These comments may be of interest to those who are concerned with security. Several processes which have been going on quietly for some time are now combining to produce an unstable situation. Great and rapid changes may be expected; those who fail to read the omens could be hurt.
Frontiers are losing their significance as nations become increasingly interdependent, forming trade associations and common markets. The global communications network not only makes the world seem smaller; societies are opening up, revealing themselves, becoming more vulnerable to each other. Weapons are smaller, deadlier, preciser; information on their fabrication and use is more readily available. So more nations and organisations are acquiring access to nuclear, chemical, force field or other arms and more hobbyists and chemists are able to assemble or synthesise very nasty things in their garages.
Consider the following scenario:
Ten kg of a very poisonous gas are released in a subway ventilator during a rush hour. There are several thousand casualties. More or less at the same time data diskettes, video cassettes and letters are thrown into mail boxes and over garden walls, addressed to newsmedia organisations. They are in different languages - and apparently come from different Attacker Organisations. When pieced together the message to the Victim Government is roughly as follows:
'Many other deadly devices have been hidden in many places (ready to poison water mains, blast nuclear or chemical plants, etc). They will be used if our demands below are not met to the letter.
'We regret the loss of innocent lives deeply. The Government must give X million to the family of each person killed or injured. The necessary funds must be taken proportionately from the 5% wealthiest people in the country. This must be done within one month.
'No attempt whatsoever must be made to find us or our weapons. No rewards may be offered, no pictures posted, no house searches made for any such purpose. All customs and police are to be removed from all sea and airports. All walls, mines, watch towers and officials are to be removed from all frontiers. All police and customs data files and computers must be destroyed.
'Three quarters of the military and police budgets are to be redistributed as follows: X millions to families with yearly incomes of less than ..., Y millions to charities A, B, ... Z [some of which are abroad].
'All land confiscated from farmers during the last five years is to be returned to them at no cost by the confiscating institutions.
'All prisons are to be opened and their inmates freed.
'The following are to be destroyed completely: all nuclear weapons, test sites, launch pads, these types of warships, tanks and planes: ... The destruction is to be televised and the wreckage left accessible for public inspection at the following locations... by ../../.. All other depots of weapons and munitions must be left totally unguarded and people invited to help themselves. Everyone is invited to report any incidences of non-compliance to these orders via CB radio or the official newsmedia which must broadcast them. Anonymous checks will be made to ensure that this is done.'
The Government refuses to deal with the terrorists. There are riots - many people demand, some get, gas masks and guns (making them impervious to police tear gas and able to shoot back). The army is put on alert and a nationwide search turns up some more gas - which may have been left as a warning. There are false alarms, some people are caught and confess. The Government maintains it has the situation under control. Six weeks later power lines are cut and another two devices go off at night in neighbourhoods where many high officials live. In a while letters and cartoon cassettes are found in Athens, Berlin, Calcutta which make headlines around the world. The demands are repeated. Additionally, the Government is ordered to have all overseas bases closed and troops brought home. Several prominent politicians and generals must be shot in front of TV cameras. Their corpses are to be left on Main Square. This time, compliance is more or less complete. Once frontiers are open, anyone can bring anything in and escape with impunity. The flow of more or less organised illegal immigrants swells to a flood.
Conventional overt tactics of warfare - standing armies, star wars gear, battleships - are useless against such terrorist or covert tactics. As nuclear and other arms proliferate, conventional tactics are increasingly useless against each other too. There is no telling how high local warlets could escalate - several billion dead, nuclear winter, the biosphere poisoned for millennia. So military establishments tend to keep each other stalemated in postures of heavily armed non-intervention. Having nothing else to do, their arms tend to turn inwards where they meet with less resistance. Hence the dreary scene of military coups and dictatorships with a 'delicate balance of terror' background. Conventional tactics are very expensive. At present about one sixth of the earth's produce - about 1 to 2 million $ a minute - is spent on arms. This enormous burden is everywhere crushing the life it is supposed to protect. The dreary scene is also one of enormous protection rackets which appear to justify each other in mutual tacit collusion. But they are, in fact, becoming worse than useless. We would obviously all be much better off if we could be rid of such rackets altogether.
The basic difference between covert and conventional tactics is that in conventional tactics protagonists know who and where they are. Secrets and surprise are essential to both - in this sense conventional tactics are covert also. Acquiring a country which has been reduced to radioactive rubble or poisoned by Agent Orange is not as rewarding as taking it over with most homes, factories and people intact. But, since they risk revealing themselves, any Attacker Organisations with such intentions must be careful how they do this. Other organisations might well be inclined to combine against them - especially if the Attacker Organisations are perceived as being brutal. But covert tactics can be used beneficially in ways that overt tactics cannot. There is a potential here to give new hope to oppressed, wasted lives, re-green countrysides which have been exhausted by taxation and erosion. If Attacker Organisations demand ransom, they must ask it for many besides themselves. They may be able to force their victims to self-destruct - but do not stand to gain much from doing so. So there may be an element of altruism here; perhaps a hint of chivalrous ideals. In any case, covert tactics require bravery, loyalty and initiative in ways that the recent wars did not.
Traditional forms of warfare are limited to 'outbreaks' - singularities in space and time of violence which could now be so extreme as to be suicidal for all. But opportunities for covert tactics and the needs and means to use them are developing continually. Covert tactics can be precise, effective, rewarding, cheap. Good use can be made of surprise, bluff, timing and the adversaries' weakest points. They can be used to pre-empt situations in which overt aggressive interaction might seem justified. They could, perhaps, help relieve the planet of its dangerous, expensive overburden of useless military personnel and material, diverting resources to more beneficial ends - education, cleaning up the environment, exploring inner and outer space ...
But it is wise not to be naive. The earth's population, which was just over one billion at the beginning of this century is expected to pass six when it ends, and to continue to grow exponentially. Generalised economic collapse may be imminent. Very nasty combinations of covert and conventional tactics continue to be possible - particularly against those who are unwise enough not to prepare potential adversaries with suitable covert tactics. The best way of doing this is not with secret agents. In order to deal with such tactics effectively, a government must have the full cooperation of its people. Harsh controls, and the taxes required to enforce them, can be counterproductive.
Any change from conventional to covert tactics is pointless unless the need to kill is itself reduced. A wider spread of covert tactics without more justice could lead to the generalised and inconclusive sort of gang feuding which characterised parts of the Renaissance. In order to be cohesive, society must be fairer. The first requirement for survival in this age is that the exchange system should be honest. A little thought will show that this is not possible as long as our economies run on tokens whose supply is controlled by some for the benefit of others. We must get rid of money which, though intrinsically worthless, continues to be treated as though it had value.
The approach I propose for a free and fair society, the Community Co-operation Co-ordinator, received the Institute's 'Best Economic Social Invention' award. Computer programs are available to run this system on compatible micro-computers. When linked together, such mini-economic systems give society the new nervous system it requires to deal effectively with all kinds of disruption and subversion. Not incidentally such a network is also an exchange system based on agreements rather than money in which there is no inflation or unemployment; all exchanges can be transparently fair and efficient.
The Community Co-operation Co-ordinator is described in the chapter on New Money Systems. Conrad Hopman's address is BP 225, Noumea, New Caledonia, South Pacific (tel 687 26 21 26).