Auto-nomous weapons already exist, capable of defining, assessing and targeting their own perceived threats and thus in a position to start their own war.
Once the line into this realm is crossed and hi-tech becomes standard weaponry – and computers become the principal executors of strategy – the world will find itself in a condition for which as yet it has no established concept. How can leaders exercise control when computers prescribe strategic instructions on a scale and in a manner that inherently limits and threatens human input? How can civilisation be preserved amid such a maelstrom of conflicting information, perceptions and destructive capabilities?
If you have any talent at all for reading between the lines, you'll sense that Henry the K knows more than he is saying about these weapons systems. Basically, he believes that we should support a negotiated end to the Russo-Ukraine conflict, even if negotiations leave Russia in a overly-powerful position -- because autonomous weaponry could soon escalate the situation without human input.
8 comments:
Much agreed. Our news tows the official line on Ukraine. But I don’t think our news is providing us enough truth to understand what is really going on. Our corporate warmongers do live this stuff.
Not sure we agree vis a vis Ukraine. I am a STRONG supporter of Zelensky.
I linked to this article because Kissinger seems to be referring obliquely to a weapons system known to him but not to us. This has importance outside the context of the present war.
As an aside, like him or loathe him, it is amazing Kissinger is still writing articles. He will be 100 years old next May.
Just to share… The Russians have made claims of building autonomous nuclear armed submarines as their doomsday insurance program. Which, I believe, is ridiculously dangerous for the world. Any weapon like that must have multiple sane people in the decision chain. What’s going on here is that we in the west have one view of current events, the Russians have their own view. And they believe we are pushing them into a position of such high risk that they will let a “robot” roam the seas for years at a time loaded with ICBMs. I would argue that stepping back from the brink, and accepting that the Russians are going to be able to do things in their sphere on influence, much like the US did in Cube in 1963 (our sphere of influence) would be very prudent. We are going too far.
Just to share… The Russians have made claims of building autonomous nuclear armed submarines as their doomsday insurance program. Which, I believe, is ridiculously dangerous for the world. Any weapon like that must have multiple sane people in the decision chain. What’s going on here is that we in the west have one view of current events, the Russians have their own view. And they believe we are pushing them into a position of such high risk that they will let a “robot” roam the seas for years at a time loaded with ICBMs. I would argue that stepping back from the brink, and accepting that the Russians are going to be able to do things in their sphere on influence, much like the US did in Cube in 1963 (our sphere of influence) would be very prudent. We are going too far.
Well, I agree with the first anonymous comment regarding Ukrain, which doesn't mean I think Putin is great or anything like that and I feel the Ukrainian people are suffering while the leaders do what they do (like in most wars). I'm anti-war, end of story.
That said, I agree with you Joe that Kissinger is hinting at something he knows about but can't say out loud. Which is a VERY disturbing prospect, to say the least.
Give Henry his due for advocating an exit route from the war in Europe that runs through internationally supervised referendums in the territories currently being disputed by Russia and Ukraine.
(We can say there are six such territories, even if that's going large. We could also say four, or we could count Sevastopol as being part of Crimea and say five - but let's say six. If it weren't in the good cause of ending the war, there'd be no sane reason whatsoever to hold another referendum on the Crimean peninsula, but hey - let's stop the killing.)
In this so-called "information" age, one patently PATENTLY obvious question is verboten or simply hits against a brick wall in so many West-based forums, Here it is: what country do people in the six disputed territories actually want to live in?
I publicly advocated the same route that Kissinger is advocating before he did, if anyone is interested. I got called a Kremlin asset for doing it.
Kissinger's piece was published on 17 December 2022 in the Spectator: "How to avoid another world war".
@Anon - What is the important military difference between ICBM-armed submarines being unmanned and at sea for years, and the same submarines being manned and only at sea for a few months? It's to do with the possible destruction of base ports, right?
The side that couldn't handle the scale of years would try to ensure that any escalation to a full-scale nuclear exchange occurred on a scale it COULD handle, i.e. months.
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