What's the news?
• The armed forces investigate whether soldiers should spread disinformation and propaganda. This would allow the Netherlands to better defend itself against hostile fake news campaigns and also influence the course of the battle in a mission area such as Afghanistan.


• The Counter Hybrid Unit was established in 2017 to better arm the Netherlands against so-called hybrid threats, whereby "the enemy, for example, influences political processes and spreads fake news."


• To fight fake news, according to Lieutenant Colonel Gwenda Nielen of the Counter Hybrid Unit, soldiers are talking to intelligence services such as the MIVD about actions that are not allowed yet.

A long read in Dutch paper NRC - quite revealing how The Netherlands the intrusion into privacy of its citizens emulated from the AngloSaxon leading nations the US and UK. To fight on foreign soil, disinformation has been militarized and is part of a large budget to expand power. Europe still has a choice to make war or make peace as the founding fathers of the EU envisioned: The Four Freedoms.

Meddling in foreign affairs

One has to take into account the tools at hand in a specific decade. In the 1980s under Thatcher and Reagan, the face of the world began to shift. Nations were to some extent sovereign, diplomats carried the burden of conversation, policy and economic affairs. During the Cold War it became usance to establish covert intelligence - spies - in the embassies and nations became embattled with one another. The book 1984 was not as much as a prophecy as it was a vision of what had already started.

Listening posts were quite primitive, as were phone taps and with further automation, the IBM computers became a tool of government to steal economic and diplomatic data. With the launch of satellites it became so much easier to cover earth for the purpose of espionage. As the amount of data surged, so did the agencies to decipher, translate and act on information. The AngloSaxon intelligence empire of surveillance was established with the Five Eyes with GCHQ and NSA. The Israeli Mossad and Unit 8200 soon was accepted as a leading ally. The spread of Eves Dropping became a profitable cause as we have seen across the globe in authoritarian states. Israel and Western nations were the suppliers of state-of-the-art equipment and software. See my recent diary - American Cyber Security Comboys.

In the 1990s, the era of globalization and the role of multinationals came to the forefront. The role of western "values" became part of a mission to expand into other continents the riches of capitalism and the fortunes of democracy. In the home nations, economies had to adapt from manufacturing to a role in high tech and services. Jobs moved quickly abroad to "low-income" states.

Often I search the archives here @EuroTrib to read what has been diaried in the past. This time it was a reference to James Petras.

A perspective still worthwhile to read ...

A World Transforming -- from Nation States to ...? by Ren on Aprl 18, 2007

A trend which I have been looking at since I first got interested is the increasing freedom transnational corporations have been gaining to negotiate and effect nation state policies.  I'm not sure if this is included in that stated formula in point 42 of sovereignty or if it's an issue that essentially transcends the EU focused discussion, one that all states as a whole face in a globalizing environment.

I see some major macro issues that the globalization trend is facing, and I have read others here -- Helen, for one, in her diary brings this up -- and those issues indicate a need for nation state entities to find solutions for the upcoming challenges of accumulations of global eco-destruction, global warming, and declining cheap fossil fuels that so far fuel the globalizing economy.  Subsets of that will be dealing with other large states, the US -- at least for now, though its hegemonic decline seems possible thanks to the acceleration of certain national factors that once gave it preeminence -- and what the US policies continue to do to effect the regions of significant resources, like the Middle East, where other emergent nations like China and India will be looking if they want to increase their economic standing in and share in the larger global economic system.

All of this to me is part of a larger neoliberal process that has a history that spans the beginning of European colonial expansion in the 1400s through a period of the colonies transforming to the composition of nation states the world is now.

Ren linked to an article from The Independent ...

So, what has Europe ever done for us? Apart from...

Published: 21 March 2007

1. The end of war between European nations

While rows between England, France and Germany have been a feature of EU summits, war between Europe's major powers is now unthinkable. The fact that the two world wars that shaped the last century now seem so remote is, in itself, tribute to a visionary project that has permanently changed the landscape. As the EU celebrates the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome it is clear that while the detailed topography will always be difficult to agree, it is an extraordinary achievement that we are standing on common ground.

2. Democracy is flourishing in 27 countries

Spain, Portugal, Greece, and the EU's 10 ex-Communist countries are parliamentary democracies. None of these nations were truly free in the decades following the Second World War. Each is now a democracy anchored within the EU and is unlikely to change course.

[Read on ...]

A comment to his diary ...

Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony

While I left the conclusion open, I was not thinking "empire" as a specific answer, though I acknowledge it is worthy of consideration. I would see empire as transitional as well. After all, the colonialization process was part of nation state initiated empire building that occurred within generally the same structural parameters, with the client areas defined by given states and charted and controlled by them.  For example, the original Thirteen Colonies of the US that "rebelled" were essentially chartered corporations of the British Crown (reference).  

In terms of globalization, many argue that the world is globalizing.  I'd argue it has been globalized for some time.  In the scenario I'm envisioning, that was achieved primarily through the colonization process, in which colonies transformed to client states, and from that a kind of globalized hierarchy of developed and underdeveloped nation states emerged, with varying forms of governance. All of that remains in flux.

[...]

While my primary interest in what I've brought up in the diary is the changing roles of transnational corporations and the NGOs who are taking on some of the traditional roles of nation states in international diplomatic negotiations, if I were to use "empire" as a descriptor now for the macro globalized world, I would present it more along the lines of a multi nation state polyarchic world governance system. Polyarchic in the following sense (from a review of Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony (Cambridge Studies in International Relations):

○ Promoting Polyarchy 20 Years Later (2007)

Dr. James Petras offered this structural arrangement which makes sense to me (from: Understanding Empire: Hierarchy, Networks and Clients):

Hierarchy of Empire

The structure of power of the world imperial system can best be understood through a classification of countries according to their political, economic, diplomatic and military organization. The following is a schema of this system:

I. Hierarchy of Empire (from top to bottom)
A. Central Imperial States (CIS)
B. Newly Emerging Imperial Powers (NEIP)
C. Semi-autonomous Client Regimes (SACR)
D. Client Collaborator Regimes (CCR)

II. Independent States:
A. Revolutionary
Cuba and Venezuela
B. Nationalist
Sudan, Iran, Zimbabwe, North Korea

III. Contested Terrain and Regimes in Transition
Armed resistance, elected regimes, social movements

At the top of the imperial system are those imperial states whose power is projected on a world scale, whose ruling classes dominate investment and financial markets and who penetrate the economies of the rest of the world.  At the apex of the imperial system stand the US, the European Union (itself highly stratified) and Japan.  Led by the US they have established networks of `follower imperial states' (largely regional hegemons) and client or vassal states which frequently act as surrogate military forces.  Imperial states act in concert to break down barriers to penetration and takeovers, while at the same time, competing to gain advantages for their own state and multinational interests.

What a bullsh***er written in policy Dutch Armed Forces, a single line to "protect" the Kingdom ...

○ 2018 Defence White Paper - Investing in  our people, capabilities  and visibility

Russia  
Modernisation and strengthening of the Russian armed forces.
Increasing military activity and hybrid threat.

Related reading ...

○ Counter-Hybrid Warfare: Winning in the Gray Zone