Weaponising everything and everyone

In a way, accusing the other side of weaponising all sorts of things is itself an attempt to weaponise those things. By saying others are weaponising information, for example, as the Guardian does, you are basically turning information sources into targets for military action.

Or, you are telling people to close their ears to other sources and listen instead to you. You are taking the war to the information sphere and telling your audience to fight for you by only listening to you, thereby unnecessarily militarising and weaponising this sphere. You were the one who adopted the idea that making people hold specific beliefs is a military objective you want met, and declared this view publicly. Others may just have welcomed a healthy debate, with every point, from the most banal to the most diabolic, open for consideration. So, who really weaponised something?

Pandemic of censorship

In a 2020 exchange of ideas, the Mont Order information-sharing society agreed that “The way content related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been controlled is a potential gateway to increasingly aggressive censorship by Western governments”. This referred to the handling of medical disinformation, which can indeed be fatal, but later, disputed political information was increasingly being dealt with in the same way.

The Mont Order prediction seemed to come true later, when all dissenting sources on the Ukraine conflict were being treated as enemy operators rather than legitimate participants in a debate. Virtually every statement critical of the West and NATO was also suddenly treated as the statement of none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin, himself. The accepted idea became that everyone must promote a single narrative on any controversial issue, and all dissent must be dealt with like enemy shellfire, and silenced immediately.

Attention given to the idea of Russia spreading propaganda, and a lack of grasp of what propaganda is (other than that it is enemy information and therefore bad), has likely made many people in the West incapable of spotting a lot of very obvious and shoddy propaganda from the West itself. The cliché that the other side only produces propaganda and its claims can all be dismissed (even if true) is a huge accomplishment in propaganda. Inconvenient information is to be dismissed without consideration and even any source dismissed as an enemy agent, regardless of where it is located or its prior reputation. Everything becomes ad hominem attacks and shooting the messenger (in Ukraine itself, that probably is happening literally).

Being right doesn't mean being correct

Control of all publicly-consumed information works well for winning information wars where the goal is to convince the people of something, but it does not create informed experts. It is not hard to guess that Western journalists and politicians are themselves consuming dubious information, confusing a sense of righteousness for accuracy (the word "right" being the same word used to describe things that are morally encouraged or factually correct is a source of confusion, maybe). A rational person, meanwhile, concedes that our own regimes and the small, narrow blob of familiar corporate sponsors in the West could be motivated to spread their own fakes and propaganda.

In some ways, the discouragement of anything contrary to the single supreme narrative on a given controversy makes the West every bit as vulnerable to mindless propaganda as the most totalitarian societies in history. At worst, it means the very foundations of our supposed Western civilisation are just fakes and falsehoods, devoid of substance. We do not enjoy liberty, and lack access to the truth.

Weaponisation of TikTokers and YouTubers

The Biden administration actually intervened to convince TikTok creators to help it convince users of its position on the fighting in Ukraine. To the US government, everything is a weapon, and its foreign policy goals need to be achieved using every ethical and unethical method it can find.

It can seem as if genuine grassroots voices are rising up to support Ukraine's apparently morally just cause on YouTube, unanimously siding with the West and the supposed universal decency it represents when it comes to conflicts. The reality, though, is that even this behaviour is explained more by these people's reliance on a single platform aligned with the West and the sanctions it uses to control content creators. Creators want to stay in good standing with the platform, and this has more to do with what they say than any genuine moral stance on anything.

The sanctioned point of view

If we focus on YouTube's weaponisation, it is not hard to notice that content (even from entertainers) praising Ukraine or NATO in the ongoing conflict in Europe retains its monetisation (ads still play), in addition to which pro-Ukraine ads are allowed all over the site itself, despite this cause being ethically dirty and politically aligned in a violent conflict (revenue is blocked for video content on other conflicts). This tells us two things. First, that YouTube's management are guided by agents of the US government when it comes to foreign policy (certainly, Google is). Second, that the users creating the content had some kind of advance knowledge of the measures in place to reward or punish people depending on what conclusions their videos endorsed regarding the Ukraine conflict. With such factors in force, how likely is a content creator to arrive at balanced conclusions on the war in Ukraine? Basically, they have been given financial incentives to promote a specific view in their videos.

Clearly, the same narrow group of people who have sway over Western regimes and are able to treat politicians to all kinds of carrots and sticks are doing the same with even small content creators online. Consequently, what appears to be mass support popping up for a cause is always more likely to just be financially motivated and originating from a very narrow source.

