[wisconsin_cur]

Very interesting insight Jamaal. Welcome to peakoil.com!

[pedalling_faster]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnConnor', 'G')etting the ball rolling; What could the U.S. begin to do in preparation for Peak Oil for the eventual threats to national sovereignty with respect to our defense services requiring huge amounts of fuel to operate in even the most basic manner?
Massively increased illegal immigration, boat people, insurrections, terrorist activity, general anarchy/panic, etc...

[JohnConnor]

Interesting points Jamaal, Net-Centric warfare is a powerful idea - once implemented - but like all of the great changes of the RMA, once it is implemented I will believe it - but our enemies that are near-peer and peer are already developing effective counters to it, the FSU and client states routinely practiced and have for years trained in SEVERE jamming and radar out environments, they know that NATO forces are highly dependent on datalink, GPS, and C2 enabled environments - I think that it is a good strategy to pursue partially but I think ultimately if during the Long Emergency, there is so little petroleum available as to have society barely function - a large military to secure the last hydrocarbon resources in far flung areas when competitors will have a distant geographical advantage, will have such a low EROEI effectively that we will be more concerned with territorial soverignty and homeland defense - the days of distant foreign outposts will be numbered then - along with many high tech systems that depend either directly on petroleum fuels directly or indirectly thru enabling support systems, not saying you are wrong in that if reasonably available and affordable petroleum remains to be available that the US and other forces will not convert to the Net-Centric strategy but I am thinking of a world where oil is $500 a barrel and up - what can we do to prepare to hold our nation together and defend it? As unfortunately it will likely be a very violent unstable world for sometime then...

Pedalling_faster, not trying to cast illegal immigrants as all bad, I am on the West Coast and I see that the vast majority are just here to work hard, blend in as they can and cause no trouble, however their are trans-national threats (MS-13, drug cartels, Marxist movements, etc...) that unfortunately have a strong foot hold in their nations, I am sure that along with greater economic opportunities, getting themselves and their families away from them is one of the reasons to flee north, and I don't blame them for it, however when and problably will, the Long Emergency begins, the problems of petroleum depletion will hit them even harder than us, we may face on all our borders problems that we need to prepare for, i.e. - we can not allow 10+ million people to just walk into our country every 6 months or so - this will destroy both of us - it will engender HUGE resentment and nativist movements in our nation and probably cause near total social collapse in their countries - so let's plan for the worst and hope for the best - I only advocate having humane, respectful options if we face a humanitarian crisis on our southern borders or ports, I am a firm believer that the best southern defense for the US is a ring of stable prosperous countries to our south rather than a fence...

[jamaal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnConnor', 'I')nteresting points Jamaal, Net-Centric warfare is a powerful idea - once implemented - but like all of the great changes of the RMA, once it is implemented I will believe it - but our enemies that are near-peer and peer are already developing effective counters to it, the FSU and client states routinely practiced and have for years trained in SEVERE jamming and radar out environments, they know that NATO forces are highly dependent on datalink, GPS, and C2 enabled environments - I think that it is a good strategy to pursue partially but I think ultimately if during the Long Emergency, there is so little petroleum available as to have society barely function - a large military to secure the last hydrocarbon resources in far flung areas when competitors will have a distant geographical advantage, will have such a low EROEI effectively that we will be more concerned with territorial soverignty and homeland defense - the days of distant foreign outposts will be numbered then - along with many high tech systems that depend either directly on petroleum fuels directly or indirectly thru enabling support systems, not saying you are wrong in that if reasonably available and affordable petroleum remains to be available that the US and other forces will not convert to the Net-Centric strategy but I am thinking of a world where oil is $500 a barrel and up - what can we do to prepare to hold our nation together and defend it? As unfortunately it will likely be a very violent unstable world for sometime then...

Pedalling_faster, not trying to cast illegal immigrants as all bad, I am on the West Coast and I see that the vast majority are just here to work hard, blend in as they can and cause no trouble, however their are trans-national threats (MS-13, drug cartels, Marxist movements, etc...) that unfortunately have a strong foot hold in their nations, I am sure that along with greater economic opportunities, getting themselves and their families away from them is one of the reasons to flee north, and I don't blame them for it, however when and problably will, the Long Emergency begins, the problems of petroleum depletion will hit them even harder than us, we may face on all our borders problems that we need to prepare for, i.e. - we can not allow 10+ million people to just walk into our country every 6 months or so - this will destroy both of us - it will engender HUGE resentment and nativist movements in our nation and probably cause near total social collapse in their countries - so let's plan for the worst and hope for the best - I only advocate having humane, respectful options if we face a humanitarian crisis on our southern borders or ports, I am a firm believer that the best southern defense for the US is a ring of stable prosperous countries to our south rather than a fence...

