``...Instead of depending on hardcopy orders and ponderous chains of commands, they would establish virtual collaborations (regardless of service branch) to concentrate overpowering violence on precisely delineated targets. Command structures would be flattened to a handful of generals, assisted by computerized decision-making aides, in egalitarian dialogue with their shooters...'' Mike Davis
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Great analogy between the new economy and new war. The basic equation is how thin can you spread a limited high tech combat force and quickly assault and defeat an enemy? This general schematic is neoliberal capital's new economy: how few workers at how low a wage armed with the latest in telecom and computers do you need to extract the maximum profit over the shortest period of time? It turned out for the New Economy you could perform miracles with very few workers at very low wages, but you had to take a huge risk on investing a great deal to set up the high tech machine. If the market didn't go along as planned, the whole scheme crashed.
Of course like the New Economy, we'll have to wait and see how this works in New War. If the outcome in New War follows the New Economy, then we will be in for a rude shock. The only question is where will the shock come from? Following the metaphor of the New Economy, you could speculate that while an almost instant overthrow will probably succeed, the problems will snowball as the US tries to sustain its conquest.
If the warlord Bush and his military tech noire lackeys are smart they will follow the old slash and burn plan and move on quickly after the first crop. This would be more or less the Enron technique: set up shills within shills, take the money and run, call it victory and split, leaving nothing but ruin and chaos behind for somebody else to clean up. This is really were the coalition partners and the UN come in handy, since they can be left holding the bag of infrastructure ruin, political and social anarchy, and mass human devastation. Socializing the costs of war on the UN and the coalition, while unilaterally shimming the profit if victory?
Like the casualties of the New Economy, the casualties of New War will require a truly impressive media display of celebration to obscure. As mass theft of the New Economy and Enron is dimmed, so the chaos and mass murder of New War will vanish?
Maybe New War will work out just fine on the first few projects for the first few years...
Chuck Grimes