World War III Continues...

A treatise on military strategy, called "The Art Of War" was written by Sun Tzu in the 6th century B.C. and is still studied today.  The book was so timeless that General Douglas McArthur was believed to have taken inspiration from it.  That classic playbook needs to be updated to cover means of waging war that never possibly could have been contemplated.

In "World War III Has Begun", we posited a matrix of varieties of war and how they might be employed in whole, or in part, by any country against any other country.  Traditional military war is only a small and shrinking component of warfare in the 21st Century.  The video of that piece can be accessed by clicking here:  http://www.youtube.com/markostaketv#p/u/1/0fPfJNERJSQ.

But that was just the beginning of what we, as a world, have in store for us.  Using some imagination, and a reasonable knowledge of science, physics, economics and finance, one can concoct a variety of ways in which one country can damage another without ever firing a shot.

How about climatological war?  By that, I'm not referring to the absurd notion that our globe is warming from cow flatulence and SUVs.  To refresh yourself on how preposterous that entire thought process is, click here: http://markostake.blogspot.com/2010/08/very-inconvenient-truth.html.

Rather, imagine what one country could do if it could affect weather in a relatively small area of an enemy.  Like what, you ask?  Maybe seeding an oncoming storm system with something toxic.  Clouds are sometimes seeded by farmers to produce rain in areas of drought.  While the efficacy of this practice in affecting local rain patterns is questionable, if clouds were seeded with poison, it could destroy vast areas of crops, and thus disrupt a country's food supply.  Because weather systems follow the jet stream, the poisoning could be done in international airspace without triggering a preventative response.

Another high tech plan could be to create what could oxy-moronically be called a "man-made natural disaster". Underground nuclear detonations register as earthquakes.  What if an atomic power could set up a nuke near a major fault zone that was overdue for a major earthquake?  Afraid you'd be detected?  Well, then one could be set off below the surface of the ocean floor to create a tsumani.  Indonesia, 2004 anyone?

Ecological war is waged when one country sabotages another's eco-system.  One means of accomplishing this might be to, say blow up a deep-sea drilling rig which might create a massive oil spill.  And, of course, have the extra benefit of disrupting oil supply.  BP, anyone?

What if a country is not an atomic power?  For those, there's the "Flash Crash" attack.   According to a 5 month Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) investigation,  the May 6th Flash Crash was set in motion by a huge sale of S&P 500 futures contracts by a single firm’s computer trading program, which dumped $4.1 billion of the contracts on the market in just 20 minutes, according to “Lone $4.1 Billion Sale Leads to ‘Flash Crash’ in May,” by Graham Bowley of The New York Times; and “How a Trading Algorithm Went Awry,” by Tom Lauricella, Kara Scannel, and Jenny Strassburg of The Wall Street Journal.

This particular computer mistake, however, was unintentional.  What if a large financial power, with trading resources in excess of the $4.1 Billion, were to sell futures in all the global stock and bond markets in a giant, systematic securities dump?  Even if the damage, as was the case on May 6th, was temporarily limited to a financial "bungee jump", such an occurrence would completely undermine confidence in the integrity of the entire financial system.  Another occurrence would only demonstrate the weak link in the inter-connected fabric of the markets. Thus ,the damage would NOT be temporary.  Even cash wouldn't be safe.  The same approach could be done to various currencies.

If none of the above suffice, a country could create a laboratory-grade pandemic, release it in a country and then quarantine the nation to insulate itself from having it spread back domestically.  Concurrently with the creation of the toxin, it could also have a anti-dote prepared to innoculate its own population.  H1N1 virus or the Severe Accute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), anyone?.

Still not enough?   How about using massive orbiting military lasers to blind a country's population?

Or, the use of sound to affect emotions?  A March 23, 1991 news brief titled "High-Tech Psychological Warfare Arrives in the Middle East", describes a PsyOps tactic directed against Iraqi troops in Kuwait during Desert Storm. The maneuver consisted of a system in which subliminal mind-altering technology was carried on standard radiofrequency broadcasts.

Subliminally, a much more powerful technology was at work: a sophisticated electronic system to ‘speak’ directly to the mind of the listener, to alter and entrain his brainwaves, to manipulate his brain’s electroencephalograph i.e. (EEG) patterns and artificially implant negative emotional states-feelings of fear, anxiety, despair and hopelessness.

The possibilities are endless and MUCH harder to defend against.  In fact, they return "first strike" capability to a variety of warring nations.

The reality of this is so frightening, that even I wouldn't dare them to "Take Me On".

Marko's Take

Come meet Gary E. Johnson, former governor of New Mexico in a private, intimate setting.  For details on the reception, click here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=167442413269476.