To Whom it May Concern, Part Two |
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The research found in The rise and fall of star faring civilizations in our own galaxy, Ragnarok: The war for our destiny, and The enormous costs to society of 'right-wing' political governance can well serve as preamble to this document, laying out in detail my personal concerns and those of many others in regards to the future of humanity, and how (among other things) excessively large differences in wealth and technology among human factions could lead to our extinction at our own hands.
I personally hope we can avoid national, regional, and global aggression and military action of all kinds and scales in the future. In Civilization's best defenses against war, terrorism, technological stagnation, and economic ruin I point out what appear to be some of the most sensible and peaceful ways to accomplish this, worldwide. But until humanity embraces such civil means to resolve or minimize disputes and better everyone's lot, there will continue to be unwarranted aggression in the world, often by stronger countries against weaker ones, at times merely because they can. This document proposes to reduce such unjustified use of military force and advanced technologies, by the least lethal and damaging methods and techniques available. If just a few less people unnecessarily die or suffer as a result of this information than might otherwise have, it will have served its purpose well.
| -- Dave Winer; Scripting News; on or about 1-29-03 |
Other possible sources of information relating to peaceful resistance to the forces of tyranny may include Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, Civil Disobedience Manual, Handbook for Nonviolent Action, and Nonviolent Discipline.
Let's start at the top nation-state level and work our way down the strategy and tactics hierarchy.
The importance of becoming and staying a free, peaceful, prosperous, and open country
In general, it appears the first priority must be to prevent the enemy's propaganda from isolating and demonizing your country on the global and regional stages. Such isolation and demonization, if successful, will cut the risks and costs to an aggressor for attacking you by 90% or more, and almost certainly spell your defeat, as you end up with few or no effective allies, and world opinion decides your country would be better off invaded than not. The best preventive methods against such isolation and demonization include either being or becoming a somewhat liberal society in terms of democracy, economics, and civil liberties, and entering into reasonably mutually beneficial trade and other agreements with as many other nations as possible. Note that possessing a diverse national press unafraid to root out domestic corruption and mistakes-- as well as robust transparency in government, and active encouragement of and even rewards for 'whistleblowers'-- will also strengthen your country internally (including its defenses), and help you build more wealth with which to raise living standards and foil invaders should they come.
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-- 'Minaret of Freedom tries to square the Quran with the free market' -- Arab Development Lags Behind; ABC News -- 'We should not lose sight that building the capacity to fight corruption is paramount' "whistleblowers, audits and investigations were responsible for detecting 86 percent of crimes" -- Economic Crime Detected Mostly by Whistleblowers and Audits, PwC Survey Finds |
However, achieving the above will only reduce or minimize how much damage external forces can do to your reputation, credibility, and perceived threat status by telling the truth: once an enemy decides there's insufficient truthful statements to build a case against you, they will readily resort to lying of various means and degrees-- also known as propaganda. So you must be prepared to successfully cope with that as well.
Do not underestimate the power of propaganda in the hands of a superior technological and economic power. Though they may make as many mistakes as anyone else (sometimes spectacular ones), when they succeed the world may not even know it for decades to come. All that will be apparent is that the power 'got its way', with exercise of sheer power and/or wealth, and some luck. But propaganda will account for much of the perceived 'luck' element.
Major world powers and businesses spend enormous sums of money on the creation and distribution of propaganda (also known as 'marketing' in some cases), for many reasons. They employ either directly or indirectly literally tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of experts who may do nothing else with their time over years and decades but figure out new propaganda targets and devise tales by which to attack those targets in the world media (propaganda is also used to build up or make more attractive certain options or items too, such as brand names).
The above content and linked references are subject to substantial future revision and expansion.
One of the biggest advantages a less technologically advanced nation may have over a superior is the relative scale of dependence upon computers, telecommunications, and internet-type technologies. Attacks on such systems could have much greater effect on superior foes, than similar attacks might upon your own systems. As an added bonus, such attacks will usually not have nearly the toll on lives and property as physical bombs would-- so this strategy is one likely to be embraced by humanitarians over many alternatives.
