First session: New wars and new technology
A quote from the opening statements:
The world is not ready for peace.
Real-time intelligence analysis allows an unprecedented insight into what is happening on the battlefield
Drones are the focus of military, political and media attention. It may be a fetish but it is the focus of the debate on the future of warfare.
Railguns require advanced material science to sustain more than a single shot.
Russia does not believe it can be a great society but it can be a great power.
We do not understand what it means to be humane
73% of American's are not eligible for military service due legal issues and obesity.
Next session: Identity politics
There is no politics in second wave identity politics.
Only narcissism.
The personal is political was more relevant when it referred to 50% of the population
Forcing people to go along with your fantasy is not personal self-realisation.
Blog of war session on the state of war reporting in the age of the web
People already familiar with social media have now entered the warzone
Good and bad narratives, political conflicts are reframed as humanitarian crises to simplify complex stories.
The new terrorism
Defeating IS means having an answer to the dream of the caliphate
There is a vacuum at the heart of Western civilisation
Reduce conflict; manage conflict; end conflict
Listen to grievances before achieving strategic dominance
The Middle East is alive to Western hypocrisy and the continuation of colonisation. Their experience is one of drone enabled assassination and extra judicial killing.
The Barbican Conservatory is amazing
We should stop talking about radicalization and talk instead start talking about estrangement. Young people are looking for something and if they can't find it in our society they will look outside.
The interesting thing about Durodie's ideas is that while he has a conservative appreciation of the qualities of the past national character, his challenge applies equally to progressive modernists.
The challenge is supply an inspiring vision of what our civilisation should be not simply to retreat to attitudes that worked in the past but held their own problems and contradictions.
The identity politics session was equally reverberating. Gender is fluid and constructed until applied to the transgendered in which case it is immutable and beyond discussion.