[p2p-research] Fwd: sustainment military strategies

Sat Dec 6 04:55:22 CET 2008

Athina,

if you're ever inspired for a blog comment on this, it would be welcome,

John: have you written on this?

Michel

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nicholas Roberts <nicholas at themediasociety.org>
Date: Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 10:03 PM
Subject: Re: Great Depression 2.0 + Climate Crisis = Climate War (Cold War 2
+ WW3)
To: Noam Chomsky <chomsky at mit.edu>

fyi

*A Grand Strategy of Sustainment*

*By Shawn Brimley, Small Wars Journal
*
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2008/03/a-grand-strategy-of-sustainmen/
A grand strategy of sustainment would be more selective in the use of
American force. Sustaining a global system will at times require the use of
military power, but would shun the preventive use of force. As a global
leader, the United States should invest sufficient resources to ensure it
continues to field the world's most dominant military. When force must be
used, a strategy of sustainment would accept some risk to ensure the
participation of allies. Working by, with, and through security alliances
helps sustain American legitimacy and moral authority and are not
deleterious to success, especially when ideational dimensions are central to
modern conflict.

*Shawn Brimley <http://www.cnas.org/en/cms/?133> is the Bacevich Fellow at
the Center for a New American Security. <http://www.cnas.org/>*

----

*SWJ Editors' Links (Updated)*

A Grand Strategy of
Sustainment<http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/a_grand_strategy_of_sustainmen.php>-
Matthew Yglesias,
*The Atlantic*

Sustainment <http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2008/03/sustainment.html> -
Ilan Goldenberg, *Democracy Arsenal*

Sustainment<http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/03/strategy-of-sus.html#more>-
Andrew Sullivan,
*The Atlantic*

Kinder, Gentler
Superpower<http://www.julescrittenden.com/2008/03/22/kinder-gentler-superpower/>-
Jules Crittenden,
*Forward Movement*

A Grand Strategy of
Sustainment<http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/2008/03/20/a-grand-strategy-of-sustainment/>-
Chet Richards,
*Defense and the National Interest*

4GW: A Solution of the Second
Kind<http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/grand-sustainment/>-
*Fabius Maximus*

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 5:04 AM, Noam Chomsky <chomsky at mit.edu> wrote:

>  You might be right.  I don't have the technical competence to judge.  I
> know that highly regarded engineers here at MIT think there are
> technological fixes, particularly solar.  Not nuclear of course, another
> wasting resource apart from numerous other problems.
>
> Thanks for the reference to Beevor.  It's been on my reading list.  On the
> Latin American efforts, I doubt that there's much systematic work -- too
> recent.  Mark Weisbrot of CEPR is likely to know, if anyone does.
>
> Hard to judge whether the global justice and related movements are more
> marginalized than they've been since the beginning.  What's really important
> is whether they can flourish.  To an extent they do.  But it's also not easy
> to evaluate.
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>  *From:* Nicholas Roberts (by way of Noam Chomsky <chomsky at mit.edu>)<chomsky at mit.edu%3E%29>
> *To:* Noam Chomsky <chomsky2 at mit.edu>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 29, 2008 9:02 AM
> *Subject:* Re: Great Depression 2.0 + Climate Crisis = Climate War (Cold
> War 2 + WW3)
>
> hi
>
> Nathon Lewis really deserves more attention...mostly because he seems to
> prove (to me at least) that we have no technological fix for energy supply
> going forward... from any know source.. even if we did decide to use ALL the
> nuclear material available for instance...
>
> just like the Cold War framework was containment, the new Climate War
> framework will be sustainment... as in the US counter-insurgency manual..
> supply of basic services for life directly from the military, indeed the
> disaster capitalism complex
>
> http://books.google.com.au/books?id=FHy5Ev8yg20C&pg=PT156&lpg=PT156&dq=sustainment+counter+insurgency&source=web&ots=03gqEL1V0C&sig=kVfxJMQgjFa9crZScofTMseAcPw&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
>
> my intuition is that a green technocracy will convert the world capitalist
> system (which is based on the military industrial system anyway) into a
> sustainable world military industrial system with a focus on carbon trading
> and ecosystem services financialisation, privatisation, genetically modified
> organisisms, nuclear power, (some renewables), massive surveillance,
> geo-enigneering, social engineering, and a massive epansion of the
> entertainment and other de-carbonised, service based industries where
> complex growth can still occur. In Revenge of Gaia Lovelock talks about a
> new low-carbon economy where most people live in cities and spend their time
> eating GMO fungi and entertaining themselves consuming digital and
> de-carbonised services... Lovelock is closely connected to various
> conservatives and captains of industry and has a big effect on the UK
> environmentalists such as Monbiot and also the new scheme Kyoto2
> www.kyoto2.org. Kyoto2 is market bases, advocates GMO, nuclear,
> geo-engineering... and is backed by many 'radicals'. It contains 4 quotes
> about climate change by Margaret Thatcher ! 2 more than Lovelock. The UK
> environmental movement is being subsumed by the Vote Blue Go Green campaign
> of the Tories under David Cameron which is an front for the broader green
> consumerism. Kind of a UK equivalent to the guilt-free green Governator in
> California.
>
> capitalism is trying to create markets in these de-carbonised complex
> growth modalities... finance, entertainment, education.. .largely around the
> internet.. for instance you can buy Second Life consumer objects, and other
> games online. although, its largely a fraud right now, supposedly Second
> Life uses more electricity than Brazil.
> http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php
>
> regarding libertarian socialism or anarcho syndicalism you might be
> insterested in new research referenced in The Battle for Spain: The Spanish
> Civil War 1936-1939 which suggests that the anarcho-syndicalist sections of
> the country had more efficient and productive economies than ceratinly
> Monarchist Spain, Francoist Spain, and probably the Socialist/Communist
> sectors. Has there been any good work done of the economic productivity,
> efficiency of the Bolivarian Revolution with its heavy emphasis on
> participation ?
>
> http://books.google.com.au/books?id=_Mt_AAAACAAJ&dq=the+battle+for+spain&ei=fqIHSZKjH4WYsgOt8eDdDQ
>
>
> having worked in some large organisations (NEws Ltd in Australia had 2000
> people in its HQ) and within the internet, it makes intuitive sense that
> collective, cooperative, particpiatory and social economies are best
> described by idea of anarcho syndicalism, libertarian socialism, or the
> participatory economics
>
> the hype around the particpation age in the internet is revolting, but it
> is really significant that such free software projects such as Linux and
> free content projects such as Wikipedia can be organised with a social and
> cooperative framework and are based on voluntary associations and
> affinities....
>
> there seem to be principles common to all historical examples past, present
> and emerging and its only some minor parameters that are different
>
> my feeling is the global justice movement and the peoples revolutions are
> being increasingly marginsalised like during the Spanish Civil War..
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 4:52 PM, <minqi.li @economics.utah.edu> wrote:
>  Dear Nicholas Roberts:
>
>  Thanks a lot for your interest in my work and thanks for bringing Nathan
> Lewis's work to my attention.
>  I am all participatory socialism or communism (though I'd hesitate to call
> it libertarian socialism).  But I tend to think that participatory democracy
> is more likely to grow out of the practice of workers' struggle than from
> theoretical schemes.  Theoretical analysis can only help to illustrate the
