Lobby against the irrational Trident WMD

CND is lobbying against the replacement of our Trident WMD system.

My MP, John Penrose, is minister for Tourism, and therefore will not sign EDMs.

So this is what I wrote:

Dear John,

I know you will not and cannot consider signing EDM 96 Trident Replacement.

The EDM highlights the conclusions of the Government's own National Security Strategy that the threat of a nuclear attack by another state is of low likelihood.

Following on from that, the EDM is a simple statement of opposition to Trident replacement, highlighting its £25 billion procurement cost and £100 billion lifetime cost.

The conclusion is that there are better things to spend the money on, whether within the Ministry of Defence or in other Ministries.

The key point that I would like again to remind you of is that if Trident is ever used, it will be as part of a general exchange that will almost certainly put an end to human civilisation in its present form.

It is reasonable to use a system whose failure means such a cost if and only if the chance of its failure is zero. The chance of a filure of the nuclear deterrence system is greater than zero, therefore, in supporting the nuclear deterrence system, you are supporting an irrational policy, as well as wasting a significant amount of taxpayers' money.




This is very sad.

Richard

see also - 12 steps to getting rid of Trident

Trident:- 12 steps to rejecting Hammond's illogical organ

This is an actual picture of a Trident launch. Not Photoshopped 

     Trident:

1. Either it will be used or it will be not used.
2. If it is used, human civilisation can kiss its ass a fond farewell. Everything worthwhile, including the reason to live, dies. In short, Omnicide. 
3. If Trident is not used, about £130,000,000,000 will have been spent on nothing - money that could have been spent on creating  good jobs for everyone for many many years.
4. Some will say say that the £130billion will have been well spent because it is maintaining peace through deterrence. 
5. It is true that Trident raises the threshold at which politicians decide that they are bored with talking to each other and decide to kill their subjects instead.
6. But although possession of WMD does raise the threshold for war, it does not absolutely close the door on war.
7. See 2 above.
8. Trident's effect in raising the threshold for war is neutralised by its effect in stimulating nuclear proliferation - i.e. by making nations like Iran think that they need a deterrent of their own. 
9. Since there is a chance it may be used, it is illogical to possess Trident, for the reason set out here.
10. Therefore the Coalition Government, in the middle of its programme of bone crunching attacks on the British people in the name of poverty, is about to spend £1billion of taxpayer's money on an illogical, highly dangerous enterprise
11. And there is nothing that we can do about it.
12. Or is there?

Nuclear War by accident averted in October 1979

Following on from this post about a nuclear war near-miss in 1979, I have at last downloaded previously secret documents (released last year) from the National Archive.


On Friday 9th October at 1608 hours the US alarm indicators in the operations centres of the MOD, Ballistic Missil Early Warning System (BMEWS) Fylingdales, HQ RAF Strike Command and C in C Fleet Northwood registered an advanced alert state. There was no indication from the Fylingdales radars of any threat to the UK, and indeed within seconds the information" was shown to be suspect. 

Within a minute of receipt of the original US notification the North American Air Defence (NORAD) Command had indicated that the warning was a false alarm.

The reason for the error was explained in a US Department of Defense statement issued on 9th November, as follows.

"At 1050 am (Eastern Seaboard Time) on 9th November 1979 a test tape was loaded on the North American Air Defence (NORAD) command computer as part of a computer test. The tape simulated a missile attack against North America. Through possible mechanical malfunction the tape was transmitted to a number of other commands and agencies. The error was corrected
within six minutes.

A simulated attack appeared on some elements of the system, was unconfirmed by others, interceptor jets were scrambled then recalled. So, no harm done.

This outcome could have been very different if it had occurred at a time of heightened political tension. Say there was a political argument, say about Russia's intervention on a state on its border. Tensions running high, posturing was in progress, and then we get a re-run of November 1979, through accident, psychosis or malice. In that case, the diagnosis of an error might not be made so swiftly. A nuclear retaliation could be ordered, leading to a general nuclear war, with all 50,000 nuclear weapons from both sides deployed.

This piece of history shows the danger and illogicality of the nuclear deterrence fantasy. No human system is infallible. It just needs the wrong accident to happen at the right political time for the Dr Strangeloves of this world to unleash Armageddon.

The simple fact is that the nuclear weapons posture is in defiance of Sod's Law, Murphy's Law, and is illogical.

It is very clear indeed that humanity should destroy its nuclear weapons completely. This is physically possible. They can be dismantled. It is politically possible: the vast majority of states in the world are against nuclear weapons. Only the tiny club of nuclear weapons states want to continue.

The fact that this story only just broke the surface of media ignoral last year is an indication of how deeply our collective heads are buried in the radioactive sand.

The choice for Badgers and TB: either exterminate them from UK, or vaccinate

The thing about badger culls is that if you kill a local population, other badgers roam in and find an unoccupied habitat, together with unoccupied setts. So they move in. And if the previous occupants had TB, the newcomers will pick it up.

Therefore the only way to deal with TB transmission by culling badgers is by exterminating the UK badger population totally.


Which would not be politically acceptable.

Therefore farmers must use other means to make our herds safe from TB, which is an increasing threat to us humans.

I am not expert, but it involves vaccinating herds, possibly vaccinating badgers (yes, it is on the cards) and most importantly, increasing the general resilience of herds by letting them live lives as near normal as possible.

I'm not an expert, but I can manage logic.

Will Osbornomics at least rid the world of nuclear weapons?

< Picture of Trident missile in action. Thanks to the taxpayer.

Has George "Smeagol" Osborne bitten the Ring of Trident Power off the finger of the MoD? Will he take it with him when he plunges into the Crack of Economic Doom?

Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, has a real problem if Trident has to come out of the MoD budget.  The Press is on the case of individual soldiers dying because they have no body armour, no IED resistant transport and fewer helicopters than needed. If Trident comes out of the MoD budget, these items will be in even shorter demand. Alternatively he might have to throw vast numbers of servicemen and their families onto the mercies of the soon-to-be reformed Benefits System.  Which would not be popular with the core Tory vote.