[MadScientist]

Who has the money/energy to pay for this kind of surveillance of so many cities?

Just how feasible is "big brother" in a world of decreasing energy?

Napalming cities doesn't win.. It escalates. And we all know you cant win a war from the air right?

interesting posts

[Cloud9]

Ask Japan.

[MadScientist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'A')sk Japan.

[jamaal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MadScientist', 'W')ho has the money/energy to pay for this kind of surveillance of so many cities? Just how feasible is "big brother" in a world of decreasing energy? Napalming cities doesn't win.. It escalates. And we all know you cant win a war from the air right? interesting posts

[MadScientist]

welcome Jamaal!

[JohnConnor]

Jamaal, interesting points but intel is only good if it is "intelligently" analyzed and the right decision maker(s) see it, they have to have the picture of what is going on and what it means and no matter how good your technology if your human systems, your military-intelligence services-diplomatic institutions-law enforcement-economic organizations all must work together using this in some sort of reasonably rational way which they typically have not for a concept like this to function, data mining and connecting the dots is possible but this a vastly more complex problem than what some of the intelligently linked database programs have done thus far as we know (targeted advertising, some crime investigation, etc...) - not that I would want it to, an operation like that as you pointed out not promoting it or judging it based on it's ethical grounds - your postulated method of control is possible but in my humble opinion not probable - it all rests on a level of control that I think no one would ever live under...ever, they really would rather die than be tagged cattle to be used by us - if the roles were reversed I have no doubt we would do the same, the indignity of living under the boot of someone ethnically different, religiously different and obviously using you, your nation, your resources, your people in the most base manner possible would inspire a resistance 100x what we currently see now, history is replete with examples of fighting no matter what you are up against, even some of the last great untapped hydrocarbon reserves left on Earth are not worth that in a material sense and obviously not ethically justifiable, as you have pointed out... besides, if we enacted an enormous operation like this, the rewards would not be worth it materially even, we would be continuing the policy of borrowing money from foreign governments (about 2 billion every 2.5 days) to fight a war to secure hydrocarbon resources that only distracts us from focusing our remaning energies (physical and mental) on building a long term, sustainable, local energy source...it is a self-defeating policy of going to the ATM with our credit card so we can go to the local crack dealer to get more crack...then repeating this process everytime we get low on crack...but I'm not negative not one bit...

[jamaal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnConnor', 'J')amaal, interesting points but intel is only good if it is "intelligently" analyzed and the right decision maker(s) see it, they have to have the picture of what is going on and what it means and no matter how good your technology if your human systems, your military-intelligence services-diplomatic institutions-law enforcement-economic organizations all must work together using this in some sort of reasonably rational way which they typically have not for a concept like this to function, data mining and connecting the dots is possible but this a vastly more complex problem than what some of the intelligently linked database programs have done thus far as we know (targeted advertising, some crime investigation, etc...) - not that I would want it to, an operation like that as you pointed out not promoting it or judging it based on it's ethical grounds - your postulated method of control is possible but in my humble opinion not probable - it all rests on a level of control that I think no one would ever live under...ever, they really would rather die than be tagged cattle to be used by us - if the roles were reversed I have no doubt we would do the same, the indignity of living under the boot of someone ethnically different, religiously different and obviously using you, your nation, your resources, your people in the most base manner possible would inspire a resistance 100x what we currently see now, history is replete with examples of fighting no matter what you are up against, even some of the last great untapped hydrocarbon reserves left on Earth are not worth that in a material sense and obviously not ethically justifiable, as you have pointed out... besides, if we enacted an enormous operation like this, the rewards would not be worth it materially even, we would be continuing the policy of borrowing money from foreign governments (about 2 billion every 2.5 days) to fight a war to secure hydrocarbon resources that only distracts us from focusing our remaning energies (physical and mental) on building a long term, sustainable, local energy source...it is a self-defeating policy of going to the ATM with our credit card so we can go to the local crack dealer to get more crack...then repeating this process everytime we get low on crack...but I'm not negative not one bit...

[idiom]

Anti-government factions of this day and age will probably co-ordinate their plans using Facebook and think they are brilliant.

They will never be able to find the moles that seem to keep giving their secrets away.

