How do you Stop the Arms Race? By Starting a New War, for Instance

Do you see a ghostly Seneca Cliff in this graph? (source)

There is a good rule that you should always be careful when extrapolating your data, especially over the long term. And there is an even better rule saying that you should never, never extrapolate an exponential growth. The uncertainty in the data of an exponentially growing curve increases exponentially, too, and that makes your extrapolation meaningless very soon.

But, in the figure above, they extrapolated an exponentially growing curve for the military expenses of the US and China over more than 30 years!  The origin of that curve above seems to be the RAND Corporation. I couldn't find the original source, but it has been reproduced in the blog of the Wall Street Journal and on Zero Hedge. 

It looks like someone seriously proposed this extrapolation. But consider a few numbers: according to the chart, by 2050 the US would spend more than 20% of its present GdP for the military! (it is now about 3%). It might be possible if the US GdP were to increase in proportion. But, from the graph, they assume a growth of nearly a factor of 5 (from ca. 600 billion dollars, today, to 2.9 trillion in little more than 30 years. It means that the GdP should double at least twice in 30 years, that is, the US economy should grow at the rate of 6% (twice the current rate!) every year for the next 30 years. Otherwise, the US government would bankrupt itself even faster than it is doing now. 

Now, you might want to dismiss this graph as one of the many silly forecasts that are part of the everyday chat on how this or that sector of the economy is going to grow -- and therefore everyone should invest on it. But, there is something in this idea that military expenses are going to rise in the future. It has to do with a typical enhancing feedback effect. One side raises its military expenses and causes the other side to do the same. And that's the feedback that creates a ladder on which both contenders climb without knowing how to step down. Another parallel effect is the financial mechanism. Large investments in military expenses create a powerful lobby representing the military-industrial complex. A powerful lobby successfully pushes for higher investments and that, in turn, creates an even more powerful lobby. It is all part of what we call "arms race."

Here is another example of an arms race: how military expenses grew in the years before the 1st World War. (from Our World in Data -- see also this link)

The impression is that, by 1913, nobody knew how to stop the race and that the only "solution" that could be found to block the ever-increasing costs was to start a war -- which they did.

The similarity of the current situation with that of the years leading to WWI has been noted more than once. So, are we going to see a new world war in the near future? We cannot say: history doesn't really repeat itself, although it does rhyme. It might not be necessary to start a new world war to stop the exponential growth of military expenses, but the data are not encouraging. A new war could really be near. And, a nuclear war could generate a Seneca Collapse so drastic and disastrous that it could really be the "war ending all wars" -- as WWI should have been -- at least those not fought with clubs and stone axes only.

Will we Ever be Able to End Wars? How the Wise are Confused

One hundred years after the end of the war that was to end all wars, the First World War, we still don't understand what wars are, why we fight wars, why we can't stop fighting them. We are surrounded, it seems, by things we don't understand: why do people fight wars? Why are wars so commmon? Why can't we find a way to stop them? Why people still fall for the most obvious propaganda tricks?

Below, you can find an excerpt from the 1980 book by David Wilkinson, "Deadly Quarrels" that starts with a list of the various theories put forward in modern times to explain how peace could be attained. Still perfectly valid today, the list highlights the confusion pervading the attempts to put an end to war. It reminds the 200+ theories that Demandt reports for the reasons of the fall of the Roman Empire. More than that, it reminds of Paul of Tarsus (Corinthians 1) when he says "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." And this is war, a foolish thing that keep confounding us.

From "Deadly Quarrels" by David Wilkinson, 1980 (*)

The most common way of contributing to the debate over war causation and peace strategy has been to assert some definite theory, to show how it fits current circumstances, and to deduce immediate practical conclusions. If we follow this public debate, we may expect to be told that war is a consequence, for instance, of wickedness, lawlessness, alienation, aggressive regimes, imperialism, poverty, militarism, anarchy, or weakness. Seldom will any evidence be offered. Instead the writer is likely to present a peace strategy that matches his theory of war causation. We shall therefore learn that we can have:

• Peace through morality. Peace (local and global) can be brought about by a moral appeal, through world public opinion, to leaders and peoples not to condone or practice violence, aggression, or war, but to shun and to denounce them.
• Peace through law. Peace can be made by signing international treaties and creating international laws that will regulate conduct and by resorting to international courts to solve disputes.
• Peace through negotiation. Peace can be maintained by frank discussion of differences, by open diplomacy, by international conferences and assemblies that will air grievances and, through candor and goodwill, arrive at a harmonious consensus.
• Peace through political reform. Peace can be established by setting up regimes of a nonaggressive type throughout the world: republics rather than monarchies; democratic rather than oligarchic republics; constitutionally limited rather than arbitrary, autocratic regimes.
• Peace through national liberation. Peace can be instituted only through the worldwide triumph of nationalism. Multinational empires must be dissolved into nation-states; every nation must have its own sovereign, independent government and all its own national territory, but no more.
• Peace through prosperity. Peace requires the worldwide triumph of an economic order that will produce universal prosperity and thereby remove the incentive to fight. Some consider this order to be one of universal capitalism, or at least of worldwide free trade; others hold it to be some species of socialism, reformist or revolutionary, elitist or democratic.
• Peace through disarmament. Peace can be established by reducing and eventually eliminating weapons, bases, and armies, by removing the means to make war.
• Peace through international organization. Peace can be established by creating a world political organization, perhaps even a constitutional world government resembling national governments, to enforce order and promote progress throughout the world.
• Peace through power. Peace can be maintained by the peaceable accumulation of forces, perhaps overwhelming, perhaps preponderant or balancing or adequate-sufficient to deter, defeat, or punish aggression.

Much current talk on war and peace amounts to no more than high-handed assertions that my chosen theory is right, and all others therefore are evidently wrong.




(*) Wilkinson's "Deadly Quarrels" is a discussion of the studies performed by Lewis Fry Richardson from the 1930s to his death in 1953. Richardson was one of the first researchers who tried to put forward a quantitative theory of war. With my coworkers Gianluca Martelloni and Francesca Di Patti, we are re-examining the statistical patterns of war. We are finding, unfortunately, that Richardosn was basically right: wars are a random phenomenon similar to earthquakes and avalanches -- very hard both to predict and to stop. 

One Hundred Years Ago: the end of the war that should have ended all wars.

The front cover of the book I published this year dedicated to the memory of a forgotten hero of the Great War, Armando Vacca. He fought for peace as much as he could, to the point that he had to give his life for a cause he had fought against. He died as a martyr for his Christian faith on the Carso mountains on July 21st, 1915.

One Hundred years ago, on Nov 4th, 1918, the Great War, also known as the First World War, ended for Italy with Austria-Hungary surrendering. The war would last a few more days on the Western front. I think it is appropriate to celebrate this day with some words of a beautiful song by Eric Bogle, "The Green Fields of France."

Ah, young Willie McBride, I can't help wonder why
Do those that lie here know why did they die
And did they believe when they answered the call
Did they really believe that this war would end war?

For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing, and the dying was all done in vain...
For, young Willie McBride, it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again

Eric Bogle – “The Green Fields of France”

The Great War and the rise of propaganda

The Great War started one hundred years ago, on July 28, 1914. It was later known as the first world war, but the term "Great War" better conveys the enormity of something that had never happened before in human history. Here I propose an interpretation of the war based on the emergent properties of complex systems: the triumph of propaganda.

One hundred years after the start of the Great War, we are still struggling to understand what caused Europeans to decide that it was a good idea to kill each other by the millions while staying in humid and lice infested trenches. Political and economic factors are often mentioned, but are hardly sufficient. Wars have been around from the beginning of human history, but had never reached the size and the level of ferocity of the Great War.

What made the Great War so destructive was the power of what was later called "propaganda" (and which today we tend to call "consensus building"). In turn, propaganda was a classic case of an emergent phenomenon of complex systems. It was an unexpected result of the diffusion of literacy in industrialized countries. As an example, by the end of the 19th century, France had achieved a nearly 100% degree of literacy in its population  (image below from Wikipedia). Several European countries, including Germany, Britain, and others, had reached similar rates.

People were taught to read and write because literacy was a useful ability in a rapidly industrializing society. But, for literacy, just as for many other things, there holds the law of unexpected consequences. Once most people were able to read and write, the rules of the game of communication changed completely. Before the age of literacy, governments had to rely on town criers screaming "hear ye, hear ye!" in order to tell their subjects that a war had been declared and that they had to enlist in the army. With literacy, people would read newspapers and were told not only that they had to enlist, but how good and beautiful it was to enlist to fight against the evil monsters that the enemies were.


In a classic case of reinforcing feedback, propaganda fed on itself. As people became more and more convinced to be on the side of good against evil, the war became harsher and more out of control, generating more hate and more propaganda. In part, this disastrous spiral was a spontaneous phenomenon, but soon governments learned how to exploit it. It took some time to develop the right techniques, but we can pinpoint the beginning of modern war propaganda methods with the sinking of the British ship "Lusitania" by a German submarine in 1915. Allied propaganda exploited the sinking in ways which we can easily recognize as a standard part of "false flag" operations: the extensive use of the media to demonize the enemy. These technologies are still commonly used today and are perhaps more effective than ever.

Today, images and movies are used to complement and replace the written world of a century ago, but the basic mechanism of propaganda remains the same: governments can reach their subjects with a tremendous barrage of false or distorted information. People are not normally equipped to defend themselves from this onrush of disinformation and tend to react either believing in it or taking refuge in bizarre conspiracy theories - often manufactured as part of more false flag propaganda operations.

The emergent phenomenon of propaganda during the Great War took most people by surprise and, after the war was over, there were several attempts to understand it and - if possible - control it. Edward Bernays was a pioneer in this field with his 1928 book "Propaganda". He was an optimist and thought that propaganda could be used for good purposes. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to control a self-reinforcing phenomenon and today we are as sensitive as a hundred years ago to the waves of hate which periodically engulf the public opinion. The case of the non-existing "Weapons of Mass Destruction" which led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 is the most recent full size manifestation of this phenomenon. Others may be in the making right now.

So, a hundred years later, the story of the Great War is a lesson on how difficult it is for us to manage complex systems. Our society, one of the most complex systems that ever existed in human history, is subjected to destructive transitions created by emergent control phenomena which appear out of nowhere: unpredictable and uncontrollable. Propaganda feeds on itself and creates waves of hate which generate destructive wars. The illusory perception of abundance of oil and gas created by fracking leads to the diversion of immense amounts of resources to a task which is leading us nowhere. Waves of self-reinforcing optimism in the media lead to financial bubbles and then to destructive crashes, as it happened in 2008 and may happen again.

The war propaganda of one century ago looks to us hopelessly naive. But the core ideas developed at the time of the Great War are still with us, although often in subtler and more effective forms. The diffusion of the Internet is adding layers and layers of complexity to the once simple mechanisms of propaganda and the fragmentation of the infosphere makes it even more difficult to control it. Never in history, we have faced such an incredibly complex system which is shaping our perception of the world. The infosphere is quickly becoming a game of mirrors where multiple images of the same thing scream at each other "I am the real one".

Where is it all leading us? We don't know, we cannot know. The future, as usual, is a dim reflection of the past. So, the Great War is part of our past, but also of our future. With its more than 10 million deaths and with its incredible mix of love and hate, it is still part of the way we are, part of the way we see the world, part of the way we react to the unknown, to the mysterious essence of the universe.


______________________

These words by Olaf Stapledon (last and first men) may give us a hint of what we are facing.


Great are the stars, and man is of no account to them. But man is a fair spirit, whom a star conceived and a star kills. He is greater than those bright blind companies. For though in them there is incalculable potentiality, in him there is achievement, small, but actual. Too soon, seemingly, he comes to his end. But when he is done he will not be nothing, not as though he had never been; for he is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things.

Man was winged hopefully. He had in him to go further than this short flight, now ending. He proposed even that he should become the Flower of All Things, and that he should learn to be the All–Knowing, the All–Admiring. Instead, he is to be destroyed. He is only a fledgling caught in a bush-fire. He is very small, very simple, very little capable of insight. His knowledge of the great orb of things is but a fledgling’s knowledge. His admiration is a nestling’s admiration for the things kindly to his own small nature. He delights only in food and the food-announcing call. The music of the spheres passes over him, through him, and is not heard.

Yet it has used him. And now it uses his destruction. Great, and terrible, and very beautiful is the Whole; and for man the best is that the Whole should use him.

But does it really use him? Is the beauty of the Whole really enhanced by our agony? And is the Whole really beautiful? And what is beauty? Throughout all his existence man has been striving to hear the music of the spheres, and has seemed to himself once and again to catch some phrase of it, or even a hint of the whole form of it. Yet he can never be sure that he has truly heard it, nor even that there is any such perfect music at all to be heard. Inevitably so, for if it exists, it is not for him in his littleness.