NASA's warnings on the dangers of severe space storms

Back in June I blogged about the potential dangers arising from space storms that could spawn devastating solar flares. This is no joke, nor is it part of the laughable (but conveniently co-incidental) 2012 doomsday nonsense. There's actual science involved here; NASA issued a solar storm warning back in 2006 in which it predicted that the worst of it could come sometime between 2011 and 2012. Last year they slightly downgraded their warning, while extending their forecast to 2013—May 2013 to be exact, which sounds eerily specific.

According to NASA, we are currently in a solar maximum period. These cycles are capable of creating space storms—what are known as "Carrington Events," named after astronomer Richard Carrington who witnessed a particularly nasty solar flare back in 1859. The flare he documented resulted in electrified transmission cables, fires in telegraph offices, and Northern Lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their red and green glow...in Mexico.

If this is what happened in 1859, imagine what would happen today. Well, we're starting to have some idea—and the news is pretty bad.

A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages to society's high-tech infrastructure and require four to ten years for complete recovery. It could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to everyday items such as home computers, iPods and GPS's. Because of our heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion dollar damage bill and cataclysmic-scale problems for governments.

Worse than this, however, would be the potential length of blackouts. According to a Metatech Corporation study, an event like the 1921 geomagnetic storm would result in large-scale blackouts affecting more than 130 million people and would expose more than 350 transformers to the risk of permanent damage. It could take months—if not years—to put everybody back on the grid.

For more reading, I recommend the NASA report, "Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts: A Workshop Report" (2008). Excerpt:

Modern society depends heavily on a variety of technologies that are susceptible to the extremes of space weather—severe disturbances of the upper atmosphere and of the near-Earth space environment that are driven by the magnetic activity of the Sun. Strong auroral currents can disrupt and damage modern electric power grids and may contribute to the corrosion of oil and gas pipelines. Magnetic storm-driven ionospheric density disturbances interfere with high-frequency (HF) radio communications and navigation signals from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, while polar cap absorption (PCA) events can degrade—and, during severe events, completely black out—HF communications along transpolar aviation routes, requiring aircraft flying these routes to be diverted to lower latitudes. Exposure of spacecraft to energetic particles during solar energetic particle events and radiation belt enhancements can cause temporary operational anomalies, damage critical electronics, degrade solar arrays, and blind optical systems such as imagers and star trackers.

The effects of space weather on modern technological systems are well documented in both the technical literature and popular accounts. Most often cited perhaps is the collapse within 90 seconds of northeastern Canada’s Hydro-Quebec power grid during the great geomagnetic storm of March 1989, which left millions of people without electricity for up to 9 hours. This event exemplifies the dramatic impact that extreme space weather can have on a technology upon which modern society in all of its manifold and interconnected activities and functions critically depends.

Nearly two decades have passed since the March 1989 event. During that time, awareness of the risks of extreme space weather has increased among the affected industries, mitigation strategies have been developed, new sources of data have become available (e.g., the upstream solar wind measurements from the Advanced Composition Explorer), new models of the space environment have been created, and a national space weather infrastructure has evolved to provide data, alerts, and forecasts to an increasing number of users.

Now, 20 years later and approaching a new interval of increased solar activity, how well equipped are we to manage the effects of space weather? Have recent technological developments made our critical technologies more or less vulnerable? How well do we understand the broader societal and economic impacts of extreme space weather events? Are our institutions prepared to cope with the effects of a “space weather Katrina,” a rare, but according to the historical record, not inconceivable eventuality?

Read more.

Anissimov: Beware botulinum and EMP attacks

Michael Anissimov of Accelerating Future is feeling a bit doomy these days—and for good reason. He argues that we're collectively understating and underreporting non-conventional but thoroughly viable catastrophic risks, including the deliberate spread of botulinum toxin and an EMP attack.