Of course, some reliance upon such systems will be necessary for even nations of modest technological means. And technologically superior enemies will strive mightily to compromise those systems if and when they decide to attack you. So you must maintain a robust security strategy to protect your own assets as well.
All this means virtually all lesser developed nations should strive to maintain a healthy complement of expert builders, troubleshooters, and manipulators of such systems.
One major downside to being less advanced than your enemy in information systems is that this will mean you're stuck using essentially much older versions of much of the same software your enemies currently possess. Implications of this include your systems likely having numerous bugs and security holes for your enemy to exploit, both well-known and obscure. It also may mean the software itself is mostly or all 'closed' to practical examination of the code by your own people, so it could be filled with 'backdoors' or other aids for your enemy to spy on you or disable critical defenses on demand. Lastly, such software is prone to high inflexibility as well, perhaps requiring you to import licensed experts from your enemy themselves to make reasonably functional modifications to better match your needs. Such use of foreign experts may be denied on the whim of your enemy, or the experts themselves may act as enemy agents, sabotaging the code they write for you.
Or, at least the above will be the case wherever you're using the most ubiquitous commercial proprietary software typically found worldwide (circa 2003, this could be something like Microsoft Windows or related wares).
On the other hand, if you're using mainstream open source software instead, not only is the code readily transparent for inspection by your own programmers, and infinitely modifiable to suit your needs, but you can also be using whatever version suits you, from the oldest to the newest, with the primary cost differences between implementation basically depending upon any hardware and personnel training differences between the versions.
| -- Slashdot Opensource Code More Refined Than Closed |
Remember the previous requirement that you maintain your own substantial native complement of programmers for such software? There too you'll realize many advantages from going open source rather than commercial proprietary.
But your information systems may be less important than your financial systems and markets, in terms of protecting your nation from the political and economic manipulations of others. Allowing powerful developed nations and their institutions to have excessive influence on your own internal policies can be disasterous-- as countries like Argentina and others have learned in past years and decades.
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"...one of the most spectacular economic collapses in modern history, a debacle in which Wall Street played a major role.."
"...Investment bankers, analysts and bond traders served their own interests when they pumped up euphoria about the country's prospects, with disastrous results..." "...this behavior was a major contributor to the downfall of a country that prided itself on following free-market tenets..." "...made the Argentine government comfortable issuing more and more bonds, driving its debt to levels that would ultimately prove ruinous..." -- Argentina Didn't Fall on Its Own Wall Street Pushed Debt Till the Last ; Washington Post |
The above content and linked references are subject to substantial future revision and expansion.
Don't act or think like often wasteful and politically corrupt first world nations. Instead, leapfrog them technologically, wherever possible. For instance, purchasing very much cutting edge military wares from developed nations is just about the worst mistake you could make, in terms of resource allocation. What if the nation you buy these from suddenly decides you're persona non grata? Or a rival nation to your own bribes the advanced supplier to neutralize your arms systems? Then the supplier can almost instantly render your military useless by denying you essential spare parts and training for the weapons systems you bought in good faith. Or, as an alternative, they can slip in software or mechanical 'gotchas' in new buys that they can trigger on demand, so that when they (or others) invade, your equipment suddenly quits or starts spouting erroneous information.
