Military Bookshelf: Grand Strategy x 2

Military.com - Tom Miller

Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, by P.W. Singer.  Penguin, $29.95 (499p) ISBN 978-1-59420-198-1

Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, likes to tackle provocative topics.  His earlier books have taken on the expanding role of private military contractors (Corporate Warriors) and the scourge of child soldiers (Children at War).  For the past four years, he's been studying the burgeoning field of robotics and its application to the battlefield.  This is his report from the front line of a gathering revolution in human affairs. 

After talking with scores of roboticists and military officers and visiting research and manufacturing facilities, the author is convinced that the robotics revolution is real, is upon us, and will change everything.  After quoting Bill Gates on the coming ubiquity of robots, Singer concludes that robotics is leading to "a revolution in warfare and technology that will literally transform human history."  As for warfare, the widespread use of robots will usher in "the end of human's monopoly on war."  

This, and much else here, is provocative, but that's the author's intent.  He wants to shake us up and start a national debate on the subject before the future overtakes us and renders the debate moot. 

Singer is all over the map, but in a good way.  He traces the early development of robotics, lays out where we are now, and outlines a tentative roadmap to the future.  Some of this is familiar--we all know about Predators and other unmanned vehicles being used successfully in Iraq and Afghanistan--and some is surprising.  Who knew that DARPA--the Pentagon's primary research lab--is working on 22 different prototypes of intelligent vehicles"?  All of it is interesting. 

There's an intriguing examination of the role of science fiction as a spur to invention.  There's also a disturbing look at the American educational system.  If the U.S. is to remain competitive in the Brave New World of the future, we'll need more, not less, scientists and engineers.  That looks increasingly unlikely.

Japan already leads in robotic research, and 1/3 of the world's robots are there.  South Korea has the "best IT infrastructure in the world."  While only 13% of American students major in science or engineering, fully 50% of Chinese do.  And, the most sobering statistic: In standardized international testing, U.S. high school students' rank 22nd in math and science. 

Singer quotes Gates again: "'When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I'm terrified for our workforce of tomorrow.'"  And, it's not a problem that money can solve.  We already outspend our competitors.

The biggest, knottiest issue about the future of robotics, of course, concerns the question of autonomy.  Will robots acquire the ability to think for themselves and take over?  It's an issue that's almost as old as computers.  It hasn't happened yet.  Not even close.  But, that doesn't stop people--even lots of scientists--from worrying. 

Singer examines that issue from both sides and he suggests some other questions that society should be asking including perhaps this crucial one: Will unmanned fighting platforms make war more attractive as an option and more likely? 

Wired for War is a sprawling, eye-opening, important look at an evolving technology that promises to change the future in profound ways.  Read it.  Be prepared. 

Quotable:

"One of the original sins of our species is its inability to live in peace."

"[O]ur machines may not be the only thing wired for war." 

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Great Powers: America and the World after Bush, by Thomas P.M. Barnett. Putnam, $29.95 (480p) ISBN 978-0-399-15537-6

The future is a moving object, but that doesn't stop people from trying to predict it.  The truth is that nobody is very good at it, but Thomas Barnett--entrepreneur, teacher, writer, speaker, and self-described "grand strategist"--has had about as much success as anyone recently.

Barnett burst upon the scene in 2004 with the publication of The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century.  Barnett's big idea--then and now--is that globalization--the U.S.-led initiative to spread its liberal trade order throughout the world--is the key to future peace and prosperity. 

With globalization as his prism, Barnett divides the world into two spheres: the Functioning Core (that has embraced it) and the Non-Integrating Gap (that has not).  Future conflict, he argues, will come from the Gap where failed states and non-state actors like al-Qaeda resist "globalization's creeping embrace."  As the world's Leviathan power, the U.S. will have to police this Gap. 

Furthermore, he argues that the U.S. military must be restructured to contend with anti-globalization forces spread throughout the gap--but most concentrated in the Middle East, south Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.  Such a restructuring would retain a slimmed-down Leviathan force to win wars while building up a robust SysAdmin (or stabilization) force to secure the peace. 

Barnett's been looking into his crystal ball and is back with another riff on this basic theme.  The big-picture future remains the same: the globalization train has left the station; there's no stopping it now.  And, rejecting the toxic populism of critics like Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and the UAW, the author endorses free trade as humanity's best hope for a better future. 

Moreover, he notes that globalization has prompted "the simultaneous rise of numerous great powers."  Here he cites the BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India, and China.  India and China seem to be good bets.  But, if India gets drawn into war with Pakistan, all bets are off.  It's still too early to judge Russia's future, and seers have been predicting the rise of Brazil for a hundred years. 

Barnett argues that the rise of a global middle class in the ever-expanding Functioning Core is an inoculation against war.  The trouble the world faces over the coming decades can be found among the teeming Gap masses--some one billion--falling further and further behind. 

To his great credit Barnett is no isolationist.  Despite his criticism of the Bush Administration for its "Seven Deadly Sins"--including a "lust for geopolitical primacy" and the "demonization of enemies"--he contends that the "impulse for economic expansion" is embedded in "America's DNA," and that this is still America's world to shape.  He's also no declinist.  In fact, he's quite optimistic about America's future and its role in the world. 

We just need a few--or twelve--changes to set things right again, and these are conveniently set out in the author's "Twelve-Step Recovery Program for American Grand Strategy."  Not only does this smack of America's rising therapeutic culture but the suggestions aren't very original: reject the unilateralism of Bush, admit our mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, trust the Iranians.  (Can't you just see a rehabilitated--and humble--Uncle Sam explaining to Oprah how he managed his reformation?) 

That's mostly what's wrong with Barnett's latest tome.  It often reads like a Power Point presentation, complete with fancy lists, glib slogans, and built-in jokes.  That and the complete absence of humility.  Barnett is a clever guy and an engaging stylist, and Great Powers is often provocative stuff.   But, history has a way of surprising us.  I suspect that includes Barnett too. 

Quotable:

"We [Americans] want it [the world] instantly tidied up with no terrorists and no autocrats and no environmental damage--a grand strategy predicated on some notion of perfection.  Meanwhile, that young, ambitious non-Western chunk of humanity focuses on an entirely different agenda--a grand strategy that entails getting ahead at all costs."

"[N]uclear weapons killed great power war."

"[E]very country can be inoculated [against extreme ideologies], and the 'vaccine' is called economic connectivity."

"The tendency right now to blame everything on global warming is grand-strategic escapism at its worst."

"[T]he next forty years are likely to be among the most tumultuous the world has ever seen."

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Copyright 2009 by Tom Miller