Rick & Morty, Foreign Policy, and Authoritarian States Bruh!

Fair warning, this post, like Rick & Morty, may offend gentler sensibilities. When you talk about authoritarian states ¹ any discussion descends into moralistic and normative terms. That’s fair. These types of states don’t exactly tend to be bastions for human well-being and flourishing liberties. But sometimes we have to deal not with the way we wish the world was, but how it actually is.

That’s right. We’re getting Realist up in here bruh.

Foreign policy is a troubled child at times. At least from the perspective of Western countries, it seems to ask us to deal with the muck and the mire of everyday realities, while also trying to shape that reality to conform to our desired worldview and goals. I believe that this stems in part from the fact that there is a separation between policy makers and the citizenry that is a bit wider than domestic related issues. Most people only think of foreign policy as a ‘sometimes’ thing. Unlike domestic issues, direct citizen influence over his or her country’s foreign policy is moot. Instead, politics transmutes foreign policy issues into more acceptable channels such as ‘terrorism’, ‘immigration’, and ‘globalisation’ where there is a more ready link between a foreign policy issue and a domestic issue (e.g. globalisation —> offshoring, Syrian refugee crisis —> immigration). During the issue’s transformation much of its subtle and nuance gets stripped away; instead what’s left is something that’s more of an allegory of the issue. It’s like comparing The Watchman movie to the comic. The comic is this wonderful multi-layered work of genius that explores different moral points of view, how two people’s view of the same event can diverge, the pains and burdens of responsibility, the ravages of trauma, and feelings of alienation. The movie was a glowing blue sex fiend with emotional issues. Sure, I guess it’s kind of like the comic, but really… It’s not. Like, at all.

Much feels. So lonely. Wow.

There is also a certain tendency for an aspirational approach towards foreign policy. We want to see the fights we fight are just, the aid we give is righteous, and our allies are noble. That’s a nice view, and one that is understandable — it’s swell to feel dandy about one’s country after all — but it isn’t very realistic. Foreign policy often means having to mud wrestle a pig that likes to get dirty. It isn’t pretty and it isn’t always the most becoming of activities. Sometimes a state finds itself fighting a fight that is morally icky, the aid we give is dubious, and our ‘allies’ are a bunch of a-holes.

Yeah, I know right? Shock and horror.

While it might be nice to have this aspirational view of foreign policy, it fails to pass the sniff test. Personally I’m a bit of a cynical optimist, I still want to believe that we can achieve our more idealistic intentions, but I’m not aghast when they aren’t always upheld or closely eschewed to (of course, I don’t like to tolerate gross disregard or negligence of those ideals either). And this brings me back to my earlier point. States generally deal with the world the way it is. Because at the end of the day, foreign policy is first about furthering your country’s interests, second about maintaining stability, and only third, furthering your ideals and worldview. Sometimes that means cutting a deal with a 'strongman’² authoritarian douche-canoe you’d rather write mean things about in your burn book.

The idea of the strongman is that an authoritarian regime’s ruler (or someone with a significant amount of influence/power) rules through force, coercion, and/or the threat of both. They generally do so to stamp out dissent, eliminate political rivals, and consolidate power and authority. Life within these regimes isn’t pleasant. The rules are harsh, penalties draconian, and liberties denied. However, an established strongman regime does have stability. Political science has recognised for a while now that authoritarian regimes are actually quite stable over the short- and medium-term. It is over long-term time horizons where democracies start to pull ahead in terms of political stability (over the short-term democracies can be unstable… life’s a bunch of paradoxes). So, while dealing with strongman dictators isn’t the preferable aspirational approach, it’s often the practical and stable one. Wonks prize stability because they have to contend with a complex world. That world only gets messier when the number of unknown variables increases or already known variables start getting weird.

By way of evidence we can look at the dumpster fire that is now Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a terrible, terrible person. However, the sectarian violence that now grips the country was largely stamped out under his reign. Neighbourhoods in Iraq before the US invasion were much more mixed and integrated. It wasn’t until after the Baathist regime collapsed that public disorder led to a self-sorting process whereby people divided themselves along sectarian lines to secure their own security through local militia groups. That isn’t to say that Iraqis were better off under Saddam, their lives were just terrible for different reasons than they are now³. It’s also true however that regimes are stable until they aren’t (tautology much?), and when they aren’t things go south. The Arab Spring has descended into a pit of snakes with former strongman regimes falling out of power and giving way to unstable states mired in violence and political power grabs. Syria is a long drawn-out disaster where the strongman is losing his grip on power while internal factions vie for control over their lots. It’s a mess bruh.