On the latter risk, Anissimov writes:

If an EMP attack came, cars and trucks would just stop. Factories, controlled by computers, would stop. Molten steel on the assembly line would cool and solidify in place due to failure of the heating elements. The vast majority of tractors, combines, and other heavy machinery would become useless. Transformers and other electrical elements, large and small, would be fried. The largest transformers have to be ordered from China and are generally ordered with a year of lead time.

An effective EMP attack on the US would cause tens of trillions of dollars of damage. Cities would run out of food in a few days. The US grain stockpile only has about a million bushels of wheat. Wheat is the only common grain with enough nutrients to sustain someone on an all-grain diet. A bushel is only 60 pounds, and someone needs about a pound of wheat a day to avoid hunger pangs. Ideally two pounds if you are doing manual labor. 60 million man-days of food is not a lot. The population of the United States is 300 million. That means our grain stockpiles are enough food for everyone to eat a fifth of a pound and then they’re gone.

By the way, if you're particularly paranoid about this, you can always convert your house into a Faraday Cage. I'm just not sure how useful all your electronics will be given that everyone else's will be fried.

And in regards to the botulinum risk, he writes, "99.9% of the population will dismiss [it] as not a big deal, due to wishful thinking. It’s all just words on the page, until people start dying."

NASA: Beware solar flares from 'huge space storm'

As if we didn't already have enough to worry about, NASA is now warning of space storms that could spawn devastating solar flares. The Telegraph UK reports:

Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.

Due to humans’ heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and “potentially devastating” problems for governments.

“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa's Heliophysics division, said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.

“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”

Dr Fisher added: “Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect.”

Welcome to the age of weapons containment: A SentDev Classic

Soon after the end of the Cold War, U.S. President George H. W. Bush declared that a new era had opened up in which he hoped that his country would become a “kinder and gentler nation.” Fifteen years later his proclamation appears naïve and gushing with idealism, but his optimism was understandable given the times; the Soviet Union had just collapsed with the Eastern Bloc going down with it, and all without a single shot fired from an American gun. The world, it seemed, had been rebooted and started anew.

Indeed, economic and cultural globalization quickly ensued, ushering in what we now regard as the post-ideological, post-bi-polar geopolitical era. Democracies and capitalism began to take root in areas completely unaccustomed to such institutions. One prominent political theorist, Francis Fukuyama, was so taken by these turn of events that he declared the new era to be the end of history.

But things haven’t turned out exactly as hoped or planned. The weight of history is still very much upon us. The events of September 11, 2001 were a wake-up call of sorts, a not-so-subtle reminder that politically instigated catastrophes are still a real and potent threat. In a world dominated by the hegemonic power of the United States, the world was introduced to the muscle of asymmetric agitation.

To be sure, today’s geopolitical situation is one in which asymmetric threats -- a phenomenon more commonly referred to as terrorism -- are taken to be the most pressing security concerns. Yet this is only part of the story. We live in an era in which conventional warfare between two or more combating nations of roughly equal power is all but behind us. Given the political and economic compatibility of so many nation states, the need and desire for war has waned considerably. As Margaret Thatcher once famously said, democracies “do not go to war with one another.” Moreover, conventional war, with all of today's high-tech tools of destruction, would surely be suicide.

As current events reveal, however, wars are still occurring -- but to call them such might be a stretch. The situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, are the reactionary spasms of occupation. The current regimes in both countries have been established by the conquerors who are now cleaning up the mess of victory, albeit very poorly and haphazardly.

Still, when it comes right down to it, conflicts such as these are still very 'warlike' in their composition. And despite the decline in all-out war between nations, hostilities are still happening. There are several key factors that can account for this ongoing problem.

