By Drago Bosnik from Global Research. Reposted with permission.
A bit over a year ago, the CEO of Palantir, Alexander Karp, published a book titled “The Technological Republic”. In it, Karp effectively advocates for Western “hard power built on advanced AI-run software”. He also recently posted 22 points outlining the need for “urgent reforms” to enable the US-led political West’s dominance over the rest of the world. Karp argues that “the Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible” and that “the engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation”. He also highlighted the limits of soft power, criticizing the notion that “free and democratic societies” need nothing more than “moral appeal” in order to “prevail”.
In Karp’s view, this requires “hard power”, which will be “built on software in this century”.
Obviously, this “hard power” would be built by Palantir, which is already among the top AI contractors for the Pentagon and NATO. Karp argues that “the question is not whether AI weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose”. He thinks that “our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications”. Although there’s no evidence that multipolar powers are using advanced AI to develop weapon systems, this doesn’t matter to companies such as Palantir. All they care about is profit and influence.
Karp also called for the full restoration of conscription in the United States (the so-called draft), arguing that Americans should “seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost”. In doing so, he’s obviously advocating for the further militarization of American society, as that would ensure long-term profits for a company such as Palantir. Karp argues that “if a US Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it”, adding that “the same goes for software”. In other words, by likening advanced AI (which is software, obviously) to a rifle, he’s setting the stage for “normalizing” its use as a weapon. Worse yet, this wouldn’t even be under state control.
Namely, Karp thinks that “any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive”. This is just a euphemistic way to say that state employees should be forced to do more for the government, particularly if it’s military-related. However, Karp didn’t hold back in the slightest when promoting advanced AI as the “next nuclear option”. Namely, he argues that “the atomic age is ending” and that these are the final moments of “one age of deterrence’, adding that “a new era of deterrence built on AI is set to begin”. This is precisely what many have been warning about, whether they’re security experts or just concerned regular people.
Unsurprisingly, Karp also insists on America’s “messianic” role as the “beacon of hope” for others, arguing that “no other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than [the US]”. Even more laughably, he claims that “American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace”. Karp argues that “nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict”, adding that “at least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war”. Although it’s true that there hasn’t been a world war since 1945, the only reason that’s the case is not American power, but precisely the lack of it.
Namely, the US had plans to attack Russia, China, India and other independent global powers mere weeks after the end of WWII. The main result of this aggression against the entire world has been nuclear proliferation, as Washington DC thinks twice only when the other side has the capacity to turn it into a radioactive glass desert. Even then, the US often engages in nuclear brinkmanship, which nearly pushed the world into the abyss numerous times in the last eight decades or so. And even if we were to ignore this, we should still take note of America’s endless stream of conventional wars of aggression against dozens of countries, both after WWII and particularly since the (First) Cold War ended, paving the way for US dominance.
However, we now live in an era of Washington DC’s decline as the global hegemon. This is precisely why the Pentagon and its AI contractors want their NATO allies, vassals and satellite states to get more directly involved in maintaining the increasingly frail American Empire. Namely, Karp thinks that “the postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone” and that “the defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price”. He also added that “a similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia”. In simpler terms, the US needs the old Axis back so it could once again use it against the world.
When combined with ideas of the supposed “supremacy of the Western civilization”, which Karp openly proposes in his final points, all this becomes a crystal clear manifesto of a new form of radical ideology – technofascism. For the most part, such ideas could easily be rejected as nothing more than musings of a marginal minority. However, when this dangerous ideology is proposed by one of the prospective leaders of the rising AI-run American Military Industrial Complex (MIC), it becomes even clearer that we’re sinking into a new age of geopolitical madness. US advanced AI companies now also freely promote combining this new technology with nuclear weapons, creating the conditions for a “perfect storm” that will affect all of us.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