I believe that democracy is good. I believe that it is an ideal worth spreading and sharing. I believe that the world would be better when thugs like Putin aren’t in power. But I also recognise that democracy is hard, complicated, messy, and takes a butt-load of time to get right (Taiwan with their recent elections have just transferred power between political groups for a third time, crossing the threshold to be considered a ‘stable democracy’.). During the time it takes to establish a democratic government people suffer, bad things happen, and the world gets a little messier. Knowing that, can you blame a country for prioritising stability over democratising adventurism? If you still want to answer with a binary ‘yes’ or ‘no’ you haven’t been paying much attention.

So what’s that got to do with Rick & Morty? Well, anyone who’s seen the show knows that its general outlook is pessimistic and existential with a dash of cosmic horror for seasoning. Rick, a hard-drinking genius, doesn’t have the most ‘hugs and sunshine’ view of the universe. It’s a vast, dark, and indifferent place with no sentiment. Rick takes the universe for what it is and doesn’t try to impose any grander meaning or morality upon it. Morty, Rick’s grandson, is more idealistic. Morty has a moral compass, and no matter how often his attempts are ill-advised, he uses that compass to guide his actions. Morty seeks a deeper meaning where his grandfather only sees harsh realities (literally plural ‘realities’, it’s sci-fi so run with it). Much of the show’s comedy is derived from this duo’s tension between their ontological views of the universe —Rick usually wins the ‘I’m right’ game in case you’re wondering.

Their conflicting views mirror the realist vs. liberalist debate between IR scholars. Should we only view the world as it is and eschew idealist factors for cold hard facts? Or, should we seek to establish a world where our ideals determine our actions regardless of what the facts are? The answer is ‘yes’. To both. Scholars have to pick a side and argue their point to push the intellectual debate further and test theories at their edges. We’re not scholars so we can flit between the two as we see necessary. Maybe the best way to make sense of this is to split the baby. Liberalism gives us a framework to determine our priorities and establish what norms we seek to uphold based on our shared values. Realism allows us to understand which of those liberalist values are realistic with the resources at hand.

Bringing this back to strongman dictators, there’s an episode of the show where Rick, Moray, and April (Morty’s sister/Rick’s granddaughter) encounter a planet under the control of a hive-mind overlord. Basically, the hive-mind is a body snatcher and takes over someone’s consciousness and integrates them into her collective consciousness composed of all the individual minds she’s taken over. It’s a not too subtle allegory for indoctrination and suppression of the individual that dictators often pursue. Here the show uses this setting as a means to explore the tradeoff in this society between individual freedom and peace/stability. Morty and April are horrified by what is happening while Rick goes along with it because the hive-mind is an old flame (it’s a cartoon, go with it bruh). The suppression of the individual in this society has allowed it to flourish, with peace, development, and societal cohesion being achieved — albeit at the cost of individual freedom and independence. Drawing a parallel in our world, this setting is akin to one heavily oppressed under the yoke of a strongman dictator who has succeeded in stamping out resistance (or at least minimised it to a sufficient enough degree). While in reality the job isn’t as neat and orderly as the hive-mind (no one can truly control an individual at all times and in every way), we can reasonably say that the oppressed society at least adheres to the rules and realities of the regime.

The drama climaxes when Morty and April begin to try and undermine the hive-mind and liberate individuals from her control (by having Rick party and drink with her until she can’t control them anymore). Eventually they succeed and freedom rings across the alien planet once again!

Hooray? Nope.

Turns out the alien society had a great nipple-based schism the hive-mind suppressed. After being freed, the aliens use their freedom to ignite a genocidal war on one another. The fact is that we have no idea what a society will do with its freedom. What I think or hope the results will be might be very different than reality. So, we have a reassertion of freedom and liberty which leads to a less than ideal outcome compared to a heavily suppressed society that is secure but only via a tenuous method. Which was better? While we may hope that the now free society is capable of reaching peace through a more sustainable means eventually, we have no way of knowing if that will ever be the case (our planet’s track record is getting better but is far from a slam dunk). Under the hive-mind the society wasn’t at war, but the underlying problem was never addressed either. The moment the control over society was lost it descended into the homicide games.

This is the dilemma facing states dealing with strongman dictatorships. Yes, over the short- and medium-term they are more stable and predictable and that limits the variables a state must consider, but eventually control is lost and we are left with a tire fire to deal with. This was one of the complicating factors during the Arab Spring and many countries were torn between working with the devil they knew or risking what might come after. In Egypt Mubarak was ousted while The Saudis maintained control of Saudi Arabia. There were of course important differences between the two. The movement in Egypt reached a critical mass that would have resulted in Mubarak’s downfall sooner-or-later, so we opted for sooner. In Saudi Arabia we are faced with a dilemma whereby the ruling family (House of Saud) is actually more liberal than a significant portion of the population, the Wahhabists (for more on the Saudi family and Wahhabism read this. Who’s to say that the Wahhabists wouldn’t be even more oppressive and radical than the Saudi rulers?