First, we still live in an era of the sovereign nation state where war is regarded as the self-justified continuation of diplomacy by other means. Second, there is civilization's insatiable appetite for natural resources – a factor that creates volatility in those resource rich areas whose governments are politically and economically at odds with those who desire the resources. Thirdly, and related to the first point, there are ideological reasons for entering into war, whether it be the spread of capitalism, “freedom,” religion or totalitarian ideology. Lastly, and the one I now want to shift attention to, war is a means to prevent a state from developing and using advanced weapons such as nuclear bombs and bio-weapons.

This last point is a relatively new phenomenon, one that I believe will characterize the 21st century.

The dust is finally settling after the collapse of the Cold War and a new era is starting to unfold before us. It is not an era where anyone will afford to be “kinder” or “gentler,” nor will it be an era in which so-called terrorism is the Great Threat (asymmetric threats cease to be asymmetric when the enemy has access to apocalypic technologies). Rather, the 21st century is revealing itself as the Age of Weapons Containment.

There are already strong indicators that this is the case, at least in theory. The U.S. justified its invasion of Iraq under the guise of ferreting out Saddam’s illusory weapons of mass destruction. George W. Bush was successfully able to garner support for an invasion based around a seemingly tangible and dangerous threat. Sure, the reason for war was falsified, but the incident will prove to be an ominous harbinger of things to come – crises that won't involve red herrings.

Since 9/11 the world’s attention has been pre-occupied with threats of hijacked planes and hassles at the airport. At the same time the United States worked obsessively in the Middle East to guarantee its access to oil (an agenda made all the more pressing as China nears superpower status). During this time, however, the North Koreans were busy developing nuclear weapons. Now the U.S. and the international community are scrambling to figure out what to do about it. North Korea is truly a “rogue” nation if there ever was one, with a psychologically unstable and malicious leader at the helm. The question being asked the world over is: how do you take nuclear weapons away from a country once it has acquired them?

The answer is, you can’t. At least not without engaging in a brutal attack that involves nuclear weapons. Frighteningly, the only option may be to allow North Korea to keep their nukes and work to prevent other countries from joining the Nuclear Club. Yet, as the New York Times recently noted, there are at least 40 countries around the world today that have the technological know-how to develop their own nuclear weapons program. The situation seems untenable.

And it’s poised to get worse. Weapons technologies are increasingly set to increase in sophistication, destructive power, and most frightening of all, accessibility. Nuclear weapons are the first of an entirely new set of apocalyptic technologies that include genetically engineered viruses, self-replicating nanotechnology and robotics, and even malign artificial intelligence. As a consequence of these potential threats, one of two things will happen on the geopolitical stage: either agreement will finally be made on the establishment of transnational authorities, or nations will react with unilateral violence against potential threats in an effort to contain the spread of dangerous weapons.

Unfortunately, it may very well be the latter. The U.S. has already set this precedent by virtue of their invasion of Iraq -- an action in which they disregarded the U.N.'s injunctions. While the U.S. worked to prevent the spread of communism during the latter half of the 20th century, they may very well define their 21st century geopolitical role as the country that works to prevent the spread of apocalyptic technologies.

Rather than rely on international bodies, countries with the resolve and military might will react with force when a perceived threat hits the radar. As a potential example, does anyone think for one minute that Israel will stand idly by while Iran develops their own nuclear weapons? How long will Japan and South Korea hold out before they take action against North Korea?

The goal of world federalism seems as far off as ever. The international community cannot get it together and give the United Nations teeth. The United States bears much of the blame. Consequently, nations are waiting until situations become untenable and they're forced to act on their own.

Looking ahead to the future, similar revelations will occur when when bio-labs are detected in suspicious countries, or as nanotechnology and robotics industries mature. As is the case today, only until the situation looks overwhelmingly dangerous will threatened countries react. It will be an era of reactionary efforts to curtail the development and proliferation of extremely dangerous weapons. Beyond a doubt, the United States will beat a unilateral path as it faces each threat, while all the while undermining the global community and shirking its responsibility to help build a powerful international regulatory regime.

