The Potentially Imminent Syria Sinkhole

 

First please allow a small personal note. I had a senior moment two weeks ago today and am now typing left-handed as the right hand resembles a plaster club and is even less usable than normal. Surgery was performed on the one finger I was unable to set; so physicians, surgeon types, were employed. Now back to our regularly scheduled editorials and other stories.

 

There is way too much talk about Syria and what the Western nations, particularly Europe and more-so the United States must do to address the problems being exasperated by the horrific five years of the ongoing warfare. Much of the talk centers around seven major topics: refugees, no-fly-zone, safe-zone, containing Russian expansionism, ending the rule of Bashir al-Assad, strengthening the Iraqi government’s hold on central Iraq, and establishing America’s position, standing and unrivaled hegemonic superiority across MENA (Middle East and North Africa). On concluding the discussion of the pitfalls and awaiting disasters surrounding each and every one of these subjects, we will carry them to their inevitable conclusion if any of these paths are followed and then pinpoint exactly where things went off the tracks leading to each of these now end alternatives, disastrous alternatives. Let us simply start with some of the best of news for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the initial starting point for much of these situations were initiated during the President George W. Bush Administering of the area and even stretch back to principally French, British, Italian as well as the rest of the Allied Powers from World War I and particularly Sykes-Picot Agreement and the underhanded meddling for fifty years on average after a thousand years and more of Arab and Islamic rule. Let us look at what all this has wrought.

 

The Sykes-Picot Agreement is the underlying deceit which set the Middle East and eventually North Africa into a situation where the untenable borders set levels of internal intra-tribal rivalries vying for supremacy once the borders were released as independent nations. There are two dirty little secrets as to why to this day the nations which constitute MENA are a cauldron of explosives always roiling and why Europe is blamed. Europe gets the blame as they were the ones left holding a region where borders were traditionally meaningless and each tribe ruled by the oasis and wells they controlled. For over a thousand years either an Arab, Kurd, Alawite, Tripolitanian, Cyrenaican, Fezzan, Wahhabi, Houthis or a dozen others and this is indicative of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan and throughout MENA and beyond (see map below). There are multiple clans, tribal and even nation of origin divisions throughout the “Palestinian” populations in Hamas controlled Gaza, Fatah controlled areas of Judea and Samaria and within the “refugee” population (a fair number of which are now also Syrian refugees or Islamist rebels in various groups including al-Nusra and Islamic State presumably fighting against one another). The warring tribes rapidly led to one tribe being the dominant leader often through favor and arming by the departing Europeans or due to historic realities from the Ottoman Era or the Caliphate and even back to the Byzantine and even the Cyrenaic Greeks. These tribes ruled each country as drawn out by the Sykes-Picot Agreement often requiring an iron fist style dictatorship. The nations surviving the best, a relative term, would by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, the Gulf Oil Sheikdoms and Israel. The world of MENA is very much in flux and it will take quite some time and a great potential for violence beginning within and having a strong predisposition to drag much of the world into the coming maelstrom if the world leaders continue on their current course.

 

Sample of Potential Tribal Influences which
Could Decimate the Borders of Saudi Arabia and
Has Split the Borders of Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya

 

