Last week I caught a few fascinating minutes of NPR on the way into the office. On my bucket list; at some point in time contribute monies during their fundraising efforts as I am a selfish benefactor of great content and have been riding that gravy train for years… But I digress. Steve Inskeep was interviewing David Kilcullen, former member of the Australian army, author and advisor to General Petraeus in Iraq. I’d read Kilcullen before and thought he had very progressive insight on modern warfare. Kilcullen asserted that warfare is becoming more urban and that “we’re starting to see a real democratization of technology.” I thought this concept was worth exploring.
Kilcullen talks about how technology that used to be the “preserve of nation states” is now available to anybody. The flow of information and the availability for groups to access how-to manuals as well as more sophisticated weaponry, especially in larger, urban areas has shaken up conventional thinking on the U.S. approach to conflict. He also cautions that major troop commitments won’t work in larger coastal cities of 20-30 million people. In short, Kilcullen does not see a military solution to urban and regional conflicts that are based less on broad, existential reasons (the threat of Communism, radical Islam) and more on income inequality and lack of opportunity and progress. He thinks that ‘fundamentally …social work, international assistance and diplomacy’ will be needed to address areas of unrest where US interests are at stake, where the military plays a secondary role of support.
We’re always interested in how technology drives change, whether it’s behavioral, cultural or process and business oriented. Kilcullen touches on how prolonged conflicts are in large part supported by “war entrepreneurs” who profit from unrest. These are timeless reasons for war, and the hand that technology has played in changing how wars are conducted can be equally attributed to how they are quelled, brought to international attention and even how protests are coordinated (see Arab Spring and social media). We’ve also seen, especially with the recent NSA controversy, how technology is ahead of our discussion on the ambiguous line between protection and personal privacy.
Livescience.com wrote recently about seven technologies that transformed warfare. These range from drones to nuclear warheads and provide a broader context for the evolution of lethal technologies. I think the common denominator here is that these advancements have given us a more precise, lethal and comprehensive way to kill while dehumanizing the method. There is a buffer between the trigger and the target, making it easier to eliminate blips on a screen than flesh and blood on the field of battle. What interests me in Kilcullen’s interview with NPR is the notion that technologies accessibility has forced the hand of developed nations to consider non-military solutions and preventative political actions to war. This changes the current, hawkish debate from how do we strike at this problem to how do we identify a potential problem, and can foreign policy be used to help unite divided urban populations so that running water, functional schools and working systems become the interests of all and not the leveraging tools of the few.
January 13, 2021
One definition of rot is the process of deterioration. Something that decays over time. By this standard – software rots like food in the Nebraska heat. It’s true. If your software isn’t regularly updated, it deteriorates and breaks down. Consider this – software is written to work at a moment in time…but time marches on. […]
January 4, 2021
OMAHA, NE, January 4, 2021 – In late 2020, Volano Solutions announced it has changed its name to Volano Software and launched a new website: www.volanosoftware.com. The name change was made to more accurately reflect what the company does, and the website was designed to be more informative and user-friendly to clients and prospective clients […]
June 2, 2020
According to LinkedIn technology (software) has a higher overall turnover rate than retail. With that, it isn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when. Volano has engineered a culture of “by developers, for developers” and this helps our retention. In fact, most of the folks that work at Volano have been here +5 […]
June 2, 2020
It is hard enough to build a successful business, and few want to invest time and resources into worrying about an Intellectual Property Assignment. But alas, you must do your homework. Fortunately, we make it easy for Volano customers. When asked – “Who owns the software and IP for my project?” – it is an […]
May 28, 2020
Many of us remember the grade school game Telephone. It was funny to see how a simple message would get garbled as it was passed along from person to person. But it’s not as funny when that message is a critical business requirement that will be turned into software that will power your business. Yet, […]
May 28, 2020
Volano’s first interaction with a potential client is about answering questions and evaluating alignment. The big question is obvious – “what’s this gonna cost?” Well, good news/bad news – Good news – we’ve built hundreds of software systems so we can give you a ‘round’ budgetary estimate in our first meeting. Bad news – we […]