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-- We are now a client state Britain has lost its sovereignty to the United States by David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor; July 17, 2003; The Guardian
-- New UK-US Extradition Treaty -- 'No wonder he kept so quiet about his one-sided US extradition deal' -- 'accident was caused by a lack of spare parts...unavailable because of U.S. sanctions' -- 'We should not lose sight that building the capacity to fight corruption is paramount' "whistleblowers, audits and investigations were responsible for detecting 86 percent of crimes" "economic crime in the U.S. is prevalent...and...likely to increase over the next five years" -- Economic Crime Detected Mostly by Whistleblowers and Audits, PwC Survey Finds -- Whistleblowers can pay dearly for doing the right thing -- Americans pay price for speaking out Dissenters face job loss, arrest, threats |
Plus, there's far better bargains for your defense monies out there. The American strategy of WWII worked well against the Germans. While the Germans often spent enormous monies and efforts developing and producing a relatively small number of advanced tanks of technically superior design, the US focused on manufacturing a hell of a lot more tanks of a simpler, cheaper design, which eventually made for overwheming numbers on the US side.
To use a more modern analogy, although things like America's cutting edge stealth jets and attack helicopters get most of the press, the real workhorse of conflicts has often been two astonishingly old craft in the American armory: the B-52 bomber and A-10 Warthog. Sure, the US has incrementally updated both craft in various ways over the years, incorporating newer types of missiles and electronics, etc. But the basic designs remain the same, and could likely be copied by many nations on the cheap. Imagine possessing a thousand cloned Warthogs for the price of one much newer weapons system from such nations. Stuff like that. And having simpler craft means simpler pilot training, and easier, faster, and cheaper replacement and maintenance.
On the other hand, you could waste enormous sums on cutting edge helicopter gunships such as those the US often found too vulnerable to real world battlefield conditions to usefully deploy in places like Bosnia and Iraq.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not recommending that anyone attempt to produce lots of knockoffs of old US plane designs as a defensive priority. I'm just saying that would likely be a better idea than buying lots of expensive newer US fighter plane and helicopter gunship designs. But in this document I believe I list still better alternatives than the clone route.
I'm also not recommending you buy nothing from the technologically advanced nations: it will clearly be in your interest to purchase certain items and services from them. But such things should be carefully considered for their potential of being rendered useless or worse by the maker, just when you might need their functionality most. Plus, in many cases spending your money on local industry rather than foreign manufacturing would multiply the overall effectiveness and benefits of your procurement programs many times, compared to exporting your cash.
Other examples of leapfrogging the developed nations would include going straight to wireless communications and on-site power generation rather than laying down wires everywhere, and building hugely expensive central stations for such grids which can then be conveniently and cheaply targeted for destruction or disabling by your enemies.
Note that in many cases a less developed nation will have at least one big advantage over more advanced ones in such matters as these: for they'll possess little or nothing of such original systems to replace. That means they're not hindered by the forces of the status quo like the more developed nations often are. For example, the USA itself increasingly is lagging behind many other nations in consumer adoption of internet broadband (as well as some aspects of wireless), partly due to the huge past investment in telecommunications infrastructure America made, and the vast entanglements of government and big business interests related to any change in policies regarding such technologies. In the USA, established 'big money' players are effectively slowing down technological innovation and reducing the productivity and GDP of the country as a whole from what it might otherwise be, merely to extend the profitable life of their own aging technologies well beyond most any reasonable span.
By contrast, many developing nations may move with lightning speed to entirely new technologies-- at least in some cases.
| -- Wireless Internet technology may help poor nations leapfrog into the future |
As for brainstorming exactly how a developing nation might most cost-effectively 'leapfrog' developed nations in many ways, take a cue from what those advanced nations themselves do: encourage entrepreneuers in your country to create realistic video and computer games depicting various related scenarios for your youth (and experts) to play and scrutinize. Basically, create lots of simulations of various contingencies, and see what the results tell you. Note that the closer to real life physics and conditions the parameters of the games are set to, the better the resulting data will be. The entrepreneurs who do this may well create a new growth industry in your country, even exporting such games to the developed nations as well. Such game development will also nurture the creation of your own native programmers. I mention the use of such gaming simulations for getting ideas for real defenses in To whom it may concern, part one too.
The above content and linked references are subject to substantial future revision and expansion.