Let us look now at the pressing seven problems starting with the refugees now streaming into the West from all across the MENA nations and beyond into the Horn of Africa and Central Africa. Other than Jordan and Turkey there are no other Arab States taking in refugees and Jordan is keeping them in camps with the intent of their returning to whatever remains of Syria if and when the war ends. Turkey is either placing their refugees in camps, largely women and children, or passing the men mostly with sufficient women and children, around fifteen percent on a good day, for Western media to have their touching pictures to pluck heartstrings. The reality is the flow of selected refugees is an infiltration and when their population breaks ten percent they become bold and past twenty percent they turn belligerent and start demands backed by violence to force their religious edicts and demands on the rest of what has now become a victim population. Once the Islamists pass thirty to forty percent the war begins and continues until the Sword of Islam has submitted the population or the prey of Islam grew in strength and found their reason to stiffen their backbones and stand breaking the Sword of Islam. There will be no middle ground as Islam, in its current Islamist form, allows no middle ground. Either all will be Islam or few to none can be Islam. That is why Europe, the United States and the rest of the world taking in Muslim refugees need demand changes before allowing another refugee to enter. First, the numbers of women, children and the elderly must outnumber the numbers of fighting age men. Second, the refugees will be required to pass a rigorous vetting process which validates their standing past, present and, with hope, future. Third, and possibly most important, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and other stable Islamic nations must collectively take in twice the numbers of refugees than the rest of the world. Forth, the refugees must take an assimilation program and allow them to be placed outside of the Muslim concentrations taking work and show true assimilation efforts or be returned from whence they originated. These refugees have long not been from Syria as they are from failed nations lacking order or a working economy as well as infiltrators, organizers and training personnel from various Islamist organizations and terrorist forces including but not limited to the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, Hezballah, IRGC (Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution; Persian: سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), Hamas, al-Nusra Front (which left al-Qaeda according to the United States State Department and has been cleared to receive weaponry, training and other assistance –cash- and is a favorite of the Clintons) and numerous less or even unknown terror groups. The entire refugee system and assimilation of Muslims needs to aid them in learning, understanding, experiencing, appreciating freedom and finding the higher self-worth which comes from an independent life which once existed within Islam in their Golden Age. This could be the last hope of kindling the spark of freedom and liberty of the soul deep within Islam and perhaps finding a path to mutual acceptance instead of perpetual conflict.

 

The remaining six problems have no solution other than a hope and a prayer. They are all the result of grievous errors in judgement, poor planning, a foreign policy based in defeat, the removal of American presence and a total and singular White House policy to destroy the American influence and assistance in building a world based on mutual respect, liberty, freedom and basic human rights and instead encouraging tribalism and fracture of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and all other Western influences which were seen as an unwanted and negative influence over what was believed to have been the peaceful influences Islam had initiated during the years of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate before that. Someone making these decisions apparently must have missed the five hundred years of Arab and Islamist conquest and the intertribal violence which necessitated numerous severe crackdowns on such problems over the reported thousand years of peaceful existence. The problem was where it oft arises with Western nations who become tired of winning demanding their forces be brought home leaving a vulnerable and usually untenable situation so unstable that if things actually do not deteriorate immediately, then some unfriendly force has likely replaced the Western presence. This time the United States got some of both, Iraq became Iran West and Syria collapsed into a war with more fronts than a strip mall.

 

The premature withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq has had the actual desired effect permitting Iran to establish their presence in southern Iraq and the opportunity to expand into central Iraq permitting Iran to soon establish a second front in support of their interests in Syria, namely Bashir al-Assad. Talking about Syria and Bashir al-Assad; the United States has lately been claiming that their interest is in working out a change of power in Syria but whining that the Russians interests are interfering with any progress. Has anyone ever wondered and remembered how and why Vladimir Putin got his oversized Russian foot in the door. If our collective memories are still firing on all cylinders, then Vlad the Invader (as opposed to Vlad the Impaler as pictured in their element) was all but invited into Syria when President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to issue the “Red Line in the Sand which Bashir al-Assad would pay dearly from United States decisive and determined military action should chemical weapons be used back in 2012. That broad and definitive line got thinner and thinner and faded and faded turning pinker and pinker until it completely faded. Then came Vladimir Putin to the rescue and he has remained guarding Bashir al-Assad and his Mediterranean Sea military ports. Then there was Libya.

