Monthly Archives: March 2023

So It Has Been in the Past

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I only met Prof. Peter W. Singer, currently 38 years old and at the University of Arizona, once. As far as memory serves this was ten years ago at a conference hosted by the Norwegian Air Force where he gave a talk that impressed me both for its contents and the skill with which it was presented. Clearly here was a man to watch. And watch him I did as, just yesterday, I came across an article of his in Defense One. The title? One Year In: What Are The Lessons from Ukraine for The Future of War?

It is a question in which defense analysts and officials, officers, and commanders are vitally interested. So here is a point by-point summary of Peter’s article, along with my response to each point.

Point A. “The most obvious type of inflection point in the story of war is when a new weapon is introduced that fundamentally changes or even ends the fighting, such as the atomic bomb’s debut in World War II.”

Response: In the long run, the impact of technological innovation on war tends to be superficial. From the time when groups of men (there were few, if any, women among them) went for each other to the time when they started doing so with the aid of AI and drones, neither the essence of war, nor the principles of its conduct, nor even the methods by which it is waged, have changed very much. Attack remains attack, defense remains defense, and so on and so on. Or else how to explain the fact that some of the greatest works on war, such as those by Sun Tzu, Thucydides and Clausewitz, remain as fresh, as relevant, as they were when first written 2,500 or 200 years ago?

Point B. “One area [where technology is changing war] is the use of artificial intelligence, or AI. The conflict in Ukraine has seen various forms of AI deployed in a growing variety of ways—from using face recognition software to identify enemy soldiers to deploying machine learning to make military and aid supply chains more efficient. AI has been harnessed to advance propaganda and information warfare: Russia’s invasion in Ukraine is the first war to see the use of ‘deep fake’ videos, which blur the line between the real and machine-generated.”

Response: Soldiers have always needed to identify both friends and foes and used a variety of methods to do so. AI may perform the job faster, go through larger numbers, and (perhaps) do so more reliably; however, it does not change the essence of the problem. It can make logistics more efficient, but it does not affect either the role they play in war as a whole or the principles on which they are organized. As to information warfare: has there ever been a war in which both sides did not do their damnest to gain as much information as possible as fast as possible while at the same time endeavoring to prevent the enemy from doing the same?

Point C. Hacking, specifically including computer attacks on enemy physical assets, will play, is already playing, a growing role in warfare.

Response: True enough. However, a clear line between new-style hacking and old-style intelligence operations and sabotage is difficult to draw. Sabotage-by-computer may well be able to hit more targets, faster, at greater range, and more effectively than used to be the case when it was still carried out by humans running about. Using the right means against the right targets, it may even go some way to make the tiger, ordinary war, change its spots. But turn a tiger into, say, an ostrich?

Point D. Drones, provided with AI, will fight similar drones.

Response: Almost certainly true. But will drones change the principles of air warfare, the need to command the air above all, as laid down a century ago by Giulio Douhet? Also, the air presents those who use it to pass through with a relatively simple environment. However, given the extremely complicated environment in which infantrymen operate, will they too one day be replaced by drones/robots?

Point E. Enabled by the social media in particular, information warfare will become even more intense and even more important than it already is

Response: As I’ve said before, information has always been absolutely vital for the conduct of war. Why? Because without it no kind of organized, let alone purposeful, action is possible. Furthermore, in war as in civilian life the objective of gathering and analyzing information is to gain certainty. Judging by the countless predictions concerning the war that have not come true, technology has not made that task any easier—perhaps, to the contrary.

Point F: In response to the ubiquity of information Open source intelligence (OSINT) will gain in importance.

Response: Yes, it will. But it is useful to remember that intelligence services have been using newspapers ever since the latter were invented late in the 17th century. Since then newspapers were, and still are, used in two different ways. First, to gain information about the enemy; and second, to cheat the enemy concerning one’s own intentions.

Point G. In terms of GDP, at the time the war got under way Russia and Ukraine only ranked 9th and 56th respectively. Yet such is the effect of the media/social networks on one hand and international trade on the other that much of the world is holding its breath. This kind of thing will only increase.

Response: Of all the points Wilson makes, this one seems to me the weakest. Why? Because he overlooks the fact that these are not just two countries. Neither Russia nor Ukraine may be exactly wealthy. However, such are the size and sheer military power of Russia that its role the in the international system far exceeds its share in the latter’s GDP. Furthermore, the region they are fighting over is precisely the one geopoliticians of an earlier generation used to call “The Heartland,” control over which meant world domination. And while Ukraine may not have nukes, Russia has enough of them to wipe any other country off the map within a few hours of the order being given.