But even if transnational agencies can be created, these institutions will still have to face the same issues. Preventing the wide-spread and unchecked accessibility to apocalyptic technologies will redefine the human condition. We may have to live with a multitude of existential threats in perpetuity. This is not a good situation.

In the meantime, all eyes are on North Korea. How the international community deals with this crisis will be a very important precursor to how they will deal with even greater threats in the coming decades.

Originally posted on October 16, 2006.

The perils of nuclear disarmament: How relinquishment could result in disaster

Most everyone agrees that humanity needs to get rid of its nuclear weapons. There's no question that complete relinquishment will all but eliminate the threat of deliberate and accidental nuclear war and the ongoing problem of proliferation.

Indeed, the ongoing presence of nuclear weapons is the greatest single threat to the survival of humanity. To put the problem into perspective, there are currently 26,000 nuclear warheads ready to go -- 96% of which are controlled by the United States and Russia. These two countries alone could unleash the power of 70,000 Hiroshimas in a matter of minutes. In the event of an all-out nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, it is estimated that as many as 230 million Americans and 56 million Russians would be killed by the initial blasts. The longer term impacts are nearly incalculable, but suffice it to say human civilization would be hard pressed to survive.

Given the end of the Cold War and the establishment of the START agreements, the idea of a deliberate nuclear war seems almost anachronistic. But the potential nightmare of an accidental nuclear exchange is all to real. We have already come very close on several occasions, including the Stanislav Petrov incident in 1983. We are living on borrowed time.

The assertion, therefore, that we need to completely rid ourselves of nuclear weapons appears more than reasonable; our very survival may depend on it. In fact, there are currently a number of initiatives underway that are working to see this vision come true. President Barack Obama himself has urged for the complete eliminate of nuclear weapons.

But before we head down the path to disarmament, we need to consider the consequences. Getting rid of nuclear weapons is a more difficult and precarious proposition than most people think. It's important therefore that we look at the potential risks and consequences.

There are a number of reasons for concern. A world without nukes could be far more unstable and prone to both smaller and global-scale conventional wars. And somewhat counter-intuitively, the process of relinquishment itself could increase the chance that nuclear weapons will be used. Moreover, we have to acknowledge the fact that even in a world free of nuclear weapons we will never completely escape the threat of their return.

The Bomb and the end of global-scale wars

The first and (so far) final use of nuclear weapons during wartime marked a seminal turning point in human conflict: the development of The Bomb and its presence as an ultimate deterrent has arguably preempted the advent of global-scale wars. It is an undeniable fact that an all-out war has not occurred since the end of World War II, and it is very likely that the threat of mutually assured destruction (MAD) has had a lot to do with it.

The Cold War is a case in point. Its very nature as a "war" without direct conflict points to the acknowledgment that it would have been ludicrous to engage in a suicidal nuclear exchange. Instead, the Cold War turned into an ideological conflict largely limited to foreign skirmishes, political posturing and espionage. Nuclear weapons had the seemingly paradoxical effect of forcing the United States and the Soviet Union into an uneasy peace. The same can be said today for India and Pakistan -- two rival and nuclear-capable nations mired in a cold war of their own.

It needs to be said, therefore, that the absence of nuclear weapons would dramatically increase the likelihood of conventional wars re-emerging as military possibilities. And given the catastrophic power of today's weapons, including the introduction of robotics and AI on the battlefield, the results could be devastating, even existential in scope.

So, while the damage inflicted by a restrained conventional war would be an order of magnitude lower than a nuclear war, the probably of a return to conventional wars would be significantly increased. This forces us to ask some difficult questions: Is nuclear disarmament worth it if the probability of conventional war becomes ten times greater? What about a hundred times greater?

And given that nuclear war is more of a deterrent than a tactical weapon, can such a calculation even be made? If nuclear disarmament spawns x conventional wars with y casualties, how could we measure those catastrophic losses against a nuclear war that's not really supposed to happen in the first place? The value of nuclear weapons is not that they should be used, but that they should never be used.