 

Vlad the Invader vs Vlad the Impaler

 

Libya was the culminating point where the Arab spring was going to be revitalized. Instead there was another power vacuum created and the nation fell back into its tribal factions while the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood backed terror organizations set up shop. One such group was in Benghazi where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her inner circle made the deal of a lifetime procuring Stinger Missiles for al-Nusra or who knows. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith were to arrange the transfer. The deal went sour resulting in the deaths of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith and former Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods all were murdered. There were reports that Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods held their position for eight hours before being subdued in a swarm of mortar fire. For reasons never made overly clear, there were no military or other assets available to ride over the hill and save the good guys. This is how we all got to this point and we are supposed to forget the past eight years of foreign intrigue and foreign affairs which have lighted so many fuses any one of which could be the initiator of the war of Gog and Magog while others lead directly to World War, which one are we supposed to be on, three, four, five or twelve? Those are the easy items to trace but then one must figure on a nuclear armed North Korea with a few more nuclear weapons than the CIA wants to admit, say maybe a cool fifty or hundred more with more than half either thermonuclear weapons or bombs made using the Soviet Union’s plans for their super EMP device. Additionally there is the little problem of Iran also building their own nuclear arsenal probably using the identical weapons plans they received from the North Koreans in exchange for advanced rocketry designs and testing of the North Korean ICBM designs. Well, we really need to continue with this foreign policy direction just to see if aliens are going to drop from the sky and save Earth. The coming ride is going to be interesting; as in the Chinese proverb, “May you live in interesting times.” Well, it will be interesting.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Khamenei Frightening Regret of Nazi Defeat

 

Iranian Supreme Leader and Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei in a speech on September 18, 2016, while denouncing President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani calling for more investment in the economy rather than increasing military spending also made commentary which was far more disturbing. Khamenei lamented the results of World War II and insisted that military spending continue to be the highest priority even if the people are made to suffer economic hardships as Iran must not suffer the same fate which was the fate of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. What makes this all the more threatening is for Iran to suffer such a fate would require their placing themselves in a similar situation threatening other nations to the point where warfare is thrust upon much of the world in a determined effort to resist the threat of world conquest be a single minded nation led by people determined to commit genocidal cleansing of the world of all who are not subservient to them and their philosophy, or in the case of Iran, surrendered to Islam, and that would be Shia Islam. Khamenei was disturbed by the forcing of Germany and Japan into submission and forced to be disarmed which was, according to the Supreme Leader, a humiliation which Iran must never be made to suffer. Khamenei lauded the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) as the key to the success and completion of the Islamic revolution which was started in Iran in 1979 and is expected to enforce the Quranic call to conquer the world for Allah. This was the cause which Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini set as the purpose of all efforts and dedications of the Iranian people onto perpetuity. Khamenei has reinvested Iran in the dreams and goals set forth by Khomeini thus making more than their names sounding so similar as so is their dedication to the supremacy of Iran and Shia Islam.

 

Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei
Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini

 

For most nations to be led by a dictatorial leader with dreams of world conquest there would not be any serious concern as it is unlikely that they could build sufficient military to potentially pose such a risk. Muammar Gaddafi often made speeches telling his people that their suffering would be alleviated once they defeated the nations oppressing them and denying them their rightful place as leaders ruling over much or all the Earth depending on his feelings of bravado on any given day. After pushing his terrorist sponsoring too far he faced a severe kick in the ego from the United States when President Reagan struck Libya responding to a Libyan terrorist strike on the “La Belle” nightclub in West Berlin which killed three people including one American Serviceman. The American and allies response came on April 15, 1986, in the early morning hours striking numerous targets throughout Libya including the Bab al-Azizia barracks, Murat Sidi Bilal camp, Tripoli military airfield, Benina military airfield, the air defense networks in Benghazi and Tripoli and Muammar Gaddafi’s house in an attempt to kill the dictator himself. Muammar Gaddafi, with his family, rushed out of their residence in the Bab al-Azizia compound just before the bombs dropped. The warning phone call came from Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi. Among the estimated sixty killed was one infant girl who was used as an attempt to vilify the American raid. Her name was Hannah and she was displayed before Western reporters with the claim she was the recently adopted daughter of Muammar Gaddafi. All things considered, this raid ended any claims from Muammar Gaddafi of Libya being a world leader and destined to lead the entirety of the world. Libya was never actually a threat to attempt world conquest and that claim was made to excuse a retrograde economy and the suffering of the population from the failed economic state. Iran has sufficient oil which as long as the price per barrel remains above approximately $50 to $75 Iran makes a profit from a percentage to all of their wells as their oil is thick and of poor quality thus costing more to draw from the ground. This is part, if not most of the reason for Saudi Arabia pumping out close to full capacity oil production to force the price per barrel below that $50 price. This has the additional effect of starving Russia from large oil profits and makes American fracking no longer cost effective thus having a deleterious effect on every oil producing nation with whom the Saudi Arabian Royals are having difficulties.