To display a Ukrainian flag at one's church, or on one's car or social media profile, is not an autonomous action by people. Nobody was really moved by what they saw in Ukraine or in any other foreign conflict, but by sanctions, i.e. a cycle of reward and punishment by the powerful, which is the basis of all Western policy and morality. The resulting activity supporting the state's policies is subtly state-controlled. One way or another, incentives are created by the state and influence operations take place, in an effort to weaponise everything and everyone to sanitise and prop up an otherwise dubious and dirty policy of inflaming a foreign conflict.

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Did anti-vaxxers destroy US germ warfare plans?

There is something insidious about the biological warfare warnings by the Russian and Chinese governments coinciding with acute geopolitical conflict, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the obsession of Western governments and elites with vigilant public health policy.

A US military paper described “public resistance to public health measures” as a military threat to the US preparedness to withstand a biological attack. It is also a threat to US preparedness to launch such a germ warfare attack on an adversary, because it impairs the ability to carry out necessary inoculations of US troops and civilians at home ahead of just such an attack, to avoid the viral weapon backfiring on America.

Inoculation against what, again?

The US government's supposedly defensive Project Bioshield includes the aim of developing vaccines. This makes no sense. Inoculation campaigns would require knowledge of the exact biological threat, both in terms of its identity and the timing of its deployment as a weapon. You would require samples of the specific viral threat to already exist in the lab, to even begin work.

What is Bioshield going to develop a vaccine against, if it doesn't know what the enemy-manufactured virus will be? Inoculations are by definition a preventative measure against a known threat. In a military sense, it is about protecting one's people and resources and preserving them for future action. The development of a military vaccine only seems to make sense if a military is developing an offensive viral weapon and wants to inoculate its own troops to stop the weapon infecting its own forces.

Winning the vaccination debate is a US military objective

The option to impose mandatory inoculations of the population, and especially military forces, is a necessary part of any preparation for biological warfare, whether the attack is to come from an adversary or your own military. The state would necessarily have to forcibly inoculate large parts of its own population, in order to make sure the lethality of its own weapons does not backfire on its people and resources and undermine victory.

Western societies would not simply accept mandatory inoculations without society undergoing the necessary debate over the issue, and we seem to be past that stage now. The intentional politicisation of Covid-19 and very forced attempt to have a public debate over the necessity of mandatory vaccinations (even though the situation was not serious enough for that) could have been preparation to help build offensive biological warfare options against Russia and China. In a way, it is like building nuclear bunkers.

Russians and Chinese spotted something

Then, we come back to the biological weapon claims of the Russians and Chinese, whether one trusts them or not as a source. They allege that the United States has a very aggressive biological warfare program, with facilities near both of these adversary states. They are clearly unnerved, even paranoid. This may be more to do with them noticing Western states apparently hardening themselves for a biological warfare situation at home, taking advantage of the pandemic to overcome any social and political objections to the idea of the sudden inoculation of entire nations on the state's command.

West seems sure of victory

Finally, there is the uncompromising warmongering of Western states, which is uncharacteristic of countries that are held in check by the traditional threat of mutual destruction in a nuclear war. Clearly, Western governments believe they can actually eliminate Russia and China as threats within a short timeframe. This is apparent in their triumphalist attitude, which exceeds their apparent capabilities, as if they intend to lean on indirect or covert means of attack. While many may see the threat in "colour revolutions" (staged uprisings and street violence led by staff at Western embassies), germ warfare also fits such a description. The West talks like it has an ultimate secret weapon, and that weapon could take the form of viruses.

Many of the individuals responsible for advising Western policies (World Economic Forum attendees, for example) have developed an obsession both with pandemics and with enemy regimes at the same time, as if both are certainly on their minds and considerable energy has gone towards both. They also hate alternate sources of information, and especially anti-vaxxers. Their vision is of a society that can live with very harsh public health policies, and also be resolute in its commitment against the "enemy". This is the ideal combination before launching a germ warfare campaign.

Germ warfare preparations failed?

Then again, we can just as easily go back to the US military paper's gloomy conclusion mentioned at the beginning of this post. It may be that anti-vaxxers have ruined everything for them and destroyed their plans.

The extent of rejection of vaccines in Western countries, and official frustrations with much of society's lack of acceptance of harsh health policies, suggest that Western preparations for germ warfare have failed, and our own societies are insufficiently controlled to allow our governments to wage this war. The truth may be that China has a much more compliant population, giving its regime the best capability to both resist biological attacks and launch them.

If Western governments think a biological attack is a viable way to get rid of Russia and China, they are playing with fire. Russia has taken a very aggressive tone since the war in Ukraine started, and would respond brutally to such an attack if it traced it (maybe going straight to nuclear weapons), while China would be able to withstand it and counterattack to deadly effect.

