Both China and Iran present a threat more akin to what was seen between the U.S and Russia during the Cold War.

More recently we have seen North Korea present a similar threat and now the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon.

One of the more scary aspect of countries such as Iran, Pakistan and now it seems Syria (with North Korean’s trying to pass on nuclear technologies)either having or shortly aquiring nuclear capabilities.

Take for example Pakistan. Musharef is precariously perched in the leadership (or dictatorship?)with the Islamists looking to overthrow him(this is a very likely scenario). This is of rewal concern as the ISI have very close links to the Islamists and if Musharef is overthrown it is very possible that the ISI could pass on a nuclear weapon to a group such as Al Qaeda.

You mentioned asymetric warfare; in weak and failing states this is the main means of warfare.

I think the point of the article I mentioned and the title of it was “Meet the new War, much like the Old war” or something along those lines. basically your last statement about not taking our eyes of such threats says it all.

We have become so consumed with non-conventional threats, decentralised military etc. that it seems sometimes we have forgotten about more conventional threats.

The West has been surprised on a number of occassions when it come to nuclear arm. Recently with North Korea (although their test was seen as more a failure)and India some years back. The West dd not have aby idea about India until the test explosian took place.

We took our eyes of the ball in my opinion.

Eric, I don’t quite agree about Cold War style threats. China and Iran are threats of a sort, but the only way they could take on the US is using asymmetric or proxy means, which would seem to fit into 4GW rather than a fifth generation. Also in general I expect states to decline in relative importance as warfighting actors. Of course we shouldn’t take our eyes off such threats, but they probably aren’t conventional threats.

We are already seeing this play out in Iran, North Korea etc. with the race for nuclear weapons.

There was an interesting article on tis in a recent issue of the Journal Of Counter terrorism and Homeland Security.

It goes on to say that although small, fast moving and decentralised warfare (4GW)is what we are currently seeing we should not take our eyes of the older Cold War style threats, such as those posed by Iran and North Korea.

:^)

If global warming or bird-flu doesn’t get us, five miscreant college nerds in a basement could wipe us all out!

What’s the solution then? If we want a response from whole-of-society we’re screwed – there’s always enough stupid people wanting cheap V1Agr4

Maybe all we can do as individuals is to be individually prepared. For someone who is supposed to be interested in preparedness and involved in CD etc, my own preparations are very lax.

When I’m financially independent, I think I’m going to eschew the Green “ideal” of high-density living and find a reasonable section. Can’t see people surviving long living close together with no land.

Did Hammes have any “solutions” or ways to reduce our vulnerability?