31 May 2013
War Is Just Another Human Disaster
Start with the small ones in the last fifteen years—Newtown, Aurora, Boston Marathon, Columbine—and proceed with the significantly larger ones—Kosovo, Rwanda, 9/11, Iraq, Syria, Dhaka building collapse. Each of these human disasters would have demanded its own brand of prevention – military, police, psychological, regulatory. But just like random genetic mutations, they are inevitable events. They don’t usually bring welcome benefits and, therefore, beg remediation.
Some of them fall into the category of violations of national security and their recurrence may be guarded against through armed force. Other humanitarian disasters are failures of public health protection, the consequence of lax weapons control, or the result of centuries of ethnic or cultural rivalries suddenly inflamed in relatively remote corners of the world. These events may be as costly in terms of lives lost as the security threats, but their remediation is usually not as simple. However, because we have grown to believe in man’s mastery of his destiny, it is dangerous to conflate all these calamities when considering the appropriate responses to them.
It should not be confusing to the audiences that President Obama addressed in Annapolis or at the National Defense University that national security threats, like 9/11, demand the response of a strong defense sector. However, 9/11 did not change everything, in contravention of Daniel Henninger’s statement in the May 29, 2013, Wall Street Journal . More than ever technology and communications can have a potentially harmful impact on our delicately balanced society. This condition helped make 9/11 possible, not the other way around.
Start with the small ones in the last fifteen years—Newtown, Aurora, Boston Marathon, Columbine—and proceed with the significantly larger ones—Kosovo, Rwanda, 9/11, Iraq, Syria, Dhaka building collapse. Each of these human disasters would have demanded its own brand of prevention – military, police, psychological, regulatory. But just like random genetic mutations, they are inevitable events. They don’t usually bring welcome benefits and, therefore, beg remediation.
Some of them fall into the category of violations of national security and their recurrence may be guarded against through armed force. Other humanitarian disasters are failures of public health protection, the consequence of lax weapons control, or the result of centuries of ethnic or cultural rivalries suddenly inflamed in relatively remote corners of the world. These events may be as costly in terms of lives lost as the security threats, but their remediation is usually not as simple. However, because we have grown to believe in man’s mastery of his destiny, it is dangerous to conflate all these calamities when considering the appropriate responses to them.
It should not be confusing to the audiences that President Obama addressed in Annapolis or at the National Defense University that national security threats, like 9/11, demand the response of a strong defense sector. However, 9/11 did not change everything, in contravention of Daniel Henninger’s statement in the May 29, 2013, Wall Street Journal . More than ever technology and communications can have a potentially harmful impact on our delicately balanced society. This condition helped make 9/11 possible, not the other way around.