Conclusion: Technology plays a vital role in war. However, it is not everything. War will cause any new technology to quickly fall into the enemy’s hands; which in turn means that it will be quickly copied. As, for example, happened in 216 BCE when Hannibal, following his great victory at Cannae, had his fighters adopt Roman armor. Hence it is not true that, as the famous British pundit General (ret.) J. F. C. Fuller once wrote, that “weapons, if only the right ones can be found, make up ninety percent of victory.”

So it has been in the past, and so it will be in the future.

Good Questions

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As a few of you may remember from my previous posts on this blog, some years ago I took an interest in the question, what things do not change. The idea was to write, not just history but a new kind of history. One that would focus, not just on change—which is what every serious historian has been doing at least since Polybius commented on how important, how utterly fascinating, change was and is—but on its absence; in other words, continuity. This project kept me busy for about eighteen months ere I realized that it was beyond my powers. So I gave up and moved to more modest projects such as I, Stalin (2022).

There things remained. Recently, however, my interest in the topic was rekindled by a book, The History of Philosophy by Oxford professor A. C. Grayling (2019). Delving into the first part, which deals with Greek philosophy, I quickly realized that I had been barking up the wrong tree. Burying my nose in search of things that have remained the same always I had overlooked the fact that the most important continuities were not to be found in the answers the ancient philosophers came up with. Instead, they consisted of the methods they used—a combination of observation with rational inquiry, without any resort to the supernatural—and, above all, the questions they asked. Questions which, originating in pre-classical Greece, keep preoccupying people right down to the present day.

So follow a few examples of the very different questions in question. Here presented in a more or less chronological, much simplified, fairly non-repetitive way. And with hardly any more detailed exploration of their background, meaning, implications, or the links among them.

Thales of Miletus (ca. 666-585 BCE)

What is the primeval thing, or material, of which all others are made and into which they will ultimately revert?

What is the origin of movement (in other words: what and who was the earliest prime mover)?

Observation teaches us that only animate things can grow on their own accord. Does that mean plants have souls?

Does the universe, or kosmos have limits, or does it go on indefinitely?

Anaximander (ca. 610-546 BCE)

Is the observable kosmos the only one, or just one of many?

Is there a single principle that governs the observable changes in the kosmos, both in the heavens and here on earth, and, if so, what is it?

Are those changes cyclical or linear? If the latter, will they go on forever, or will they come to an end?

Anaximenes (?-526 BCE)

How to predict earthquakes?

Pythagoras (570-495 BCE)

Does the soul perish with the body, or does it persist? Is there such a thing as reincarnation?

How does the kosmos relate to numbers and mathematics, and why?

Xenophanes (570-478 BCE)

Are there gods (or is there a god) and, if so what are they?

How are the gods/god related to observable reality? Did they create it, or are they part of it?

What is time? Does it really exist, or is it merely something we experience? Will it go on forever, or does it have a beginning and an end?

Heraclitus (540-ca. 480 BCE)

How are change and continuity related to each other (the original question I was hoping to answer)?

Parmenides (515-after 450 BCE)

What is true knowledge?

Is there an infallible method for obtaining true knowledge about the kosmos and everything inside it that will prevent us from being misled by opinion, or belief, or our own senses (all philosophers from antiquity down to the present day)?

Antisthenes (466-366 BCE) Socrates 470-399 BCE), Plato (424-348 BCE) and Aristotle (384-322 BCE

What is virtue, and how can it be attained?

What is happiness, and how can be attained?

What is a good society and how can it be built and made to last?

How do/should individual and society relate to each other?

What is beauty? Does such a thing as beauty really exist, or is it only present in the viewer’s mind? (especially Plato and Aristotle)?

How did the myriad things that comprise physical reality come into being, and how do they function and interact (Aristotle)?

Does such a thing as the future exist, or is it a figment of the imagination (Aristotle)?

Does such a thing as the afterlife exist and, if so, what is it like (especially Plato)?

Democritus (ca. 460-370 BCE)

What is matter made of?

Does it consist of a multitude of almost infinitely small, indivisible particles, or is it continuous?

How are dead matter and mind related?

