"Constant Conflict" An Essay From the U.S. Army War College

This article was written in 1997 by Ralph Peters. It's startling in it's accuracy. I have excerpted it here but reading the full article is an eye-opener.

I was never a believer in the idea that the internet might be shut down or radically changed. The fact is, they love it. They manage it. Information is power.

If this was their view in 1997, one can only imagine the military take on world scenarios now. This also makes me more of a believer in the "Synthetic Environments" hypothesis, the idea that the government runs computer simulations in order to anticipate outcomes for major conflicts, events and scenarios.

www.carlisle.army.mil...

We have entered an age of constant conflict. Information is at once our core commodity and the most destabilizing factor of our time. Until now, history has been a quest to acquire information; today, the challenge lies in managing information. Those of us who can sort, digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge soar--professionally, financially, politically, militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a minority.

For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is "nasty, brutish . . . and short-circuited." The general pace of change is overwhelming, and information is both the motor and signifier of change. Those humans, in every country and region, who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States. We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent.

We live in an age of multiple truths. He who warns of the "clash of civilizations" is incontestably right; simultaneously, we shall see higher levels of constructive trafficking between civilizations than ever before. The future is bright--and it is also very dark. More men and women will enjoy health and prosperity than ever before, yet more will live in poverty or tumult, if only because of the ferocity of demographics. There will be more democracy--that deft liberal form of imperialism--and greater popular refusal of democracy. One of the defining bifurcations of the future will be the conflict between information masters and information victims.

[edit on 16/12/2008 by kosmicjack]

From the link:

The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.

There's no denying it, that's what we have done for the past ten years.

I'm bumping this for the night-time crowd. Sorry, I just want people to read the essay.

It's scary in that it describes the last ten years to a tee. It makes me slightly concerned for the next ten.

I won't bump it again.

reply to post by kosmicjack


I wouldn't agree it is an age of constant conflict, but a world of constant conflict.

Perpetual war, for perpetual peace.