Upsetting the geopolitical balance

Today's global geopolitical structure has largely converged around the realities and constraints posed by the presence of apocalyptic weapons and by the nations who control them. Tension exists between the United States and Russia, but there are limits to how far each nation is willing to provoke the other. The same can be said for the United States' relationship with China. And as already noted, nuclear weapons may be forcing the peace between India and Pakistan (it's worth noting that conventional war between two nuclear-capable nations is akin to suicide; nuclear weapons would be used the moment one side senses defeat).

But should nuclear weapons suddenly disappear, the current geopolitical arrangement would be turned on its head. Despite its rhetoric, the United States is not a hegemonic power. We live in a de facto multi-polar geopolitical environment. Take away nuclear weapons and we get a global picture that looks startlingly familiar to pre-World War I Europe.

Additionally, the elimination of nuclear weapons could act as a destabilizing force, giving some up-and-coming nation-states the idea that they could become world players. Despite United Nations sanctions against invasion, some leaders could become bolder (and even desperate) and lose their inhibitions about claiming foreign territory; nations may start to take more calculated and provocative risks -- even against those nations who used to be nuclear powers.

Today, nuclear weapons are are being used to keep "rogue states" in check. It's no secret that the United States is willing (and even thinking about) bombing Iran as it works to develop its own nuclear weapons and threaten the region, if not the United States itself (Iran will soon have intercontinental ballistic capability; same for North Korea).

It can be said, therefore, that the composition of a nuclear-free world would be far more unstable and unpredictable than a world with nukes. Relinquishment could introduce us to an undesirable world in which new stresses and conflicts rival those posed by the threat of nuclear weapons.

It should be noted, however, that nuclear weapons do nothing to mitigate the threat of terrorism. MAD becomes a rather soft deterrent when "political rationality" comes into question; rationality can be a very subjective thing, as is the sense of self-preservation, particularly when nihilism and metaphysical beliefs come into play (i.e. religious fanaticism).

Nukes could still get in the wrong hands

Even in a world where nuclear weapons are eliminated it would not be outlandish to suggest that fringe groups, and even rogue nations, would still work to obtain the devices. The reasons for doing so are obvious, a grim turn of events that would enable them to take the rest of the world hostage.

Consequently, we can never be sure that a some point down the line, when push comes to shove for some countries or terrorist groups, that they'll independently work to develop their own nuclear weapons.

Dangers of the disarmament process

Should the nuclear capable nations of the world disarm, the process itself could lead to a number of problems. Even nuclear war.

During disarmament, for example, it's conceivable that nations would become distrustful of the others -- even to the point of complete paranoia and all-out belligerence. Countries would have to work particularly hard to show concrete evidence that they are in fact disarming. Any evidence to the contrary could severely escalate tension and thwart the process.

Some strategic thinkers have even surmised that there might be more incentive for a first strike with small numbers of nuclear weapons on both sides, where the attacking nations could hope to survive the conflict. As a result, it's suspected that the final stage of disarmament, when all sides are supposed to dismantle the last of their weapons, will be an exceptionally dangerous time. As a result, disarmament is paradoxically more likely to increase the probability of deliberate nuclear war.

And in addition, concealing a few nukes at this stage could give one nation an enormous military advantage over those nations who have been completely de-nuclearized. This is not as ridiculous as it might seem: it would be all too easy and advantageous for a nation to conceal a secret stockpile and attempt to gain political and military advantages by nuclear blackmail or attack.

Conclusion

I want to make it clear at this time that I am not opposed to nuclear disarmament.

What I am trying to do here is bring to light the challenges that such a process would bring. If we're going to do this we need to do a proper risk assessment and adjust our disarmament strategies accordingly (assuming that's even possible). I still believe that we should get rid of nuclear weapons -- it's just that our nuclear exit strategy will have to include some provisions to alleviate the potential problems I described above.

