By Daniel McGroarty, TES GeoPolicy Editor
A depressing thought, given the nagging worry that we may well be losing the wars of today, from the Middle East and the never-ending War on Terror to the turmoil in Venezuela.
From Hobbes to Weber, we’ve been taught that the State retains the “monopoly on violence,” expressed in the form of military power – and aimed, hopefully, at threats to the peace of the polity.
But that monopoly, like others, is being broken down by the inexorable power of technology. A case in point can be found over at DefenseOne: What Will Insurgency Look Like in 2030? — a disturbing piece by Peter W. Singer, one of the authors of Ghost Fleet, the 2015 novel subtitled A novel of the Next World War.
It’s a scary glimpse of how technology is already “democratizing” warfighting, upending assumptions on conflict. As Singer puts it:
“Robots, artificial intelligence, cyberwar, 3D printing, bio-enhancements, and a new geopolitical competition; the 21st century is being shaped by a range of momentous, and scary, new trends and technologies. We should also expect them to shape the worlds of insurgency and terrorism.”
So are we headed to a future in which every woman or man is a Leviathan? Or will that simply be a round-about way to return to Hobbes’ State of Nature?
If that question has you looking for some escapist fiction that won’t emulsify your brain cells, it’s not too late to pick up a copy of Ghost Fleet.