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George W. Bush's brutal confession

Former president George W. Bush accidentally stated the truth about his 2003 invasion of Iraq, referring to it as unjustified and brutal.

Rather than taking the chance to suggest that the American regime has changed since its aggression in 2003 (like Bush's fellow Iraq-era war criminal Antony Blinken did), media stories were instead trying to cover for Bush and convince us that this old war was in fact justified. This makes sense, because the same journalistic outlets helped to cause that war, so of course they have a reason to be apologists for the aggression.

Iraq and Ukraine wars incomparable

The Iraq War was much more brutal and lethal than the war in Ukraine, with no concern for mass civilian casualties during US attacks. In the opening days of the US attack on Iraq, American troops murdered far more people than their Russian counterparts did in the same length of time in their attack against Ukraine’s embattled regime.

The Iraq War is also obviously far harder to justify, waged far away from US shores (in contrast to the Russian intervention in the neighbouring state) and against a country that posed no threat, was at peace, and was receiving no foreign instruction and backing to a wage war (contrast Iraq with Ukraine, which was getting huge weapons deliveries specifically to kill Russian troops before the Russian attack).

It would have been a mistake if Bush had said that the Iraq and Ukraine wars are similarly brutal and unjustified. US actions in Iraq were far more brutal and difficult to justify than Russian actions in Ukraine. Again, Iraq was at peace and posed no imminent threat to the US. Ukraine was already at war with local rebels and was being equipped, to loud applause, specifically to pose a threat to Russian troops.

American superiority?

The Iraq invasion is only more justified than the Ukraine invasion if you subscribe to the idea that the US is simply better than other countries, being the indispensable country and thus more morally entitled to take direct action to defend its security than Russia. The people subscribing to this idea think it is great if the US attacks potential small threats thousands of miles away, but also believe Russia must never be allowed to use its military to penetrate across the border to address a far more substantial threat. Even more ridiculously, the proponents also think Russian leaders should base Russian foreign policy on this same idea: the US is indispensable and must never have its security undermined, whereas Russia is dispensable and it is okay for Russians to perish. Any suggestion by any nation that it might care about its own security more than the United States is deplored by the United States, which demands fawning and adoration by the whole world.

The preposterous idea described above is “American exceptionalism”, as famously affirmed by Barack Obama in a West Point speech. There, he said “The United States is the one indispensable nation”.

Others know this dispensable point of view simply as chauvinism and the unexceptional, historically unimaginative craving of each a powerful Western country to gain world domination. The same view was shared by Spain, the Netherlands, France, Great Britain, Germany, and now the United States. In the case of America, the asserted moral clarity (that America is a "force for good") turns mere exceptionalism into neoconservatism, which became guilty of war crimes, lies, torture and cancer-spreading weapons.

Bush’s gaffe and the media’s attempts to cover for him reveal the vacuous, fake morality governing all the outraged Western responses to the war in Ukraine. The people wanting to punish Russia are not really unnerved by scenes of death or the inhumanity of any atrocity, as they themselves are responsible for worse crimes and continue to give justifications for those acts.

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Your anti-war conscience is politically homeless

Russia's military campaign in Ukraine, launched last month, could be the beginning of a long and bloody war. Being already seen as such, it has likely alienated many individuals in the West who formerly sided with Russia against a morally dubious Western foreign policy establishment.

One of the places where those opponents of the West's moral skeleton liked to gather, following the 2003 Iraq War which largely discredited the West as a positive moral agent in the world, was the now heavily censored and cyber-attacked RT (formerly Russia Today). There, such individuals appeared as viewers, journalists, and guests for many years to express their anti-war views.

The doves fly

For anyone watching RT during the opening of Russia's offensive into Ukraine in February 2022, it would be impossible not to notice the great unease of the English-speaking anchors during this Russian government-funded news network's live broadcasts. It is likely that such individuals were recruited in the first place because of their unease with Western foreign policy, which made them more likely to sympathise with and be willing to present Russia's position to English-speakers for many years. Russia's sudden decision to employ force will have changed everything, leaving many of them shaken and confused. Why did Russia apparently choose to rain its own bombs on a country, rather than foiling America's dubious schemes and rejecting its excuses, as had been the case in Syria? That will be burdening their consciences.

Many disbelieved that Russia was planning a major military escalation in Ukraine, holding the Kremlin's promises to the world as true. Those who had supported the Russian media against Western military actions, out of a principled rejection of military intervention everywhere, will find it difficult to maintain that support (see Max Keiser, formerly of the Keiser Report, as an example).

Did Russia make the right choice?