Countries, like the US, often take the approach of working with these regimes while also trying to pressure and coax them into reforming from the inside. This is a long and drawn out process that often puts them in situations where they must be hypocritical. Defending an ally that is the antithesis of your values is a difficult circle to square. But, as Rick & Morty shows, sometimes freedom is really hard bruh.

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1. ’Authoritarian’ here will also kind of refer to dictatorships and totalitarian states. Not academic I know, but shut up. 
2. Shouldn’t we go with ‘strong person’? I mean, feminism happened. Women can totes be dictators now too. 
3. I’m not trying to say that ALL Iraqi’s lives are terrible or that Iraqi itself is broken due to historical, cultural, or sociological reasons. The US has a lot to account for and the current mess is attributable to terrible post-invasion decision making from the Bush administration. But any look at the metrics will show you that it doesn’t bode well for you to be living in that country at the moment. 

Manhattan and the Decision to Drop The Bomb

One of the best seasons of tv, the second season of 'Manhattan', has gone woefully neglected this year. Granted it faced some stiff competition, with 2015 probably being one of the strongest years to date in terms of the sheer number of 'must watch' shows. Still, it's a shame that 'Manhattan' hasn't gotten the attention it deserves (to be fair, Vox has recognised). Spoilers will be present here and there, as I'm discussing thematic elements and must reference specific characters and events. However, nothing here is really a spoiler if you know that we eventually drop the bomb...

For a show who's initial hook consisted of 'it's Mad Men, but in the '40s, and instead of an ad agency they're building The Bomb' it's really grown thematically.

Pantyhose. Sexism. Haha.

Season One was mostly a story of bureaucratic and scientific rivalry with competing teams working on different designs to detonate the fissile materials that would lead to a nuclear reaction. Inevitably we know that both are used, with the implosion design being 'Fat Man' and the gun design being 'Little Boy'. What season one shows us however is that the Los Alamos scientists really had NO IDEA of what they were working towards. They were truly working on the cutting edge of a new scientific field. For most of them their primary concern was the science, not the construction of a weapon. This, more than anything else, is what kept me interested throughout the first season. Depicting the scientists as obsessing over the science and the intellectual questions, rather than having them discuss the morality of their work, was fascinating. It created a strong element of dramatic irony for the viewer. Even though some of the characters are fictional and the internal events of the Los Alamos community are made up, the show does broadly stick with events as they actually did happen. They reference battles and events which we know occurred as they are stated to have occurred within the show. Therefore we can surmise that the central questions the characters face will also bring about a resolution or failure that we are familiar with. This allowed us to project our insecurities and fears of the bomb into a time before they existed.

There's a lot of math.

This stands in contrast to the show's second season. Whereas season one stuck to the sensibilities of its time, season two applies a contemporary moral framework to the ethical questions surrounding The Bomb. In some ways this was inevitable. It would be hard to have a show about this without retroactively applying our moral understandings of the outcomes. We lived with their actions. We know about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc. But it needs to be noted that debate around the use of The Bomb THEN doesn't match up with our moral understandings NOW.

Today we concern ourselves with questions of 'what if'? What if we had bombed an uninhabited island as a show of strength? What if we only dropped one? What if we didn't use the bomb in recognition of what we had made? What if we had won the war without The Bomb and instead conducted a conventional invasion? What if... What if... What if...

These questions are largely moot. Not to say they are wrong, it is okay to apply present morality to past events. In fact, it is good. It demonstrates a better moral understanding and helps us understand our present circumstances. However, it is also important to try and understand the decisions of those who made them in the past as they would have seen them then. What information did they have? What understanding of their world informed their thinking? In that sense should those who worked at Los Alamos be condemned?

1940s nerd fashion yo.

Nowadays we rationalise the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in various ways. As a means to prevent further Soviet encroachment, to save more American lives, to bring the war to an end sooner. These may be true to some extent, but a look into the past reveals that while these rationalisations may have factored into their strategic calculus they were probably secondary considerations. This is simply because at the time, NO ONE knew exactly what was going to happen. There were serious concerns that the bombs wouldn't even work or have the intended impact. In fact, after the bombs were dropped Oppenheimer's first question was to ask if it was dropped at night. He was worried that the impact during the day wouldn't be sufficient as it wouldn't turn night to day. He was informed that a night time bombing run wasn't feasible, but the locals still noticed.

There's more evidence to support that no one really understood what they were unleashing. Discussions over targets fretted about where it might be best understood or have the biggest impact. Should targets be civilian centres or military? The former for impact, the later for obvious strategic considerations (keep in mind strategic bombing of civilian centres was considered normal in those days as strategic doctrine). Our modern conception of nuclear weapons is the product of a long development of grappling with their meaning and the existential fear they induced in us as a people. It was the work of numerous intellectuals, policy makers, and individuals that help foment a view that nuclear weapons were unique in their need for castigation.

