The Great Devaluation

[Galen]

(03-13-2017, 01:49 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-13-2017, 12:56 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: OK. The main events of about 500 years ago were the Spanish conquests of the Aztec and Inca empires... until you reminded me of how firearms and cannons started making rubble out of fortifications. Castles became impractical as defenses. That of course changed the way people did war and what political entities were possible.

So what changes in warfare? Do enemies win because they are able to jam the weapons of the other side?  Or because they are able to break radio communications? It is telling that the Armed Forces of the USA are putting much effort into cyber-security. I can imagine an army retreating or  surrendering because a fake video by a leading general tells troops to do so. Control of communications will be essential to military command.

Only if you want an Americas centric approach.  Myself I'm primarily Western Civilization oriented which means that until at least the last half of the 19th century the Americas are a backwater.  For much of that time period where resources came from and where surplus population was shipped off to.

As such I'd maintain that the main events of 500 years ago were not the conquests of Peru, and New Spain (Mexico) but rather the Reformation and Counter Reformation.

This is the correct view of the matter.  Once the logic of violence had changed then the institutions which depended on that had to change.  You can always tell when the preeminent institution is bankrupt which at the time was the Church which is very significant in a world saturated by religion.  The widespread use of the printing press also aided in the dissolution of the Church's monopoly on religion.

Fast forward five-hundred years and what do we have.  It would appear that defense is regaining the upper hand since it would appear that it is becoming increasingly harder to project power from the center.  Consider that in 1914 the number of nations in the world compared to the number that exist now.  Then there is the small matter of computers of which the internet is only one small facet of that technology.  It is not only the internet but 3-D printing and other manufacturing technologies that are derived from computers which are going to change the economy is ways that the state will find hard to control.  Then there is the small matter of living in a world saturated with politics and preeminent institution, in this case the state, is bankrupt.

Sounds like a very similar set of conditions to those of the sixteenth century now exist.

(03-13-2017, 01:49 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I would liken cyber technology most akin to the printing press.  The concerns you listed were similar to dropping leaflets from aircraft during WW2.  I have a feeling that not many troops are going to lay down their arms without a direct order from their superiors.  That is the way they have been trained for centuries.  To lay down one's arms without an order to do so is desertion and punishable (still) by death.

This is a good analogy and you are right about how troops are likely to react.  A more important question is does the twenty-first century mark the demise of the nation-state in the way the sixteenth did to the Church?