Diogenes (ca. 400-323 BCE), Crates (365-285 BCE) and Epicurus (341-270 BC)

What kind of life is the best and most appropriate (oikeion) for a human being?

Is there such a thing as the free will?

Do universals (e.g. “redness” or “catness”) really exist, as Plato says, or are only particular things real?

What is the purpose of philosophy?

Zeno (334-262 BCE) and the Stoics

Is there such a thing as fate? If so, what is it and how does it operate?

What is the best way to cope with the hardships of life, such as illness or disaster?

To Conclude –

As my mother, quoting an old proverb, used to say, a single fool can ask more questions than ten wise people can answer. That is true; but it is also true that Thales, Anaximander and the rest were anything but fools. Certainly it is true that, without questions, finding answers is impossible to begin with. Which is why, over two millennia later, we still keep thinking about them.

Day by day.

Let’s Keep It That Way

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These days when much of the world is closely watching events in Israel, I want to say that, numerous and serious as the problems are, I remain proud of my country. Here is a short list of the reasons why; for a longer one see my 2010 book, The Land of Blood and Honey.

Back in 1914 there were only about 50,000 Jews living in the small, backward, badly neglected and badly governed, country that was then part of the Ottoman Empire. As late as the 1950s, so thinly populated were the environments of Tel Aviv that, visiting my grandparents, I could hear the jackals howl at night. The jackals have long disappeared, a fact that I, recalling the well-publicized cases of rabies among children in particular, can only call a blessing. The Jewish population has grown to about seven million (Arabs and other nationalities included, the total number of Israeli citizens living in-country is about nine million). Few if any other countries have done as well.

Back in 1914 Palestine’s Jews only formed a tiny fraction of the world’s Jewish population, which probably stood at about 13,500,000. Now, if the figures are correct, they form slightly over half of the total. Meaning that Zionism is well on its way to realize its great dream. Namely, in the words of Israel’s national anthem, to make Jews a free people in their own land: the land of Zion and Jerusalem.

In developed countries where contraceptives are easily available and women have a choice, one very good index of people’s confidence in the future is their willingness to have and raise children. Today the average Israeli Jewish female will have 3.05 children during her lifetime, as against the OECD average of 1.65.

Back in 1914 the Zionist Movement’s leading economic expert, Arthur Rupin, estimated that per capita product here in Palestine stood at only about 4 percent of the American figure. 99 years later, the figure is 75 percent. Almost 40 percent of Israel’s GDP are exported—a figure very much like that of a heavily industrialized modern country such as Germany.

As well as having a strong economy, which for a number of years before COVID threw everything out of gear was widely held up as the most successful in the world, Israel built up a powerful military. One armed with the most up to-date weapons and weapon systems and capable, as it has repeatedly shown, of defending the country against larger powers and even combinations of such powers. Considering that the first Jewish self-defense organization in Palestine peaked at just 40 members who rode horses and were armed with nothing but rifles and shabarias (a type of Arab curved knife, much beloved by Bedouin in particular), this has been an amazing achievement.

The Quran calls Jews “the People of the Book.” To practice their religion Jewish males, and to a lesser extent Jewish women, need to be literate so they can read from the Pentateuch as well as the prayer book. As a result, Jews have always tended to be much more literate than their gentile neighbors. Zionism, an urban movement par excellence, embraced this tradition. With the result that, starting from the movement’s early days, Jews in Palestine/Israel were much more literate than non-European peoples in practically any other part of the world. Today Israel is the fifth most-educated country in the world. From kindergarten to universities and research institutes, its education system can compete with practically any of its opposite numbers elsewhere.

At my home, in a mountainous area west of Jerusalem, I have in my possession some photographs taken by the German air force during World War I. As they show, at that time there was not a tree in sight; nothing but rocks and more rocks. As German Emperor Wilhelm II noted when he visited in 1898, “a terrible country, without water and without shade.” Since then Israel has become the only country in the world that, in spite of repeated setbacks (some of them occasioned by Arabs, Israeli or Palestinian, who deliberately set fire to forests) has more trees in 2023 than it did a century earlier.

A British-written guidebook to Palestine, issued by the War Office in 1941-42 for the use of British soldiers on leave from fighting the Germans in the Western Desert, said that “the first thing you’ll notice is how arid the country is.” Today, thanks in part to the use of large-scale desalination, this basically arid country has enough of the previous liquid not only to meet its own needs but those of other countries as well. Some of the water in question is exported, notably to Jordan. The rest is distilled on the spot with the aid of Israeli technology.