In 'Manhattan' the characters are more self-aware. In particular, Frank works hard to prevent The Gadget from working as he fears what will come. Frank is our stand in. Our present day voice screaming out at the past to think about what they are doing. Frank understands what will come because he is imbued with the foresight of our modern world. It makes for compelling tv, but poor historical understanding. Of course Frank fails. The Gadget works. The Bomb goes off at the test site and the nuclear age is ushered in.

Shit. shitshitshit.

So should we condemn the decision to drop The Bomb? Perhaps 'should' is too strong a word. I think we can, and I think it is right to. However, I would draw a distinction between being blameworthy, and being blameable. This might sound like splitting hairs but it is important. Being blameworthy entails a certain moral culpability or understanding of the results of one's actions (this is a rather consequentialist understanding of morality I'm aware). Being blameable is subtly different. To be blameable means that one can have an immoral or morally questionable action attributed in part to them, but they themselves are not necessarily responsible for the negative outcome. This could be due to ignorance, accident, or other extenuating circumstances. In the case of those who helped unleash the atomic age, they were truly ignorant of the profound impact they were about to unleash. Ignorant to the extent that their concerns then seem truly laughable or heinous to us now. I think this renders them blameable but not necessarily blameworthy.

The sad truth is, the use of The Bomb was almost inevitable. Not because if the US didn't use it someone else would have, but because of the sheer amount of resources and bureaucratic inertia behind its development and use. The truth is often much more banal than evil.

Star Wars needs a Darth Clausewitz and all they got was a Vader...

Let's get real here. Star Wars is a fantastic series that's built an amazing universe with characters that we adore and loathe (but really, aren't those two things just two sides of the same coin...), blended elements of SciFi and fantasy into one delicious space frappe, and BB-8. But there is one thing that really, really, REALLY, gets me whenever I watch a Star Wars movie (including the newest, but no real spoilers here so you are safe). It seems everyone, especially in positions of military authority are staggeringly incompetent at conducting war. Chocolate teapots would be more useful than these people. And I'm not just talking about the Stormtroopers.

Bunch of Milhouses...

How could I possibly think this? Well, let's go through two reasons in the time it takes the Falcon to travel 12 parsecs (or is it 14?):

1. Technology

Okay, so we can all agree that the technology in Star Wars is more advanced than that of our universe right? They've got faster than light (FTL) travel, extremely efficient power systems, energy based weaponry, advanced computing capabilities, sophisticated engineering, artificial intelligence, communications and sensor technologies that transmit vast distances almost instantaneously, hovercraft, and Death Stars. Mother. Effing. Death Stars. Also we know that they have weaponry that is akin to our missiles and bombs.

So can someone please tell me why is it that every damn dogfight takes place within visual range? Did everyone just agree that beyond-visual-range weapons were a no-no? I want to see the arms agreement please.

Star Wars Airpower Doctrine: Hope for the best? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

They could clearly develop these weapons even if they didn't already exist. Hell, they could probably develop weapons that don't require them to even be near the same damn planet. Personally, given the choice, I'd rather shoot at my enemies from a position that let's me not get shot at as well. So in a galaxy that consists of trillions of inhabitants, not a single one has ever had the idea of adapting almost ANY of these technologies for a military purpose. I mean sure, they might have been developed for peaceful purposes, but Star Wars isn't all that peaceful. There must be some truly terrible bureaucratic stifling of innovation going on or the patent system actively discourages inventors.

On a related note, I'm not really convinced that non-droid militaries are better than droid armies... The only claim we get as to the veracity of this is from the person selling the damn clone army. Totally an unbiased source... No one ever stops to ask if this is true? Obi-Wan is just all 'sounds legit' and goes along with it...

"Trust me because I tell you to" - every salesman ever

The droids in Star Wars are clearly capable of independent thought, demonstrate judgement, forward planning, and abstract and creative thinking (R2D2, you the real MVP). They are highly mobile and capable of fine-tune motor skills as well. Basically, Droids, they're just like us. Only they also don't sleep, eat, breath, tire, go to the bathroom, or have any of the other biological shortcomings of us meat sacks. If you want to just stick with the airpower theme, a droid piloted craft would simply be more efficient. Life support systems would be complex, power intensive, and fragile. Droids could basically be computers strapped to giant engines with lots of guns. Just make a tone of R2D2s and put them in ships. He's clearly the most competent character in Star Wars.

2. Military Doctrine

Military doctrine at the strategic, operational, and tactical level is woefully bad in Star Wars. I've come up with better strategies in Starcraft and that's basically just me clicking on units a whole heap of times to hear them say funny things.