Before the dawn of the 21st century, it appeared that a 'David' nation could count on one thing in its defense: Namely, that so long as it didn't develop, deploy, or use nuclear weapons itself, it was highly unlikely the USA or its military allies would strike it with their own nukes, almost no matter what happened. And that the US and its allies might well step up to intervene in any conflict where it appeared someone else (such as Russia or China) might threaten 'David' with a nuke as well.
But US President George W. Bush changed all that.
As of 2003 having zero nuclear weapons or biological weapons of your own will not protect you from the potential use of same by the most advanced powers on Earth, as well as any and all lesser powers. This is official policy for which the United States itself (under the Administration of George W. Bush) set the standard.
This unfortunate change in policy by the USA appears likely to lead to massive proliferation of biological and possibly nuclear weapons too across the globe in decades to come, worsening the risks for everyone. The biologicals perhaps much more than the nuclear, as the biologicals are so much cheaper and easier to produce and conceal.
I know it may seem insane not to create your own such weapons, under the direct or indirect threat of same from others. But keep in mind the 'doomsday' possibilities inherent in the use of such weapons, by anyone, or any side in a conflict. Such use could cause escalation of all kinds, and thereby lead to the end of the world for everyone.
| -- Dave Winer; Scripting News; on or about 1-29-03 |
Yes, not having such weapons, even just as an avowed deterrance against aggression, may well ultimately lead to your cruel subjugation and occupation by another. But at least in your own defeat you may have delayed doomsday for all humanity (and at least some of your own people) by not resorting to nuclear or biological weapons yourself-- even if your enemy did not show the same constraint.
Yes, I realize many will feel compelled to create at minimum biological or chemical weapons for possible deterrance, no matter what I say here.
So how about this?
If you must develop biological systems, how about focusing on the defensive side first and foremost? Protecting your own people and soldiers from the possible biological or chemical weapons others may use against you? This effort could include everything from the development of vaccines and new antibiotics to the earth-sheltered network previously described, and positive pressure air conditioning and heating systems, and special filters for same. Providing universal healthcare for your population would help you get earlier warning of attacks, and more easily contain their damage, as well as make your population as a whole stronger and more resistant to such attacks just in general.
The less vulnerable you are to the biological or chemical weapons systems of others, the less likely others are to use them, or develop them in the first place. And in the worst case where they are used against you, their damage will be much more limited than might otherwise have been the case.
As the history so far of biological and chemical weapons shows them to have a spotty success record at best, even where victims weren't well prepared against them, having full-bore defensive measures in place prior to any attack should render their results almost negligible in many cases.
Taking the wisest and most cost-effective security precautions against possible biological or chemical attacks will also strengthen your nation economically across-the-board-- enhancing still further the domestic dynamism and prosperity which helps reduce the accuracy and capability of enemy surveillance, and enables you to pay for better defenses than you might possess via alternate choices. It'll also help minimize the damages and costs of true accidents involving such agents.
OK, so you say you've already taken all the most cost-effective defensive measures possible against biological or chemical attack, and still want to do more?
Well, there's still no need to develop lethal or permanently damaging weapons. Be creative instead, and take some lessons from the animal world. You primarily want to make an invasion or attack by a potential enemy as costly, troublesome, and risky as possible: and killing or permanently crippling enemy troops is not necessarily the best way to do that. Indeed, inflicting such casualties may only increase the motivation for enemy troops to decimate your nation and people, for reasons of revenge.
Examining your potential enemy's typical individual priorities, social values, and beliefs might offer some clues to good, non-lethal measures you could develop.
For keep in mind lots of people-- especially highly trained soldiers-- might consider many alternatives far worse and scarier than death itself. Indeed, popular culture in many developed nations such as the USA (which is exported throughout the world via music and films) arguably glorify and worship death and murder-- at least under certain circumstances.
