Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk>
Date: December 28, 2005 6:13:12 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons

Hi Dave:

Here's a comment column from today's (UK) Guardian, by a Cambridge  
historian, that you might want to pass on to IP.

Cheers

Brian


> Comment
> Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons
>
> Iraq has shown the hubris of a geostrategy that welds the  
> philosophy of the Leviathan to military and technological power
>
> Richard Drayton
> Wednesday December 28, 2005
> The Guardian
>
> The tragic irony of the 21st century is that just as faith in  
> technology collapsed on the world's stock markets in 2000, it came  
> to power in the White House and Pentagon. For the Project for a New  
> American Century's ambition of "full-spectrum dominance" - in which  
> its country could "fight and win multiple, simultaneous major- 
> theatre wars" - was a monster borne up by the high tide of techno  
> euphoria of the 1990s.
>
> Ex-hippies talked of a wired age of Aquarius. The fall of the  
> Berlin wall and the rise of the internet, we were told, had ushered  
> in Adam Smith's dream of overflowing abundance, expanding liberty  
> and perpetual peace. Fukuyama speculated that history was over,  
> leaving us just to hoard and spend. Technology meant a new paradigm  
> of constant growth without inflation or recession.
>
> But darker dreams surfaced in America's military universities. The  
> theorists of the "revolution in military affairs" predicted that  
> technology would lead to easy and perpetual US dominance of the  
> world. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters advised on "future warfare"  
> at the Army War College - prophesying in 1997 a coming "age of  
> constant conflict". Thomas Barnett at the Naval War College  
> assisted Vice-Admiral Cebrowski in developing "network-centric  
> warfare". General John Jumper of the air force predicted a planet  
> easily mastered from air and space. American forces would win  
> everywhere because they enjoyed what was unashamedly called the  
> "God's-eye" view of satellites and GPS: the "global information  
> grid". This hegemony would be welcomed as the cutting edge of human  
> progress. Or at worst, the military geeks candidly explained, US  
> power would simply terrify others into submitting to the stars and  
> stripes.

....

> · Dr Richard Drayton, a senior lecturer in history at Cambridge  
> University, is the author of Nature's Government, a study of  
> science, technology and imperialism
>
> RHDrayton () yahoo co uk

Full story at:

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1674184,00.html

--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon  
Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/


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