandable, regrettably this is the wrong choice and in looking for a potential enemy, eyes are in the wrong place. The whole rational for nukes has changes. War may have been about asset take over or imposing different ideology, pursuable if single shot non expansive and containable weaponry is used. This usable limitation of conventional weaponry still applies now. However nukes are only really effect against whole state conflicts to slow them down and are usable where there is little asset to be lost but not so wilfully used if it destroys valuable energy assets like oil, gas, coal and other resources that are thereby made unobtainable. Essentially the mad use of nukes is no use against individual numbers or fervour where more personnel weaponry is required. It does not matter that those against nukes may think that it is inconceivable that nukes could again be used, it highly likely that unfortunately some will be used at some stage.
A few countries still play with the notion of chemical / biological war fare, ideal if it can be contained and has a time expiry limitation. The problem with these sorts of chemical weapons is that it is unpredictable and susceptible to environ parameters. It cannot be accurately targeted, there is collateral spread, relatively slow acting and of limited effective zoning. Biological weaponry is of similar limited use and is unstable, this is about to change.
The very recent discovery that the DNA genome is more complex than anticipated offers some interesting ideas to play with. It had been assumed that of the DNA strand only a small part of it had any direct relationship with what made a human, as much of it was similar to other animals. Surprisingly (not) it is a not a matter of knowing what part of the gene in DNA is responsible for say illness traits, it is also more important to know where the base pair of gene in DNA appears in the string that can dictate a traits. So it is the position of base pair in relation to all others that provide a key to identifying subtle characteristic codifiers and their effects. As each individual has unique DNA sequence they also have basic genetic racial traits, in knowing this, it will be possible to develop a genetic carrier weapon that can target a specific racial group or features. This is the beginning of a created genetics war, so we are not talking about a broad spectrum chemical / biological weapon as in anthrax, small pox or gas derived weapon that kills all it attacks but something that is much more selective and efficient.
Of course having a selective weapon may be useful against a target identifier that kills and leaves no trace or collateral damage but the pursuit of such weapons presupposes knowing who the enemy is likely to be, the drawback is that the weapon has to be either very fact reacting and or disguisable with something like HN15, haemorrhagic fevers, anthrax, smallpox, HIV etc. The idea of a genetic weapon is not a fanciful idea and is not limited to adaptation of known pathogens, it is conceivable to create new pathogens or have undetectable human carriers.
It is this that poses the potential of the greatest danger, whereas nuke activity is monitored and some element of governing pressure is applied to 'rogues', no such control is proposed or possible yet with genetic manipulation and development!
The use of any weapon would depend on the time allocation available prior to release and against what. A nuke opponent would have to be incapacitated before a genetic weapon could be used but against a non nuke opponent one could be used quite early. This is assuming one knew from where the threat derived from, something that could be difficult with a loosed genetic weapon of uncertain origin.
So having the destructive defence tool of any description is one thing, identifying the putative potential target enemy that may alter as the economics of energy changes is another but the real enemy now is saps sociological pathology reaction to conflicting ideology being driven by environment collapse
5.12.06
© Renot 2006
Here we are at the beginning of the 21st century (dependant on which point in time you want to start from) and the race has started to beef up nuclear weaponry. At this time it must seem strange to many people that with the demise of USSR doctorial communism which was originally seen as the prime potential enemy of the cold war and is now a ‘friendly’ power, just what do saps need nukes for? The mythical peace dividend that was hyped in the 80s has not really materialised. There has been cosy European ties with Russia and its ex regional satellite states promoted by their importance as producer and corridors of energy but there has been no real switch of defensive resources into non destructive activities.
Today, Blair’s UK commits to renewing nukes – submarines and sub sea surface to air nuke missiles at a underestimated cost of £ 20bln +. The dispute now is what is the justification for such a decision when there is no longer an obvious state enemy and the MAD scenario against their use still applies? That the UK has an independent nuke capacity is debatable given that the keys are held by the USA, never the less having access to nukes gives clout. Why the labour party is now so pliant for nukes has nothing to do with whether they are needed or not for the defence of the UK, it is all about political credibility and the need to stay in power. Neither they nor any other party would have the strength to give all up and dismantle nuke weapon capacity, even the liberals party being always apposed to nukes would not be allowed to disarm. So the decision to renew the UK nukes store has little to do with knowing an actual potential enemy or the argument that with the future being uncertain, it cannot be known from where a threat may come from. So for now it’s about retaining the actual and public credibility of the capability to keep the country safe.
Although understandable, regrettably this is the wrong choice and in looking for a potential enemy, eyes are in the wrong place. The whole rational for nukes has changes. War may have been about asset take over or imposing different ideology, pursuable if single shot non expansive and containable weaponry is used. This usable limitation of conventional weaponry still applies now. However nukes are only really effect against whole state conflicts to slow them down and are usable where there is little asset to be lost but not so wilfully used if it destroys valuable energy assets like oil, gas, coal and other resources that are thereby made unobtainable. Essentially the mad use of nukes is no use against individual numbers or fervour where more personnel weaponry is required. It does not matter that those against nukes may think that it is inconceivable that nukes could again be used, it highly likely that unfortunately some will be used at some stage.
A few countries still play with the notion of chemical / biological war fare, ideal if it can be contained and has a time expiry limitation. The problem with these sorts of chemical weapons is that it is unpredictable and susceptible to environ parameters. It cannot be accurately targeted, there is collateral spread, relatively slow acting and of limited effective zoning. Biological weaponry is of similar limited use and is unstable, this is about to change.
The very recent discovery that the DNA genome is more complex than anticipated offers some interesting ideas to play with. It had been assumed that of the DNA strand only a small part of it had any direct relationship with what made a human, as much of it was similar to other animals. Surprisingly (not) it is a not a matter of knowing what part of the gene in DNA is responsible for say illness traits, it is also more important to know where the base pair of gene in DNA appears in the string that can dictate a traits. So it is the position of base pair in relation to all others that provide a key to identifying subtle characteristic codifiers and their effects. As each individual has unique DNA sequence they also have basic genetic racial traits, in knowing this, it will be possible to develop a genetic carrier weapon that can target a specific racial group or features. This is the beginning of a created genetics war, so we are not talking about a broad spectrum chemical / biological weapon as in anthrax, small pox or gas derived weapon that kills all it attacks but something that is much more selective and efficient.
Of course having a selective weapon may be useful against a target identifier that kills and leaves no trace or collateral damage but the pursuit of such weapons presupposes knowing who the enemy is likely to be, the drawback is that the weapon has to be either very fact reacting and or disguisable with something like HN15, haemorrhagic fevers, anthrax, smallpox, HIV etc. The idea of a genetic weapon is not a fanciful idea and is not limited to adaptation of known pathogens, it is conceivable to create new pathogens or have undetectable human carriers.
It is this that poses the potential of the greatest danger, whereas nuke activity is monitored and some element of governing pressure is applied to 'rogues', no such control is proposed or possible yet with genetic manipulation and development!
The use of any weapon would depend on the time allocation available prior to release and against what. A nuke opponent would have to be incapacitated before a genetic weapon could be used but against a non nuke opponent one could be used quite early. This is assuming one knew from where the threat derived from, something that could be difficult with a loosed genetic weapon of uncertain origin.
So having the destructive defence tool of any description is one thing, identifying the putative potential target enemy that may alter as the economics of energy changes is another but the real enemy now is saps sociological pathology reaction to conflicting ideology being driven by environment collapse
5.12.06
© Renot 2006
posted by Renot at 4:18 am
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