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Suicide, murder, terrorism, war, and violence of many other sorts, both physical and mental, done to oneself and/or to others. It's remarkably easy for the average human being today to find something they consider to be 'worth dying for'. Usually, perhaps normally, such justifications for death are related to one's family, and sometimes friends and lovers. But governments often ask (or demand) that we (or typically men, anyway) see more distant or abstract ideas as sufficient to die for, such as nationalism/patriotism, etc. The most extreme of cult or religious leaders sometimes desire something similar from both sexes.
If you look around, you find almost everyone is constantly trying to persuade you that their particular agenda or idol or idea is worth dying for-- even if it only means a drawn out death, reached via one pinprick at a time. For as your free time is the most valuable asset of anyone alive, and most of us must give up great gobs of that time to earn money, then everytime we pay money for something we're trading a bit of our life for it-- and so dying a little. -- 'Money has displaced every other traditional value' Thus, Madison Avenue advertising is constantly pushing different brands and speeds of death upon us, not much different from the worst illegal drug pushers-- at least from one perspective. The developed world is now inundated with such death merchants, with the overall level of advertising becoming almost subliminal now, as it pervades our internet experience, TV viewing, radio listening, theater visits, taxi cab rides-- practically any aspect of human experience you can name, today. At the same time we're drenched in violence in our media, and urged to act on impulse and make more money ever faster so we can spend more faster-- and die faster. Apparently the ideal consumer would be one who frenziedly works their butt off for a lifetime so that they can buy as much stuff as possible, and never ever stop to contemplate any other aspects of their lives or the world. This non-stop rat race participation also often conveniently prevents most of us from noticing what our leaders are actually doing in our name, and so also prevents us from working up sufficient concern to vote or otherwise work against the worst of what our leaders perpetrate in office, not only against other nations, but ourselves as well. And so modern democracy at minimum stagnates or decays-- and at worst collapses. Today's America seems the epitome of this, as the entire economy appears structured to minimize conscious thought or financial independence on the part of individual consumers, while also draining them in every conceivable way money-wise in order to keep them running the treadmill in their cage. America does little or nothing to train children how to resist this bombardment, or even how to manage their own budgets in order to protect themselves from financial ruin when they grow up. -- United States a nation of financial illiterates - The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA We're all pretty much on our own, with 'every man for himself'. No wonder some foreign observers often comment on the short-sightedness, selfish and self-centered nature of certain Americans. In broad societal terms, we're raised that way. -- The Overworked Individualist: Portrait Of The American Worker; interview of Deborah Figart, Professor of Economics with Richard Stockton College, by Sharon Basco; Feb 24 2003 "...American families live just one illness or accident away from complete financial collapse" -- US Study: Medical Bills Main Culprit In Bankruptcies by Araminta Wordsworth; www.commondreams.org; October 09, 2002; originally published by the National Post in Canada, April 27, 2000 I wonder though, if there's no way we could turn this around? Help one another find things to live for, rather than die for? Of course, some would sneer that such a philosophy smacks of cowardice, as it would dilute the urge to find just causes for death, either for onself or others, in pursuits like war or terrorism, etc. But life itself is often no picnic, as even we sometimes pampered Americans know from first-hand experience. -- "the hardest thing in this world is to live in it" Indeed, choosing life over death is often the more difficult course for many of us, as death would release us from all sorts of obligations, uncertainties, and suffering, while life tends to do only the opposite. We Americans effectively rule the world at the moment, but find ourselves aghast when our emphasis on essentially glorifying death saturates the globe, and helps result in things like suicide bombers and the use of airliners as manned missiles. Just look at the Hollywood blockbusters we feed upon and export to the rest of the world. Often brimming with extreme violence, and focusing on heroes who can find something or someone worth risking their life for around every corner. What can we do about all this? That's hard to say, as glorifying extreme violence, suicide, and murder is very profitable for our media elite and large shareholders, as well as very useful to our politicians when they want to elicit emotional responses from us in support of various wars, candidates, or passage of new laws, and our employers when they wish to motivate us to be as ruthless as possible in business dealings-- since American brand capitalism seems to have degenerated into something like a perpetual war footing itself, since the end of the Cold War. They've got us locked up tight in support of death and violence in so many ways that it's mind-boggling. How might we break this vicious cycle, before it possibly results in the end of us all? Well, the best 'big picture' ideas I personally find for this I post at places like Civilization's best defenses against war, terrorism, technological stagnation, and economic ruin. The low end, 'grass roots', 'do-it-yourself' concepts and techniques I post in How to live well on very, very little. -- Revised text from 8-3-02 Newz&Viewz: Why is it easier for many to find things to die for than to live for? |
So merely devising effective but temporary incapacitation (or severely embaressing) measures of various kinds might be actually far more potent threats than you'd expect against such forces. For if enemy troops see or hear of evidence that a particular system you possess actually works, they'll be afraid that no matter what their superiors tell them, the effects might be permanent, and they'll want to avoid being exposed if possible. And some potential effects might be considered pretty awful even if everyone knew they were only temporary (depending upon the belief systems of individual personnel).