At the very least we need to dramatically reduce the number of live warheads. Having 26,000 active weapons and a stockpile the size of Mount Everest is sheer lunacy. There's no other word for it. It's a situation begging for disaster.

All this said, we must also admit that we have permanently lost our innocence. We will have to live with the nuclear threat in perpetuity, even if these weapons cease to physically exist. There will never be a complete guarantee that countries have completely disarmed themselves and that re-armament won't ever happen again in the future.

But thankfully, a permanent guarantee of disarmament is not required for this process. The longer we go without nuclear weapons, the better.

Global Catastrophic Risks talks now available online

Via the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

All the talks from the November 14, 2008 Global Catastrophic Risks: Building a Resilient Civilization seminar, co-sponsored by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology and the Lifeboat Foundation, are now online, thanks to Jeriaska.

Welcome and Introductions

WATCH - LISTEN

Anders Sandberg PhD, Oxford University “Global Catastrophic Risks: An Overview, and Caution about Risk Assessments”

WATCH - LISTEN

Jamais Cascio, IEET Fellow, and research affiliate, Institute for the Future “Building Civilizational Resilience”

WATCH - LISTEN

Eliezer Yudkowsky, Research Associate. Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence “Cognitive Biases in the Assessment of Risk”

WATCH - LISTEN

Martin Hellman PhD, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University “Risk Analysis of Nuclear Deterrence”

WATCH - LISTEN

Bruce Damer, CEO, DigitalSpace & Director, Contact Consortium “Asteroids and Comets: Mitigating Impact Risks and Stepping Stones to a Sustainable Space Program”

WATCH - LISTEN

Mike Treder, Executive Director, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology “Nanotechnology’s Global Risk and Promises of Resilience”

WATCH - LISTEN

Tad Hogg PhD, Social Computing Laboratory, Hewlett Packard “Distributed Surveillance with MEMS or Nano-scale Sensors”

WATCH - LISTEN

Kattesh V. Katti PhD, Director, Cancer Nanotechnology Platform, Professor of Radiology, University of Missouri “Green Nanotechnology: An Economic And Scientific Initiative For the Future Of Human Civilization”

WATCH - LISTEN

Alan Goldstein PhD, CEO of Industrial Nanobiotechnology “The A-Prize: Tracking The Global Race To Break The Carbon Barrier”

WATCH - LISTEN

J. Storrs Hall PhD, author Beyond AI “The Weather Machine: Nano-enabled Climate Control for the Earth”

WATCH - LISTEN

George Dvorsky, Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies “Risks Posed by Political Extremism”

WATCH - LISTEN

James J. Hughes PhD, Exec. Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies “Strengthening Transnational Governance to Mitigate Risks”

WATCH - LISTEN

Jamais Cascio, IEET Fellow, and research affiliate, Institute for the Future
“Strategies for Civilizational Resilience in the Face of Global Catastrophic Risks” WATCH - LISTEN

'Democracy in danger' video

Here's the video of the presentation I gave on November 14, 2008 at the Global Catastrophic Risks symposium.


Risks Posed by Political Extremism from Jeriaska on Vimeo.
Read more: "Future risks and the challenge to democracy"

Future risks and the challenge to democracy

As we prepare for the emergence of the next generation of apocalyptic weapons, it needs to be acknowledged that the world's democracies are set to face their gravest challenge yet as viable and ongoing political options.

The continuing presence and increased accessibility of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) are poised to put an abrupt end to politics as usual. Technologies that threaten our very existence will greatly upset current sensibilities about social control and civil liberties. And as a consequence, those institutions that have worked for centuries to protect democratic and humanistic values will be put to the test – a test that may ultimate result in a significant weakening of democracy, if not its outright collapse.

