Causes of Wars and the Developing Global Crisis

This paper was presented to a conference of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations held at Soochow University in Suzhou, China in June, 2018. It was translated into Mandarin and published in one of several journals edited by their Comparative Literature Department, but I cannot access those since my Chinese is extremely limited. Its fundamental purpose is explaining the most significant causes of wars through history and their connections to a "Developing Global Crisis" that we all experience and about which I have written extensively.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 Primary Value of Restoring a Healthy Relationship Between Intelligence Agencies and the Academic World is a Revolution in Intelligence Affairs

This is a very short think-piece (3 pages, no citations) about restoring the idealized kinds of relationships between government spooks and academic amateurs that prevailed during "The Great War" (WW II).The Primary Value of Restoring a Healthy Relationship Between Intelligence Agencies and the Academic World is a Revolution in Intelligence Affairs Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, USA. [email protected] for presentation to the intelligence studies section of the ISA, March 25, 2002. This long-winded title derives from two fundamental goals. On the positive side, I’d like to have better access to information resources of my national government, because my opinion on why wars start matters in various places and I’d like that to be better informed. I’ve studied the causes of war for 23 years, and written one, national award-winning book on the subject. But I am still like a child just beginning to understand. Watching about 30 conflict zones all the time leaves the single observer thin everywhere, and it would be great to have easier access to detailed information compiled by my government with it’s vastly greater resources. On the negative side, there have been many intelligence failures the last few decades, some very serious with grave consequences for thousands or even millions of people, depending on how you count them. And it is very obvious from outside that distortions of perspective and data is the root reason why, brought on by the same system that keeps certain secrets so well. Examples include the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan with consequences obvious to all by now, the unpredicted fall of Iran, and later of the Soviet Union, and the ongoing failure really to comprehend why so many people around the world hate America despite many good things we have done. It is not all just envy, important though that factor certainly is. So, there are the issues of accuracy of analysis, and of timely warning of dangerous events. Another, related question has occupied my time recently, prompted by discussion at these ISA meetings last year. How can we get more wisdom into the official products of national intelligence agencies? To answer this question requires some awareness of how wisdom gets screened out of such assessments and recommendations. It is not a conscious process, that’s for sure – all involved are doing the best they can to serve their country within systems that often prevent success. Remembering that I have no security clearances and have declined to sign the nondisclosure agreements necessary for such clearances (to preserve my own clarity of thought, and credibility in polite society), I have reached the following conclusions among others. All involve, paradoxically, restrictions on information available to the professional intelligence analysts and executives who think that because they have special access to “secrets” that they must then have access to more data than the open world. As Gregory Treverton has noted more eloquently, the obsession with keeping secrets tends to crowd out the goal of figuring out what is really going on and what to do about that

Studies in Intelligence: Practitioners and Academics, Opposites or Collaborators?

This was a verbal presentation for a group of mixed practitioners and academics who studied spies. It was organized by a 40 year veteran of CIA operations and public diplomacy in the form of "Officers in Residence" at many US universities and many other projects. The topic of collaboration between "insiders" of any spy organization, and outsiders like academics (or reporters) is a perennial dilemma for both sides. They are each struggling to figure out very difficult problems, sometimes of great importance. But they have different datasets and experiences. An ideal world would combine those to solve common problems, but spies are ultimately employees of states with very parochial interests.For presentation to the ISA Intelligence Studies Section, February 19, 1:45 pm, Grand Salon. by Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, [email protected] I have studied spies for over 20 years, first because I’m a specialist in the causes of war and secondly because the U.S. Constitution has been injured by problems in our intelligence community. One cannot have a comprehensive view on why wars start without attending to what intelligence groups are up to. And the Constitution is America’s greatest strength, so it matters when it is harmed and innocents are injured. Governments need good intelligence systems to protect themselves and our peoples from a sometimes brutal world. So you might think that collaboration with academics would be easy. But it is not, for a great many reasons. So one answer to the question of opposites or collaborators is that I have collaborated with hundreds of intelligence professionals over the years, only occasionally and temporarily have I been an adversary, and very rarely an enemy. I have never been “opposite” despite the fact that we come from quite different cultures, because we are in basically the same business as those who are paid to do intelligence full time with the important exception that I work on human and civilizational survival, not for any particular agency of any government

Why Population Pressure and Militant Religion are the most Important Causes of the Developing Global Crisis