Apparently the Allies of WWII could have used such a strategy to even more far ranging (and fatal) effect against Japanese troops in the Pacific theater, had they realized the possibility for it-- as much anecdotal and other evidence portrays Japanese men of that time as highly susceptible to suicide for turns of events which many westerners of the period would have perceived only as slight setbacks or unfortunate embaressments, possibly leading to demotion but rarely actual punishment beyond that. Even today, many Japanese people consider certain points of honor, success, and reputation to be so important that they might take their own lives where they feel they have lost too many points in such matters.
Of course, this brings up another point: Could the USA have shamed Japan into surrender by cleverly leveraging such beliefs, and so avoided both the alternatives of a bloody mass invasion of the home islands, or bombing the Japanese into submission with nuclear weapons? We can never know for sure. But it'd certainly be interesting to hear what some experts on Japanese culture and history might have to say on the subject.
Of course, such shaming into surrender via minimal actual violence would be unlikely to work on the governments of circa 2003 western countries-- especially the USA. For the American elite seem no longer to have any sense of shame. Just look at our current top government and business leaders and their behavior to see what I mean. Now buying us out, or blackmailing us seem to be different matters entirely...for such elements play major-- perhaps even THE most important-- roles in our domestic politics and business these days.
| -- 'It now seems as though the only qualification for being president of the United States is getting people to write checks'; Washington Post |
The above content and linked references are subject to substantial future revision and expansion.
The second most important place to concentrate our efforts for such defenses is to interfere with an advanced enemy's capacity to gain and maintain accurate intelligence and air supremacy over the land in question. Indeed, denying them even air superiority would be still better, but much more difficult and costly to achieve.
As your enemy may well possess advanced satellites and other spy gear and resources, there'll be much regarding effective counter-intelligence you simply cannot do. Plus, trying to secure local information by censoring your own press and internal freedom of information will likely do you more harm than good, as it'll slow down innovation and reduce entrepreneurial startup successes, as well as allow far more gross errors and corruption to take place within your borders.
But still you will not be without some options in this arena.
Note some of the best ways to deny an enemy critical information or sabotage/defection opportunities is to instill a fierce loyalty in your people, as well as train them to be aware of such dangers. The best way to create loyalty is to do everything possible to make your people as happy and prosperous over the long term as you can, with the people themselves participating fully in the process.
It may seem far easier and simpler to use a combination of ignorance, fear, propaganda, surveillance, and coercion to create loyalty, and indeed that often works pretty well for organizations unlikely to encounter a vastly superior external threat. But that's exactly what we're talking about here: a vastly superior external threat. So malevolent dictatorships already have one foot in the grave when and if such a threat actually transforms into a real attack.
