Tofflers' new book discusses parallels between war and wealth

War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century Little, Brown and Company. Authors: Alvin and Heidi Toffler

JAKARTA (JP): Since the release of their first book in 1970 we have been wondering and pondering endlessly at the works of the futurist couple, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, notably Future Shock (1970), Third Wave (1979), and Powershift (1990). The common theme of these books -- that the accelerated arrival of the future is changing all aspects of our lives -- cannot but seize our attention.

Their works, as claimed by the jacket of their latest book, have been published in more than 50 countries and 30 languages, and have been cited by presidents and prime ministers, business leaders, educators, and critics alike. However, since so far only the hardcover version of "War and Anti-War" seems to be available on the shelves here, don't expect to be able to buy the cheaper paperback version too soon.

War and Anti-War, as Alvin Toffler explained in an interview with CNN in November 1993, is basically an elaboration of this particular theme from their previous book Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century, in which Alvin Toffler postulated the emergence of a Third Wave in wealth- creation based on knowledge and information, in comparison to the First and Second Wave that are based, respectively, on muscle and money -- the first symbolized by the hoe, the second by the assembly line, and the third by the computer.

In War and Anti-War the Tofflers (this is the first time Heidi Toffler is actually included as an author) began with the thesis that "the way we make war reflects the way we make wealth -- and the way we make anti-war must reflect the way we make war".

The purpose of this work, which consists of 25 chapters, excluding the introduction, is to create a fresh understanding of the relations between war and a fast-changing society, which in turn could provide a better base for action by the world community as anti-wars must match the wars they are intended to prevent.

As the Tofflers define it, war and anti-war are not either/or opposites, and anti-wars include actions taken by politicians and warriors to create conditions that deter or limit the extent of war. At the highest level, anti-wars involve strategic applications of military, economic and informational power to reduce violence.

Third Wave warfare has introduced new features that are in parallel with the Third Wave wealth-creation system. Knowledge is now the central resource of destructivity, just as it is the central resource of productivity. In war, just as in business, intangible values are coming to the fore, i.e., seizing the initiative, as well as greater innovation, better intelligence and communications, and better trained and strongly motivated soldiers. The de-massification of production is paralleled by de- massification of destruction, and that as muscle work declines, large numbers of unskilled laborers (and soldiers) are increasingly replaced by smaller numbers of highly trained workers (and soldiers) and intelligent machines.

The Tofflers argue that fewer people with intelligent technology can accomplish more than a lot of people with the brute-force of the past, while the growing complexity of the military lends heavier-than-ever significance to the term "integration".

Integration, in turn, requires a vast, ramified electronic infrastructure, and at the same time reduced emphasis on nuclear weapons and an increasing need for a flexible response point to a new structure that enhances the autonomy of the local commander. The final feature of Third Wave warfare is acceleration, that is, increase in the velocity of warfare (like the increasing velocity of economic transaction) spurred by computers, telecommunications, and, significantly, satellites.

Objectives of the Third Wave war-form, as based on their deduction from studies of the 1973 Israeli-Syrian war up to the Gulf War, as well as interviews with a dozen military experts and futurists, are to destroy the enemy's command facility; take out its communications to prevent information flowing up or down the chain of command; take the initiative; strike deep; prevent the enemy's back-up echelons from ever going into action; integrate air, land, and sea operations; synchronize combined operations; avoid frontal attack against the adversary's strong points; above all, know what the enemy is doing and prevent him from knowing what you are doing.

As the Gulf War has demonstrated, only the most advanced nations, such as the U.S., can and have applied the earliest version of Third Wave warfare, such as "smart bombs", F-117 stealth fighters, cruise missiles, night-vision goggles, GPS (Global Positioning System) and satellites, etc. while continuing to depend heavily on the Second Wave war-form of massive and indiscriminate destruction.

Other industrialized countries are starting to utilize Third Wave war-forms as well, at a time when other countries are still employing the First Wave and Second Wave mode of warfare. Hence, we are living in an increasingly trisected world where future wars will be fought by a combination of those three war-forms.

If the past was already masked by considerable diversity caused by a combination of the First Wave and Second Wave war- forms, i.e., immense variety of tactics, forces, technologies and the addition of Third Wave war-form increase dramatically the potential for heterogeneity in the wars to be prevented or waged. And as the diversity of wars escalates, the Tofflers further argue, so will the complexity of the task of peace preservation.

The growing heterogeneity of war will make it vastly more difficult for each country to assess the military strength of its neighbors, friends, or rivals. War-planners and war-preventers alike face unprecedented complexity and uncertainty. Hyper- diversity also places a premium on coalition warfare (and coalition-based deterrence of war) -- paralleling the efforts of the world's largest corporations to form "strategic alliances" and "consortia" to compete effectively.

The arrival of de-massification of the Third Wave culture will also confront peacemakers and peacekeepers with strange new questions as the de-massification of threats in the world of giant war between superpowers is replaced by a multitude of "niche threats".

A "many small wars" scenario, they argue, is compelling military planners in many armies to look afresh at what they call "special operations" or "special forces" to negotiate these "low intensity conflicts".

Weapon technology will also proliferate, vertically as well as horizontally.

Vertically, the weapon of tomorrow will add space as the fourth dimension of war together with the arrival of robotic wars. Robots, as envisaged by the Tofflers, will be more autonomous and can make decisions at faster-than-human rates, a key capability as warfare accelerates, and can learn from their own experience. The Tofflers envision, in a chapter with a self- explanatory title of Da Vinci Dreams, self-reproducing micro- and nano-machines, dream mines, smart armors, Soldier Integrated Protective Suits, and super-plagues as the weapons of tomorrow.

Horizontally, proliferation of weapons technology will occur as a consequence of the considerable expansion of the amount of information, including misinformation, moving around the world. And as the civilization of war and weapons transfers expands, military relevant work once carried out by military-specific industries will be transferred to civilian-oriented industries.

This would make it easier and simpler to create weapons of mass-destruction, including nuclear weapons by, in their nomenclature extracted form the Powershift, Global Gladiators, e.g., terror organizations, religious movements, corporations, private armies, mercenaries. "First Wave warlordism are all making a comeback," the Tofflers argue.

Along with those changes, the Tofflers have also identified the corroding of nation states. On the domestic side, those in command of knowledge and the means of communication, such as the media, grab for enhanced political power as they accelerate the flow of information and thereby also set the domestic political agenda. On the foreign side, there will be pressures for re- alignment and the forming of "strategic alliance" between parts of states.

All of these changes will make the old tool of diplomacy obsolete -- along with the UN and many other international institutions.

This, the Tofflers reason, is because the UN remains a club of nation-states, while the flow of world events in the years ahead will be heavily influenced by non-national players, such as global businesses, cross-border political movements like Greenpeace, religious movements like Islam and burgeoning pan- ethnic groups which wish to reorganize the world along ethnic lines.

So, they suggest, why not consider creating volunteer mercenary forces armed with some of the weapons, including non- lethal weapons, of tomorrow, organized by private corporations to fight wars on a contract-fee basis for the UN.

Tools of anti-war, they suggested, should also be based on a Third Wave source of power: knowledge. Knowledge is what the anti-wars of tomorrow will be about and it is imperative to accelerate the collection, organization, and generation of new knowledge, channeling it into the pursuit of peace. Elements of the peace-form of tomorrow would be transparency, surveillance, weapons monitoring, the use of information technology, intelligence, interdiction of communication services, propaganda, the transition from mass lethality to low-lethal or non-lethal weapons, training and education.

War and Anti-War is a book worth taking the time to read. It provides a perspective sketch of wars and anti-wars of the future.

The book, however, does not provide a time frame for the future, mixing what may happen in the "immediate" future with events that are expected to happen in the "distant"future.

Moreover, the features and objectives of future wars envisaged by the Tofflers are indeed very similar to those described by, say Sun Tzu or Carl von Clausewitz. Hence, in essence are they not a recurrence of the past at a higher plain?

If questions should arise regarding the accuracy of those projections, perhaps we can refer to Alvin Toffler's introductory remark in Future Shock, that "every statement about the future ought, by rights, be accompanied by a string of qualifiers -- ifs, ands, buts, and on the other hands."

We may find, however, that there are not too many of these in War and Anti-War.

-- Arto Suryo-di-Puro