I have this concept with that we are currently under attack in so many and so subtle ways that we don't really realise it; I call this Slow Wars. Its a bit like the game Grandmother's footsteps[1] (or 'Red light, Green light now thanks to Squid game) where players are attempting to sneak up on someone without their movement being seen.
One example of this is the cyber attacks conducted against the infrastructure of nation states. Whilst some might not consider that to be a conventional war it has many of the same effects, damaging trade, damagring business confidence, stealing secrets, undermining opponents etc. Because people don't see and feel this kind of attack it is less scary even though the consequences of a particular attack might be much worse than another given physical attack. It feels less dangerous and so we might not notice it at all, its a 'slow attack', as in we at not seeing the person move up on us (like in Red light, Green light) until they have already passed the line. If a rival is continously attacking you slowly then you are in a Slow War and the danger is that you (/we) don't collectively realise and respond to this.
Today i read about [2] another line of attack being used in this Slow War where Malignant actors are attempting to subvert the free Internet via corrupting the standards and standards bodies used to run the architecture itself. These countries aim to change the Internet to 'New IP' (Internet Protocol) which would allow much greator censorship control of the Intenet to countries than even they have today. What is clever about this attack is that it plays to the UN ITU's long term asparation to take regulatory control of the Internet over from the IETF, a self governing body that standardises most of the Internet's architecture by consesus.
The concept of Slow Wars however is much bigger than just the technical world. It is easily applied to how Russia continunes to undermine and attack their neighbours in phases. Whilst we outsiders might consider these phases as individual wars it is clear now that these all fit as part of a master plan. Their war on Ukraine is a case in point and shows why the calls from many commentators that 'Ukraine should negotiate' are so wrong. In 2014 Russia invaded and allegally annexed the Crimean penisula of Ukraine by a combination of Blitz Kriek and recruiting traitors in the Ukrainian forces. However this wasn't the end for Russia, just a phase. They came back, as we see on our screens today, in 2022 for the next phase were they attempted to assignate the Ukrainian president whilst overwhelming their military. Today the Russians hold most of the Ukraian cost, some power stations and have declared four further illegal annexations. If Ukraniane 'just negotiates a peace' (aka Give up all annexed areas) would that be the end of it or would their simply be further phases once Russia have rebuilt their forces and they've sold some energy ? (Yes there are countries buying energy today from them and they will be even more once the war ends, if Russia are not stopped of course. Those future energy buyers will of course claim they are trying to show Russia they are more sucessful with business than violence but they would be as naive now as the Germans were to become so dependant on Russian energy until now).
Don't take this to think that i am some kind of war monger. I want peace as much as the next person, but we do need to learn from history and we need to stand up to bullies. We need to protect our values and understand when we are being take for a ride. Yes we must continue to support Ukraine but we should also rack up the pressure on passive states like India/China or the Middle East / OPEC. If either of these blocks removed their passive support of the Russian war then this would end much faster.
