One of the concepts that is of interest in various industries, notably, the consumer electronics industry, is “convergence.” This is an effort to understand where various technologies may converge in order to create new products by merging the functions of the converging technologies. An example is the cell phone which is being viewed as a phone, camera and computer. Whether and how these can be productively integrated is a matter of considerable study.
I want to consider a more ominous case of convergence, namely that of military technology and the loss of human freedom and of democracy.
From one direction there is our volunteer army. It came into existence after the Vietnam conflict because the military did not want to deal again with all the resistance a conscripted army generated. This is the first step in removing the military from citizen influence. It has become an army for hire, i.e. paid in the form of an education, new citizenship, etc. With the volunteer army serving under contract, not unlike the French Foreign Legion, the military has gained a level of independence from public concern and scrutiny. The result has created a military primarily of the poor. As it is relatively easy for an older generation to send a younger generation into battle so it is even easier to send the poor into battle. There is ample evidence that the Vietnam level of resistance has not been forthcoming because the relatively affluent have not been required to serve.
.The military’s next level of independence is gaining momentum, namely, the roboticization and other technological innovations applied to the military. Examples are: DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has released research grants for drugs that will permit soldiers to fight up to three days in combat without debilitating fatigue; A recently released military vehicle carries a ray gun that makes humans feel as though they are on fire thereby debilitating them. The stated aim is to develop technology that debilitates rather than kills, i.e. non-lethal weapons. The products of DARPA’s immense technological budget are not subject to any civilian agency, e.g. FDA, EPA, etc. review. There is an enormous level of human-control technology development taking place with no civilian oversight. With respect to the “supersoldier” a recent report states
“…the Pentagon seems intent on giving its troops every tactical advantage while they are in combat, even if those advantages are distinctly disadvantageous to the long-term health of American servicemen. However, whatever FDA regulators privately think about the ‘supersoldier’ of the future, any attempt to materially change military policy would likely result in the Pentagon simply flouting FDA regulatory control.” (Better Fighting Through Chemistry? The Role of FDA Regulation in Crafting the Warrior of the Future, March 8, 2004)
This developing technology is not significantly subject to control by the citizen’s representatives, which further distances the military from the citizen and increases the danger to democracy by a very powerful agency focused on controlling humans and on destruction.
Another trend is the increasing involvement of the military in domestic issues. Notoriously the military under Rumsfeld found no problem developing and promoting the Total Information Awareness program for spying on citizen telephone calls. The F.B.I was created specifically to keep the military out of domestic affairs.
So now we have the substitution of a volunteer, i.e. paid, army to minimize citizen influence, a robotized, supersoldier, army much more attached to the military that to our civilian institutions and a simultaneous incursion into domestic affairs by the military, which is exactly what the nation’s founders feared.
One further consideration: The military is designed to cope with masses of people, e.g. armies, navies and air forces. The domestic equivalent to an army is the protesting crowd. One way of looking at DARPA creations is their potential for crowd control and dispersal. The description of the device that makes people feel as though they are on fire specifically mentions crowd control. It does not take much of an imagination to see military technology turned on citizens by malmotivated individuals such as G. W. Bush. One can recall Attorney General John Ashcort equating protest with treason because it aided the enemy. To my mind, progressives need to promote not only reducing the size and influence of the military, but also placing their technological developments under civilian review.
Bob Newhard
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2 comments:
The all-volunteer military should stay all-volunteer. 1. We can afford to pay enough to attract and retain volunteers. 2. Volunteers put pressure on the military hierarchy and the broader society to treat its military members fairly in peace and war. 3. Volunteers are a fair way to fill personnel requirements. A draft would tap only a small portion of age-eligible persons and thus would discriminate against some.
I think it is important to understand that our volunteer army is a paid army either by educational benefit or other reward. These rewards are the primary reason for serving. Were it not for these benefits the manpower shortage would be exponentially worse. This means it is a paid army and a paid army is a mercenary army. Mercenary armies are an inherent threat to a democracy. They do not serve the society, but serve those who pay them. Our initial fight for freedom was, in part, a fight against Hessian mercenaries in the pay of the British. Culturally we have abhorred mercenary armies.
In a democracy it is the citizens, not the military, who put pressure on government for any change. Unfortunately we now have corporations able to do more of that than the citizens. Aside from being a profound threat to democracy, a paid mercenary army means, of necessity, that the poor will fight the wars. This has been true of every mercenary army from Rome to our Civil War in which the wealthy could avoid service by paying another to serve in his place. While there may be some who enjoy or find meaning in warfare or who believe their society is in such dire peril that pay or other reward is irrelevant, but as is now amply illustrated, the majority do not. The absence of a draft is the major reason we have so little protest of the Iraq war compared to Vietnam.
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