Browsing by Author "Andregg, Michael M."

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1862 in Dakota Land, a Genocide Forgotten: How civilizational transformation can get lost in the fading rate of history
(2008-06-26) Andregg, Michael M.
1862 was a critical year in a process by which a land larger than many nations was transformed from one civilization to another. But the process was not a classic conquest easily marked in history books. Rather, it was a slower ‘digestion’ of over 20 million hectares of territory by one civilization accompanied by moments of true genocide or at least “ethnic cleansing” amidst much longer periods of very high death rates for one group and high birth rates and especially immigration rates for the other group. But this was sufficiently gradual that most historians did not record it on their lists of wars and other organized conflicts. I will discuss some extremely divergent views on what happened then. One reason they are so divergent is because the conflict of 1862 and its aftermath were extremely complex, with massacres on both sides, and with Indians working on both sides. Some whites fought to exterminate the Indians while others risked their lives to save them, and vice versa. Half-breeds of many kinds were caught in the middle, trying to survive a dramatic civilizational transformation that was occurring all around them. The result: In 1800, the territory now called Minnesota was 99%+ Indian, and by 1900 it was 99%+ whites of European descent.
Additions to "Ukraine and the 30 Year's Global War on Terror" for cadets and professors at Mihai's Excellent Intelligence Academy
(2014-10-21) Andregg, Michael M.
Additions on “Ukraine and the 30 Year’s Global War on Terror” for the cadets and professors at Mihai’s Excellent Academy, 21 October, 2014 1. What can I tell Romanians about the Ukraine? You should know 1000x more than I do about this country on your border. What can I tell you about the mind of Vladimir Putin, who is more dangerous to the greater Black Sea area than to the western hemisphere? 2. Well, I can say your political psychologists should be studying Mr. Putin very carefully! I do that to forecast wars, but be assured, it is not really possible to get into the mind of a leader thousands of kilometers away, with almost all sources of information about them mediated by groups with interests of their own. Propaganda is everywhere, but in war zones it is pervasive and professional. To take another hard intelligence target for example, we don’t even know if Kim Jong Un of North Korea is ALIVE right now, or confined to a hospital, or tied up in a tank somewhere to protect his security services from flagrant craziness with WMDs, and Kim’s affection for killing relatives on short notice, like his uncle. So political psychologists in Romania should study the mind of Mr. Putin carefully, and I will say more about that in a moment. 3. I can also tell you that the “Global War on Terror” declared by my President George W. Bush on 20 September, 2001, while renamed for public relations purposes, is going on briskly and some intend to keep this up for many decades. That has a significant bearing on security calculations by Mr. Putin in Russia, just as it does on calculations by the Saudi’s, the Israelis, the Pakistanis, the Indians, the Germans, and many other countries with global interests, like the Turks, who have many boiling issues of their own to worry about. So I will talk about Ukraine and the War on “Terror” simultaneously. 4. It is important to recognize that both Russia and the USA are empires in decline today. There are many technical differences, of course, and some will quibble about the word empire, but the decline is what matters most. Both Putin and Obama want to restore their countries to global dominance of the past, but rivals will block them and combine in unexpected ways, which is why declining empires are more dangerous than stable ones. 5. The “Developing Global Crisis” I mentioned in my first and second lectures here remains extremely relevant. But that is hard to review because it looks at everything all at once, which is difficult for even the best of our tiny little brains, much less for students who are burdened with other tasks like trying to find a long-term job, long-term relationships, etc. But do not forget that all these conflicts occur in the context of tremendous population pressure, significant resource depletion and environmental changes, and phenomenal corruption of governments around the world that limit solutions to these problems. 6. Ukraine and the 30 years Global War on “Terror” are different, but deeply related topics. Romania is a member of NATO now, and what causes the big gorilla of NATO to itch can affect smaller members more. So professional officers of Romanian security should pay close attention to the psychology of both US and Russian Presidents. ISIS (or ISIL, the Islamic State, or whatever the name of the day is for scary terrorists) causes our President many sleepless nights, probably more sleepless nights than Ukraine is today.
The Agenda for Dialogues among Civilizations should be Human Survival
(2005-06) Andregg, Michael M.