Fox will undoubtedly take his case to the Star Chamber, backed by an army of lobbyists, and we will be entertained by the vision of the Irresistible Force of  Tory worship of Britain's WMD coming up against the Immovable Object of  Tory subservience to the Money Markets.

He will argue that Trident is Good Value for Money. This means that to create the amount of terror, devastation and death caused by one "British" (in fact they are US-controlled) nuclear warhead, an the whole British Army would have to rape and pillage in one area for some ten or twenty years. This would be Inefficient. WMDs much more productive.

One little irony is the fact that Liam Fox is a devout Catholic. In the nuclear weapons debate in the 1970s, his Church chewed over the ethics of nuclear weapons. They decided that it would indeed be sinful  actually to use nuclear weapons, presumably on the grounds that it would destroy unborn foetuses. However, it would not be sinful to keep the peace by threatening to destroy unborn foetuses with nuclear weapons.

In coming to this conclusion, the Catholic theologians had to plunge deep into the Pelagian heresy of the possibility of human perfection. If it is OK to threaten, but not OK to use, nuclear weapons, then the nuclear deterrence system has to be perfect. Nuclear Deterrence must never break down, either through deliberate Dr Strangelove-type political decisions, nor through a interplay of simultaneous errors within the early warning technology, command and control systems and political tensions. In fact, it is only too possible for the deterrence posture to make the transition to a nuclear holocaust.  See here for 20 instances where nuclear war might have broken out through mishaps. So although nuclear deterrence does raise the threshold for nuclear armed countries to go to war with each other, it does not raise that threshold absolutely, and therefor the probability of a general nuclear war approaches unity with each passing year that deterrence is in place.

Liam Fox must therefore know that he will surely go to hell if Britain actually uses Trident in anger, which it will if the world does not rid itself of nuclear weapons.

Th only reasonable use for Trident therefore is for Britain to put it on the table and lead the world in negotiating a general global and total nuclear disarmament.

This plan is no longer a stupid greenie idea, since Henry Kissinger and other cold warriors are calling for general nuclear disarmament.

So George Osborne, in his process of dismantling the UK economy, may, ironically, be doing the world a service.

How can we succeed in Afghanistan?

Today the 300 British soldier has tragically died as a result of UK complicity in the invasion of Afghanistan. Our troops have four times more fatalities, proportionally, than US troops. In response, the media publish the predictable litany of regret and rhetoric from Government. Our brave soldiers are dying to make the world safe from terrorism. No journalist challenges them with even the possibility that our military adventures, with its occupation and its mistaken bombing of civilian wedding parties, are provoking the terrorist reaction worldwide.

The Green Party's policy is clear. We should not have gone in, and we want our troops safely back home as soon as possible. We are aware of the risk to human rights of a collapse of the Afghan Government arising from withdrawal of NATO military prop, and the risk of that country falling back into the hands of the Taliban and/or the warlords. So we have also been offering to a cloth eared Labour Government the realistic key to honourable success of the mission through legitimising the opium farmers, (whose profits at present support the Taliban), and using the morphine from the crop to relieve terminal pain in Africa. This option remains on the table, though it should have been rolled out years ago.

The conclusion is that Government policy - of whatever colour - is devoid of reason or common sense.

Gordon needs to "Get Real" over Trident

Gordon told Nick to "Get Real" about Trident, the UKs independent nuclear deterrent Weapon of Mass Destruction.

No, Gordon, you get real. Your argument about Trident being an insurance policy does not stack up. Nuclear deterrence is totally illogical.

We cannot afford the £100 billion cost of Trident - nor any substitutes. We need to save money. We have a huge budget deficit, remember?

Even cold warriors like Kissinger are calling for a nuclear-free world. The only place for Trident and the UK's non-independent nuclear WMD is on the negotiating table, on the way to a world 100% free of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Deterrence and Logic

Nuclear Deterrence and Logic

Trident 

If the consequences of the failure of a system would be infinitely destructive to civilisation, it is reasonable to use that system if and only if the probability of its failure is zero. 

The argument here is that there is a greater than zero chance of nuclear deterrence leading to nuclear war, and that war would be infinitely destructive of human civilisation. This leads to the conclusion that the world needs to scrap nuclear weapons absolutely and completely.

The possession of nuclear weapons by a number of states in the international community does constitute a system, that is, a group of interrelated parts forming a whole.

Can the system fail? Nuclear deterrence is a complex arrangement of electronic sensors embedded in a command and control network composed of humans working to hard protocols that are interwoven with pattern judgments and valuations which are affected by the emotional state of the individuals and groups that make the judgments. The groups themselves, particularly the supreme decision making groups, are isolated from the common body of humanity, and are known to be susceptible to a condition known as group think – defined as A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.[i] Moreover, the interplay of decision makers is now far more complex than in the days of the cold war, with players coming on to the field who might not view the destruction of the prevailing world civilisation as a thing to be avoided at all costs, and other players already on the scene who believe that nuclear weapons could be used tactically without risking a strategic exchange.

In short, it is entirely reasonable to judge that the probability of failure of the nuclear deterrence system is greater than zero. [ii]

Would the breakdown of the nuclear deterrence be infinitely destructive? This is a point that must be settled by a value judgment. First, would it be possible to get away with a limited exchange, or would one nuclear detonation inevitably escalate into an all out global nuclear war?

It is impossible to give a definitive answer to that question, but the safest assumption to make is that if one weapon is detonated, they will all be fired. The reason for this lies in the doctrine of first strike, which aims to destroy the opponent’s weapons before they can be fired. Once it is known that an opponent has detonated a nuclear weapon, the pressure will be on for supreme commanders to fire all their nuclear weapons before they lose them to a first strike. In view of this, although we cannot say that any exchange would inevitably lead to a first strike, it would be the height of folly for anyone to assume that they could use weapons in a limited tactical strike and believe that matters would then be allowed to rest by the opposition.

