My interpretation of David Kennedy's GSM Ranking {Aaron Wee}

Prof Kennedy's Threat Ranking was based on his conception not so much of direct threats or potential for harm to the actors, but of the limits and tolerances of unfavorable conditions levelled against them. In that thinking, his belief in the potential for serious destabilisation is in marked contrast to the Class Aggregate (which paints a nearly uniform yellow shade of danger). However, it was apparent in the class discussion that Prof Kennedy did not fully understand the concept and role of InfoWar in the threat matrix, or perhaps he did not even regard it as a worthy destabilisng factor in the greater scheme of things. That being said, it was perhaps not surprising to note that Resource Conflict and the Environment were apparently of a greater concern than Warfare and Terrorism.

To Prof Kennedy, the amibugous transhuman is constantly in a struggle for resource conflict, a stance that I share with him. What is the history of human activity without the history of economic activity, the endless cycle of demand and supply and the eternal problem of limited resources unable to satiate unlimited wants. Human economic competition, be it a struggle for basic needs or the oneup-manship that has dogged bourgeois society since its haughty beginnings, has been of prime and utmost concern for all of humanity. As the resource conflict turns from wants to needs, when our basic survival and need for food, water and living space gets threatened, society will come to the terms that it has reached its productive limit. To overcome, first economic, then social then violent conflict will consume the common man. With very good reason, Prof Kennedy realises the immediacy of the threat, perhaps not in such dire terms, but as an immediate limit to our respective tolerance levels.

Of note is Prof Kennedy's interpretation of the System actor, especially telling in his playing down of the threats posed by warfare, states at risk and resource conflict, to its existence and continuation. The reassertion that there is no state system and that we live in essentially an international anarchy, was the basic underlying of his understanding. However, for him to see terrorism as a greater threat to the state system is a little perplexing. If one is to consider internal revolutions of the scale of Bolshevism (that essentially shunted the Soviet Union from the international community for a decade) as terrorism and crime and not as say warfare or states at risk, then the justification of terrorism's threat to the system is apparent. However, as it stands, there is no greater threat to the existence of state systems then external influence as manifested by warfare. As evidenced by imperialism when European powers forcibly dismantled the internal systems of Africa, the Americas and Asia, warfare is a great impetus for the revamping and reorganizing of state systems. Continental conflicts have sometimes, while not demolishing existing state systems, repudiated international structure within the European context and replaced concepts and ideas of international relations, moving from princely actors to national actors. The conquests of Napoleon and Hitler have redefined European polities and their views on sovereignty and what it means to be a part of the international system of states.

The concept of networks and their role in the InfoWar was also, I feel, not fully explored. One of the key consequences of our new information age is the rapid ability for any single individual to utilise the network advantage of technology to diffuse thoughts and ideas and use that network as a force multiplier. This is the age where information and the battle for hearts and minds are won and lost through the power of networks. Networks are more than just infrastructure components of our modern society; they are slowly but determinedly integrating into our common agenda. Any individual with basic access to the world wide web can, with very little knowledge and capital, disseminate radical views that oppose conventional state-sponsored information sources, and with eloquence and luck, reach just as broad or an even broader audience. The multiplicative impact of networking abilities has enabled information to become a critical resource and acts as a focus for the transhuman actor to band together to form supra-national entities with international influence. Broad, loose coalitions of politically-minded individuals with differing social goals have been known to exert influence over mainstream media and local government to enact significant changes, and more radically, militant groups have harnessed that same collaborative power to draw more to their ranks. Individuals may now see themselves as extensions of networks rather than states themselves, a drawing together of ideology and belief rather than by nationality or state. Last seen in a broader context in the Middle Ages, that was known as the Crusades. The ability to harness hearts and minds and to gear them towards singular goals and methods can be used to great effect and can only be ignored at one's own risk.

States at Risk recieves disappointingly low attention on Prof Kennedy's ranking, perhaps duly so considering the sometimes criminal lack of interest by the average civilian of unaffected regions and the much lower than average people directly affected by it. However, once again, states at risk are fertile jumping off points for a series of myriad problems for states, systems and networks in general. An immediate effect would be the great influx of refugees into neighbouring states that would inevitably further burden and exacerbate existing resource conflicts, from tangible items like housing and basic necessities, to intangibles like employment, education and social rights. There is also the distinct issue of conflicts and problems from states at risk spreading into these neighbour states, either through an extension of the conflict or as a result of tensions brought about by the refugees. In the modern failed state conflict, national boundaries are not as hard and fast as they once were and paramilitaries and guerillas that often dog these states at risk are not beholden to respect international laws and treaties. Additionally, when states fail, law and order are often the first to be lost in the conflicts and struggles that arise. With that comes the distinct but remote possibility of international crime and terrorism. This has been graphically illustrated in Afghanistan, but can also be seen in Indonesia's failure to rein in the pirates of the Straits of Malacca, the trade in conflict diamods in sub-Saharan Africa, the long civil conflict in Uganda and the drug-related trade in Colombia and Burma. States at Risk, though they may not pose immediate state- or system-existentialist threats, contribute significantly to the dangers that exist to confront international order.

Posted by Aaron Wee on October 14, 2006 03:14 PM | Permalink

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