The Return of God The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles site links to news about UAV 'flocks' that are being developed as anti-terrorist we...
The Return of God
The
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles site links to
news about UAV 'flocks' that are being developed as anti-terrorist weapons.
A heterogeneous flock of UAVs, each with its own capabilities, has one
“leader.” The leader spots the target, conducts a “tender” among the flock
members, decides which has the best chance of destroying the target, and
assigns the mission to that member. ... When a malfunction is detected in a
flock member, or one simply runs out of fuel, that member is returned to the
base for repair or refueling, while the mission continues.
The Israeli researchers developing this weapons system may simply be copying
a tactic Al Qaeda had stumbled onto earlier. Dr. Gordon Woo described terrorist
attacks as a species of "swarm" warfare in the
Mathematical Aspects of Terrorism Hazard. Compare his description of the
organizational characteristics of a terrorist network with the the 'flock' of
UAVs above.
In 1994, Algerian terrorists planned to fly a jet into the Eiffel tower in
Paris. Unbeknown to both MI5 and CIA, as early as 1995, dissident Afghan
waiters in London were soliciting American signatories on applications for
flight training in USA. The planning for September 11 had begun at least seven
years earlier. Faced with the contrasting prospects of paradise, if they
succeeded, or prison, if they failed, the leaders of the suicide hijack
mission were rational in taking meticulous care over every detail of their
planning.
Not just the preparation time, but also the swarm attack is a feature of
al-Qaeda strategy which is comprehensible in game theory terms. In an al-Qaeda
training manual, found in an apartment in Manchester, England, missions are
listed as including the destruction of embassies, urban bridges, and centres
of vital economic interest. If one specific class of target is selected for
attack, (e.g. embassies, bridges, ports, etc.), defences would inevitably be
strengthened after a strike, making a second attempt more difficult. Already
this has happened with US airport security. Hence an opportunist terrorist
strategy would be to launch a simultaneous attack on many individual targets
within the same class, so stretching homeland defence. Al-Qaeda have managed
to synchronize surprise attacks on US embassies and landmark buildings. In
conventional military strategy, the casualty rate resulting from such
simultaneous attacks might be prohibitive. The strategist, Sun Tze, argued
against using troops like a swarm of ants; a strategy bound to lead to high
casualties.
The social insect metaphor is intriguing for a terrorist network such as
al-Qaeda, prepared to launch martyrdom missions. Astonishing levels of spatial
swarm intelligence are achievable by colonies of ants, which can fulfill their
programmed functions without the need for central instruction. If terrorists
depended heavily on communication with a command hub, swarm attacks might be
quite susceptible to counter-intelligence. However, participants may operate
essentially individually, and may not be stationed together in any one
locality. Instead, they may form emergent virtual cells, the members of which
would be dispersed over the world, communicating via the internet to plan an
attack.
The
NIC
2020 Report of the National Intelligence Council recently concluded that the
Islamic "swarm" will continue to grow, linked together by asynchoronous
communication.
The key factors that spawned international terrorism show no signs of
abating over the next 15 years. Experts assess that the majority of
international terrorist groups will continue to identify with radical Islam.
The revival of Muslim identity will create a framework for the spread of
radical Islamic ideology both inside and outside the Middle East, including
Western Europe, Southeast Asia and Central Asia. ... Informal networks of
charitable foundations, madrasas, hawalas, and other mechanisms will continue
to proliferate and be exploited by radical elements.
But the Islamic swarm will not be alone. In one of the most dramatic
developments of the new century, secular 'interntionalist' ideologies are
declining in the face of resurgent ethnic and religious identities. In its
chapter on
New
Challenges to Governance, the National Intelligence Council pointed out that
as aging secular centers of Europe continue into eclipse, the world ratio of
believers to nonbelievers will begin to shift dramatically in favor of
Christians and Muslims in the Third World. God, who Marx confidently
predicted would soon be out of business, has turned the tables on him.
Over the next 15 years, religious identity is likely to become an
increasingly important factor in how people define themselves. ... For
example, Christianity, Buddhism, and other religions and practices are
spreading in such countries as China as Marxism declines, and the proportion
of evangelical converts in traditionally heavily Catholic Latin America is
rising. By 2020, China and Nigeria will have some of the largest Christian
communities in the world, a shift that will reshape the traditionally
Western-based Christian institutions, giving them more of an African or Asian
or, more broadly, a developing world face. Western Europe stands apart from
this growing global “religiosity” except for the migrant communities from
Africa and the Middle East.
Samuel Huntington in an interview with Kyodo News observed the same thing.
There is global resurgence of the importance of religion in a wide variety
of countries. We see the identity of countries increasingly taking on more of
religious character. In countries like India, Turkey, Israel, not to mention
Iran, you have had religious movements develop, challenging the secular
definition of those countries' identities by their (modern) founding leaders
in the early 20th century, such as Nehru, Ben-Gurion, Ataturk and the Shah of
Iran. It is a fairly widespread phenomenon that people are thinking of their
country in more religious terms. Even in secular Western Europe, religion is
becoming more important. By enacting a new law banning Muslims scarves in
schools, the French feel the need to reassert their religious identity which
happens to be the tradition of secularism. That is their religion.
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