Unfortunately this limited tactical strike idea is the prevailing nuclear doctrine of the United States of America. They consider that nuclear weapons could be used tactically, as an extension of a conventional military campaign. In doing so, they may trigger an all-out nuclear war.

Would an all out strategic nuclear exchange be infinitely destructive? There are estimated to be at least 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world held by at least eight countries, 96 percent of them in the possession of the United States and Russia. [iii]

The effects of all-out nuclear war were well studied in the 1980s. Physically, the most interesting possible effect is the so-called Nuclear Winter, where atmospheric soot cuts off sunlight for a period of weeks or months.[iv] When the sunlight returns, the effects of city and forest fires will have been to increase the atmospheric CO2 load, thus exacerbating global warming. Species loss will increase, secondary to habitat loss. Of these, the loss of bees will be most important, since cessation of their pollination services will lead to failure of such crops as survivors may try to plant. Ironically, rats and cockroaches are resistant to radiation, and so will flourish, given the plentiful quantities of human and animal carrion available.

To say the least, economic growth after a nuclear war would be unlikely. In fact a global economic recession or even a depression is almost inevitable, and to be replaced by a survival economy based around obtaining water, food, warmth and shelter for the group. Life will be short, and cancers plentiful, but health services would be rudimentary, and analgesics in short supply. Gangsterism, like the rats, will flourish, and self interest is likely to become the ethical norm.

In summary, it is entirely reasonable to expect that an all out nuclear exchange would lead to the end of western civilisation. It would therefore be infinitely destructive.

In terms of the model set out at the beginning, the consequences of the failure of a nuclear deterrence system would indeed be infinitely destructive to our civilisation, the probability of its failure is greater than zero, and therefore it is illogical for our civilisation to use that system.

Since the syllogism contains a value judgment, and there will inevitably be others who take a different view. However, they are compelled to argue either that the deterrence system is perfectly safe, which is manifestly not the case, or that a tactical weapon would not lead to an all-out nuclear war, which is clearly not provable, or that an all-out nuclear war would not destroy civilisation, which is clearly unreasonable.

In the circumstances, however, because of the uncertainties involved, it is safer to take a precautionary view. The great majority of humanity view the possibility of all out nuclear war with a great deal of distaste. They should be helped to understand that the nuclear deterrence system is not infallible, and that these weapons are quite capable of being used in anger. This should then motivate them to exercise their democratic right and duty to remove from political office anyone who believes that it is reasonable for any state to possess nuclear weapons.

Dr Richard Lawson

---

[i] Janis, Irving L. Victims of Groupthink. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1972, page 9.

[ii] Lachlan Forrow and others, "Accidental Nuclear War --A Post Cold War Assessment," NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE Vol. 338, No. 18 (April 30, 1998), pgs. 1326-1331

[iii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons (4 June 2007)

[iv] Nuclear winter: Physics and physical mechanisms," R. P. Turco, O. B. Toon, T. P. Ackerman, J. B. Pollack and C. Sagan, Ann. Rev. Earth and Planet. Sci., 19, 383-422 (1991).

See also: Trident is not anything like an "Insurance Policy"
11 Instances where nuclear war nearly happened by accident
Nuclear weapons are vulnerable to cyber-attack
William McNeilly's dossier of Trident submarine failures

Bill Perry, nuclear strategist, is worried

Population, Fundamentalism and Irrationality

Depressing photo on the centre spread of the Guardian today.
They got it from the National Geographic, link here.

National Geographic copy:
At 88, Joe Jessop is an elder of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the controversial sect that split from the Mormon Church after it banned plural marriage. In Hildale, Utah, he has tried to fulfill his duty to build up his "celestial family"—5 wives, 46 children, and 239 grandchildren. "I've had a blessed life," he says. "I wouldn't trade places with anyone."

One man has 285 descendants in 2 generations.
Six people (Jessop and 5 wives) have multiplied their number by a factor of 47.

And he is pleased with himself. His God has blessed him. He cares nothing about reason, mathematics or ecological reality. God will provide.

God has provided us with the ability to reason, but s/he has also provided us with the ability to give reason a manual override when it does not suit our prejudices.

Ah well. 'Twas ever thus. La lutte continua. If we cannot limit our numbers, Gaia will do it for us. All we can do is try.

Blair knew Iraq war would increase the terrorist threat

I wrote in July 2005 that the London bombings were the result of Blair's Iraq adventure. This was the assessment that all anti-war protesters had made: the war would radicalise young Muslims.

In defence, the pro-war people use the fact that Al-Qaeda was active before the Iraq war. This avoids the question of whether the Iraq invasion would give Al-Qaeda a boost.

Now the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry has uncovered evidence that Blair was advised that his invasion would increase radicalisation and disaffection of Muslims.

Middle East Online reports thusly: Former British prime minister Tony Blair knew that invading Iraq in 2003 could increase the threat from extremism but pressed ahead nonetheless, a former top civil servant said Wednesday.

Here is the transcript from the Iraq Inquiry:
p41 line 10
Sir David Omand held the the post of Security and Intelligence Coordinator in the Cabinet Office from June 2003 until April 2005

SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN:So there is a sort of question of the strength of the warning that was going out on this question of the risk of terrorism within the UK, resulting from the war.

SIR DAVID OMAND: Well, I read out quite a long list of quotes from the JIC. I don't think there is any doubt that that was the conclusion. There was no dissent from any quarter that that was the conclusion.

The assertion is explored further, and Omand does not resile from that position.

Blair knew that what he was doing was going to alienate Muslims, going to increase the risk of terrorist attacks against the British people, increase our insecurity, but he still went ahead with his beloved war.

The role of Government is to protect the people. Blair chose to do the opposite, and in the process messed up a country, killed 100,000 people, lost the lives of hundreds of British soldiers, and sprayed toxins all over Iraq which are affecting the health of the Iraqis.

But, hey, he's a pretty straight kind of guy who believed he was doing the right thing.

So that's all right then.

