Soldiers on the School Run
Last night I was at the Royal Geographical Society for the annual IRC-UK lecture, ‘Soldiers on the School Run: Sensible Strategy or Disastrous Compromise?’ This is the latest in a series of events trying to define what it is we’re up to in the business of humanitarian interventions. It’s clear to honest professionals in both the military and the aid industry that the way we are dealing with complex emergencies is not working and needs to get a lot better – fast. There’s no choice. The rate of State failure is accelerating. We simply cannot afford too many Somalias.
On the one hand, the military is engaged in adapting to WW4 – the kind of battles waged or imagined in WW2 and the Cold War are history. WW4 is a counterinsurgency war. Neither the battles between national armies that characterized WW2, nor the long distance threatening of the Cold War are relevant to today’s forces fighting jihadists in the fields and villages of Afghanistan. It is a far more complex mission than previous forces had to consider. The WW4 soldier is expected to be part diplomat, part aid worker, and part nation builder. Panelist Ahmed Rashid believes there is a crisis between the military and the NGOs in Afghanistan. The rate of change in mission has been too rapid for the military to adapt its strategy from the Cold War, and their command structure is incompatible with the way NGOs work. But the heart of the problem is the very different perspective of each organization.
For the NGOs, whose objectives range from acute disaster relief to long term development, and who therefore expect to spend anything from a few weeks to years in a given place, the issue is how to maintain independence from the military on which they increasingly rely for logistics and security. It is axiomatic in the Aid industry that aid should be ‘independent, neutral and impartial.’ But in the management of complex emergencies there is increasing involvement of the military, and the politics of military intervention means that there is no neutrality or impartiality. The NGOs are fearful that the more they are identified with the military, their safety will be in jeopardy. It is well known that on this basis the Taliban considers Aid workers to be ‘American Slaves. Mike Young is IRCs director for Asia and the Caucasus, and he’s been at it for 12 years. He doesn’t believe in big plans, he’s all for local, which takes time and trust. He’s frightened that if the Taliban remain after the US and UK forces leave, the locals who worked with the Aid agencies will be killed as collaborators. He remains very doubtful of the long term effectiveness of military based Aid, but admits that we’re stuck with what we’ve got.
Major General (Ret.) Tim Cross, who is a veteran the Gulf, the Balkans and Iraq argued that for the military it wasn’t a question of whether they should be doing development and humanitarian intervention, but how. On balance he said that he thought both the military and the NGOs were doing ‘a reasonable job’, but that ‘we have to keep talking to each other.’ So they have very different missions, and very different ways of operating. But they find themselves working together out of necessity. And not only with NGOs. The US marines have been trying to use academics in its efforts for ‘hearts and minds’ and to avoid accidental civilian casualties. The Human Terrain Systems embed social scientists and anthropologists with combat troops to help tacticians with local knowledge. This new kind of counterinsurgency war/complex emergency situation is demanding rapid adaptation, and if that means embedding academics and /or humanitarian workers, so be it.
Uneasy bedfellows they may be, but it looks like they will be stuck with each other for the foreseeable future. Nation building is new and over the last 10 years it’s been pretty hit and miss. Perhaps what is happening is that two distinct mindsets are having to merge, because the prospect of large parts of Africa and Asia collapsing is too dire to imagine.
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Wintermute
“Welcome my son, welcome…to the machine.”
Pink Floyd, 1975
Twice a year since 1993 the TOP500 project has released a list of sites operating the 500 most powerful supercomputers. This June, in the number one spot is the Cray Jaguar at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with a benchmark speed of 1.759 Petaflops. A Petaflop is 1,000,000,000,000,000 floating point operations a second. In second place is a Chinese system at the National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen, called Nebulae. Nebulae has a benchmark speed of 1.27 Petaflops. The benchmark is used to standardize results, but gives a slower speed than the machine’s theoretical maximum. The theoretical maximum for Jaguar is 2.33 Petaflops, and for Nebulae it’s 2.98. So there are now supercomputers running at 2 Petaflops.