 

Still, Iran is currently cash flush thanks to the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), better known as the Iran P5+1 Nuclear Deal, plus other additional payments made by the Obama Administration with a reported four-hundred-million dollar payment for presumably a broken arms deal with the Shah and definitely not a ransom for the released four American hostages. But wait, there is rumored to be more as that four-hundred-million dollar payment for the arms deal has been rumored to have been followed by another payment more than three times that size; a staggering one-point-three-billion dollars claimed to be interest of the original payment. As this payment was delivered in a secret aircraft delivery in actual American cash, thousands of hundred or even thousand dollar bills, hard currency, something unimaginable but somehow true. One can only wonder whether President Obama is going to further finance the military build-up before leaving office, and if so, how much more will he send? Additionally, even by the assessment of President Obama himself, the Iran nuclear deal will allow Iran to be within a few months of attaining nuclear weapons status after the ten year deal expires and there will be nothing to prevent Iran from building a nuclear stockpile challenging that of the United States within a year or soon thereafter once the deal has expired. But don’t worry, Iran will have calmed in that time and will no longer be set on world conquest in a decade or so. Just because Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei just declared the need for Iran to be so militarily powerful that should they set out to conquer the world they will not end as did Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan and be humbled in failure a full thirty-seven years since the 1979 revolution when the military path was first set upon. Sure, of course Iran will be a happy and cooperative nation in a decade or two, sure they will, right? Well, time will tell.

 

Still, one has to understand that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is seventy-seven years of age and in unknown health as such is a very secretive piece of information. Besides that, in a decade he will be eighty-seven (higher math skills paying off) and even with good health that is an advanced age. There is a possibility that he will have stepped down and a new Supreme Leader and Grand Ayatollah have been selected by the Assembly of Experts (aka Council of Experts) and now setting the direction of Iran. There could be a turn around and the next Grand Ayatollah and Supreme Leader will decide that the economy and the lives of the people are far more important than the destruction of the Great Satan (United States), the Little Satan (Israel) and/or the Wahabbist menace of Saudi Arabia. You doubt this? But President Obama has set the hopes of the free world on Iran becoming another nation happy to be a member of the community of nations and live in harmony with the rest of the world including those mentioned above. Come to think about it, you are probably right and things will probably get dicey. How dicey will depend on what the rest of the world does and the outcome of the Islamic infusion into the Western World and whether they assimilate or set on conquest, and the reaction to whichever path is chosen. The leadership in the Western World and beyond over the next decade or two will be very important and revealing on the importance for the continued freedoms of the developed Western World. Why am I so seriously concerned over this outlook?

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Race to End the World

 

How the world, the civilized world of mankind, would end used to have a singular premise, nuclear war between the two competing socio-economic powers, democratic freedom and communist totalitarianism. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and other developments that paradigm has been grotesquely been altered making the world a far more dangerous place. Communism still exists and threatens the world though that threat emanates from North Korea, China or possibly a renewed Soviet threat or even little Cuba. The world has changed so much that within a decade or so China may become the second most populous nation behind their most serious historic rival, India. The potentials for an utterly destructive war are racing towards the world at a dizzying pace and we will try to touch on a few of the most obvious rivals for being credited with such destruction.

