This week's Economist has an article about how Russia and China seem to be using shadow fleets of commercial ships flying under the flags of an ever-shifting array of small countries to conduct asymmetrical warfare. Launching swarms of drones like those we've seen in Denmark and Germany recently. Accidentally dragging their anchors on underseas data cables ("Oops!"). And so on.
As a refresher, the shadow fleet has been expanding ever since the Ukraine war started in 2022 and the US and allies imposed sanctions on Russia and pushed Russian banks out of the international settlement network SWIFT. So as we've stepped away from our post-WWII role as primary underwriters of a rules-based order and security guarantors thereof, we've created fertile ground for a shadowy world not just of commerce but of martial action that ignores, taunts and disdains us.
We never really had the wherewithal to fully impose any kind of order. But at least making an effort put in place frameworks, to give voice to and listen to others to optimize what those frameworks looked like, and to promote contexts in which those frameworks could be implemented, ultimately I think this was a much more fruitful way to go. The whole enterprise moreover fostered a spirit which sought good.
We are now sinking into a chaos where systems clamor for power. Or, rather, this primordial state of being which we sought to repress and contain is reemerging, swamp by swamp.
(honestly this post didn't go where I thought it would 45 minutes ago before I got distracted by work email and client issues. But the blog begged to be tossed a few scraps of meat nonetheless, like the seals at an acquarium, hungry beasts)
No comments:
Post a Comment