The Empire is especially guilty of terrible ideas. Their only real overarching plan seems to be 'Death Stars'. They put a shit load of work into building these weapons that have a habit of getting blown up by smaller and less expensive ships. But hey, it's cool so let's keep doing it right?

Why does this keep happening you guys?

Ackerman at Wired magazine has a good article breaking down the Battle of Hoth, pointing out that both the Rebels and the Imperials are super shit at battle stuff. The only reasons the Rebels got away is because they managed to be marginally less terrible than Darth Vader. 'Be less shit than your enemy' is not a winning formula.

In Episode I we get to see that land battles are fought like Napoleonic pitched battles with column of troops nicely arranged to be annihilated by explosive ordinance.

So no one thought to bring the rocket launchers to this battle?

Also, capital ship space battles consists of broadsiding each other.

I'm beginning to think that everyone in Star Wars just doesn't care because they all harbour deep internal death wishes.

At least the lightsaber fights are cool? Nope.

You ruined everything George

America In Panels

The ancient Greeks made sense of their world through myths. Gods and goddesses helped them understand the world by adding a moral dimension and personified phenomenon through powerful yet flawed, individuals. America today does the same with its own myths: the superhero. The parallel between Greek gods and the comic industry may seem like hyperbole, but comics have often been used as a metaphor for social movements in American society.

Superman, the defender of ‘truth, justice, and the American way’, is an immigrant story. The original creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, were Jewish. In the 1930s the Jewish immigrant story was still one of struggle and assimilation. Superman acted as a metaphor not only for their own struggle but also the struggle of all immigrants trying to claim their stake in the American Dream. Clark Kent, the Kansas-raised, all-American farm-boy, is in truth Kal-El, a Kryptonian sent to Earth to escape his civilisation’s destruction. Kal-El is an alien, both literally and figuratively. But by learning to be American, Kal-El transcended himself and his adopted identity Clark Kent. He became Superman. The name Superman itself is a co-option of the Nietzschian phrase Übermensch, which was often used by the Nazis to describe supposed Aryan racial superiority.

Comprehensive immigration reform bill plz

Wonder Woman, also a product of the 1930s, is similarly the personification of feminism. Hippolyta, Wonder Woman’s mother, crafted her from magical clay and imbued her with the powers of gods, raised on an isolated island by Amazons. Her origin eschews any need for a man and ties her to  the Amazons, a mythical tribe of female warriors who have long been used as a feminist symbol. Wonder Woman was unique as an early female superhero one not just on equal footing with male counterparts, but standing above them. While she is a warrior, she is also a compassionate and nurturing character. In this way Wonder Woman embodies the innate strength of womanhood and femininity.

She woke up like this

Created one year before the Civil Rights Bill was passed in 1963, the X-Men consciously echoed the Civil Rights Movement. The main struggle between Charles Xavier’s X-Men and Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutants paralleled the two philosophies of the movement: coexistence and integration, taught by Martin Luther King Jr., versus an aggressive struggle against oppression famously embodied by Malcolm X. The X-Men are currently being used as a metaphor for the Gay Rights Movement. The ties are all too obvious. A marginalised group, hated and feared by  a society for who they are, despite not having any choice in being a mutant. The recent movie titles have actively pursued this thinking and included scenes which none-too-subtly touch on this topic. The prequel movie ‘X-Men First Class’ references the now defunct ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. The original movie also includes a secondary story of a verbose Senator who wants to keep mutants from teaching kids (an obvious reference to Anita Bryant’s ‘Save Our Children Campaign’). The second movie has a ‘coming out’ scene. Through this lens, the anti-mutant movements and attempts at ‘curing’ mutants are analogous to homophobia and attempts at ‘fixing’ homosexuals. The link between X-men and gay rights is so evident that an entire thesis could be written on the character of Mystique alone. Marvel has also just doubled-down and Iceman has been revealed to be gay all along.

Encouragingly, the comic industry isn’t letting up and continues to grow more inclusive. Traditionally white characters are being rewritten as Black and Hispanic; the Batgirl title now has a transgender character. Thor, a generally hyper-masculine character, is a woman in the latest series. Titles such as Daredevil and Hawkeye include heroes who have overcome disabilities. Finally, the latest version of Ms. Marvel introduces the first Muslim character to headline a series. Ms. Marvel has been immensely successful with both consumers and critics. It's been commended for storylines which balance the character's religious and cultural background with more traditional 'punch them in the face' comic action.

Perhaps in time there will be a hero bold enough to attempt the unthinkable: the bipartisan divide.

What Can Hamlet Teach Us About Drones?