[jamaal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('idiom', 'A')nti-government factions of this day and age will probably co-ordinate their plans using Facebook and think they are brilliant. They will never be able to find the moles that seem to keep giving their secrets away.

[idiom]

Oh no, they wouldn't co-ordinate on *private* facebook pages.

Consider the many people who post videos of themselves commiting crime on YouTube and wonder how the hell they got busted later..

As far as the NSA, they only have to ask: link

[jamaal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('idiom', 'O')h no, they wouldn't co-ordinate on *private* facebook pages.
Consider the many people who post videos of themselves commiting crime on YouTube and wonder how the hell they got busted later.. As far as the NSA, they only have to ask: link

[JohnConnor]

Good points but I just don't think it will get to or will have to get to an Orewellian type of control, i.e. that desperate in the developed world (US, Canada, Europe, Japan, S. Korea, most of China, etc...) or we should plan on attempting this level of control in the 3rd and developing world - I think that the thrust of our future planning should be - (after we have plans to manage our own serious problems) - how do we humanely manage collapse and contraction in the 3rd and developing world, where the Long Emergency would or will depending on your doom-&-gloom factor (personally I am in the middle to very slightly hopeful) could be even worse than it will be in the developed world, that is if we are in a situation where our defense/military thinking is now shifted back to mainly being concerned with territorial soverignty first and then to abroad economic and stratgic interests, what can we have in place to make this as painless as possible?

My humble opinions...

Security Planning
Fortification and Control of Borders - physically in some ways and virtually of our borders, i.e. no private property or development within 5 miles of our northern and southern borders, establishing Federal Zones of Control, a no man's land that would not be a "free fire" range - we should always try to deal with people humanely and with respect but a space that would be physically difficult to cross and provide maneuver room if there were ever chaos on either of our borders.
Massive increase in the size of National Guard and Reserve units with large distributions of small units lightly armed (SCARs & SAWs) to assist law enforcement and add a large distributed defense, posse comitatus would be updated to allow for far easier use of any type military force to quell civil disorders, riots, etc...
Large increase in the size of the Coast Guard & Littoral Navy - boat people and piracy are likely to increase along with smuggling. Along with a Zone of Control of our land borders, a zone inside of our 12 NM territorial waters where intercept and boarding are granted with no warning (and likely) along with the deterent of force may be required. Augmented by UAVs - BAMS technology - this can be done without too much of a fuel bill.

Economic Planning
A national ID card system that would be linked to rationing of critical supplies to allow for the most efficient of use of energy, food, and water.
Credit Cards outlawed, loans would have to securitized by a minimum of 1/3rd of the value of the item to be purchased.
Income taxes and payroll taxes massively decreased with a corresponding rise in sales taxes (state and a new federal tax) to discourage irresponsible consumption.
All items produced or imported would have a VAT to pay for the total life-cycle cost of any item purchased.

Citizenship Renewal
A draft at age 16 not necessarily to military service but public service of any useful type, lasting 4 years. Failure to complete will result in loss of your voting rights and cut your rations by 1/3rd. Voting would only be allowed by those able to complete a basic competency test designed by all participating political parties. Non-Participation in any election would be a $100 fine.

Education
Compressed and accelerated. Mandatory to the age of 16 with an emphasis on the preservation of culture (history, scientific knowledge and how to use it) and with far more practical courses also (gardening, carpentry, etc..) - followed by civic service. Those not interested in or unable to participate meaningfuly will be directed to other avenues, vocational training, apprenticeship, etc. University level education would be more exclusive and only allocated to those capable and mature enough to justify investing the time, money and energy in educating them to that level.

Law Enforcement & Justice
Mandatory physical labor for all inmates, 8 hours a day 5 days a week, towards public works. Farms, National Parks, Civic Improvements etc... Failure to participate will result in expulsion from the US permanently.

Public Health
Ban on tobacco and vice taxes on alcohol, junk/processed foods. Limited allocation of resources allocated to individuals with no realistic chances of meaningful recoveries, time constraints on this in the range of 6 months, after which the families would have to allocate some of their resources/rations to further care.
Morbid obesity would be made a taxable condition unless 3 medical professionals would stipulate that it is a legitimate medical condition. Individuals found to be in non-compliance would be fined 5% in every economic transaction until in compliance via Nation ID card.

I realize that this is kind of Orwellian itself, so not to slight the earlier posts or not to acknowledge that I think that if things get really bad, the government will have to exercise more control over society in some ways but I think the way to be the most effective is to set some strong standards and allow society to find the most effective and desired way of accomplishing them....