[update] University of Chicago political science professor and former Air Force lecturer will present findings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that argue that the majority of suicide terrorism around the world since 1980 has had a common cause: military occupation.

Population Problem: is it all down to consumption patterns?

OK.
Hokay.
So.

Yesterday I showed that mathematics, the most certain modality of knowledge that we have, shows that it is impossible for any physical system to sustain a doubling increase, an exponential function, indefinitely. The numbers simply become unfeasibly large.
This is absolutely certain, and there are not many absolutely certain things in existence in our human world.

Now. World population numbers are doubling, with a doubling time between 1960 and 1999 of 39 years.

The natural world that we depend on for life cannot sustain this kind of growth. When doubling growth it does happen in nature, what happens is that the growing population numbers crash, and then become chaotic. This is what we have to look forward to as a human race, unless we use our consciousness and our rationality to modify our behaviour. Which is a big challenge, because the urge to reproduce is a basic instinct, and any suggestion that we should modify this urge will cause a hysterical outcry that will make the recent outpourings of the US Republican Party over universal health care look like a cool, calm and reasoned debate by comparison.

The first hurdle that we have to get over is this one, from our own side:

"It's not population numbers, it is consumption patterns that we have to worry about".

(Note the use of the either/or device, as in "Never Mind the Dog Poo, what about the Litter?").

Sadly, the otherwise excellent George Monbiot goes for this approach in his recent treatment of population. He quotes the otherwise wobbly James Lovelock who says: “...those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth". In reply George says "it’s Lovelock who is being ignorant and irrational ".

How wonderful it is to see the interaction of great minds.

George's the formula is: I=C x A x T:
Total environmental Impact should be measured as the number of Consumers times Affluence times Technology.
So far, so good. Numbers are numbers. Affluence is a measure of the amount of goods each person consumes. And technology means the type of technology used to produce the goods, fossil fuels being the worst, and solar being the best. (Relatively: nothing is perfect, and even solar technology has some negative environmental impact).

So George piles in to attack the manifest evils of consumerism, and concludes
"It’s time we had the guts to name the problem.
It’s not sex; it’s money.
It’s not the poor; it’s the rich".

There is no doubt that consumerism is a huge problem that must be addressed, no doubt at all. But the fact is that Affluence and the Technology do not negate the number of Consumers.

He's doing the DogPoo/Litter fallacy again - a variant of the Red Herring fallacy.

It really is time that we begin to accept that we live in, and are part of, a system, and must therefore think in terms of systems. Everything is interconnected. We cannot abstract the things we happen to like or dislike, and discount the rest.

This is a highly emotionally charged debate, and we see above that even the best minds can misfire in the heat.


The following thought experiment does deal with this I = C x A x T question, though in practice nothing will end this debate, which is only just beginnng.


Imagine a world where every last individual has the best possible ecological footprint. They are fully solarised, energy waste is a thing of the past, recycling is 100%, all is perfect.

Can this population continue to grow? No it cannot, because growth, even at a tiny rate, will eventually produce doubling, and exponential growth, and that is mathematically impossible in a finite space, which is what this planet is; a finite space.

Even if the population were magically able to live on air alone (as some seriously believe is possible), there would still be a limiting factor, the point at which the human population stood shoulder to shoulder on every piece of land (and water - I have heard a Green Party member
arguing that we can simply take to houseboats to solve the population problem) on the planet.

QED. Quod Erat Demonstrandum. Which is what we set out to prove.
And it is a proof. Here are the steps. There are two steps, one step and another step. Sorry it is so complex.

1 Sustained exponential growth into a limited physical system is an impossibility.
2 Even with minimum or even zero ecological footprint, it remains the case that sustained exponential growth into a limited physical system is an impossibility.

There we have it. A cast iron case, logically impeccable. An argument, as it were, with no moving parts.

And yet there will still be those who will come forward to argue that it is wrong even to think these thoughts.

Tomorrow: Carrying Capacity.

Nuclear war near-miss in 1979

Thanks to Adrian Windisch for finding this report released under the 30-year rule.

It is from the Daily Express, which just goes to show that nobody can be wrong all the time.

Out of the blue in November 1979, computer systems in North America and Britain went haywire, showing a massive Soviet nuclear attack was in progress.

Throughout the West’s top secret defence establishments alarm bells began screaming, F-106 and F-111 fighter interceptors were scrambled, more pilots were sent rushing to the cockpits of their nuclear-armed bombers.

The world was running full tilt to the brink of annihilation. Then, six minutes into the madness, the all-clear was sounded.

It had been a colossal cock-up, begun by a junior officer in Canada who had been running a test simulating a Soviet attack. Incredibly, he had fed the tape into the wrong computer.

So the planes were recalled, the missile silos went back to a state of semi-slumber and government spin-doctors went into action to downplay the affair.

The 30 year document releases are here.
You have to download a big .pdf on a quasi-purchase system, very roundabout and confusing, and I cannot find my way into the right area. Documents presented as images, so not possible to use a search facility. So I have asked the National Archives for help. [UPDATE: The documents are not yet digitised. I go to the page to order my documents,

PREM 19/17 DEFENCE. Report on accidental nuclear alert 1979 Nov 10 - 1979 Nov 16

PREM 19 is entitled 'Records of the Prime Ministers Office: Correspondence and Papers' for 1979 onwards.

But there is a problem with the website. La lutte continua]

Bottom line: We need a logical assessment of the nuclear deterrence/terror strategy:

1. If the consequence of failure of a system would be totally destructive of human civilisation, humans may use that system if and only if the chance of failure is zero.
2. This 1979 instance demonstrates that the chance of deterrence failure is greater than zero.
3. Therefore it follows of logical necessity that humans should set aside nuclear weapons.

More on this.

I note there is nothing about this on the CND website.

PS Nothing in the Guardian about this. Maybe I missed it.

The people have no bread? Let them eat GMOs.