This paper is one of many on the "Developing Global Crisis" presented at many academic conferences and occasionally to military or intelligence audiences over the last 25 years. A recurring problem is that there are at least 40 causes of wars that recur through 3,000 years of human history, which is too many for most audiences to consider. This paper collapses those into two "most important" causes even though that is generally a mistake. Many subsequent papers add at least two more, "Corruptions of Governance" and "Authoritarian Law."Population pressure and militant religion are the most important causes of the crisis before us today because we can do something about them, and if we don’t we are doomed. The history of the earth is vast and many civilizations have risen, fallen, transformed, and sometimes collapsed catastrophically. All of this is extremely complicated, so to boil it down to a couple of variables is ridiculously simplistic. That is, however, one role of theory for complex processes, reducing dozens or even hundreds of variables into a smaller number that minds can more easily manage. So this is a position paper, not empirical research. Controversies accompany definition of many key terms like “civilization,” “religion” (militant and otherwise), “genocide,” “human nature,” “population pressure” and so forth. These will be set aside so that the key thesis can be presented in the space available. I encourage anyone to disprove or improve on these ideas, because however you describe it our global civilization is entering a period of profound crisis. Practical answers matter more than words, and accuracy matters more than ideology. In the past, as cases here show, some civilizations facing similar challenges survived while others perished forever from this earth. So the question of why some fail and why others succeed is not a mere theoretical question. There are many other variables important to the rise and fall of civilizations, but most will not destroy you if neglected. Population pressure and militant religion can. Plus, we can affect these factors, while goals like changing human nature or eliminating sin are ephemeral. This paper is built on foundations laid by authors like Clive Ponting, Jared Dimond and Tatu Vanhanen (of Britain, the USA and Finland respectively). But almost every concept is disputable, from the definition of civilizations to the “evolutionary roots of politics” that Vanhanen discusses (and Azar Gat elaborates, 2006) which drive some of their political science colleagues into vehement denials that biology has anything at all to do with politics. The critics are wrong, but rather than argue each of these and many other relevant items extensively here, I will just declare my opinion. Having considered these complex and sensitive topics as carefully as I can, these are my conclusions. Readers may critique and prove or disprove them as they like. My goal is human survival, which I think is at risk to these two factors specifically

Why Asia Should Lead a Global Push to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons

This is a derivative of a paper presented in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on September 26, 2019 at a conference on nuclear proliferation issues hosted by Mongolia's Foreign Ministry and sponsored by the Asian Political History Association and the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations. It may be published someday in slightly different forms in the APHA's journal, and/or as a chapter in an edited book. However, those publicatioins are uncertain while the Digital Conservancy is close and reliable. The topic is well described by the title and abstract. The bottom line is that the "Mutual Assured Destruction" strategy of nuclear deterrence is unstable, and will blow up if we wait long enough. The Mongolians are doing the best anyone from tiny countries can to remedy this situation by creative diplomacy on the nuclear proliferation issue.The purpose of this chapter is to explicate reasons why Asia is especially well positioned to lead a global push to eliminate, or greatly reduce, nuclear weapons inventories worldwide, and why Mongolia might be catalytic to that effort. The threat of any general, thermonuclear war is existential to civilization itself. No one understands that better than Japan. North and South Korea want to unify, but they cannot while they are clients of opposing major powers, China and the USA. Nuclear weapons complicate that tragically, at great expense and risk to everyone. Meanwhile, Pakistan is destabilizing, which scares everyone in South Asia and many worldwide, because of its long feud with nuclear-armed India, including four conventional wars. The risk that Pakistani nuclear explosives could find their way to Islamic terrorist groups terrifies others. Many analysts therefore consider South Asia the most likely place for a nuclear war to start today. Russia is a declining power, and is frightened by both NATO and a fast-rising China, while China has considerable capital it could devote to a noble, global cause like nuclear arms control. Israel is a wild card, which motivates Iran to be one too. The former has a complete nuclear triad, and Iran could build nuclear weapons over several years if allowed to. Meanwhile, the USA is paralyzed on this topic by our weapons industry (among other factors), and everyone who now possesses nuclear weapons is modernizing. Europe in general is quite alarmed by US abandonment of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Arms Treaty (INF) and by Russian threats to use “small” nuclear weapons in tactical situations. Therefore, the EU would probably support any Asian effort to bring sanity to this situation before any more large wars get fought over their territories. No European nation wants to become a battleground for major powers fighting with nuclear weapons. At the end, we will discuss some solutions well aware that the countries that already possess nuclear weapons are extremely reluctant to eliminate, or even to limit them

Birth Rates Determine Life Expectancy in Theoretical Equilibrium Populations: Implications for political demography and conflict early warning

This is a very clinical, population genetic discussion of the basic relationship between birth rates and life expectancy in equilibrium and near equilibrium populations. It quickly moves to connections between population pressure and conflicts of various kinds. This has implications for conflict early warning on earth, so that is examined by way of several cases.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

