Friday 26 July 2024

Self-fulfilling prophesies

 

It is a trademark characteristic of the military mind that ‘the enemy’ is always watching, always waiting, just looking for an opportunity to launch a surprise onslaught to seize territory and impose his will on others. Currently, the prime enemy is assumed to be Putin, who is almost portrayed as a live version of a Bond villain, forever plotting world domination (although, as  far as I’m aware, he doesn’t own a cat, which somewhat spoils the image). In the fictional and real worlds alike, the reason for seeking world domination has never been entirely clear to me, but perhaps I over-analyse: a madman seeking to dominate the world doesn’t necessarily need a logical reason. Like the man who wanted to be world king, maybe Putin just wants power for its own sake. And possibly for a bit of personal enrichment on the side; although – in real life, just as in fiction – being the head of a criminal organisation rarely leaves enough time to relax and properly enjoy the proceeds. Permanent paranoia is an essential attribute, even if those around him really are all out to get him.

When it comes to deterrence, if he’s truly mad all bets are off. Deterrence necessarily depends on an assumption that the person being deterred is capable of a rational analysis of the likely costs and benefits of any given course of action so, whilst painting Putin as a madman, the policy of deterrence counter-intuitively assumes that he isn’t. That raises its own problems. If he is indeed rational, then telling a man who (allegedly) is determined to attack and destroy the UK that we’re not ready for him now, but give us three years to prepare and we’ll be able to kill two or three times as many Russians with the same level of armed forces looks more like an invitation to urgent action than a deterrent. Using it before you lose it is far from an irrational position to take if you feel threatened. If he’s not rational, then it has no effect at all. And neither will the additional expenditure on armaments.

In the fictional realm, it’s never entirely clear whether the flunkies and minions who rush to do their master’s bidding are doing so in expectation of some reward for themselves, or out of fear, or out of blind loyalty. They always turn out to be expendable, though. And in most cases, they end up duly expended. In real life, the expendable ones are the foot soldiers, invariably drawn from the working people of all belligerents whilst the ruling elites stay safely out of harm’s way. In a war with a clear conclusion, the elites on the winning side count their profits from the arms industry whilst those on the losing side rue their financial losses. Where there is no such clear outcome from a conflict, the elites on both sides win: the arms industry rakes in the cash all round. Financially, war and peace end up looking quite similar in one important way – wealth gets further concentrated in the hands of the few. In a war which degenerates into a major nuclear exchange, there’ll be no money left to count; just as well, for there’ll be no-one left to count it either.

Nuclear deterrence, they tell us, works. Just look at the fact that there has been no all-out war between two nuclear-armed blocs since the end of the last world war. Maybe. We can’t re-run history without nuclear deterrence to see what would have happened; perhaps there are other compelling reasons why war has somehow been avoided. But even supposing, for the sake of argument, that we accept the lack of war to date to be an indicator of the success of nuclear deterrence, that doesn’t justify an assumption that it will always work. It could be like that little strip of Velcro holding the curtains up, which works really well – until the day that it doesn’t.

The politicians are rushing to agree with the military assessment, and vying to see who can offer to divert the largest sums from promoting the wellbeing of citizens into building weapons of destruction. There is one thing about which they are right – our future prosperity depends on our security. But what they’re not willing even to countenance is the idea that security, in the sense of a lack of war, could be achieved in other ways. De-escalation, removal of threats, negotiation, and building trust aren’t even up for consideration as they continue the slow but inexorable march towards a war. It’s a war which their own actions are making increasingly likely.

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