The Environment Minister Hilary Benn is reported as saying that genetically modified organisms will be necessary to avoid food shortages. In fact this is a typical bit of reporter-distorter, since what he actually said was , "If GM can make a contribution then we have a choice as a society and as a world about whether to make use of that technology, and an increasing number of countries are growing GM products".

So can GM increase food production? We need to look at the evidence. There is a useful, measured letter here which casts doubt on the ability of GMOs to increase overall food production. Dr. Charles Benbrook's study found that Roundup Ready soya had less yield.

One study is not enough, and we need truthful and accurate surveys of a field that is much larger than one blog or one news report can meaningfully cover.

Overall, though in the context of global food production, the contribution of GM will be negligible, since most farmers will be using their own seed, because they have no money to buy the commercial GM product. The key points about meeting the nutritional needs of the earth is that we need to use less meat, and less burnt-air, high energy demand, nitrate fertiliser, which means that we have to use the stuff we currently use to poison the sea.

Above all, we need to halt the growth trend of the global human population. But of course, that topic is forbidden, especially for Government Ministers. For the purposes of public discourse, it is possible to expand forever into a finite space, and distorters would rather stimulate a row about GM foods than actually look at reality.

Militarism can and must be taken out of political thinking

Doug has questioned whether it is possible to get rid of militarism, in a comment on the Sri Lanka piece below. This deserves a detailed reply, so I have brought it forward to today's blog.

He writes, "you won't get rid of the root causes of "militarism" because they are intrinsic parts of human nature, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the individual, culture, and a variety of factors".

Aggression is indeed an intrinsic part of our make-up. There are four basic emotional states, happiness, depression, fear and anger. Happiness and anger are extravertive, producing activity, and fear and depression are intravertive, causing withdrawal. Anger and fear are based on a perception of threat, depression and happiness on the perception of (un)fulfilled desires.

Aggression is the activity arising from anger. In clinical psychology we aim to transform destructive aggression into useful constructive activity, named assertion. We aim to change the behaviour pattern that is produced.

The argument that aggression is "intrinsic" in human nature, if it is carried forward to the position that it is useless to try to change it, is a species of determinism. The deepest form of determinism is Calvinism, where everything is preordained by God, but genetic determinism is equally rigid, where everything is preordained by our DNA. Another common form is biological determinism, where we seen as irredeemable territorial predators.


Many thinkers and workers choose to reject determinism, for many reasons. Basically it reduces the vast array of human behaviours to as simple, single principle, whether God, DNA, or one facet of biology. It is far more accurate to view human "nature" or character as the summation of an infinite number of individual behaviours, which arise from within the individual and also from the interplay of the individual with her social, biological and physical environment.


A vast amount of economic activity is devoted to changing human behaviour. Philosophy, religion (fwiw), politics, economics, sociology, medicine, psychology, education, and parenting are just a few activities that come to mind where the aim is to modify human behaviour. To say that these are all wasted activities because human nature is unchangeable is a pretty bold position to take.

You say, "social identity theory seems pertinent here. It has also been noted, I believe, that aggression towards out-groups correlates with solidarity and close bonding within the in-group".

Absolutely right. Well, not absolutely right, because nothing is absolutely right, but I fully agree. This is the problem with the BNP, or any other nationalist or exclusivist grouping - political, ethnic, religious or familial. Social identity is an extension of the individual ego. The process of maturation should end with the individual realising that s/he is a part of a larger social whole, so learning to act in harmony with the needs of society, while retaining due individual freedoms. So also social groups need to attune themselves to the need of the whole human community, and with the constraints that the physical and biological environment imposes on us.

Doug writes"You won't get rid of "militarism" without taking out "militarists" - power-mongers, and political idealists like Prabhakaran (Tamil Tiger leader, RIP) and his commanders".

"Taking out" needs clarifying. Prabhakaran has been "taken out" in the Clint Eastwood sense, but it would not do any good by, say, trying to "take out" Gordon Brown in the same way, on the grounds that he is ready to kill millions by using his weapons of mass destruction. Another person, even more deluded and paranoid, would simply step into his place. War-mongers are not separate kinds of people, they are ordinary people whose thinking has been distorted by an irrational political system. They are voted into place by ordinary people who are taken in by the argument that we must have weapons of mass destruction at our disposal, otherwise the Russians...no, hand on a minute...the Islamists will come and get us. Well, if not the Islamists, someone in the future might threaten us with their own WMD. The snag with this argument is that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, since the Someone will be driven to acquire WMD because we have WMD. We live in an inter-active system, and military top brass are not intrinsically bad people, it is just that they are unable to grasp the effect that their decisions have on other people.


Doug says "I've enjoyed many happy months living in Tamil Nadu in India myself, and Tamils are just like any other people: there's good and bad everywhere".

Exactly. There is good and bad in everywhere. Our work is to find ways of bringing facilitating the good tendencies in people and inhibiting the bad tendencies.

"Unfortunately it's the bad who so often climb into positions of power and then make the rest of us suffer in carrying out their warped ideas".

I would re-frame this. The politicians are not Bad - they are ordinary people, who often start out with high ideals, but whose thinking is distorted in the long climb to the top.

That's why we are in Green politics, to bring fresh thinking to the political process. New thinking, based on ecological reality, which gives us a wider frame in which the otherwise conflicting ideologies of socialism, individualism, nationalism, militarism and the rest can be resolved.

So my thesis is that it is possible to change human thought and behaviour, that militarism is a kind of human behaviour, and that therefore militarism can be changed.

I do not underestimate the difficulty of achieving this, but our hope of success can be based on our success in getting rid of human sacrifice 3,000 years ago, and overt human slavery 100 years ago.

The first step in the process of getting rid of militarism is to let go of the thought that it is impossible to get rid of it. There are many other steps involved, and at the practical political level I believe that the Global Human Rights Index and the proposal for the UN to set up an office to mediate separatist claims are reasonable and achievable objectives.

Deepcut - in Minister Bob Ainsworth's brain and expenses?