Also keep in mind that a far richer country can basically defeat a far poorer country by simply buying them out-- either from the top down or the bottom up. IF, that is, the people themselves possess little or no reason for maintaining loyalty to their state (Being perpetually impoverished, ignorant, or terrified are three pretty good reasons to be dis-loyal, if you get the opportunity). So by making your people more prosperous, bold, and educated, you strengthen your nation (or group) in at least three important and distinct ways against any potential external threat.
| -- 'before Gulf War II began, U.S. special forces had gone in and bribed Iraqi generals not to fight' |
Dictatorships also typically waste so many resources by way of micro-managing many activities, and encouraging certain types of corruption and slavish fears against reporting mistakes and setbacks to superiors, that they do well to sport even a superficial veneer of defensibility against substantial outside forces.
| -- Iraq's Swift Defeat Blamed on Leaders |
So having a bright, well off, and loyal population is key. You should also encourage and welcome immigration into your state. Keep in mind that the closer to a true meritocracy your state becomes, the ever more difficult it'll be for even real spies to be net negatives for your bottomline, in virtually any fashion. For although they may well serve as conduits of valuable information to your enemies, they'll also be forced to perform well their established roles within your country at the same time-- which means in many ways you will profit from their presence.
| -- Invading species have tough time cracking diverse neighborhood |
Making your country as idyllic as possible will also increase the ease with which you can recruit enemy spies to become double-agents, and actually turn against their original masters! Note that this occurred with regard to some Soviet agents sent to America in the past, when America enjoyed a substantial advantage over the Soviet state in many matters like described above.
So how else may you effectively limit the spying your enemies can do on you? Be as open and transparent as possible. This will cause your enemies to waste enormous resources seeking out secrets which do not exist, due to their own well-cultivated paranoia and obsession with contingency planning.
You may also render much intelligence-gathering about your defenses of little value by having the most decentralized defensive systems and public infrastructure possible. A happy coincidence of such a strategy is that you will be greatly empowering your citizenry and entrepreneurs and rendering your country much less susceptible to natural disasters at the same time as you are strengthening your defenses.
Here's an example: If most industrial plants and citizen households are largely self sufficient in energy, water, food, and waste disposal, there's little or no national power grid or water systems for an enemy to target. It makes it much more difficult for terrorists to inflict significant damage or injuries as well, if your country is highly decentralized. The same goes for sabotage of whatever kind.
Other ways to reduce the effectiveness of enemy spying include maintaining a vibrant, dynamic, highly entrpreneurial economy. Besides helping raise living standards for your people, this status will also cause your nation to change quite rapidly in many matters, thereby helping to often confound enemy efforts to track anything and everything. Thus, if and when the enemy decides to attack, their maps and intelligence may include quite a few errors, thereby hurting their combat effectiveness.
Satellites and spy planes are just about all-seeing already, and maybe soon will be virtually omniscient. And that's before the advanced nations get their nanotech flying gnat devices up and running. Pretty soon the only place there'll be to hide is in your imagination-- and they're working on inflitrating that, too.
So pursue the art of hiding things in plain sight. Fortunately, lots of standard consumer technology production facilities can be regarded as multiple-use plants for contingency purposes. Keeping such contingencies in mind during the initial planning and construction phases of such factories will facilitate such flexibility later on, should it become required.
Mobile labs and workshops further expand such flexibility, and mesh well with the ideal dynamic, highly entrepreneurial economy recommended here for most countries to pursue for peace, prosperity, and security reasons. For example, dealings with natural disasters and major disease outbreaks could often both benefit from suitably equipped and staffed mobile labs and workshops. When not pressed into service to cope with crises, they could also be valuable in entreprenuerial or governmental roles of various sorts, such as mobile vocational training workshops in the countryside, or field research labs for improving agricultural yields, reducing pest populations, performing local vaccinations, etc., etc., etc.
Restructure your entire region or nation for reasons environmental, economic, and security-related.
Utilize lakes, bays, swamps, and other waterways as natural highways, by encouraging the use of water-landing aircraft, all-terrain hybrid hovercraft, and/or various types of boats by citizens and business. This helps reduce the number of vulnerable roads you must build and maintain, and makes it harder for enemies to discern and close chokepoints in your transportation networks.
The fewer paved roads you have, the harder it'll be for many modern militaries to invade your country, as virtually all their logistical land transport depends heavily upon wheeled vehicles, which tend to do poorly without roads. Militaries often have tracked land transport and helicopters they can fall back on, but that contingency is much more expensive, risky, and slower for them to use than their first choice: wheeled transport.
Underground facilities look to be essential in the new age. Unfortunately, many of those too will be uncovered by enemy intelligence over time. So if you're going to have any at all, you better try to carpet your entire region with them, so that there too the most important parts of the network may be hard to distinguish.
Luckily there's lots of good reasons to build plenty of earth-sheltered and underground structures in a nation, even if the military logic is ignored altogether. Earth-sheltered domiciles enjoy greater temperature consistency than above-ground dwellings, making them more efficient to heat and cool. They also offer far greater protection from the elements, such as storms, and the more stories (deeper) they go, the more efficient use of Earth's surface area they make. Rather than a single household or business occupying a given plot of the surface, a dozen or more may reside below that plot instead, stacked one atop another.
To establish such an underground network may not require nearly as much costly special purpose digging and drilling as you might think. For example, merely leveling a few mountains would provide you with sufficient earth and rock to well bury huge structures rambling many miles over the country-side. Their earth-covered roofs would simply become the new ground-level in the vicinity. As such mountains are routinely leveled or rehaped in many countries during normal mining operations, we wouldn't be going far out of our way to use this new surplus earth to cover vast tracts of previously planned subterranean construction, initially built aboveground in order to minimize construction and excavation costs.
Sure, your enemies will see all this construction across the land. But if it's sufficiently ubiquitous, their net gain of intelligence will be virtually zero.
| -- 'the biggest hurdle to bunker busting may be targeting' |
And keep in mind that once you have this initial network built and buried, you can increase the depths of the construction inside it wherever you wish, and it'll be much tougher for your enemies to find out where you're sinking such new construction, than it would have been without the preliminary operation across vast tracts of the surface.
All this construction and reshaping of the land will also give you the opportunity to create more waterways if you wish, among other things.
All this work could eventually result in a utopia-like setting on the surface, with great vistas of natural looking terrain, farmlands, and parks above ground, and much major industrial, urban, and suburban activity hidden and protected below. It might also help make way for greater use of solar, wind, hydro, and hydrothermal power generation. The hydrothermal could possibly be tapped via the deepest sunken wells in the subterranean complexes, while the other energy sources were exploited on the newly optimized surface.
| -- Doomsday vault among West Virginia's underground treasures |
Yet another economic and security advantage of essentially creating a new underground 'layer' to your entire country or region will be the opportunity to lay out a highly redundant and secure high bandwidth optical communications network connecting virtually everyone and everything within this area-- especially where wireless communications supplement the fiber optics at the periphery.
Enemy surveillance of your communications is actually a fairly easy nut to crack. Simply use quantum encryption for vital security matters, and a combination of public encryption keys, one-time pads, and personal anecdotal clues for all other purposes. This will drive your enemy's intelligence agencies nuts, and severely cut down on the information gathered that way.
Also be sure to use these encryption techniques either across-the-board (so virtually all communications nationwide are ultra-secure-- which also safeguards general commerce, consumer safety, and reduces identity theft), or at least arrange that much casual business, government, and consumer communications of negligible security value is so encrypted on a completely random basis. Why? Both these tacks will help generate huge mounds of intercepted, encrypted messages from your nation, almost 100% of which may appear to be possibly of vital interest to anyone wishing to attack or undermine you. If your advanced enemy does happen to come up with some way to break the combination of encryption methods used here, it'll likely still be very costly in terms of money, man hours, and computer time to actually use. So the bigger these mounds of super indecipherable stuff they must apply their costly techniques too, the longer hid your true vital data will probably remain, and the faster your enemies will drain their own treasuries dry in search of it.
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