Like practically every other country, Israel is no stranger to corruption. Sources put it at the 31st place out of 180. Nothing to be very proud of, but better than five out of six countries in total.

Of well over a hundred countries that got their independence since 1948, Israel is one of the very few that has always been democratic in the sense that regular elections were held. Except in 1973, when the Arab-Israeli War of that time led to a short postponement, all the elections were held on time. All were held following lively electoral campaigns in which almost every point of view was represented and could be freely uttered. That even includes the notorious ones of November 2022. Not once were elections marked by serious disorder, let alone violence. Not once was there any question of the large-scale stuffing of ballots and the like. For me personally casting my vote has become something of a ritual—a slightly festive occasion to meet friend and neighbors whose existence one might otherwise have forgotten.

True, Israel does not have a constitution. But neither does Britain, “the mother of democracies.” True, Netanyahu & Co. want judges to be appointed by politicians. But that is exactly the way American supreme justices ones are. True, he wants to pass legislation that will prevent prime ministers from being prosecuted as long as they remain in office; but that is just how things are done in France. This list could be extended almost indefinitely.

Meanwhile –

Week after week, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been taking to the streets in an effort to preserve what they (and I) see as their liberal-democratic way of life. So far, the presence in the cabinet of some true firebrands notwithstanding, without any serious violence.

In terms of happiness, Israel occupies place No. 12 out of 180.

Let’s keep it that way.

Not as New as It Seems

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While the world is going ape over chatgpt, the possibilities it opens and the dangers it carries, I recall that this device is by no means the first of its kind. Indeed stories about so called “brazen heads,” as they were called, have been with us for a millennium, if not more. What follows is a short list of the best known men (there seems to have been no women among them) who were rumored to have built or otherwise obtained such heads, each one complete with a few details.

The Roman poet Virgil (70-18 BCE). Widely recognized as perhaps the greatest Roman poet, he entered the picture in January 1245. That was when a French priest, Gautier of Metz, published Imago Mundi, later translated into French as L’Image du monde. Mixing facts with fantasy, it is an encyclopedic work, based on a great many different sources, about the creation, the earth and the universe. Gautier credited Virgil with having created an oracular head that answered questions. Seventy-four years later, in 1319, the story was retold by Renard le Contrefait. The latter may also have been the first to specify that the head was made of brass.

Pope Sylvester II (original name Gerbert of Aurillac). Pope from 999 to 1003. A true polymath who had plenty to say about both ecclesiastical and secular topics, he studied in Spain, a country then under Muslim rule which was considered the cutting edge of civilization. The English historian William of Malmesbury in his History of the English Kings (ca. 1145) says that he took with him a load of secret knowledge whose owner, who went in pursuit, he was only able to escape through demonic assistance. Among the “secrets” was a bronze head that would answer yes/no questions on a variety of topics, but only after having been spoken to first. Later it told Gerbert that if he should ever read a Mass in Jerusalem, which at that time was controlled by the Crusaders, the Devil would come to get him. Whereupon Gerbert cancelled a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. To no avail: reading Mass in Rome’s Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, he fell ill and died soon afterwards.

Robert Grosseteste (1168-1252) was an English clergymen who rose to become bishop of Gloucester. Of him John Gower, in his long didactic poem Confessio Amantis (1390), wrote the following lines (1390):

For of the grete clerc Grossteste
I rede how besy that he was
Upon clergie an hed of bras
To forge, and make it for to telle
Of suche thinges as befelle.
And sevene yeres besinesse
He leyde, bot for the Lachesse,
Of half a minut of an houre,
Fro ferst that he began laboure
He loste all that he hadde do.

The lesson is clear. Lovers, do not tarry but seize the moment. Or else you may lose everything just as Grosseteste lost his talking head.

Roger Bacon (1220-1229) was an English monk who was credited, among other things, with the invention of gunpowder as well as a number of other devices. An anonymous 16th-century prose romance,The famous historie of Fryer Bacon, describes one of those as a precise brass replica of a “natural man’s head.” Including, not least, “the inward parts.” It tells how Bacon, struggling to give it speech, summoned the Devil to ask him for advice. Satan announced that the head would speak after a few weeks, as long as it was powered by “the continuall fume of the six hottest simples,” a selection of plants used in alchemical medicine. Over the next few centuries the story caught on and was retold many times. In 1589 it was adapted for the stage by Robert Greene and incorporated into The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay, one of the most successful Elizabethan comedies. Greene’s Bacon spent seven years creating a brass head that would speak “strange and uncouth aphorisms” to enable him to encircle Britain with a wall of brass that would make it impossible to conquer.