What makes this interesting is that futurist Ray Kurzweil estimates the computing speed necessary to emulate human intelligence is 10 Petaflops, or 1016 operations per second. A check of the Top 500 lists from the last few years confirms that Moore’s Law is alive and well in supercomputing. In June 2008 the 1Petaflop barrier was breached for the first time by an IBM cluster called Roadrunner at the US Department of Energy at Los Alamos. So it’s reasonable to assume that by June 2012 a machine will reach 8 Petaflops – within striking distance of Kurzweil’s estimate. Two years after that a machine will exist that is nearly twice as fast as brainspeed.
These speeds are opening up entirely new kinds of science. Simulation of complex systems like climate, astrophysics, fusion, and genetics. Researchers will be able to run simulations faster and cheaper for a huge variety of scientific and technological problems which have until now been impossible or prohibitively expensive. The most challenging of these problems is how to simulate operation of the brain’s 100 trillion neurons – the most complex object in the universe.
The Transhuman event horizon is nearly upon us. The merger of our biological intelligence with non biological intelligence is now within one decade. We are in the process of radically accelerating our own evolution. We began doing it inside computers in the 80s, molecular biology labs in the 90s and now we’re about to do it to ourselves. We are entering an era in which we will no longer be the smartest one in the room. By 2020 supercomputers wil be running at 64 Petaflops, more than 6 times brainspeed.
This represents the most fundamental paradigm shift in human evolution – a radical discontinuity in human history.
The TOP500 is a list only includes the systems that are volunteered to them. As Dr. Lockley, of the Oxford Supercomputing Centre, pointed out: “The spooks have got some pretty big machines.” So it appears that within five years either the US or Chinese intelligence agencies will have machines that are capable of simulating human intelligence.
Do we really want the NSA to be the first one on the block to have a functioning AI?
Good morning Wintermute, how are you today?
Street Fighting Man
Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy,
‘Cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy
Jagger Richards 1968
Finally I’m back. My Atlantic trip was extraordinary and I ended up doing two deliveries to and from France, so in all I covered more than 6000 miles.
Before I left I wrote a post called 2010: The Next Leg Down. I wanted to go over it and see how I’m doing in the trend forecasting business.
Oil and the Deep Horizon rig: I’m still waiting for the oil price spike. But the good people at BP are doing their best on my behalf, bless ‘em. Or rather, Transocean. Although Transocean is not well known publicly, it’s the largest rig operator in the world, with about 300 rigs. What makes this accident so important was that it was an ultra-deep drilling operation and if the US bans more ultra-deep in the Gulf of Mexico it will impact oil supply within a year. As the cheap easy oil disappears we are faced with difficult choices: Just how much ecological horror do you think you can stand to stay on the highway? We need to remember that Deep Horizon was no mundane oil operation. They were tapping into the Tiber field – 40,000 ft down. It was the deepest vertical well in history. You could lose Everest and have 13000ft spare in that hole. This was the Apollo mission for deep drilling. Was it dangerous? Of course it was. Whenever we take one of those giant steps for mankind, it’s inherently dangerous. But in all the fervour to get to the 70 billion barrels deep in the Gulf, we chose to suppress that information. What happens if we have a big hurricane season this year?
Nukes: While the west mutters and hovers, Asia is going all out. It will be interesting to follow the split in attitude. Just this week, Monju, the giant Japanese breeder reactor was brought back online after a 14 years of repair. China, which has 11 reactors in commercial production, has 20 under construction. I’m waiting for the argument in the West to get much more heated as people start to wonder how we’ll compete with nuclear Asian countries in 10 years.
Immigration: I get a gold star. In the UK immigration has become the biggest issue in the election. It was an immigration argument with Mrs. Duffy that caused Mr. Brown’s worst moment in the campaign. As we hit the next leg down, and the European economy buckles under the sovereign debt bubble, which will make Lehman brothers look like the teddy bear’s picnic, immigration will turn ugly. Big right wing gains across Europe. As southern Europe goes into full street fighting man mode it’s only a matter of time before they decide that it’s the foreigner’s fault. Look out.
I’m off to the Frontline Club to have a glass of wine and watch as Britain has a revolutionary election, involving three white guys instead of two. No, really. It’s time for real change. Honest.