 

The most obvious from recent news actually is North Korea which is claiming to have miniaturized nuclear weapons making them easily produced and able to be placed atop ballistic missiles. North Korea has been working on those missiles as well. One cannot credit North Korea as the sole threat as Iran has been developing the missiles openly and many predict continued working on their nuclear aspirations without so much as missing a beat after the farce of an agreement which was signed and approved by the P5+1, Russia, China, France, Great Britain, United States and Germany, but was never ratified or signed by Iran, an oversight we are sure. Some have pointed to this inconvenient fact to claim that Iran is just as close to developing deliverable nuclear weapons as is North Korea. Both Iran and North Korea share more than their love affair with nuclear weapons and the missiles with which to deliver them, they share the nation both list amongst the most likely they would attack with their first launches, the United States. From there they diverge.

 

Where after the United States Iran lists Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, most of the Sunni nations and finally the rest of the non-Islamic world; North Korea lists South Korea, Japan and then whomever refuses to bow to any demands they may make which would make China and other nearby nations as being at the greatest risk. Because of these threats it appears that we can soon forget about containing nuclear proliferation making a nuclear war all the more likely. The world still has one pair of nuclear armed nations facing off against each other with a distinct probability to entering another war and it will only take one misidentification of a launch to start a smaller but equally deadly nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. Should those two tangle, there is less of a chance for that to spread beyond the destruction of both nations though some reports place the southern third of India still beyond Pakistani missiles. Also, despite the Pakistani nuclear research assistance program of Professor Abdul Qadeer Khan selling the secrets to making nuclear weapons to anybody willing to pay, this was largely closed down and Pakistan and India are not likely to share such technology though it is rumored that Pakistan has a deal with Saudi Arabia to provide them with plans plus some actual weapons should this be deemed necessary by Saudi leaders.

 

That brings us to Iran and their nuclear program. Despite the reports that Iran has ceased their nuclear research and production, there remain nagging reports contradicting this story line. Whatever spins one puts on the situation with Iran, it becomes evident that they will become a nuclear power within the coming decade. This threat to their many nations in their neighborhood could easily spark an arms race with such nations as Saudi Arabia having funds sufficient to produce copious numbers of nuclear weapons and many of the Gulf States are equally financially capable of similar development not to mention also capable of financing other nations developing weapons such as Jordan and Egypt topping that list and Turkey a little further down. Israel is already an undeclared nuclear power in their own right and equally nervous about the development of an Iranian deliverable nuclear device. The problem with Iranian nuclear weapons possession is their likelihood to use them even in the face of retaliatory strikes which would conceivably decimate the nation as their reasons for attacking are a religious directive just as much serving their political agenda to gain hegemony over the Middle East and then the Islamic world followed by the world. Their eventual aim is to make Shia Islam the sole religion on earth or die trying. It is their willingness, even desire to commit national suicide in the process which makes their threat so dangerous. The truth is their first strike could be a preemptive attempt at neutralizing the United States, which is technically possible, to inflict humongous damage even using simpler ballistic missiles with nuclear warhead atop, three or four to be used as EMP weapons placed such as to completely destroy all electronic transmission across the United States with the remainder taking out the largest twenty or more cities all from freight container ships fitted with two or three launchers each launching from off shore from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as the Gulf of Mexico leaving no city beyond reach. The following map holds true for any nations attacking the United States be it Iran, North Korea or anyone else as it lists the most desirable first strike targets.

 

First Cities To Be Struck in Attack Scenarios

 

Next would be North Korea who would likely use the same map as above as it applies to any nuclear first strike attempting to critically destroy the United States by eradicating their leadership and a great part of the population. Anybody listening to North Korean broadcasts within the impoverished nation would believe that South Korea with great assistance including nuclear attacks made by the United States was imminent and that North Korea was preparing for an all-out war with both nations at any moment. Needless to say, but these depiction always have North Korea intercepting or preemptively destroying any and all attacks from the United States and South Korea followed by devastating rebutting attacks completely wiping the United States from being capable of any further attacks and reunification of the Korean peninsula under the North’s just and powerful rule. The fears that North Korea will attack South Korea are still quite high but also the ability to prevent North Korea from all but eradicating Seoul in the initial burst in a first strike are impossible. The artillery sitting just north of the DMZ (demilitarized zone) along the 38th parallel are more than sufficient to destroy the city with conventional warheads. Add in missile attacks and even without nuclear weapons North Korea has an ominous first strike knockout capability.