Shakespeare was a pretty cool dude. His plays are still relevant today, despite a rather substantial change in circumstances from when they were written. Hamlet, written in 1603, is probably one of his best and most complex plays in my opinion. In case you need a brush up or didn't read it in High School here's the TL:DR version:

• Hamlet's ghost daddy appears and tells Hamlet he's dead (duh, dude you're a ghost...) and that his brother, Claudius, is the guy who done the deed.
• Hamlet and ghost daddy swear revenge upon Claudius.
• Everyone dies.

Pretty much all of Shakespeare's tragedies have a lot of dying and stuff in them. What's cool though is that EVERYONE in a Shakespeare tragedy is fair game. The dude was killing title characters centuries before Game of Thrones made it a thing. Take that George R.R. Martin (but please don't die before you finish the books, the HBO writers aren't that good without your source materials).

Anyway, it might seem like a stretch to connect a play about a ye olden king of Denmark killing people and connect it to a modern day flying machine with lots of cool tech. In some ways you're right. Hamlet's version of 'death from above' was hiding behind a curtain and stabbing in a downward motion. Drones are better at it than Hamlet, they fly and have rockets. It's not a very fair comparison.

The insight Hamlet provides is in the present day debate surrounding the use and ethics of drones. The use of drones to kill insurgents is hotly debated and evokes concerns in some about autonomous Terminator-like robots roaming the battlefield. Detractors argue that using drones to kill is a slippery-slope and could normalise the idea that autonomous weapons are acceptable despite the unknown risks they may pose (e.g. the fear that a machine with advanced A.I. will become a danger to humanity). The counter argument is that drones are a merely another tool of war that allows us to keep soldiers out of harm's way while still striking targets that would be impossible or difficult to get to otherwise. To some degree both arguments are valid and each side raises important points that need to be addressed in any comprehensive discussion moving forward.* Luckily, drones and robots are still rather lame compared to our fantasies so we can try and figure things out before we might have to welcome our new robot overlords.

Expectations

Reality

This brings me back to Hamlet. In act 2 Hamlet verbalises one of the play's central conceits: the lack of certainty in the face of a complex world. In particular, this uncertainty is difficult when faced with a morally complex situation (your ghost daddy asking you to kill your uncle who married your mom qualifies as 'complex'). A brooding Hamlet broods broodingly in act 2 and utters one of the most succinct lines on moral complexity to this day: "...for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so".

In other words, things aren't good or bad in and of themselves. It's what we do with things or how we think of things that affixes notions of 'good', 'bad', 'right', and 'wrong' to that thing.

"For drones are neither good or bad, but using them in a manner devoid of a broader contextual understanding of their implications makes them so"

As Hamlet wisely pointed out, we shouldn't think of drones as either 'good' or 'bad' in and of themselves. We design, build, and use drones, we are responsible for them. Whether or not they are inevitably good, bad, or both is up to us. Just looking at the current US drone program shows how this technology is a morally complex enigma. While few would say that the use of a drone (as opposed to a missile or bomb) to kill a known terrorist in a situation where his capture is impossible is bad, the use of drones for so called 'signature strikes' is... questionable to say the least. Here we have two similar uses for a drone (kill terrorists), but the context under which they are carried out is different. In the case of signature strikes, targeting people is based on a believed profile which matches terrorist or insurgent M.Os. Signature strikes are morally questionable because the person being targeted may not be a terrorist, they are merely suspected of being one based on an agreed upon 'profile' which a target is compared against. This has lead to multiple incidents where a drone strike was ordered and civilians were killed as a result (Homeland anyone...). In turn, this has raised questions of whether or not signature strikes are counter productive since they may actually radicalise more individuals and breed new resentments within populations where they are carried out.

However, drones also hold substantial promise to improve lives. Drone delivery services capture the headlines these days, with Google announcing plans for a 2017 program to get off the ground (pun!). While thinking of our Amazon Prime orders being flown in is amusing, these types of programs could also help us develop delivery programs to fly needed medical supplies or food aid to communities more efficiently, more quickly, or respond to disasters much faster as well. When the Fukushima Incident was developing drones were used to observe and record data in areas inhospitable to humans. UN peacekeepers are also using non-weaponised drones in their missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Northern Mali to enhance their Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance capabilities (ISR) and help the peacekeepers operate more effectively. Even in cases where drones are used to kill, there is evidence to suggest that they are better than other alternatives available (Though it must be noted that these studies don't necessarily look at instances where a drone was used when no action would otherwise have been taken. That is, have drones also lead to an overall increase in strikes and therefore increased the total risk of increased civilian casualties).