It may be that the Kremlin made a strategic mistake by trying to dominate Ukraine militarily (I concurred with the British government about this in January). We live in an era of failed foreign interventions by even the most technologically sophisticated countries, which is why many will anticipate a slow Russian defeat and withdrawal from Ukraine. Ukrainians are not incompetent or cowardly, having made up a significant portion of the most competent and brave soldiers of the former USSR, so it would be wrong for Russia to think they are easily cast aside.

On the other hand, the Kremlin may have not made a mistake in Ukraine at all. The twin objectives of "demilitarisation" and "denazification" may be impossible to achieve if pursued to total completion all across Ukraine (a scenario vulnerable to "mission creep"), but they can easily be accomplished to a point that Moscow no longer needs to worry. A battered Ukrainian military, pushed back to the west of Ukraine, left with no threatening hardware, can be guaranteed by Russia's brutal and overwhelming firepower. A number of Ukrainian radicals can be assassinated or captured to showcase "denazification". Following such steps, Russia could withdraw. They could also almost certainly defend a number of seized Ukrainian cities indefinitely and annex them formally or informally, managing over time to convince their largely Russian-friendly populations to welcome the change.

Whatever the case, Russia's leadership must have known they would lose much support in the West. The only conclusion can be that, faced with NATO expansion into Ukraine, Russian leaders felt that the problem was so severe and so strategically dangerous that it was worth huge sacrifices to overcome it. It was worth losing any remaining soft power Russia had in the West, in favour of applying hard power in Russia's near abroad. NATO was being intransigent, refusing to rule out nuclear missiles being placed in Ukraine to target Moscow, declaring Russia as its enemy and Ukraine as its frontline partner against Russia.

Anti-war? You are outgunned

Considering the obstruction faced by anyone sympathetic to Russian worries or just simply critical of Western policy in Western societies, it is not surprising that Russia would decide to throw them under the bus. They were never likely to accomplish any significant influence or power anyway. Russia's might still ultimately lies in its unrivalled missile power and vast force of armoured vehicles on its territory, so they decided to exert this power rather than something more subtle.

Those who based their interpretation of world events solely on morality, and were led to side with Russia or China for that reason and reject the interventionist US and NATO, were doomed to be disappointed. International relations is not a moral affair, unfortunately. There are no values, only interests. Sooner or later, any national government will assert its interests in the most brutal way, reminding us all of what a state really is.

Russia is neither good nor bad, and that's what is so shocking to those who used morality to guide their interpretation of international events. Likewise, the United States is neither good nor bad, although the case can certainly be made that it is incompetent and confused, and that has always been the chief complaint that seems to have the most merit.

People who are anti-war ultimately get pushed aside by those favouring force, if we are in a situation where force can work. This is because being anti-war is solely a personal philosophy, not an expression of anything necessarily aligned with the national interest. As long as there are national interests and diplomatic quarrels, force will be part of the spectrum, the continuation of politics by the steel gauntlet of those who have might, if mere talk failed.

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Robot dogs, with guns for heads

Images of a military or security robot resembling a dog with a gun in place of a head have elicited dread online. The machine, created by Ghost Robots and Sword International and named the Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle (SPUR), may offer a glimpse into the future of warfare.

A common reaction is one of horror. We have seen all the Terminator and Matrix movies, featuring the robot takeover and enslavement of humanity. In such movies, a common theme is that robots exceeded humanity in their abilities. They became more agile, resilient, and even more intelligent. Ultimately, their fighting ability grew greater than humanity's and humanity was conquered (subverted in the movies, of course, by messianic heroes who can outclass the machines).

Warfare advances and there is no point in complaining. But is it really a matter of man against machine? Or even a matter of better machines against inferior and dated machines? Such thinking may have more in common with movies than reality.

What does technology mean to war?

The actual relationship between technology and warfare is often misunderstood. Technology has always been more a way for a wealthier power to leverage its wealth to produce military results with greater propaganda effect and at a reduced cost in personnel lives, rather than a silver bullet capable of producing victory. It is just more ordnance put to use against the other side's ordnance, and not ultimately the deciding factor in who will will be victorious. Just take a look. History is filled with examples of wealthier and better-equipped nations being defeated by poorer ones in wars. Technological advantages can be negated a lot more easily than many would think, and humans are a lot harder to kill than their counterparts portrayed in movies and games.

Those times when advanced technology got beaten

Look no further back than the outcome of the War in Afghanistan (2001-2021). Surely, it was a foregone conclusion that the mighty NATO forces would defeat the inferior Taliban forces? It was also a foregone conclusion that the Soviet Union would be defeated by the German military in 1941. What happened?