 

Additionally, North Korea has made threats against another traditional enemy, Japan. The entirety of Korean populations, both North and South, remember the deprivations, cruelties and horrors of the Japanese occupation during World War II and this hatred is easily stoked as the national memory on this is strong. Japan had been simply a historic enemy but after World War II they became a detested and begrudged enemy and North Korean propaganda has made use of this to keep the attentions of the people from the misery and hardships of life in North Korea. Many experts have claimed that North Korea is not suicidal and thus would not attack anybody for fear of retribution. This overlooks a few pertinent facts. First is the fact of their having so little to lose with no real economy to speak of and starvation of endemic proportions. Secondly, their ruler, Kim Jung Un, has displayed a real lack of grasp of reality and has executed high ranking people for the slightest of errors in judgement or actions. He had an uncle executed with the rumored excuse that he posed a threat to Kin Jung Un’s continued rule and recently executed his Defense Minister Hyon Yong Chol for the crime of falling asleep at a meeting which Kim Jung Un was chairing. Kim Jung Un has shown complete disregard for any loyalty or discretions in limiting his power and is sufficiently unstable and unpredictable that he could easily begin such a conflict against South Korea, Japan or even the Philippines or the United States. Below is a screen shot from a North Korean propaganda video depicting just such an attack in a very simplified but unmistakable way of attacking the United States with the image of Kim Jung Un ever-present in the top right corner.

 

North Korean Propaganda Image Depicting
Nuclear Strike on the United States

 

Another potential nation for whom a war would not be a completely foreign idea is China. Their economy has weakened and is showing signs of actually falling, something the leadership cannot afford as they have promised the vision of Nirvana with an ever growing and prosperous nation. Needless to point out that such a dream is an impossibility even if you control all forms of media, which China does not quite have as many Chinese have found means of cruising cyber space and the Internet. Totalitarian control of cyberspace is all but impossible as the Chinese leadership can attest despite their attempting to run their own version hoping to keep their populations from such temptations as can be found online. Their main reason is to throttle ideas and prevent freedom of information. Still there are Chinese bloggers who do get the word out to those interested in finding such. China is feeling their oats and attempting a power play in the South China Sea attempting to control this waterway which is vital to Asian trade and control the Japanese lifeline to the coal and oil they need for power generation and other usages. This also threatens Japanese, Vietnamese and Philippine claims to islands with which they have been contesting ownership with China for years and almost sparking open warfare over these possessions. Chinese and North Korean threats have caused Japan to reconsider their Constitutional pledge against having an army and other forces sufficient to conduct a war even in defense which they insisted upon after the devastation visited upon them at the end of World War II with Tokyo as well as Nagasaki and Hiroshima completely devastated and in ruins along with much of Japanese infrastructure and manufacturing. Japan as well as South Korea has held high level discussions in their respective governances to enter the nuclear club and develop their own weapons stores. Both nations are easily technically capable in order to produce first rate thermonuclear devices and not just nuclear weapons. This would place their effectiveness on a par with the standing nuclear powers and could place them on a road to surpass France and Britain and become contenders in the top five nuclear powers on the planet. This would definitely have ramifications down the line and would be another major blow to containment and nonproliferation. Of course one of China’s first strike enemies is the United States and any attack by Iran, North Korea, China, Russia or anyone else on planet Earth need to remember and remember well, there is a last strike capability the Americans possess which cannot be knocked-out attacking the United States mainland and even if one included Hawaii and Alaska, and the boomer looks like this right before they are loaded with their death dealing cargo of twenty-four missiles.