Gone
Tomorrow morning I fly to Tortola and then I will be returning to Southampton, England in a Catamaran. It will be my first Atlantic crossing so I’m psyched. I’ll be back in about 30 days. I was checking the web and found this wonderful story of the plastic in our environment from new research by Dr. Kara Lavender Law at sea.edu. Bye Bye.
RIP Walt Ratterman
I found out a few days ago that Walt Ratterman of Knightsbridge International was killed in Haiti during the earthquake. When I was producing Beyond the Call with Adrian Belic it was clear that the work these brave men did was both incredibly dangerous and absolutely necessary. Walt gave up a very successful career in construction to use his expertise in helping people all over the world. An extraordinary man and an inspiration to us all. Thank you for everything Walt.
2010: The Next Leg Down
Before I go off on my transatlantic sailing trip next week I thought I’d make some forecasts for 2010: The next leg down.
Oil and Globalization: First thing is our reaction to the arrival of triple digit oil prices. Right now oil is at $80. I’m not expecting a miraculous recovery in demand, but a political crisis could easily drive prices into triple digits. If so, whether or not you actually believed the news tripe about recovery, oil over $100/barrel will begin the next leg of the post peak oil crisis. Right on schedule. The same process will be broadly applicable to most of Western Europe, the US and the rest of the developed world, but my immediate concern is Britain. This is the year when transport begins to trump labour arbitrage and the global part of globalization starts to look shaky.
On the face of it, this is disastrous. The OECD industries have come to rely on almost completely on foreign manufacturing sources, obviously for the most part China. But in fact it’s a tremendous opportunity, because except for bankers and entertainers, globalization has been a disaster for wage earners. The myth of the service economy has run its course. It was largely an artefact of cheap oil. It brought cheap goods, but the side effects have been an ecological horror. According to a recent report in the Guardian, major companies caused $2 trillion worth of environmental damage just in 2008.
Sir Richard, my new best friend: Probably the most important signal for Britain is Sir Richard Branson’s discovery of peak oil. Dollar short and a day late, but he may be the person to make it mainstream in Britain. He’ll be our Al Gore. It’s a pity that Matt Simmons, Colin Campbell, Jean Laherrere, and all the rest of the ASPO folk couldn’t get any traction for the last decade. Never mind, now that Sir Richard has noticed and the Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security has been formed at the Royal Society finally we’ll see some righteous panic.
Re-Industrialization: I’m expecting to see talk of the rapid re-industrialization of Britain. The flag wavers for the service economy will be ushered off the stage. Despite being the economic darlings of the last decade or two, suddenly they’ll be seen as hopelessly out of touch. Start watching for some new clever marketing speak. Right now in glass walled offices with aluminium furniture, there are eager young marketing drones with perfect complexions, dreaming up the sound bites for the new new clean energy renaissance: Social enterprise resourcing , Clean Tech revolution, Cloudsourced inventory control, AgroUrbanOrganic complex …it’ll be some such jabber. Especially watch for UrbanFoodCommunities.com and “Liveability.” And yes, I have trademarked all these buzzwords, so don’t even think about it, nasty little marketing children.
What it means is that if the bloody Chinese are too far away to make all our stuff we’ll have to remember how to do it ourselves.
Does that mean I’ll have to get mud on my Vivien Westwood?
Yes darling, I’m afraid it does.
Nukes: I’m expecting some real surprises around nuclear energy. I remember talking to Kjell Aleklett in 2003 about the nuclear renaissance. This is one of those issues that gets normally polite ecology people at each other’s throats. Whether or not nuclear energy has an EROEI to make it worth building is one thing, but the politics will be interesting. The current British Government is talking about going from 19% to 40% electricity from nukes in 20 years. I stand in awe of the nuclear energy PR machine that has completely turned the government’s opinion round from 2003 to 2006. Now watch for the demonstrations.
Immigration is going to hit the big time: 2010 will be a tipping point in the collapse of Africa and the mass migration into Europe. For the last 4 decades, more or less since the independence of the last colonies, there’s been a tragic failure of Africa to adapt. As William Easterly puts it, “Spending $2.3 trillion (measured in today’s dollars) in aid over the past five decades has left the most aid-intensive regions, like Africa, wallowing in continued stagnation; it’s fair to say this approach has not been a great success.” A mixture of tribal identity, corruption, over population, infrastructure and ecological collapse combined with increasingly severe climate effects have initiated the collapse of sub Saharan Africa. The collapse seems to be propagating rapidly out of the Horn, and accelerating. The Africans are doing what populations always do in the face of collapse. They die or leave. In this case the death toll will make the term “Biblical” obsolete, by an order of magnitude.
It’s the leaving that’s the problem for Europe. The population of sub Saharan Africa and Europe are roughly the same; something over 800 million. Europe is already far past carrying capacity, probably by a factor of two, like Britain. The transport and agricultural infrastructure, health systems, education systems and societies of Europe cannot successfully cope with such an influx and remain viable.
I’m not suggesting for a moment that Africa is the sole source of illegal migration into Europe. If only. But Africa seems to me to be in the worst shape. Add in the populations of failing countries in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Indian subcontinent from which migrants will flood into Europe and the total is well over a 1.5 billion.
The cracks are beginning to show. In Italy last month there was a riot in Rosarno in which illegal immigrants from set fire to cars and shops. Italy’s demographic is changing very rapidly. At least 7% of the population, not counting illegal immigrants is now non-Italian. 1 in 6 babies is born to a non-Italian. Italians are about to wake up to the permanent changes in their country. I expect some desperate headlines as we head into summer. Naturally the cry of ‘racism’ will be the sure sign of backlash.
In 1997, the number of foreigners living in Spain was 500,000. In 2008 it was 5.3 million. That is an order of magnitude difference. In Catalonia 15% of the population is foreign born. The Spanish are now beginning to realize the full effects of such high levels of immigration on its school system.
In Greece, which is already close to financial meltdown, has a non-Greek population of 10%. Until recently most of that influx came from Balkan states, but as Africa’s situation deteriorates more of the illegal immigrants will come from Africa. Aside from street riots in Greece over the economy, expect a backlash over immigration.
The cultural, religious and ethnic divides in the new Europe have been ignored by a generation of politicians. There is even a rumour in Britain that the Labour party secretly decided to allow unlimited immigration to Britain during its tenure since they thought immigrants would be more likely to vote Labour in future. For the past decade it’s been almost impossible to talk about immigration without being silenced by cries of racism. I’d expect this debate to get a lot more difficult in 2010. For better or worse, Europe is now a fundamentally different place demographically than it was 10 years ago. How it fares in the 21st century with this starting population is anyone’s guess, but if history is any guide balkanization is a lot more likely than peaceful integration. I wish there was something vaguely humorous about this whole thing, but I can’t see it.
Fighting in the street: Whole areas of Britain, Europe and the US have fallen into decay. Along with it communities have been destroyed, and we are left with a vast underclass living on benefits. Add to that the tensions in the middle classes as the last of the savings dribble away. People can generally last about 3 years if they’ve got some savings, but now it’s down to the dregs. Living on the kid’s education money and worrying about losing the house. The last shops in the high street boarded up. No room at university for the kids anyway – and nowhere for them to go. 50% unemployment in the under 25s. The austerity measures announced from the balcony of some grand old palace by some unelected Brussels apparatchik with a bad comb over. The human mind can only stand so much. It’s impossible to predict the spark, but if it’s an el Nino hot summer, look for trouble in the streets.
Weather: I know that economists are the only profession with a worse record than weather forecasters, nonetheless I’m going to chance my arm. The la Nina conditions of the last couple of years have given way to a new el Nino. If it persists into summer 2010, as looks likely, we may be getting some exciting weather. As I said above, if it results in a very hot summer look out. Angry unemployed people and 40°c are a bad combination.
War: Rule number 1. Do not under any circumstances allow yourself to be drawn into an endless campaign in Asia. You are not that rich. No empire ever was, nor ever will be. You are thinking in years. They are thinking in centuries. From Babylon, with love, Alex@Macedon.
Anyone got a film crew they’re not using, I’ve got the oil film script re-done. Now I’m going to cross an ocean under sail for the first time. Wish me luck.
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