We might be able to inflict our wrath on people in poor nations as a result of billions spent on advanced weapons, but that act in itself just serves to encourage someone else to pick up an AK-47 and continue the fight. A Taliban fighter is a low-cost means of waging war, driven by faith, willing to sacrifice his life. You only believe killing him is a victory because you mistakenly equate his loss with your own death, when in reality a group like the Taliban has an endless supply of men. You don't have an endless supply of expensive bombs and robots. Worse still, depending on robots means you have absolutely no supply of men willing to sacrifice themselves.

Attrition ultimately can still wear you down, even when you take no human losses. And the unwillingness to take even one casualty just makes that one casualty hit a whole lot harder, when it eventually does happen. The anti-war sentiment ends up being just as strong, nay, worse, than it would be if you were taking thousands of losses in 1940.

Strengths and weaknesses

There is also the fact that a robot soldier may just be forever doomed to be less efficient, less manageable and far less adapted to its environment than the real thing.

Imagine a robot horse. That is a fine thing for fiction, but a real horse operates a lot better in the real world and is better made for it. A normal horse does not come from a manufacturing plant thousands of miles away. It can be replaced very easily using other horses. It can be recharged using grass and water abundant in many normal environments, and does not need expensive and rare power cells that must be transported to it by yet more technology.

Of course, an already good military can be made better by robots, which surely can add to its firepower. These kinds of unmanned rifles are not going to be a replacement for soldiers, but they could certainly be buddies for soldiers and increase the firepower of already effective military units.

An army that still puts a lot of human bodies to use in addition to its mechanical muscle will likely prevail over one that attempts to rely solely on machines. Willing humans will continue to be the more important factor in winning. People and even animals are going to continue to be a more convenient and cost-effective way of getting lots of weapons to the front line, for a long time.

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Weapons in space, the hypocritical way

Russia has been accused of hypocrisy by the United States and NATO, after its satellite destruction test reportedly created debris and panic in orbit.

If you have seen the movie Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, you are familiar with the problem. In fact, this recent event was exactly the plot of the movie, including such details as which country did the deed of taking down a satellite with a missile.

Some may even have been irked when Gravity came out, because back then the most recent offender in destroying satellites was China, yet the movie chose to cast Russia as the aggressor as is so often done in American media. Now, it seems, Russia has finally stepped up and played its movie role for real.

The blame game

Of course, Russia rejected claims that the debris created in the test endangered any space installation. Moreover, Russia pointed to similar satellite destruction tests by the US, China and India. Both sides accused each other of hypocrisy, with the US saying Russia's actions directly contradict its words.

When it comes to hypocrisy at this moment, Russia may be somewhat guiltier than America, and so too could be the Chinese when it comes to their activity in space. For something to be hypocritical, one's words have to contradict one's actions. Russia and China have steadfastly stated that they oppose the weaponisation of space. They may be using a narrow definition, speaking of the stationing of weapon systems in orbit rather than the temporary course of projectiles through space, but to send weapons into space to blow things up is certainly not conducive to preventing the weaponisation of space.

It is the presence of ICBMs, which move at such high altitude that they enter into space, that motivated the desire of the US to weaponise space in the first place, dating even back to the 1980s. Since the US has openly created the Space Force as a branch of its military, and declared space to be a war-fighting domain, the US is not breaking its word when it carries out military activity in space. It is doing exactly as it promises. The Russians and Chinese, however, are playing a diplomatic stalling game in which they likely intend to shame American advances in military space technology.

Warfare inevitably advances

The Russian and Chinese position is roughly equivalent to the Spartans decrying the Athenian use of arrows. Complaining about the other side's developments as being unsportsmanlike, appealing to arbitrary definitions and rules about what constitutes the right and proper way to kill people and blow things up, is unavailing in the end. It could also be deterring huge strides in technological development that could ultimately save humanity itself if we eventually come to depend on space colonies to escape disasters on Earth.

Russia can blow up whatever it wants to blow up, but there is no point in Russia crying foul about the other side coveting powerful technologies that could accomplish military supremacy. Russia has very capable engineers of its own and has surpassed the United States in some areas, such as hypersonic missiles. So, too, has China. This should teach these countries that the answer is not to complain about American advances, but to make advances of their own.

Every breakthrough in space is good

At the end of the day, enemies or not, we are all human, and it is in the human interest to fully exploit space for every benefit to our security and colonise the other planets of the Solar System. The stumbling block to this has been funding, and if one organisation on Earth is not short of funding, it is the US Department of Defense.

This is not a call for American conquest of the Solar System, but an acknowledgment that someone has to start the process and it would be wrong to simply stall them.

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