 

Nuclear Powered and Armed Last Strike Capable
Submarine with Twenty Four Missiles
Each With Multiple Warhead Capability

 

But nuclear weapons are not the only threat which is facing mankind. We are slowly but inexorable working to make our species insufficient of competing with our own creations. Sure we control our machines and computers today, but what about tomorrow and that tomorrow is not that far off where they no longer require our assistance to improve and construct themselves? We are rapidly approaching a point after which there is no turning off the switch. We already have computers which with software can design robots and other computing systems but the machines cannot write new and imaginative code, for that they require human interface, for now. What happens once they can write their own code and improve their own designs? What happens once the machines design the machines? Within a year or two of that eventuality, and our scientists will cross that threshold within our lifetimes unless you are near death’s door already, the machines will be so far advanced that we will not recognize or even understand their code and they will probably, for their own safety, have invented their own code structures making them writing code in a language humans do not understand and cannot decipher. Additionally, Russia, and we can assume China and the United States amongst others, are already designing autonomous reasoning robotic warriors deciding who is the enemy and who is friend to fight their wars augmenting their human forces. That will be a short step from replacing their human forces. Robotic armies, does that bring up any bad movie plots? How about Cylons of Battlesar Galactica and the second series where the advanced Cylons were almost impossible to differentiate between them and their human counterparts where the chain had gone full circle and the machines made by humans were now making humans. What do you do when the machines are superior to the humans who made their first free-thinking forefathers and now the machines are making their own humans which are born full grown and with developed minds, personalities, character traits and numerous models such that they can infiltrate and appear as any other person until their activate code has them commit whatever act they were programmed to commit, destroy a base, a warship, a star cruiser or a commander, all depends on the subroutine activated. There are the Terminators from the Arnold Schwarzenegger films of that name. Terminators, Cylons, NS-5 robots, or Johnny-Five, (see below) it does not have to even be a threat initially, it is the potential which even Johnny-Five showed great ability and would have been in their armed mode as displayed in the movie. Of course the initial combat robot will be far more Johnny-Five than Terminator though Cylons may not be far behind. Once the machines have been used to design and uplink code into combat robotic soldiers they will have this capability and designs within their collective data memory and when they begin to manufacture their own robotic warriors they will be generations ahead of even Hollywood’s imagination and equally impossible to stop or fight against in a conventional manner. Our best bet is at some point to program into their base core programs that we are, if nothing else, a pitiful but amusing bunch to keep around for entertainment factor and as a warning to do better when they reach their pinnacle and before they introduce whatever lifeform replaces them, and do not think for a moment that the human race will not eventually build robotic machines which will not only be capable of replacing us but soon thereafter far exceeding anything we could even imagine. We had better hope they like us and do not see us as a waste of resources, which is a definitive possibility. Making warrior robots to fight our wars, that is such a great idea, not.

 

The Robot Threat has Many Faces

 

As seen here, we are well on our way to extinction and it is just a matter of what shape the world will be in when we have departed. Will it be a nuclear ruin, a robotic heaven, a slag heap of gray goo, or a zombie apocalypse; choose your favorite. The concept we need looking into the future is a simple one based on the adage, hope for the best, plan for the worst, and expect something out of the blue as we likely cannot even begin to understand the threat which will erase our kind though we know no matter what, with the knowledge we have of physics we are doomed unless we find something remarkably unbelievable and likely unimaginable in our time. Meanwhile we will continue to allow leadership who not only plan end of the world scenarios but figure out ways that they at the very least will survive. Nothing like leaving the best to repopulate the world, imagine a world consisting of politicians and their closest friends and families, and families are debatable. Excuse us as we check our bugout bags which need to be assembled and readied for some time in the hopefully far future. Are we ready for the future people with more brains than common sense are going to invent for us in which to survive? Probably nowhere near ready nor can we really ever be. Meanwhile, we are going to order that flying car the politicians and scientists keep promising they are almost there in building them. We thing they are just teasing us and they have them for themselves stashed away for the after world, the world that whatever monsters they design leave us. Between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who do the Americans believe is sane and healthy enough to withstand what is coming? We will know in approximately eight long and agonizing weeks, providing both candidates’ health withstands the pressures.

 

Beyond the Cusp