Drones are sometimes seen as unique since they introduce not only the issue of how a war is fought but also what is doing the fighting. But this is a bit of a straw man argument. Drones are developed by us and they are not operating offensively in an autonomous manner, there's someone always 'in the loop'. Until such a robot is introduced and deployed, drones are not that different from virtually every weapons system introduced with the goal of increasing lethality and adding more distance or protection to the soldier using it. A gun can be used to kill in anger, or it can be used by a cop to protect the innocent. In either case it is how the gun is used that makes the difference, not the gun itself. Understanding the limitations and potential outcomes of how a piece of technology is used is essential before we can think of it as good or bad.

Besides, even the Terminator became a good guy after the first movie...

* This formation of these arguments has been simplified here for brevity's sake. The debate has many levels of nuance and complications which encompass an array of fields from A.I. to philosophy. I hope to address some of these issues in future posts.

Rick Grimes and Co. are Insurgents

SPOILER ALERT before you go any further. This mostly covers events through the last season. If you aren't caught up don't peek below. If you don't care or don't watch the Walking Dead you're simultaneously lucky and missing out. It's a show that zombie-ambles towards greatness only to get stuck behind a pane-glass door staring out of an invisible barrier and not quite getting there. Anyway...

Background

So last season after walking around Georgia for what seems like forever, Rick and the gang are whisked away to a community out of "Leave it to Beaver" behind large corrugated fences to keep the zombies out (is this the Walking Dead's equivalent of gentrification?). The citizens of this community bake, have parties, talk about how they miss cheese, and generally have no idea that outside the walls life is terrible. We know it's terrible because Rick reminds us with a speech in every episode. Every. Episode. Subtle this show is not.

Rick and the gang have been around the block, seen some things, and have racked up quite the body count of people and zombies alike. Also Rick doesn't have a great track record of keeping his gang alive and that's probably getting pretty old for him. Not to mention everyone still thinks he's their best leader and he has all the responsibilities and burdens that entails. Being the Big Kahuna just doesn't seem like a sweet gig in the Walking Dead universe.

I won't delve into Grimes' leadership qualities themselves. That's been done plenty already. All you need to know is that Rick and his group of weary travellers are invited to seek refuge in a safe community and that's when things go awry. They always go awry. It's the zombie apocalypse so don't act surprised.

Defining the 'State' and the 'Insurgents'

The Alexandria Safe-Zone (or just Alexandria) that Rick has joined can be defined as a State. Considering the world has imploded and the people inside have running water, electricity, and it's members aren't dying at a rate malaria would be jealous of, it's the closest thing to a State we can hope to get in the Walking Dead. Alexandria has a leader, Deanna Monroe, and a basic set of governing rules that it's members must abide by (like no guns can be carried within the walls, gun control!). We also have evidence that there are ramifications for not obeying these rules as some members have been exiled before Rick's arrival. So we have territory, leadership, a social contract between the members and the government, rules/laws, and ramifications for not following those rules. There isn't really a tax system since there's no functioning economy but other than that it closely resembles what we expect of governing States today (if you want to get picky we can call it a city-state).

We also know that Deanna had decided after having to exile a group of survivors that there was a policy of only inviting lone survivors to join. Rick and Co. are the first exception to that rule and she hopes to co-opt the group into the community to act as a kind of muscle and teach them about life on the outside. It wasn't her best decision. Obviously Rick's gang are more loyal to each other and to their leader than their new community. Surviving together tends to create a certain bond between people. In another post I will probably look at how Rick's group failed to integrate into the community and adopt new social norms. For now though let's just agree that Rick's group largely operated as a community within a community with their own goals and norms which can roughly correspond to their version of an 'ideology'. The group is content to see what Alexandria has to offer and enjoy the relative safety within the community to the outside world. However, they don't trust the community to be able to adequately protect them over the longterm, and Rick literally says that they are more than capable of taking it by force if they so choose. Way to be an upstanding citizen there Rick. You make Carl proud you're his dad.

Therefore, we have two countervailing political entities within Alexandria. The original community (the 'State') who wants to maintain the status quo, and Rick's group (the 'Insurgents') who want radical change. Checking in the with US Army Field Manual on Insurgency, this all checks out as adequate conditions to look at this through the lens of insurgency.

The Insurgency

Rick's group make various attempts at integrating with the Alexadrians. Some are more genuine than others (Carol, I'm look at you here...). As was foreshadowed (to use the term loosely, things in the Walking Dead are foreshadowed so much as "foreannounced"), Rick isn't impressed and decides that Alexandria needs 'real' leadership to survive. To be fair, at the early stages Rick does attempt to introduce change by cooperating with Deanna. He wants to expose the community to the reality beyond their walls and to start teaching them how to defend themselves. Deanna is opposed to this however as she doesn't trust Rick and the threat they pose largely because a member of their own group told her not to. Stupid priest.