The pending political situation is categorically different than that which followed the Manhattan Project and the advent of nuclear weapons. While proliferation was a problem in the decades proceeding The Bomb’s development, the chances of those weapons getting into the hands of a so-called ‘rogue state’ or non-state actors was slim to none (unless you consider the former Soviet Union, Cuba, China and Pakistan as being rogue states). Moreover, as we move forward we will have more than just nuclear weapons to worry about; future WMDs include bioweapons (such as deliberately engineered pathogens), dirty bombs, weaponized nanotechnology, robotics, misused artificial intelligence, and so on.

What makes these WMDs different is the growing ease of acquisition and implementation by those who might actually use them. We live in an increasingly wired and globalized world where access to resources and information has never been easier. Compounding these problems is the rise and empowerment of non-traditional political forces, namely weak-states, non-state actors and disgruntled individuals. In the past, entire armadas were required to inflict catastrophic damage; today, all that’s required are small groups of motivated individuals.

And the motivations for using such weapons are set to escalate. Political extremism begets political extremism; government clamp-downs (both internally and externally) will likely illicit radical counter reactions. There is also the potential for global-scale arms races as new technologies appear on the horizon (molecular assembling nanotechnology being a likely candidate). Such arms races could increase not just international tensions, but also instigate espionage and preemptive strikes.

Given these high stakes situations, democratic institutions may not be given the chance to prevent catastrophes or deal with actual crises.

21st Century realities

Politics and conflict in the 20th Century was largely centered around differing opinions about the redistribution of wealth. It was a time of adjusting to the demands of the modern nation-state, large populations and mature industrial economies. Responses to these challenges included the totalitarian experiments, World War II -- and for those nations who resisted the radical urge, the instantiation of Keynesian economics and the welfare state.

The coming decades will bear witness to similar sorts of political experimentation and restructuring, including a renewed devotion to extreme measures and radicalism. It is becoming increasingly clear that 21st Century politics will be focused around managing the impacts of disruptive technologies, addressing the threats posed by apocalyptic weapons and environmental degradation, and attending to global-scale catastrophes and crises as they occur.

This restructuring is already underway. We live in the post 9/11 world -- a world in which we have legitimate cause to be fearful of superterrorism and hyperterrorism. We will also have to reap what we sowed in regards to our environmental neglect. Consequently, our political leaders and institutions will be increasingly called-upon to address the compounding problems of unchecked WMD proliferation, terrorism, civil unrest, pandemics, the environmental impacts of climate change (like super-storms, flooding, etc.), fleets of refugees, devastating food shortages, and so on. It will become very necessary for the world's militaries to anticipate these crises and adapt so that they can meet these demands.

More challenging, however, will be in avoiding outright human extinction.

Indeed, the term ‘existential risks’ is beginning to take root in the vernacular. During the presidential debates, for example, John McCain used the expression to illustrate the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat against Israel. While McCain was referring to the threat on Israel’s existence, the idea that humanity faces a genuine extinction risk has returned to the popular consciousness. Eventually these perceived risks will start to play a more prominent role in the political arena, both in terms of politicking and in the forging of policy itself.

So much for the End of History and the New World Order

When the Cold War ended it was generally thought that major wars had become obsolete and that a more peaceful and prosperous era had emerged. Some commentators, like the political scientist Francis Fukuyama, declared that Western liberal democracy and free market capital systems had triumphed and that it would only be a matter of time before it spread to all regions of the planet. For Fukuyama, this equated to the ‘end of history.’

It was also around this time that George H. W. Bush proclaimed the advent of a New World Order. With the collapse of European Communism and the end of bi-polar geopolitics it was hoped that nuclear disarmament would soon follow and with it a global community largely free of conflict.

Today, however, we see that these hopes were idealistic and naïve. There is still plenty of strife and violence in the international system. In fact, the current multi-polar geopolitical arrangement has proven to be far more unstable than the previous orientation, particularly because it has allowed economic, political and cultural globalization to flourish, and along with it, the rise of asymmetrical warfare and escalating motivations for rogue nations and non-state actors to exert terrible damage.