Unlike his source material, Greene does not cause his head to operate by natural forces but by “nigromantic charms” and “the enchanting forces of the devil“:[i.e., by entrapping a dead spirit or hobgoblin. Bacon collapses, exhausted, just before his device comes to life and announces “Time is,” “Time was,”” and “Time is Past” before being destroyed in spectacular fashion: the stage direction instructs that “a lightening flasheth forth, and a hand appears that breaketh down the Head with a hammer.”

As late as 1646 Sir Thomas Browne in Pseudodoxica Epidemica wrote that “Every ear is filled with the story of Frier Bacon, that made a brazen head to speak”.

*

I doubt whether many people alive today take the story seriously (if our predecessors ever did). Still it is nice to know that Dublin boasts a pub named The Brazen Head, said to go back all the way to 1198. May chat gpt one day play a similar role?

Tertius Gaudens

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These days when everyone is talking about Chatgpt, I find myself thinking of Pablo Picasso. Computers, he is supposed to have said, are completely useless. They can provide answers, but they cannot come up with questions. That is why, this time, I have chosen to put my thoughts in a question/answer format.

What was China’s original stance vis a vis the Ukrainian war?

In February 2022, just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed a “friendship without limits” which would bind their two countries together. One sign of this friendship is the fact that, during the first year of the war, Xi has spoken to Putin four times—but did not speak to Zelensky even once.

What came of it?

There has been some cooperation. But not as much as the above statement might imply. So far the most important form of aid China has given to Russia has been to act as a market for the latter’s exports. Including, besides minerals, oil (both crude and distilled), wood and wood products. Also, apparently, some dual use (military and civilian) technology. Also, political support at the UN, in the rest of the world, etc. Recently US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has raised Beijing’s ire by accusing it of preparing to provide arms to Russia. If the accusations are true, then that would mean a step closer towards direct intervention in the war. But whether they are true, and how extensive and significant the resulting aid would be, remains to be seen.

Why has China submitted a peace plan just now?

Hard to say. One thing is certain: it is not because of Xi’s tender, loving heart. One Chinese objective may be to save as much as possible from the general secretary’s belt and road initiative, which depends on peace in Eurasia and was disrupted by the war. Or simply because China, as a great power, feels it cannot afford not to submit some kind of plan for peace. Just as America did in 1905 (the Russo-Japanese War), 1917 (World War I) and 1974 (the Arab-Israeli War), to mention but a few.

God, Napoleon once said, resides in the details. So what are they?

China’s peace proposal consists of twelve rather general points that can be summed up more or less as follows. First, the need to “create conditions and platforms” for negotiations to resume, a process in which China is prepared to “play a constructive role.” Second, the need to avoid the threat or use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Third, the need for all parties to exercise “rationality and restraint” by respecting international law, avoiding attacks on civilians or civilian facilities as well as women and children. Fourth, China hopes to avoid “expanding military blocs–an apparent reference to NATO–and urges all parties to “avoid fanning the flames and aggravating tensions.”

Why does the West oppose the plan?

First, because it does not trust Putin to carry out any agreement he may sign, especially in regard to withdrawing his forces from Ukraine so as to restore the latter’s territorial integrity. Second, in the case of Europe in particular, because allowing Putin to retain at least some of his conquests would mean the end of the post-1945 world order which was based, if on anything at all, on the non-use of force in order to change borders. Third, in the case of Washington, because it comes too early and would not lead to a decisive loss of Russia’s power.

How likely is it to succeed?

Not very. Not just because the details remain unknown. But because Zelensky insists, in my view correctly, on the Russians withdrawing their forces from every inch of his country before serious negotiations can get under way.

So what does the future look like?

As both sides gird their loins for a long war of attrition, we shall see blood, toil, tears and sweat. Ending, perhaps, in bankruptcy; as happened to Britain in 1945 and as may yet happen to both Russia (should if suffer from more Western sanctions) and the US (as a result of its huge balance of trade and current account deficits, which the current war does nothing to reduce). And the EU? Just type “EU” and “bankruptcy” into your Google, and you’ll get your answer.

And where does China fit into all this?

Tertius gaudens.