Antonio Navalón
Every time I see on televisions, on streaming platforms, on Twitter, and, of course, in the much outdated printed newspapers the images of tanks moving around the borders of Belarus and Ukraine, it is as if I were watching the movement of the Roman legions at the time of the Roman Empire. When wars were won by the ability to armor with shields the Roman legions advancing when no one could manage to penetrate the armor they formed. Today, wars have changed.
Today’s wars and those of tomorrow, the real ones, are not fought with tanks, soldiers, or weapons. Even though people will continue to die and misfortune and the horsemen of the Apocalypse will continue to ride over the zones of conflict, modern wars and those to come are, first and foremost, of a cybernetic nature. Having put our whole life in the palm of our hand and depending so much on this device – which I no longer know whether it is good or bad and which defines our dreams, ambitions, and needs – has and will have consequences of great relevance. An example of this is that today, to stop a country, all you have to do is attack its informatics structure.
The second war to come will be provoked by that horseman who brings cold, brings winter, and produces hunger, and it will be an energy war. What has happened with Ukraine, Russia, and the United States as the main protagonists in the conflict have brought to the forefront what real power is. The real power lies in the possession and management of energy resources. If you don’t believe me, ask Germany and its new Chancellor – who has done nothing but go back and forth from Moscow, Washington or Brussels without being able to articulate an answer or a fixed course – about what it is like to govern a country whose energy sustainability is in the hands of your enemy. Whoever has the gas and oil has the power. Gas, like oil, is a resource that cannot be improvised even if we burn all the forests or exploit all the mines.
Since the invention of the steam engine and the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, we have been slaves to the what, but, above all, to the with what. In 1911, the then First Lord of the British Admiralty, Winston Churchill, took a gamble and made a decision that would completely change the course of the world. At that moment, the man who would later become British Prime Minister decided to transform the British fleet – the most important and powerful on the planet – into a fleet propelled by oil derivatives, leaving aside what had been the primary fuel until then, coal. And from then on, I save you everything that happened since that decision marked the change of what was the geostrategic strength and military supremacy. That decision had almost as much importance or more than substituting steel plates for wooden plates when building ships.
Wars today are, above all, intelligence wars. Ukraine was the last staging and the last blockbuster of what wars used to be like. What is more, after the game of intelligence – clearly won by Vladimir Putin – and the capacity it has had to make the world tremble, without knowing very well why, what has disturbed me most has been to see how at the same time that some Russian units withdrew from the border of Belarus and Ukraine, at the same time cyber-attack operations began in Europe. And, as if that were not enough, the terrible Covid-19 has paved the way for what it means to have societies that, after having been tricked, robbed, and without the guarantee of a better tomorrow, are now without the necessary resources and energy to face the coming wars.
Two years, nearly six million dead, and widespread terror have been enough to undermine the healthcare systems completely. So that no one has the time even to approach the doors of the former institutions or Ministries of Health – all of which are now in extinction – and ask what happened to theirs. Everything disappeared, and everything vanished with the virus that was able to paralyze the whole world.
If the war is won by whoever has the most significant capacity to block countries in what really moves us – which today are cybernetic structures and, failing that, by the power to freeze and starve us to death due to the absence of energy – how and in what way should we prepare ourselves?
I will not miss the era when everyone’s terror revolved around the enormous nuclear mushroom and the hundreds of years it would take for us to reclaim the earth after the outbreak of nuclear war. There is Ukraine and Chernobyl to show what is really the consequence and how far the damage on life is caused by a nuclear accident. In retrospect, the truth is that whether it was a bomb or a missile that exploded, the Chernobyl accident showed that all it took was one reactor to have the most catastrophic consequences.
None of what we were told was true, but that is nothing new. Lies have accompanied people throughout human history. What is true is that playing today with things as if it were the assault of the Indians, to the Seventh Cavalry Regiment or, conversely, using tanks and soldiers, is nothing more than a diversionary maneuver using the subconscious of all peoples to threaten us with what we can identify and feel like fear, which is war in the conventional sense. However, today that war is no longer the most important war.
What country will be able to live without a water supply? What country will be able to live without regulating the lights that control the traffic in its cities? What country will be able to live without the assistance necessary for planes to fly, land, and take off? What country will be able to live without ATMs that do not work or infrastructures that are not at the mercy of a cybernetic attack? This is the scenario in which the wars to come are forged and developed. Under these circumstances, the risks and threats of our times truly lie.
There are very few countries in the world with the capacity to defend themselves. On this exclusive list are probably the United States, Israel, Russia – which, as it has demonstrated, is in a position to attack – and China. The rest of the nations find themselves vulnerable and defenseless in the face of a generalized fight from an army of hackers capable of paralyzing our lives. If you have any doubts about the shattering scope of this war, try a test. Try repeating aloud five phone numbers of the top five friends or ties you have. You may remember your spouse’s and your mother’s if you have a good memory. But other than that, everything else – including bank accounts, reminders, and your day-to-day activities – is on a regulating device called a cell phone.
When these wars break out, if they do, the consequences will be easy to imagine. You won’t be able to fly. You will not be able to drive freely in your car on the streets. You will not be able to call anyone, nor will you be able to pay your grocery bill. Nor will you be able to withdraw your money from the ATM because your money – like everyone else’s – will be sequestered in the hands of pirates or cybernetic enemies. If we survive and overcome this onslaught, which is already taking place on different fronts, we will face the second part, which is the effects of the already present and imminent energy crisis. If we do not take the necessary measures, how will we cook, heat ourselves, or work?
In this new global context, preparing countries means investing in education. Mexico has great social aid programs aimed at young people. However, perhaps it is time to consider a revolution like the one Rajiv Gandhi led in India in the 1980s. In it, the former Prime Minister groomed millions of young Indians to occupy and play a leading role in the engineering and technology sector. There is only room for those who are groomed in these new wars. And instead of giving them a monthly allowance in exchange for doing nothing, perhaps it would be the time to groom the youth and provide them with the hope of having a profession with a future which, at the same time, would be the basis of making the country more robust and better prepared.
Energy and technology. The cyber-world and energy resources. Today everything revolves and will revolve around these two worlds. We depend on the cyber security of the information infrastructure and on energy. In the meantime, let’s keep watching Western movies appreciating how the Sioux surround the Seventh Cavalry Regiment – which may well resemble the movement of tanks and soldiers – and let’s keep playing battles that can no longer deliver either victory or defeat. We have reached a point where I don’t know what the nuclear warheads we have been building over the years will be suitable for. What is a reality is that the wars to come are made up of another type of weaponry and employ another method of attack. If it were not for the enormous capacity for destruction that nuclear weapons would have in the new profile of the new wars, I would begin the process of transforming military power into civilian fuel.