Despite the claims of Fukuyama and Bush, and despite our own collective sensibilities, we cannot take our democracies and civil liberties for granted. When appraising the condition of democracies we must realize that past successes and apparent trajectories are no guarantees of future gain. Indeed, democracy is still the exception around the world and not the rule.

Historically speaking, democracies are an abnormality. As early as 1972 only 38% of the world’s population lived in countries that could be classified as free. Today, despite the end of the Cold War, this figure has only crept up to 46%. We may be the victims of an ideological bias in which we’ve assumed far too much about democracy’s potential, including its correlation with progress and its ability to thrive in drastically different social environments.

Catastrophic and existential risks will put democratic institutions in danger given an unprecedented need for social control, surveillance and compliance. Liberal democracies will likely regress to de facto authoritarianism under the intense strain; tools that will allow democratic governments to do so include invoking emergency measures, eliminating dissent and protest, censorship, suspending elections and constitutions, and trampling on civil liberties (illegal arrests, surveillance, limiting mobility, etc).

Looking further ahead, extreme threats may even rekindle the totalitarian urge; this option will appeal to those leaders looking to exert absolute control over their citizens. What’s particularly frightening is that future technologies will allow for a more intensive and invasive totalitarianism than was ever thought possible in the 20th Century – including ubiquitous surveillance (and the monitoring of so-called ‘thought crimes’), absolute control over information, and the redesign of humanity itself, namely using genetics and cybernetics to create a more traceable and controllable citizenry. Consequently, as a political mode that utterly undermines humanistic values and the preservation of the autonomous individual, totalitarianism represents an existential risk unto itself.

Democracy an historical convenience?

It is possible, of course, that democracies will rise to the challenge and work to create a more resilient civilization while keeping it free. Potential solutions have already been proposed, such as strengthening transnational governance, invoking an accountable participatory panopticon, and the relinquishment of nuclear weapons. It is through this type of foresight that we can begin to plan and restructure our systems in such a way that our civil liberties and freedoms will remain intact. Democracies (and human civilization) have, after all, survived the first test of our apocalyptic potential.

That said, existential and catastrophic risks may reveal a dark path that will be all too easy for reactionary and fearful leaders to venture upon. Politicians may distrust seemingly radical and risky solutions to such serious risks. Instead, tried-and-true measures, where the state exerts an iron fist and wages war against its own citizens, may appear more reasonable to panicked politicians.

We may be entering into a period of sociopolitical disequilibrium that will instigate the diminishment of democratic institutions and values. Sadly, we may look back some day and reflect on how democracy was an historical convenience.

Commission warns of nuclear or biological weapons attack by 2013

A U.S. bi-partisan commission is warning that the world will "more likely than not" face a terrorist attack using nuclear or biological weapons by 2013 if governments fail to undertake major security and prevention measures.

The report, titled World at Risk, recommends that the Obama administration appoint a national security aide devoted exclusively to coordinating U.S. intelligence, military and political efforts to curb weapons proliferation.

Other recommendations include:

• better safeguards for uranium and plutonium stockpiles and step up measures against nuclear smuggling rings
• toughen the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
• ensure access to nuclear fuel for countries committed to developing only peaceful atomic technology
• prevent new countries, including Iran and North Korea, from possessing uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing capabilities
• urgently tighten security in domestic bio-sphere institutes and laboratories
• call for an international conference of countries with major biotechnology industries
• secure nuclear and biological materials in Pakistan
• constrain a growing Asian arms race
• agree with Russia on extending essential monitoring provisions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty due to expire in 2009
• create a White House advisory post on weapons of mass destruction proliferation

The report also went on to describe Pakistan as the weakest link in world security, and it noted that terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain biological than nuclear weapons, with anthrax being a particular concern.

These threats are "evolving faster than our multi-layered response," says the commission, "our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing."