[extropy-chat] my country, right or wrong

[Technotranscendence]

On Sunday, December 18, 2005 4:53 AM Neil H. neuronexmachina at gmail.com
wrote:
>> Nope.  You move to private militaries and then you can
>> use technologies like nuclear weapons in self-defense.
>> Your neighbors might have a huge army, but that will be
>> a huge burden on them -- as militaries tend to be -- while
>> your nuclear device keeps them from invading.
>
> Hehe...
>
> "He's not our customer!"
> -- Wil W. Brierson, in Vernor Vinge's "The Ungoverned"
>
>
http://everything2.com/?node=Briefest+apologia+for+the+use+of+nuclear+weapons+in+literature
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ungoverned

Remember, that's a fictionalized account.  In the real world, I bet most
nation states would not try to antagonize anyone armed with nukes, so
having them is a good defense policy, especially given the bang for the
buck when thinking about market anarchism.  In other word, it's much
easier to hide and maintain a few nukes on standby than it is to
maintain a big military ready to thwart would be invaders.  The nukes
impose a very high cost for invasion -- a much higher cost than having
countering forces.

This is not to say that no one will ever invade a nuclear armed power or
that there won't be ways of countering nukes, such as new technologies
or having what John J. Mearsheimer calls "splendid first strike
capability" (the ability to overwhelm a nuclear power with one's own
nukes), but that nukes will handle many situations driving down the cost
of defense because they drive up the cost of offense.  (See
Mearsheimer's _The Tragedy of Great Power Politics_.)

Also, if my memory's correct, the New Mexicans (?) -- the evil invading
nation in the story -- were unaware of the farmer with the nuke.  It
would probably be a good defense policy to let would be hostiles know
that you _might_ have a nuke.  That way, they'll think before invading.
After all, the point of having one (or many) for defense is so that you
don't have to use them -- as a deterrent.

On this, see the typo ridden essay "Is the nuclear proliferation a
blessing?" at:

http://lemennicier.bwm-mediasoft.com/col_docs/doc_55_fr.pdf

And also _Basement Nukes_ by Erwin S. Strauss

Regarding how nation states evaluate threats, especially when playing
for keeps, see "The Credibility of Power: Assessing Threats During the
'Appeasement' Crises of the 1930s" (in _International Security_ 29(3)
[Winter 2004/2005]) by Daryl G. Press and also his _Calculating
Credibility: How Leaders Assess Military Threats_.

Also, as Samantha and I have argued, these free societies would have an
economic and technological leg up over their neighbors with huge
standing armies.  In fact, historically, it's usually been the
economically more free societies that have one out despite usually
having smaller armies.  (What usually happens is they become economic
powerhouses and can raise better militaries than and otherwise
outperform their opponents.)

If you more talking about how a private security firm might decide not
to defend a non-customer, well, that's true, but this is also true of
nation states.  They can decide not to defend non-citizens or other
nation states, as when Britain and France, despite their treaties, did
not come to the rescue of Czechoslovakia during late 1930s and how the
US sat back and let East Timor be gobbled up by Indonesia during the
1970s.  It's also true, though, that private firms could decide to band
together -- just as nation states do.  This is not enough of an example
to decide between the two systems.

Regards,

Dan
http://uweb1.superlink.net/~neptune/

"... governments kill far more people than do terrorist groups.  From
1980 to 2000, international terrorists killed 7,745 people, according to
the U.S. State Department.  Yet, in the same decades, governments killed
more than 10 million people in ethnic-cleansing campaigns, mass
executions, politically caused famines, wars, and other slaughters.  The
9/11 attacks made 2001 probably the only year in decades in which the
number of people killed by international terrorists even approached 1
percent of the number killed by governments. Governments pose a far
greater threat to peace and survival than do terrorist groups." -- James
Bovard at http://www.antiwar.com/orig2/bovard022104.html