> broad historical possibilities and necessities.
>  It is a real possibility that the system's elites would pursue
> environmental/resources war economy as their preferred solution.  But I
> suspect the outcome is likely to accelerate the bankruptcy of the system.  A
> military-industrial economy cannot be be sustained for very long for
> economic, social, and ecological reasons.
>  The ruling elites cannot just have whatever system they want.  A viable
> system, even an exploitative one, has to meet the following criteria:
> (1)ecological sustainability (so the economy must not pursue growth, either
> for more consumption or for more military); (2)meet people's "basic needs".
> It can starve some people but the percentage of starvation has to be limited
> - this will not be easy for the current and future elites; (3) the political
> constraints imposed by the historical context - in our case, bourgeois
> democracy in some countries and socialist legacy in some other parts of the
> world as well as the global working class.
>  I think ultimately people will not wait to die, but will rise up to save
> themselves, though things probably will first get worse before a new path is
> opened.
>
> Minqi
>
>
> Quoting Nicholas Roberts < nicholas at themediasociety.org>:
>
>  hi Minq Li
>
> I have become an avid reader of your work after seeing you on The Real News
> talking about New Left in China, climate change etc
>
> am just reading your article regarding needing a kind of global socialism
> to
> deal with global climate change, http://www.monthlyreview.org/080721li.php
>
> regarding energy futures you might find the work of Nathan Lewis at Caltech
> useful, regarding the lack of technology for world energy.. Nathan Lewis'
> work is seriously under-reported, I guess mostly because it portrays a very
> grim picture going forward.. http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html
>
> I also wonder whether you have considered Libertarian Socialism or
> Participatory Economics in your advocacy for socialism or the 21st century
>
> Certainly some of the leading radical left intellectuals in the US and the
> Bolivarian Revolution are heavily based on participation
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parecon
> http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Venezuela
>
> http://books.google.com.au/books?id=CI5d2CpL60oC&dq=Economic+Justice+and+Democracy:+From+Competition+to+Cooperatio&pg=PP1&ots=zNUSctPrY6&source=bn&sig=cdMrXNJ14XAFyEKzn19Z-X4amZQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA139,M1
>
> it seems to me that we could possibly switch from neo-liberal
> corporate-state "environmental un-sustainability", to a neo-socialist
> corporate-state "environmental sustainability" but human development would
> suffer
>
> my worry is that we will be placed in a Permanent Environmental War
> Economy... a military industrial sustainability, Sustainment, you can find
> threads of this future everywhere; Revenge of Gaia, Thomas Friedman, Tim
> Flannery's chapter The Carbon Dicatorship, Naomi Klein's Disaster
> Capitalism, even Climate Code Red (Friends of the Earth co-opted), Gore
> Vidal's essay "Cue the Green God, Ted", David F Noble's The Corporate
> Climate Coup, reports by the Pentagon, UN security council etc etc
>
> "Environmental War Economy
> Governments have left it late to deal with climate change and have been
> forced to rationalise whole industry sectors and take control of many
> aspects of citizens' lives.They build dams and powerful sea wall defences
> to
> protect land from the raging oceans, yet growing numbers of environmental
> refugees must find new countries willing to accommodate them. Greenhouse
> gases are beginning to decline, but the cost to individual liberty has been
> great." http://www.forumforthefuture.org/projects/climate-futures
> a book that explores the converagance of these themes is American
> Theocracy:
> The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the
> 21stCentury (Hardcover)
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067003486X/leftbusinessobseA/
>
> for a while, I've been researching a book idea: Climate War: Apocalypse,
> Sustainment or Liberation, which explores these ideas, and your work is
> exteremely useful
>
> I was working a News Corp when the War on Terror was re-announced after
> S11,
> and many people trusted our glorious leaders, it seemed like a just war, it
> seems to me, that we are making the same mistake, when we rush to support
> the new war on climate change
>
> we need to ask who are we fighting for ? what kind of war are we fighting ?
> are we setting-up a new Green technocratic elite ? or is this a war of
> liberation ? is more war even the right way to frame and to act ?
>
> keep up the good work
>
> cheers
>
> --
> Nicholas Roberts
> [im] skype:niccolor
>
> Australian Social Forum
> http://www.AustralianSocialForum.org
>
> "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the
> new
> cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms
> appear.
>   * Gramsci. Prison Notebooks
>
>
>
>
> Minqi Li, Assistant Professor
> Department of Economics, University of Utah
> Salt Lake City, UT 84112
> Phone: 801-581-7697; Fax: 801-585-5649
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> --
> Nicholas Roberts
> [im] skype:niccolor
>
> Australian Social Forum
> http://www.AustralianSocialForum.org
>
> "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the
> new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms
> appear.
>   * Gramsci. Prison Notebooks
>
>

-- 
-- 
Nicholas Roberts
[im] skype:niccolor

http://www.Permaculture.TV
http://www.WorkerCooperatives.com
http://www.AustralianSocialForum.org

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