Bob Ainsworth the Armed Forces Minister, rejects calls for a further inquiry, is satisfied with the existing information on the Deepcut scandal, where four soldiers died of gunshot wounds. the blake inquiry decided that the shots were self-inflicted, a fantastical assumption that assumes a soldier who had already shot himself in the head once managed to shoot himself in the head for a second time, while another managed to shoot himself five times in the chest. Tell that to the marines, and if they won't believe you, tell it to the Minister who will.

So in the absence of a further inquiry into Deepcut, we must content ourselves with a further inquiry into Bob Ainsworth's voting record and expenses claims.

• Voted strongly against a transparent Parliament.
• Voted strongly for introducing ID cards.
• Voted very strongly for introducing foundation hospitals.
• Voted strongly for introducing student top-up fees.
• Voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
• Voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
• Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war.
• Voted very strongly for replacing Trident.

The Transparent Parliament vote means that he voted against changing the proposed Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill so that the Freedom of Information Act would apply to MPs expenses. So he probably does have something to hide.

Here is what he has to say about his expenses:

“I am at the moment going through the many claim forms and receipts submitted over the years. These are in a mess, for example I have been given a number of sheets that relate to Peter Ainsworth a Conservative MP.

"I am trying to exclude some information from publication. This falls into three categories.

"Names and addresses and banking details of my staff who have from time to time bought office items and been reimbursed direct. Information concerning my own security for example credit card, sort code and bank account numbers.

"Thirdly items that appear on bills alongside items claimed but that were never themselves claimed and are therefore private.

"Once this process is complete all of the details of my claims will be published and I will respond to any issues that arise.

"It is of course possible that in the meantime the Daily Telegraph, who have bought all of the information I have myself, will decide that in their view I have done something that is newsworthy in which case I will respond to any issues that they publish.”

Let us hope that the Daily Telegraph does indeed find some irregularities, because expenses claims are a current issue, whereas Ministerial decision that defy all sense and logic are not an issue.

Maybe Ainsworth's stupid decision about the Deepcut scandal is due to the fact that he was up to his ears in receipts and had no time to think about how a soldier could shoot himself in the head twice.

The whole matter of keeping receipts and making judgements on what to claim for and what not to claim for is a total waste of time. Just give them a flat rate London accommodation allowance and be done with it.

Then maybe, just maybe, MPs and Ministers will have time and energy to make more sensible and just decisions about Deepcut.

Swine flu: amended advice: DON'T PANIC (YET)!

Last Friday I advised readers not to panic over swine flu. Four days have passed, and that advice remains in place, although the WHO has raised its alert level to phase four (out of a maximum of 6), so I have raised my personal advice with a "yet".

The reason for my personal relaxed state (and as a green, I am constitutionally inclined to look at the worst-case scenario) is based on several factors.

First, we know that Mexico has about 150 deaths to date, we do not know exactly how many cases they have had. 2,000 have been treated in hospital to date, but there must be many thousands who did not go to hospital. So the death rate in Mexico would be lying around the 5% mark, possibly lower. Which is bad, but there are other factors to add in.

One of the key factors is that some Mexicans will be getting the virus fresh from the pig's mouth. Or rather, the pig's bottom. There are in Mexico huge open air lagoons filled with fragrant pig slurry, on which clouds of fat flies are partying. The flies carry the virus to the local humans, who get a dose of virgin pig virus. Humans can pass it on to other humans, but it is possible that the dose acquired in this way is smaller, and it is also possible that the virus is not stable, and could lose its virulence in its passage through humans. We just do not know.
The outbreak of swine flu in 1976 killed one soldier, probably because he was stupidly forced to do a 50 mile march while suffering with flu, but fizzled out. The vaccination programme that followed caused more deaths and problems than the virus, because it produced severe side effects. (Guillain-Barre syndrome).
There was an outbreak of swine flu in the Phillipines in 2007, and that simply fizzled, it seems.

Third, the virus is treatable with available antiviral medications, Oseltamivir ("Tamiflu"and Zanamivir ("Relenza"), at a cost of £16 per course. Zamanivir has less side effects, but cannot be used in asthmatics. H1N1 has become resistant to the older antivrials Amantadine and Rimantidine.

So, let us just wait and see. This is not to be complacent. There are many things that decision- makers have done, and more that they should be doing:

1. Firm advice to STAY HOME IF ILL!
2. Monitor microbial air quality in all passenger jets, and improve airliner hygiene.
   
3. End the ridiculous Medical Certificate Requirement, because:
   

General practice is swamped by people with minor self-limiting respiratory tract infections who need certificates. In attending, they leave their bed of sickness, diverting energy and nutrients from their immune systems, thus prolonging the illness, they spread the contagion to reception staff, and to others in the waiting room, and to the doctors and nurses. It leads to the stupidly long waiting times to see your GP, and also leads to mistakes, when hard-pressed, hurried GPs mistake the one presentation of a serious illness as one of the hundreds of trivial cases.

If people stayed home if ill, the NHS would save millions of pounds a year in antibiotics savings, and in freed-up consultation times. But there is no point in even suggesting it to the NHS Executive, because (a) they will have naught but that which is beaten out on their own anvil (i.e. they do not listen to real clinicians) and (b) the DTI would raise a howl of protest because they think everyone will be taking sickies.

Listen, if business thinks it has a problem with malingerers, that is a problem for business to sort out. Routine certification is a total waste of time for everyone involved, but we are doomed to continue the irrational process, and indeed to do it in spades with this latest wheeze where the GP has to say what the patient is capable of doing.

There is just one dark blob on the horizon. Most of the Mexican deaths have been young healthy adults. This raises the possibility of a Cytokine Storm, a deadly over-reaction of the defence cells. If this does emerge, doctors should make a trial of naltrexone, and old established drug which can in theory damp down this over reaction.

So there is plenty of good changes that could come about from this outbreak.

DON'T PANIC! We'll tell you when to panic.

Brown: Iran can have nuclear power but no bombs, OK? Not like us.

Gordon Brown says to Iran that they can have civil nuclear power, but will face sanctions if they try to refine their uranium to weapons grade.

Fine. He has drawn a line in the sand. A fine line, defining refining, because uranium refining is all that lies between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. All it takes is a few years feeding mega amounts of megawatts of electricity into a few centrifuges, and lo! the base metal of atoms for peace is transformed into the gold of atoms for nuclear holocaust.

It's not rocket science to make a nuclear weapon, although rocket science does help with the delivery aspect.

At Hinkley Point, they used to have a short burn, taking the uranium out before it was exhausted, and that product was be used to sustain the British Government's political need to be able to destroy millions of people at a whim.

Or you can reprocess the spent fuel, that will do nicely to make a bomb, although of course only really rich countries with squillions of taxpayers money to fritter, like Britain, can afford to do reprocessing.

In being confined to "atoms for peace", poor countries like Iran would have to make do with making a "dirty bomb" - popping a load of TNT in a van, cover it with nuclear waste, drive it carefully (mind the potholes) into a neighbouring country, and set it off either with a mobile phone, or by getting the van driver to press a button while he is still in the van. The latter would only apply if the van driver happens to be fed up with his wife and would like to try his luck with 70 virgins*.

So its a fine line between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

Logic drives Brown to accept the right of Iran to have nuclear power (NP). Brown wants NP, so how can he in all conscience insist that Iran cannot have NP? After all, Western politicians are not hypocrites, are they?

However, Iran absolutely must not follow the UK in having nuclear weapons.

Q: Why, Mr Brown, should Iran not have nuclear weapons but UK should have nuclear weapons? (This is the question that journalists dare not ask, which is one of the reasons that blogs are a threat to the corporate media).

The answer to the question is as follows:

Mr Brown is sane and responsible, and Mr Ahmedinajacket, Prime Minister of Iran, is not. He has a brown skin, for one thing, whereas all other nuclear weapons states have white skins (Chinese are honorary whites for nuclear weapons purposes). Also Mr Ahmedinnajab believes in the 70 virgin theory, and the other nuclear weapons states are 70 virgin sceptics.

So - no way must Iran be allowed to get nuclear weapons, because they might actually use them. Of course, we might actually use them too, otherwise they would not be credible as a deterrent. But the difference is that we would use them wisely, whereas Mr Armourdinnerjacket of Iran is the kind of man who would use them foolishly.
Yes, that's the reason.

I hope that is clear. If not, here is a piece on the logic of deterrence.

Hopeless idealist that I am, I worked out that if the West clubbed together and bought Iran some photo-voltaic panels, it would only need one square metre per Iranian to generate as much electricity as their nuclear power programme would supply. However, there was no point in putting this suggestion to the UK Governement, because they would simply object that the Iranians would immediately break up the panels, and use the sharp pointy bits to attack us in our beds.

So, nuclear power for Iran it is then. But no nuclear weapons.

It's makes you feel safe to know that our Government is run by really logical people.


*I wonder if there is some catch here. Maybe they are eternal virgins, so gets to be tempted but is unable to consummate. That would be hell...

Nuclear submarines collide: madness and logic

Nuclear submarines collide in Atlantic, Guardian:

A Royal Navy nuclear submarine and a French vessel have been damaged in a collision deep below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant, which were both said to have been carrying nuclear missiles, are believed to have crashed while submerged on 3 or 4 February, according to reports. The submarines had a total of around 250 sailors on board

Defence officials said the two submarines collided in what they said was an extraordinary accident.

'They can't see each other in the water,' an official said. The collision raises questions about the submarines' sonar and radar and why they did not detect one another.

The Ministry of Defence said the Vanguard returned to its base in Faslane, Scotland, with only 'scrapes'. A spokesman said: 'We can confirm that the UK's deterrent capability has remained unaffected at all times and there has been no compromise to nuclear safety.'"

So that's all right then. At no time was the ability of George Brown to choose to crush, blast, rip apart, destroy, burn, maim, malform and cause lingering disease to hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in any way affected.

We can only wonder at the probability of two submarines equipped with the best technology in the known universe to "scrape" each other when they have the whole Atlantic ocean to play in.
They must have been relating to each other. Maybe the crews were bored, and decided to get together to see if they could trade pots of Marmite for a round of Camembert.

One explanation given is that nukes, like conger eels, like to hide themselves in holes in the ocean floor to avoid detection. Since there are a limited number of holes to lurk in, one of them chose a hole that was already occupied. Lucky it was a bump between two NATO allies: if it had been a Russian - NATO collision, it could have ended in tears.

Two Doctors pick up on Steve Bell's take on the incident.

This brings up the whole insanity of the nuclear deterrence posture. Nobody in Parliament dares seriously to question the multi-billion Trident replacement programme, despite the fact that Henry Kissinger is joining with other Cold Warriors to call for a nuclear free world.

Nuclear weaponry is an emotionally charged topic, and debate usually creates more heat than light. However, it is possible to bring logic to bear on the topic. Here goes. Again.

Nuclear Deterrence and Logic

In principle, if the consequences of the failure of a system would be infinitely destructive to a civilisation, it is reasonable for that civilisation to use that system if and only if the probability of its failure are zero. The argument here is that there is a greater than zero chance of nuclear deterrence leading to nuclear war, and that war would be infinitely destructive of human civilisation, leading to the conclusion that the world needs to scrap nuclear weapons absolutely and completely.

The possession of nuclear weapons by a number of states in the international community does constitute a system, that is, a group of interrelated parts forming a whole.

Can the system fail? Nuclear deterrence is a complex arrangement of electronic sensors embedded in a command and control network composed of humans working to hard protocols that are interwoven with pattern judgments and valuations which are affected by the emotional state of the individuals and groups that make the judgments. The groups themselves, particularly the supreme decision making groups, are isolated from the common body of humanity, and are known to be susceptible to a condition known as group think – defined as A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.[i] Moreover, the interplay of decision makers is now far more complex than in the days of the cold war, with players coming on to the field who might not view the destruction of the prevailing world civilisation as a thing to be avoided at all costs, and other players already on the scene who believe that nuclear weapons could be used tactically without risking a strategic exchange.

