Military retargeting
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Military retargeting
I propose that, instead of calling for cuts to the military, we call for a strategic pivot to the root cause of almost all threats: material scarcity and other problems caused by insufficient technology.
Let's slowly transform the Air Force into a super-NASA. Let's use the Navy to to deal with the embarrassing fact that we've only scratched the surface of 71% of the world - let's have the Navy research how to live in, farm, mine, and otherwise use the oceans. Let's find better ways to deal with disease - bioterrorism can't threaten people who can wipe out any disease.
Technological races can be used as a subtitute for actual war - the space race helped settle the cold war without a shot being fired. Next time there's a dispute over some rock in the pacific ocean, let's call it a wager and challenge China to some technological contest.
The Major Threats
Threats arising from material scarcity
Material scarcity is a threat: while the claim that democracies never go to war with other democracies is a myth, it's true that wealthy nations don't go to war with other wealthy nations.
Trying to improve foreign governments and economies with meddling is almost always counterproductive (See: Iraq, Afghanistan). But there's one way to increase wealth that almost everyone can go along with - advancing technology.
Direct threats caused by insufficient technology
Other than the human threats that spawn from poverty and backwardness, there are direct threats caused by our low level of technology: any moment now we could discover that a huge asteroid is about to hit the Earth and kill us all, and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. Let's get the Air Force working on a way to deal with that threat. Same thing with the super volcano under Yellowstone Park - it's long overdue to bury America's breadbasket under yards of ash, and we're so technologically primitive we can't do any more to stop it than a caveman could. Another overdue catastrophe is a major solar flare, which will knock out power, or maybe all electronics. Plagues threaten to return as antibiotics and DDT overuse breed bugs with immunities. These are not "what if" threats. These are "I wonder when" threats. A war with China is not inevitable. All the above threats are.
Footnote: definition of technology
- When I say "technology", I don't mean just things that are shiny and complex and go beep. When I say technology I mean "better ways of doing things." So don't call dead-ends like CFCs "advanced technology", those are inferior technologies that were initially over-rated due to a lack of research. Don't say "the risks of technology", say "the risks of insufficient research".
Similar concepts
The term Economic Conversion has been used, a bland, vague and not very macho-sounding term for changing military industries into civilian industries.
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