THE Agenda for Dialogues Among Civilizations Should be Human Survival Prepared for the ISCSC’s 34th conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA at the University of St. Thomas, June 9-11, 2005. By Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas, mmandregg@stthomas.edu Abstract The first, and last item on my agenda for dialogues among civilizations is human survival. The prime reason is that this goal generates more cooperation and less argument than any other I have found. If we are to avoid the “clash” of civilizations that many fear, we should avoid angry “debates” about political or ideological issues. The core difference between a “clash” or a “debate” and a “dialogue” is style or tone. These are vague concepts, but profoundly important. Safe food, clean water, fuel for heating and fibers to wear or write on can be politicized (as can anything) but they are also the most universal human needs. Therefore they are also understood by the illiterate as well as by erudite elites. The goal of human survival promotes a positive tone that helps with the very hard work of finding viable solutions to the manifold challenges of our time. From this point of entry, 10,000 other topics can be discussed constructively, including contentious ones. The point is to establish more rapport between participants than often exists initially, by focusing on common ground before the more difficult issues of war, peace and politics inevitably emerge. Even religion and its varieties may be dialogued very constructively if rapport exists with some minimal empathy for the problems that other human beings face. Lacking this, if one starts with religion or politics by contrast, one too often encounters dogmatic views or demonization of the other, and constructive dialogue becomes nearly impossible. Here are some threats to human survival that might better be addressed by a “dialogue” instead of a great “debate” among the civilizations of the earth today. War should be obvious, particularly when weapons of mass destruction are considered. Energy, oil-based and otherwise, is a challenge of vast scale with huge consequences for all. Threats to human survival include the many environmental challenges and even catastrophes cited by the recent Report of the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs, and forewarned by the Global 2000 Report to the President (of the United States, then Jimmy Carter) 25 years ago. They include religious extremism (or militant religion) and the challenges of how to preserve cultural and political diversity in an age of globalization. Each of those threats to physical or cultural survival includes many sub-topics, all of which benefit from a constructive attitude among those who seek solutions through dialogue as opposed to debate. Partisan bickering is the antithesis of this. So I say again that promoting this attitude is as important as any topic or line item on an agenda. No, it is more important than the intellectual elements on such lists of good things one might do.
Biological Weapons
(Combating Terrorism, 2020) Andregg, Michael M.
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS Since 1945, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) have included chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. All have been used in wars, with casualties greatest for chemical, then nuclear, and least from biological weapons, at least in the modern era. However, modern genetic engineering technologies like “CRISPR” could change that dramatically. Historical biological weapons typically involved infectious organisms from nature like smallpox, plague and anthrax. They were used at least as early as Hannibal tossing plague infested corpses into Roman cities. Some white Americans gave smallpox-infected blankets to Indians, and a Japanese Unit #731 did similar and worse things to Chinese people during World War II. During the “Cold War” both the Soviet Union and the United States developed extensive biological warfare programs. However, near universal horror at the concept of breeding and “weaponizing” ancient plagues for use against human populations resulted in a UN mediated treaty called the “Biological Weapons Convention” that banned all such activity by civilized nations in 1975. As of January 2018, this convention has been signed and ratified by 180 of the UN’s 193 nations. Moral and legal constraints on biological weapons are challenged, however, by the relative ease and low cost of creating biological weapons compared with nuclear and even chemical weapons. Modern genetic engineering techniques (which go far beyond CRISPR) raise fears that terrorists in basements using chemicals bought online could recreate ancient scourges like smallpox, or even create new “designer diseases.” These could be “Chimera” organisms that combine lethal genes from multiple organisms, and even include genes for resistance to all known antibiotics. One of the novel properties of biological weapons compared to other WMD is that they can reproduce themselves and spread far beyond any initial target. This helped military institutions to recognize that biologicals could turn on one’s own troops, and were not very useful against military targets. Instead, they would afflict mainly vulnerable civilian populations, and could spread worldwide. Biological weapons could also be used against food crops and animals, spreading famine as well as novel plagues. For all these reasons, even the most fierce warrior generals have generally agreed that biological weapons should not be created much less used. Some terrorist groups have expressed considerable interest in WMD, however, including biological weapons. One Japanese death cult called Aum Shinrikyo made chemical weapons, killing 12 people on a subway system in 1995, and tried to make biological weapons to attack Japan’s civilian population, but it was thwarted by Japanese police and counterterrorism forces. Another cult in Oregon organized by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh put salmonella bacteria on salad bars in ten restaurants in an attempt to swing county elections their way. In November, 1984, 751 people were sickened, but no one died. Assassinations are another area where biological weapons have been used. Biological toxins like ricin have been used to kill selected individuals like Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov in London, in September of 1978. Several packages of weaponized anthrax were also sent to about a dozen targets shortly after 9/11, killing five people and infecting 17 others. According to the FBI, the alleged culprit was not a ‘typical’ terrorist, however, but a veteran of America’s biological weapons program named Bruce Ivins. There remains controversy over that conclusion, but whoever sent the US weapons-grade anthrax packages to several news media offices and two Democratic US Senators included notes with Islamic terminology hoping to arouse mass anger against Muslims. Therefore, better control of biological weapons before terrorists (or false flag operators posing as terrorists) can build or buy any is a top priority for counter-terrorism around the world today. Michael Andregg [Word count excluding “Further Reading” is 600] Further Reading Osterholm, Michael T. and Mark Olshaker, 2017. Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company. Wright, Susan, 2002. Biological Warfare and Disarmament: New Problems/New Perspectives. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Cirincione, Joseph, John B. Wolfsthal and Miriam Rajkumar, 2005. Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats. 2nd Edition. Washington, D.C.: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Nuclear Threat Initiative is a well-financed, long-term, non-profit educational organization that maintains extensive files on all weapons of mass destruction, including one on biosecurity http://www.nti.org/about/biosecurity/. It also sponsors conferences like one in 2018 that can be seen whole at http://www.nti.org/about/projects/global-biosecurity-dialogue/event/nti-seminar-biosecurity-design-getting-ahead-risk-world-designer-organisms/ The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs has a link to the full text of the Biological Weapons Convention that includes many supporting documents, history and data. It is at https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/bio/ .
The Birth of Professional Ethics: Some Comparisons among Medicine, Law and Intelligence Communities
(2008-02-22) Andregg, Michael M.
Doctors in antiquity used leeches, herbs and shamanistic rituals to try to help their patients heal from the wounds and illnesses of life. Yet even in this long pre-scientific period, some felt a need to develop an ethos and codes of ethics specific to their craft. One goal was prestige, a social good of intangible but real value (especially when practitioners are ridiculed by many, common when medicine was young). Close behind was another goal, a privileged and eventually exclusive right to practice their craft commercially. As science and technology advanced, a third goal emerged. This was continuing professional education to meet a growing need for both technical competence and some systematic way to evaluate novel dilemmas that emerged as medicine became truly effective. The best examples of those dilemmas come from “test-tube babies,” but there are many other dilemmas like end of life issues when machines can sustain a brain-dead body, or access to intrinsically scarce resources like transplantable organs. The concept of a professional medical ethos was built upon more general ethics of the Greeks (and independently within the Chinese and Indian civilizations at least). Its earliest generally recognized form was the oath of Hippocrates. This served to identify special responsibilities to be assumed by those who would call themselves ‘professionals’ of the healing arts. Sometimes rights were included, but the responsibilities were primary to Hippocrates, like his famous injunction to first, “do no harm.” In addition to that he urged doctors to take care of mentors who trained them and to not dishonor the emerging profession by sexual acts with patients or their families, or by inducing abortion. American Law developed a variety of professional ethos over about 100 years, which is another long story. Intelligence professionals (a.k.a. 'spies') who desired to improve the reputation of 'the world's second oldest profession' began thinking about ethics for spies in the early 2000's, and created an International Intelligence Ethics Association in 2005 as part of a broader effort to "professionalize" what was, in practice, a craft. This paper attempts to integrate these three paths to thinking about codified "professional ethics" and records some of the early efforts in that direction among intelligence professionals and those who study them.
Birth Rates Determine Life Expectancy in Theoretical Equilibrium Populations: Implications for political demography and conflict early warning
(American Intelligence Journal, 2018-04) Andregg, Michael M.
Executive Summary This paper examines implications for political demography of a theoretical population that is in complete equilibrium. By “complete equilibrium,” we mean that the population neither grows nor shrinks, there is neither immigration to nor emigration from it, and that the age structure has stabilized so that it no longer changes over time. These are all important elements of complete equilibrium, as opposed to stability in just absolute numbers. This condition is found in some natural populations of animals and plants, but it has not obtained in most human populations in recorded history. Reduced to basics, this theoretical population has the following characteristics: 1. In complete equilibrium populations, birth rates will equal death rates so the population neither grows nor shrinks. 2. In a complete equilibrium population, death rates determine life expectancy, expressible as: LE = 1000/DR. 3. Since, in a complete equilibrium population, birth rates equal death rates, this can also be expressed as: LE = 1000/BR. 4. This implies that fundamentally, birth rates determine life expectancy in complete equilibrium populations. This paper has two goals. The first is simply to check the accuracy of the theoretical formulas identified above. Since they are quite simple and likely accurate, I invite others to identify any errors. The second goal is at least as important. How do human populations evade this limiting outcome? Or do they really? I fear the short answer to these questions is a) genocide and war, and b) no, they do not really escape an iron law of biology. However, they often do displace the high death rates to marginal or weaker populations. If correct, this has significant implications for conflict early warning as illustrated by several real-world examples.
Book Review of "Glimpses of Igbo Culture and Civilization"
(International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, 2005-06) Andregg, Michael M.
Book Review of: “Glimpses of Igbo Culture and Civilization,” 293 pgs. Edited by Okolie Animba, Computer Edge Publishers, Lagos Nigeria, 2000. This book is the proceedings from a Pan-Igbo National Seminar and workshop organized by a Cultural Heritage Center in Uwani, Enugu, Nigeria. So its overall academic quality, coherence and so forth are less than one might expect from pure research institutions. Many of the 14 authors are professors from 7 named universities, but some are headmen, chiefs, or other governmental officials. In a similar vein, the printing quality is not the best. However, those reservations noted, this book was a wealth of information on its intended subject, and while the authors were not all 100% pedigreed scholars, they were all very sincerely and earnestly trying to share the essences of Igbo life with a larger world. In that task they succeeded. The chapters proceed from history, through language and literature, social organization to ‘fine and applied arts.’ The most interesting chapters to me, and the ones I will use in class, looked at how the Igbo people try to transmit wisdom across the generations. Along the way one encounters some very interesting asides, as when Chibiko Okebalama of Nigeria University in Nsukka observes that “education in Igboland is gradually becoming a woman affair.” Some things may be universal across our world of transition. But first some background. The “Igbo people” are fundamentally a language group with one large division and many smaller ones. They live mainly in southeastern Nigeria and are known to the outside world more for losing the war for an independent “Biafra” against more dominant Hausa and Yoruba language groups, within a Nigerian context that has over 400 dialects and over 30 distinct languages. The weakness of this text is reflected by the fact that there were zero maps in the entire work, and most discussion of the range the Igbo occupy was in terms of this valley or that river watershed rather than things a western eye could easily place on maps without further research. Another problem it struggles with and notes in the very beginning is that before the British colonialists arrived, the Igbo people were non-literate. So much of the commentary on Igbo culture is necessarily drawn from oral tradition, put into a relatively recent Igbo written language and then translated into English. They did the best they could but this is obviously a difficult problem, and sometimes the real meaning of phrases remains obscure. That said, the book goes through the limited archaeology of the region, noting dates on pottery and human tools around 3,000 B.C.E. which documents “human activity of considerable antiquity.” This section defends the concept of Igbo civilization in an attempt “to contradict here the imperialist view that Ibgoland had no history or culture worth the name until the establishment of British rule.” This defensiveness was not necessary to my eye, but recurs from time to time. Now, to the chapters on proverbs that interested me most.
Book Reviews of Thucydides' Trap and 2 other books for China, ISCSC, 2018
(2018-06-16) Andregg, Michael M.
NB: Unlike many reviews, this will combine three books to compare their different perspectives on US – China relations. We will begin with the mechanics and topline of all three. Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s’ Trap? 2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston and New York. 288 pages of text with 20 pages of front matter and 76 pages of endnotes. This is an academic, theoretical text with a dark tone of impending doom. It was also very well publicized and reviewed, resulting in much buzz among policy professionals. John Pomfret, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present. 2016, Henry Holt & Co., New York. This is the most detailed history of US-China relations among these three, written by a long-time correspondent for the Washington Post who married a Chinese woman and clearly loves the country. 637 pages of text with 54 pages of endnotes and index. Howard W. French, Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power, 2017, Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 288 pages of text with 42 pages of endnotes and index. This was the most useful for me to help understand historical roots of Chinese thought. It is less detailed than Pomfret, and less theoretical than Allison. French was also a correspondent for the Washington Post, and later a bureau chief for the New York Times in many countries including China.
Breaking Laws of God and Men: When is this OK for Intelligence Professionals?
(2019-11-20) Andregg, Michael M.
Attorneys and philosophers have presented detailed answers to the question of when it is permissible to break laws, some of which begin and end with the word “never.” Others answer “always” if reasons of state are compelling. To compound confusion, governments often write special laws for their “spies”* and other “intelligence professionals”* [1]. Some of these laws are publicly known, but others are classified, like a significant fraction of US NSDD’s (National Security Decision Directives) and NSPD’s (National Security Presidential Directives). So what is forbidden for ordinary citizens may be legally “OK” for intelligence professionals, but citizens cannot tell because some of the laws are secret laws administered by secret courts like the FISA court in the USA [2]. This situation can easily degenerate into simple codes: like “Do anything you need to accomplish your mission, but do not get caught” which has been noted by several CIA veterans [3]. That noted here, the CIA may be among the more restrained intelligence agencies in the world, because it is besieged by lawyers who have some actual laws to work with, unlike the secret services of some other countries. Many cases can be studied as dilemmas that challenge these simple, black-and-white views of the world and of moral codes of conduct. A modern classic is the ‘nuclear terrorist with a ticking time bomb’ scenario. Many people conclude that there are no limits at all on what one might properly do to stop him (or her!). A dilemma of longer duration is that of the small unit infantry commander whose surrounded troops will all die if he does not do something to a prisoner that is forbidden by the Geneva Conventions and the American Laws of War. Such cases often involve torture or murder. There is also a long, Catholic tradition called “Just War Theory” that attempts to bring systematic thought to both jus ad bellum issues (is the war just?) and jus in bello (is the war being conducted justly?). Even in a theoretically unified church (regarding fundamental moral issues) one can find substantively different opinions about this among highly competent commentators [4]. This paper will consider both of these hard cases in the context of many years of moral and legal thought with a final focus on two moral principles and one practical observation addressing the question of whether evil means can be morally pursued to achieve good end goals. They are: 1) the Do No Harm principle; 2) the Lesser of Evils principle; and 3) the lesson from human history that the Means Used Determine the Actual Ends Achieved.
Building Bridges Between Cultures
(Busan National University, South Korea, 2002-03-18) Andregg, Michael M.
1. Why? Building bridges between cultures can involve many challenges, so the first subject I will address is: Why do this work? Answers important to me include: human survival, achieving prosperity through trade, compassion (especially for those who suffer, like refugees of war and relatives separated by politics) and achieving “the good life” spiritually as well as materially. All of these objectives benefit from a principle of living systems called “hybrid vigor.” These concepts will be illustrated by a few examples. Human civilization is facing a terrible crisis. It is a crisis of population growth combined with excessive consumption by the rich, which results in serious environmental problems and severe competition for the means of survival. Combined with other strains of politics, both normal differences of opinion about how to organize social life and more serious issues of corruption of governance and tyranny, this results in many wars (about 25 – 30 each year during the 23 years I have studied that subject). On the average half a million people die each year directly from these wars. Suffering from dispersed effects like refugee migrations and malnutrition related to the economic costs of these conflicts affects hundreds of millions every year. Human civilization is groaning in pain, but powerful psychological and social defenses exist that keep most people from hearing that pain clearly. It is the business of biologists to attend the living system. I testify before you that the living system itself is in danger because of these problems. If you need convincing I will gladly spend another hour or a day on that alone, because in my country at least, there are always excuses for taking just a little bit more from the living system despite its obvious distress. But our business today is building bridges between cultures, so I will return to that now with the simple observation that if the living system of earth is in trouble, human beings are in trouble. Human survival may even be at risk. So one reason to build bridges between cultures is to restrain people from blowing up the world with nuclear weapons, or despoiling it with endless conventional wars and the new, exotic biological and chemical weapons. Long ago I was a medical geneticist at a major University hospital. One reason I switched to why wars begin was what I knew about biological weapons 25 years ago. We have come a long way since then, and it is not a pretty picture. But even without such exotic weapons, the annual death rate from ordinary bombs and bullets should be plenty to inspire us to build some bridges to a better future for us all. A positive reason for building bridges is the prospect of increasing prosperity through trade. Now, I will venture a small observation on Korean politics. I apologize if I offend anyone. It is very sad to read about starvation in the North at the same time we read about fear created by Taepo-Dong II missiles, and a million-man army. Therefore, it was a happy day when we read about a new “sunshine policy,” and I was pleased when your President Kim Dae Jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifelong work for a better future.
Building Bridges Between Cultures in the Nuclear Age: Globalization and the Current World-Wide War
(2005-08-26) Andregg, Michael M.
The peace community encourages building bridges between cultures to resolve conflicts and prevent war. Other positive results can be more trade to increase wealth, nation building, and growth of our global civilization by cross-fertilization of ideas and art as well as commerce. The UN asked people of goodwill to consider building bridges during a decade of dialogue among civilizations, rather than engage in destructive clashes. Unfortunately, the current “global war on terrorism” (“GWOT” in American military jargon) highlights some downsides to the building bridges theory. The same mechanisms that move people, money, goods, and information more efficiently can also move murderers, bombs, war plans, and nuclear or biological weapons components. Also, “Globalization” was increasing economic inequalities and tearing up established economies long before the current war. And “cultural hegemony” became a recognizable term long before the “war on terrorism” did. So global tension grows for many reasons. This paper will review these issues and examine three specific cases: South Africa, North and South Korea, and Israel / Palestine to ask whether, on balance, we are moving forward or backward on the road to peace and global harmony. One case appears a clear success, another a failure, and the third remains to be determined.
Can a Culture of Violence Sustain Peaceful Democracy?
(International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, 2013) Andregg, Michael M.
Can a Culture of Violence Sustain Peaceful Democracy? Of course, if one is flexible enough with definitions. That gets harder the more idyllic one wants the “peaceful democracy” to be. Most democracies are not all that peaceful now, and some are among the most violent nations on earth. Like, why dodge the obvious, my dear home United States of America. We hold records. We have been involved in more wars and lethal operations in more other countries than any other nation on earth over the last few decades, especially if one includes smaller targets in places like Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and other countries who have lost one snatched or snuffed. We incarcerate more of our own people than anyone else in the world, by rate and absolutely. Our war on drugs extends to tens of thousands dying in countries like Mexico and Columbia, and to hundreds of thousands in America with near-life sentences for petty crimes. We have more guns per capita than any other nation on earth bar none, and are damn proud of it polls generally show, despite enduring one of the highest murder rates as well. And our mass murderers, about 20 each year, have often been entertained and “educated” by some of the most ruthless video games ever created anywhere. America holds many records! So if you include the USA in the set of “peaceful democracies” then you would have to conclude that it is certainly possible to sustain a “peaceful democracy” with a pretty violent culture by most observers’ assessments. Some of our most ardent weapons enthusiasts, like the NRA, say that we sustain our peaceful democracy because of extensive gun ownership, etc. Their critics say we are on a path to perdition, but so far the Pentagon still owns the path. There are surely more peaceful democracies on earth today, no doubt, and may God Bless every one of them. Most of them have far more restricted access to guns, smaller and less harsh prisons, less militaristic foreign policies, and dramatically lower rates of death by violence. Some examples: Japan, Finland, Costa Rica, South Korea, Singapore and most of Europe. And there are police-states that rigorously repress both free speech and private ownership of weapons. If one expects perfection in definitions, however, you can be pretty confident that no perfectly peaceful democracies exist. Most true pacifists got run out of their ancestral lands long ago, like the Dalai Lama, so almost every government on earth maintains an army to maintain borders. Rare exceptions like Costa Rica rely on the prudence of neighbors too poor to invade. More common are countries built with guns, like China, Russia, the USA and Canada, all successful if variably violent nations today. Remember, North Americans were all Indians 550 years ago. Native populations may have been more or less peaceful, a very mixed record, but that mattered less than their inability to stop invaders with better weapons when civilizations clashed. This is just an opinion not a recommendation, and I welcome any others most sincerely. Michael Andregg, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, Dec. 28, 2012, for the ISCSC 2013 newsletter
Can We Resolve Tensions between the US and China?
(The Future Center in Dubai publishes Arab language commentary on many issues including security issues, 2019-04-27) Andregg, Michael M.
Can We Resolve Tensions between the US and China? Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas, mmandregg@stthomas.edu The trade war between the US and China worries many people these days, not least the business community. Worst-case scenarios involve real war, because trade and conflict have been connected throughout human history. A Harvard professor recently wrote a book called “Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?” (2017). Allison’s research suggests a 75% probability for the harsh outcome. A thermonuclear war would set the world economy back by generations at least, and even a “small” military conflict in the South China Sea between a rising China and declining US could cost trillions, and disrupt supply chains all over the world. Economic damage could last decades, even if land armies never met. So peace between these behemoths is imperative for many reasons. Both prefer to behave as empires, however, so neighbors should stay cautious. Therefore, the short answer to whether the US and China can patch up their trade differences must be a “yes” even if the challenges are large, which they are. Current US President Trump enjoys trade wars, and is unrealistic about their consequences. China’s push for dominance in key technologies, like artificial intelligence, quantum computing and 5G cell systems, will not abate. Those trends frighten national security hawks, and businesses that do not want to be left behind like the buggy-whip makers a century ago. In the short term, the most likely place for conflict to turn into bombs and bullets on targets is the South China Sea. China resents the projection of American power into the Pacific, despite the historic fact that American naval power was essential to rescue China from dominance by Japan. Hence, China’s massive engineering project to raise tiny islands in the South China Sea, and turn several into military bases.
Causes of Wars and the Developing Global Crisis
(2018-06-15) Andregg, Michael M.
This paper connects some ultimate causes of wars through history with a set of contemporary problems we have been calling the “Developing Global Crisis” for about 20 years. Therefore, one first step is identifying what that crisis entails. Very briefly, the living system that sustains all of our global civilizations is in great distress these days. This leads to many armed conflicts and even “failed states.” Sometimes failed states produce terrorists and large numbers of other desperate people who flee the chaos that results. Former US Director of National Intelligence, General James Clapper provides an apt description of the Developing Global Crisis on page 157 of his 2018 memoirs: “Factors like food and water shortages and poor living conditions – increasingly driven by climate change – oppression of political freedoms, corruption by autocratic governments and rulers who had been in place for decades … made them (North African and some Middle Eastern states) extremely unstable. The spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) threatens Everything under Heaven, because many terrorists want WMD and are not deterred by threats of retaliation. There are at least 40 recurring causes of wars through history, so we cannot consider them all in the time available. Today we will focus on four especially important ultimate causes of wars. They are Population Pressure, Militant Religion, Authoritarian Law, and Corruptions of Governance. The case of contemporary Syria will be examined briefly to illustrate connections between these causes of organized armed conflict and many other problems. There is also a particular reason why I came to China. This is called “Thucydides’ Trap” which is a theory about great power relations of Harvard political scientist Graham Allison, inspired by an ancient Greek historian named Thucydides. Thucydides wrote about the Peloponnesian War that ended Greece’s dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean and Western civilization about the same time that Sun Tzu wrote his incomparable “Art of War.” Allison’s more recent theory suggests that when one “great power” declines while another great power rises, war between them is almost inevitable.
The Challenge of Achieving Wisdom in Intelligence Products and Processes
(2016-03-16) Andregg, Michael M.
This is a PowerPoint presentation sized for typical, ISA intelligence section panels. Its ~ 20 frames deal with institutional constraints much discussed elsewhere like the perennial desire of policy makers to keep their intel staffs out of policy (e.g. they often discourage anything close to wisdom, preferring "just the facts" so they can make the big decisions. Other common themes are very short time constraints and overreliance on "secret" sources of information that are often tainted in many ways. It brushes on some uncommon themes like the prevalence of psychopaths in secret power systems, but does not go into any depth on those difficult topics.
The Challenge of Achieving Wisdom in Intelligence Products and Processes, outline
(2015-02-19) Andregg, Michael M.
The word "wisdom" almost never appears in intelligence literature. Here are eleven reasons why, which were offered as hypotheses for a roundtable of extremely experienced practitioners from many three letter agencies to discuss.
Climate Change and U.S. National Security
(US Government Printing Office, 2020-05) Andregg, Michael M.
In October of 2014 the U.S. Department of Defense published an “Adaptation Roadmap” for climate change that started with: “Climate change will affect the Department of Defense’s ability to defend the Nation and poses immediate risks to U.S. national security.” Then Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was quoted saying: “Climate change does not directly cause conflict, but it can significantly add to the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict. Food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, more severe natural disasters – all place additional burdens on economies, societies, and institutions around the world.” This chapter will detail what those challenges and burdens are, with emphases on national security implications and consequences for U.S. Army personnel in particular. But it cannot and should not be narrowly focused, because this is a global problem with global consequences that affect the entire U.S. military. It affects alliances, flashpoints, basing issues, geopolitics and budgets in complex ways we will try to exemplify with specific cases, like Syria and South Asia. Propaganda can influence assessments in any war zone. So that is not new, but it is an especially pernicious problem with climate change. , , , , For example, at Minnesota’s leading public policy institute we have been talking about, and some studying, climate change since at least 1982. It took 31 years before Andy Marshall commissioned the first publically known, Pentagon study of national security implications of climate change in 2003. Yet this author was told personally at the National Intelligence University in 2005 that officers there had been “ordered not to talk about that subject.” This was all because of a sustained campaign by legacy industries to suppress discussion of something profound that they already knew was guaranteed to occur.
Corruption of Institutions and the Decay of Civilizations
(Nova, 2013-02-08) Andregg, Michael M.
CORRUPTION OF INSTITUTIONS AND THE DECAY OF CIVILIZATIONS Michael Andregg University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA ABSTRACT This chapter discusses the dangers of corruption of institutions, especially governments, and how such corruption can be exposed and partially cleansed. Theories about the decay phase of civilizations are briefly cited, and examples of corrupted forms of six professions illustrated (military, law, medicine, journalism, business and the clergy). Parallels between large organizations and the human body are shown to illustrate system consequences of dysfunction. An enduring theme is the need for constant, built in mechanisms to reduce corruption in living systems, including the largest scale of civilizations. Some solutions to these problems are mentioned, but readers are also challenged to do better since the problems of corruption of governance have been eternal and have successfully resisted many reform efforts. INTRODUCTION Civilizations are living systems, so like any living system they need at least 19 subsystems to acquire and process food, water, energy and information, to safely dispose of toxic byproducts or wastes, to avoid being eaten themselves, and otherwise to stay alive and to reproduce themselves. In one sense all these life functions are equally “essential” (Miller, Living Systems, 1978). Still I will maintain here that cleansing a civilization regularly of corruption (or empire or nation state) is especially important. Why?
Creating a Reader on Intelligence Ethics, 2008 for INS
(Intelligence and National Security (a journal), 2008) Andregg, Michael M.
The information age is burying everyone in noise. Globalization increases stress. Then the poorly named Global War on Terror drove some leaders to suspend, or at least radically rethink, ethical constraints that had been settled two generations past, like the unequivocal ban on torture in the Geneva Conventions and many subsequent laws and treaties. This was the context in which we set out to create a reader on intelligence ethics that would, a) actually be read by busy professionals buried in urgent texts, and b) make a real difference in a profession better known for breaking rules. All involved recognized the “oxymoron problem.” All know that while most of our colleagues are moral people trying to do legitimate work to protect their peoples and governments, there are some who certainly think that ethics for spies is the dumbest idea ever. To them we say that intelligence ethics is actually a force multiplier, and dramatic deviations like officially sanctioned torture are force degraders. So 26 intelligence professionals from seven countries collaborated to create a reader designed to be 50 pages maximum, an hour’s read for busy people who recognize why ethics matter, even for spies and the many other intelligence professionals of the modern age. They gathered knowing only half would make the quality cut, and struggled to compress lifetimes of experience into extremely short forms. Each had specific reasons, but the overarching recognition was that national power declines when “all gloves off” immorality prevails. We are engaged in a very “Long War” that is basically between barbarism and civilized ways of life and conflict. There are always tactical voices who seek a quick victory by any means necessary. And real terrorism frightens all thoughtful people, so the danger of becoming that which you oppose has never been greater. This is a story about how that reader was created, with summaries of the 13 essays selected for publication. First, a professor at the National Military Intelligence College (then JMIC) Dr. Jan Goldman, collaborated with a philosopher of ethics with national security background Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo and about six others to create a new “International Intelligence Ethics Association” branching off of the long-running JSCOPE conferences (Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics). They held their first meetings on January 27 and 28 of 2006, which made the front page of the New York Times precisely because the novelty of ethics for spies was, well, news. Their association can be found at: http://www.intelligence-ethics.org/ and their fourth conference will be at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, February 20-21 of 2009. Inspired by them, I went to the intelligence studies section of the International Studies Association seeking permission to do this project. They concurred, and let me fill one-fourth of their next year’s panels with papers on intelligence ethics of various kinds. Those engaged 18 participants, but some solicited could not come and others were advisors to international leaders who could not participate publicly. From those, 8 other papers were procured. A panel of judges was created. Two were editors of major intelligence publications, one was a former Chancellor of America’s National Intelligence University system, and one was an operator near the end of his career. Their task was to review all submissions and to pick the best half. The authors’ task was to compress what they thought essential into 4 double-spaced manuscript pages. All judges were invited to submit forwards to the final piece, recognizing that most could not. The one who did was INS senior editor Loch Johnson, whose forward will be reprinted here next.
A Critical Lesson not yet Learned in America: Intelligence Ethics Matter
(2012-10-16) Andregg, Michael M.
Introduction Intelligence ethics matter because mistakes here can result in loss of thousands of innocent lives, and in worst cases to destruction of whole governments and their peoples. The Cold War swung as much on moral factors as political, economic or military, but bureaucracies learn slowly. Deep history shows that political hubris can bring any empire down. When mistakes have such large potential consequences, accuracy is critical. The modern world must deal with diffuse terrorist and “failed state” threats, and complex, non-military threats to civilization like global warming, international crime and rogue financial entities that can ruin entire economies. Accuracy in complex problems requires close cooperation among intelligence systems, both national security and law enforcement focused. Close cooperation requires trust. When one intelligence entity in a cooperative system becomes immoral, corrupt or unreliable in protecting methods and sources, cooperation declines, accuracy declines, and somewhere down the line innocent people may suffer or even die. Many examples could be considered, but a particularly relevant case is what happened before the United States of America attacked Iraq on 19 March, 2003. The causus belli alleged were aggressive weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in Iraq, with a secondary concern that Saddam Hussein was helping Al Qaeda. After many over 100,000 Iraqis were killed, the country laid waste, occupied and thoroughly searched, no WMDs were found. And Hussein had been hostile to Al Qaeda, not a friend. In the short space available, we will consider this case in detail. Some have called this an “intelligence failure,” but most call it a policy failure blamed on intelligence agencies. Either way, the cost to the USA has been huge. Thousands of billions of dollars were wasted attacking Iraq, and thousands of US and allied troops were killed or gravely wounded. The costs to Iraq were relatively much larger. I will focus on how these costs reflect failures of ethics at the level of intelligence professionals who knew that bad things were being done for false reasons, but remained silent. That was the biggest ethical lapse for many of them. But do not forget the policy people who actually ordered this unjustified carnage, or the citizens like me who let them do it. In America we sacrificed a modest reputation of respect for rule of law, for due process, for human rights and for many other things like honest cooperation with allies as we rationalized these mortal sins that killed so many innocent others. Cold War contests helped set the stage for this illegal and immoral war so we will comment on that also. But we begin with some specific lies that led to the deaths of perhaps a million people if all casualties were properly counted.

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