Shlok Vaidya

The History and Future of Warfare

I’ve been thinking about Lexington Green’s post asking for help putting together a presentation on the history of warfare. Here’s the framework I’ve thrown together. My focus was on incorporating the market and information (both get lost in most traditional readings of the history of warfare). Feedback’s appreciated.

Of course, this needs fleshing out, but the call was for an outline, so here goes:

The history of warfare looks something like this cycle that repeats itself within the governance market – between an insurgent governance platform and the dominant platform of the time. Victory is gauged by market-share of each platform.

1. Tribe vs. Tribe
2. Tribe vs. State
3. State vs State
   1. Marked by the invention of the nuke.
4. Network vs State
   1. Where we are now. Networks are essentially information empowered tribes.
5. Network vs. Network
   1. When the nation-state collapses into its component resilient communities and combats the networks that won.
   2. Insurgencies and private military corporations act as governance platforms.
6. Small-Scale Networks vs Network
   1. Advanced information flows decreases mass requirements and increases decentralization.
   2. Trend continues until post-human age.
7. Small-Scale Network vs Small-Scale Network
8. Individual vs. Small-Scale Network
9. Individual vs. Individual
10. Post-human vs. Individual
    1. When the difference between man and machine is negligible.
11. ? vs Post-Human

*Acceleration really takes off when the network barrier is broken.
*Technology is a type of information.

-Shlok
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07. October 2009 by Shlok Vaidya
Categories: Thinking | Tags: governance platforms, history of warfare | 8 comments