In short, it is entirely reasonable to judge that the probability of failure of the nuclear deterrence system is greater than zero. [ii]

Would the breakdown of the nuclear deterrence be infinitely destructive? This is point that must be settled by a value judgment. First, would it be possible to get away with a limited exchange, or would one nuclear detonation inevitably escalate into an all out global nuclear war?

It is impossible to give a definitive answer to that question, but the safest assumption to make is that if one weapon is detonated, they will all be fired. The reason for this lies in the doctrine of first strike, which aims to destroy the opponent’s weapons before they can be fired. Once it is known that an opponent has detonated a nuclear weapon, the pressure will be on for supreme commanders to fire all their nuclear weapons before they lose them to a first strike. In view of this, although we cannot say that any exchange would inevitably lead to a first strike, it would be the height of folly for anyone to assume that they could use weapons in a limited tactical strike and believe that matters would then be allowed to rest by the opposition. Unfortunately this is the prevailing nuclear doctrine of the United States of America. They consider that nuclear weapons could be used tactically, as an extension of a conventional military campaign. In doing so, they may trigger an all-out nuclear war.

Would an all out strategic nuclear exchange be infinitely destructive? There are estimated to be at least 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world held by at least eight countries, 96 percent of them in the possession of the United States and Russia. [iii]

The effects of all-out nuclear war were well studied in the 1980s. Physically, the most interesting possible effect is the so-called Nuclear Winter, where atmospheric soot cuts off sunlight for a period of weeks or months.[iv] When the sunlight returns, the effects of city and forest fires will have been to increase the atmospheric CO2 load, thus exacerbating global warming. Species loss will increase, secondary to habitat loss. Of these, the loss of bees will be most important, since cessation of their pollination services will lead to failure of such crops as survivors may try to plant. Ironically, rats and cockroaches are resistant to radiation, and so will flourish, given the plentiful quantities of human and animal carrion available.

To say the least, economic growth after a nuclear war would be unlikely. In fact a global economic recession or even a depression is almost inevitable, and to be replaced by a survival economy based around obtaining water, food, warmth and shelter for the group. Life will be short, and cancers plentiful, but health services would be rudimentary, and analgesics in short supply. Gangsterism will flourish, and self interest is likely to become the norm.

In summary, it is entirely reasonable to expect that an all out nuclear exchange would lead to the end of western civilisation. It would therefore be infinitely destructive.

In terms of the model set out at the beginning, the consequences of the failure of a nuclear deterrence system would indeed be infinitely destructive to our civilisation, the probability of its failure is greater than zero, and therefore it is illogical for our civilisation to use that system.

Since the syllogism contains a value judgment, and there will inevitably be others who take a different view. However, they are compelled to argue either that the deterrence system is perfectly safe, which is manifestly not the case, or that a tactical weapon would not lead to an all-out nuclear war, which is clearly not provable, or that an all-out nuclear war would not destroy civilisation, which is clearly unreasonable.

In the circumstances, however, because of the uncertainties involved, it is safer to take a precautionary view. The great majority of humanity view the possibility of all out nuclear war with a great deal of distaste. They should be helped to understand that the nuclear deterrence system is not infallible, and that these weapons are quite capable of being used in anger. This should then motivate them to exercise their democratic right and duty to remove from political office anyone who believes that it is reasonable for any state to possess nuclear weapons.

Dr Richard Lawson

---

[i] Janis, Irving L. Victims of Groupthink. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1972, page 9.

[ii] Lachlan Forrow and others, "Accidental Nuclear War --A Post Cold War Assessment," NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE Vol. 338, No. 18 (April 30, 1998), pgs. 1326-1331

[iii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons (4 June 2007)

[iv] Nuclear winter: Physics and physical mechanisms," R. P. Turco, O. B. Toon, T. P. Ackerman, J. B. Pollack and C. Sagan, Ann. Rev. Earth and Planet. Sci., 19, 383-422 (1991).

Generals in 'scrap Trident' call

Generals in 'scrap Trident' call: "The UK's nuclear deterrent should be scrapped, according to a group of retired senior military officers.

In a letter to the Times, Field Marshal Lord Bramall and Generals Lord Ramsbotham and Sir Hugh Beach denounce Trident, calling it 'irrelevant'."

See? The world is not 100% stark staring mad. Glimmers of rationality do exist.

In the end, it is all down to simple logic. If nuclear weapons will never be used, they are just a terrible waste of money. If it is possible that they could be used, then we must get rid of them forever.

Post Officers walking slowly over a cliff, followed by dumb reporters

The Communication Workers' Union is planning a strike on December 19th (nice timing) in Liverpool, Coventry, Stockport, Oldham, Oxford, Crewe and Bolton. The cause of the dispute is not clear from the CWU site, but we have to assume that the newly ordered 4mph postal delivery "walk speed" is in there somewhere. Any skuleboy kno that 4mph is a comfortable walk speed on the flat, but that is in steady conditions, not when stopping to shove paper through spring loaded finger traps with canine teeth snip-snapping on the other side. Why Royal Mail does not supply its workers with a Scotter is beyond me. More to the point is why the CWU and the media does not point out clearly that posties are not going for a steady stroll, but are stopping and posting, and also ringing bells and waiting for people to pull their trousers up to get to the door to sign for things, so to average 4 mph they need to run all the way. Taking this zero-mph time into account means that the 4mph speed it completely unrealistic, dreamed up by a committee of managerialzationists who said "2.4 mph? I can do 4 mph no problem". Or maybe it is the Pegasus computer software that is behind it, and the committee just rubber stamped the Pegasus decision because the members have not yet progressed beyond a Sinclair ZX.

It is normal for the media to ignore these blindingly obvious facts, because the role of the media in any strike is to churn out stories of how Jo Public has been inconvenienced by the strike, but for the CWU to fail to make this argument is beyond comprehension.