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.