Rick gets a political opening when he learns that the docile and law-abiding image of Alexandria is not all it's cracked up to be. A member of the community, Pete Anderson, is abusing his wife and Deanna hasn't been able to exercise the authority to stop it. Rick being Rick he decides the best way to handle the situation to beat the wife-beater in front of the whole community. This understandably upsets the balance between the two parties.

Deanna's position as community leader is threatened when her lack of authority is exposed. While Rick may not be the most visibly sane person, he makes some pretty good points about the community's weaknesses (in a speech of course) and has a solid base of pre-existing support within his group. Inevitably in a bit of dramatic irony, while the community meets to debate whether or not Rick and the group should be forced to leave, Rick kills some zombies that have gotten inside the walls and uses this as leverage to prove that his ideology is correct. Just to pile it on, when Pete interrupts the meeting and kills Deanna's husband, Deanna herself is forced to accept Rick's point of view and asks Rick to execute Pete. Like I said, this show isn't subtle. After this Rick essentially takes control of Alexandria. Insurgents FTW.

Extra Details

Rick and the gang didn't exactly take the community by force directly so you might quibble with my defining them as insurgents. While that view may track more closely to the popular narrative of an insurgency we've come to understand, an insurgency doesn't need to take power through force. Force is merely a tool within a broader repertoire (check out chapter 5 in the Army Manual). Insurgents can also seize political power by subverting the existing authority and consolidate control and power outside the established political structures. This is one way an insurgency differs from a rebellion or a contrarian political movement. The civil rights movement in the 60s was obviously a push agains the political powers that be. However the movement still operated within and used the political system to win. Rick and his group seized power by circumventing and working against the established powers in Alexandria. Rick was able to break the political status quo and establish a new kind of governance structure within Alexandria. It may resemble the old system in some ways but it is undeniably new with a shift in worldview, rules, and incentives.

Of course, this doesn't say anything about Rick's group being BETTER at governing. In fact once he took over the body count has soared. All this leads me to believe that if Rick is seen as one of the better leaders in the Walking Dead, there isn't much hope for humanity.

Welcome to my new blog!

Welcome!

This is the first post of my new foreign policy and defence blog - Bia+Metis. First up is to answer your burning question 'What's with the title'? If that's not your question then I'm ignoring you for the time being.

Firstly, it's ancient greek. It's classy. Like when someone uses a Latin phrase and you nod along with a stern look of approval on your face while on the inside you're hoping no one realises that you have no idea what was just said.

Second, the title was inspired from an early chapter of Freedman's book Strategy. Basically, Bia and Metis are two different ideals of how to conduct war. Yes 'ideals' is the right word. The Ancient Greeks really liked talking up how awesome war was despite it being absolutely terrible for almost everyone. The word 'bia' is derived from the Greek Goddess of the same name, the personification of force. I generally just imagine Bia is like Tyra Banks going off but with a sword instead of a modelling contract. 'Metis' on the other hand is often described as guile or a sort of martial cunning. The champion of this form of victory according to Freedman and many other classics scholars is Odysseus. You know, the dude who came up with the idea for the Trojan horse. It was a pretty clever idea. We're still talking about it today so I'm inclined to agree with Freedman on this.

You could, and I recommend you do this if you're a nerd like me, or just want to have a fancy looking book to read in public (people notice these things), read the story of the Iliad as an allegory comparing these two different ideals of war. Achilles represents bia and is pretty badass, but also surprisingly annoying and prone to tantrums. Tantrums aren't really an age-appropriate response and Achilles spends long periods of time basically letting his bros die because he's not super duper psyched about lots of things. Meanwhile, Odysseus is constantly being like 'you guys, we should probably think things through some more, trust me...' But, because of his reputation as being clever and a trickster, his fellow Greeks don't listen to him and just get their shruggie on ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. As a result more bros die and this goes on for years. No one is having fun anymore and their DVRs are too full and stopped recording long long ago.

Finding a balance between these two ideals was a source of friction for the Greeks and their strategy throughout the Trojan War. When the Gods weren't busy mucking things up and being terrible at their jobs, the Greeks struggled to find the proper mix of both bia and metis. Eventually they got it right. They listened to Odysseus and built a big horse to get inside the city walls. Once inside the soldiers went full-on bia. It wasn't great back then for civilians and there's a reason there isn't a Troy you can go visit today with nice beaches and World Heritage Building listings.

This is what this blog hopes to do. Look at issues with both bia and metis in mind. Both are essential to our understanding of security and foreign policy issues. There's a time and a place for both.

Also, because this stuff get depressing sometimes, I'll be throwing in the occasional bit on something a bit more joyful, like pop culture. Because it's fun and sometimes I just want to write about how awesome the new season of Fargo is. In case you're wondering, it's totally awesome. Betsy Solverson is some sort of crime-solving savant who makes soufflés. And Mike Milligan is all kinds of passive-aggressive sass. Check it out.