The Birth of Professional Ethics: Some Comparisons among Medicine, Law and Intelligence Communities

This paper was first presented at the third conference of the International Intelligence Ethics Association held at John's Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland over February 22-23, 2008. It compares the genesis of medical, legal and intelligence ethics with reference to ancient concepts like Just War Theory, and aborted efforts by intelligence insiders to create codes of ethics that were typically ignored by various three-letter agencies (which sadly often feared the whole effort). After much time and much effort, a US Director of National Intelligence would finally produce an extremely simple code of core principles in 2014. Progress has been slow, glacial in fact with many retreats, but there is some progress on this difficult front.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

Environmental Stress and Conflict on Earth Today

This is a 17 slide PowerPoint presentation prepared for the 18th Nobel Peace Prize Forum at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. It describes the fundamental forces driving energy production and consumption world-wide, and basic measures of energy efficiencies like energy ratios and the qualities of different energy sources (from oil and gas, to coal, nuclear, hydro to and all the other renewables). It also covers conflict zones related to oil, and compares them to some others related to water like the Nile River Basin

Problems in the Intelligence Community (IC) and how they Affect the Causes of Peace and Peace Studies

This is a lightly updated and modified version of a paper first presented to OSS-04 on psychiatric problems encountered in espionage tailored to the more academic audience of ISA. Nonetheless, it covers some very sensitive topics rather bluntly as operators must, with an eye toward mitigating some of the more corrosive effects of what they call "tradecraft." The bottom line on that is that "tradecraft" induces mental illness in a large proportion of people who use it continuously. This is a problem for everyone. On the other hand tradecraft works shockingly often. Therefore, a certain cadre of psychopaths and other-paths with rare skills and low morals appear to be parts of most or all large spy organizations. BUT, psychopaths can also be notoriously hard to control, and there are other issues for managers to worry about, like being killed by your employee. So a solutions orientation is essential for any progress on this universal and punishing problem.abstract This has been a year of major distress for the American Intelligence Community (IC). Questionable intelligence about weapons of mass destruction led to questionable decisions about going to war in Iraq, which alienated large sectors of civil society and governments around the world. Of course, there are also big fans of this decision, both in the IC and elsewhere. But that is only one of the major problems that spies and intelligence analysts face. For example, there is a purge going on in the CIA as we meet today, as the fans of global intervention drive off critics there. A major “reform” bill was passed, and neutered by the Pentagon among others. This paper will focus on a largely taboo topic, the many ways by which intelligence tradecraft induces mental illness among many (not all) intelligence professionals. This leads in turn to errors of every kind. It leads to difficulty learning from past mistakes, and coping with novel problems. It also leads to very high rates of divorce, alcoholism and pain among our spies and analysts. And finally, it leads to confusing friends with enemies. Of particular importance to the field of Peace Studies is a common confusion between peace activists and “terrorists” (or in an earlier era, with communists). When fear is great and security institutions are stressed to find some bad guys, some of them literally cannot distinguish between “peace activists” and whoever the source of fear for the day is. Dissent is confused with treason. Thus did J. Edgar Hoover target civil rights activists, anti-war activists, labor activists and many others during the infamous COINTELPRO days. Some of the less stable people in our current FBI and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) are compiling lists of “potential terrorists” today that include peace activists, labor, human rights enthusiasts, environmentalists, feminists, “liberals,” etc. This problem is particularly acute in the Joint Terrorism Taskforces that have been ordered to identify “potential terrorists” in every county in America. Since actual terrorists are rare and very hard to find, but peace activists and other liberal groups are relatively abundant, public and easy to find, many peace people are on such lists today. The paper that follows looks at a range of clinical mental problems that are induced or exacerbated by the practices of IC agencies (called “tradecraft” in their jargon) and how such problems make working for peace more difficult during times of war. Paradoxically and tragically, they also make solving traditional and legitimate security problems of intelligence more difficult too. In both ways protecting our people and preserving freedom become harder. Stressed out spies and CI guys (counter intelligence) make many errors, of which confusing peace people with terrorists is just one especially irritating example. [A paper follows that was prepared for the CIA and a variety of spies about ten months ago. At the end is a postscript for our peace community on why psychopathology among spies is especially important for us.

Building Bridges Between Cultures

This was the framework for I presentation I gave in support of "Sunshine" Pollicies intended to lead toward eventual reunificantion of North and South Korea.in 2002. These took place at colleges and one engineering technical group. It addresses the civilizational issues elsewhere described as the "developing global crisis," of corruptions of governance at a time of rising populations and conflicts over resources. A problem solving tone prevails throughout. It was published in Korean by the sponsoring Busan National University, but not in English anywhere.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.Busan National University in Busan, RO