the more things change the more they remain the same

By Dr. Jim Castagnera, Esquire

Partner, Portum Group International

In George Orwell’s famous old novel 1984, the nations of the world are in a constant state of war.  Orwell intended his futuristic novel --- doesn’t the year 1984 seem like ancient history now? --- to be a post-WWII cautionary tale about the threat of communism.  It was published in 1949, when the Cold War was about to become a little heated.  (Think “Korean Conflict.”)

The simple fact is that the United States has almost always been at war somewhere… and during the Cold War, almost everywhere.  Ronald Reagan no sooner declared victory in the Cold War, as the Soviet Union spun apart, than his successor, George H. W. Bush, declared that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait “cannot stand.”  And so began our long embroilment with the Middle East, highlighted by the 9/11 attacks, which precipitated the “War on Terror.”

If, as in Orwell’s 1984, a state of war benefits the people in power, this can be just as true in a democracy as in a totalitarian state.  And, lest you think that a state of constant warfare is a late-20th/21st-centuryy phenomenon, consider this:

 The first president for whom my granddad ever voted was Teddy Roosevelt. Reelected by a landslide in 1904, TR became president in September 1901 as the result of a terrorist attack. An anarchist shot President William McKinley in Buffalo, New York. Anarchism was the international terrorist movement of its time. In the two decades between 1894 and 1914, adherents to the movement assassinated six Western heads of state, including a president of France, two premiers of Spain, an empress of Austria, a king of Italy… and President McKinley.

Teddy inherited a nasty little insurgency… not in the Middle East, but in the Philippines. In an odd way, he bore some personal responsibility for this nasty little war. As an assistant secretary of the Navy Department in the late 1890s, TR had guided creation of the war plans which called for the U.S. Asiatic Fleet to steam for Manila, should hostilities break out with Spain. On May 1, 1898, Commodore George Dewey, whose flagship Olympia is displayed in Philadelphia today, carried off that plan with aplomb, sinking all but one Spanish warship while losing but a single sailor… and him to heatstroke.

The conflict Secretary of State John Hay had called a “splendid little war” catapulted Roosevelt into the New York governor’s mansion and then onto the GOP’s 1900 ticket as its vice presidential candidate. Then, as September 11, 2001, has defined George Bush’s presidency, McKinley’s September 14, 1901, demise from the terrorist’s bullets lifted Roosevelt from mere notoriety into an opportunity for true immortality.

A major impediment to the success of his presidency was the nasty little war engendered by Hay’s splendid little one. As a part of the treaty ending the Spanish-American War, the U.S. paid Spain $20 million for the 7,108 islands comprising the Philippines. With the archipelago came some seven million souls of varied ethnic and class backgrounds. An uprising begun against the Spanish in 1896 flared anew soon after the U.S. took possession. When the insurgents were defeated in open battle, the movement melted into the hills and became a guerrilla war. 

The Insurrectos, like today’s Iraqis, were divided along ethnic lines. So-called Ilustrados or Insulares --- upper class Filipinos --- boasted Spanish blood. Native ethnic groups included Tagalogs, Kapampangans, Cebuanos, Ilocanos, and Ilonggos. Eventually, the insurrection was reduced principally to a Tagalog insurgency.

In the process of grinding down the insurrectos, American forces --- which never numbered more than 24,000 against an estimated 80,000 insurgents --- became embroiled in accusations of atrocities. The most notorious allegations involved interrogation by means of the so-called “water torture.” In the words of one witness in Congressional hearings, “A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit on his arms and legs… and either a gun barrel… or a stick as big as a belaying pin… is simply thrust into his jaws… and then water is poured onto his face, down his throat and nose… until the man gives some sign of giving in or becomes unconscious…. His suffering must be that of a man who is drowning, but who cannot drown.”

Other testimony alleged that native prisoners were flogged, roasted, strung up by their thumbs, and facially tattooed for identification purposes. The insurrectos gave back as good as they got, often mutilating U.S. soldiers, either before or after they were killed. On the U.S. side, once the story broke, courts marshal climbed as high as the general staff.

The U.S. ultimately pacified the archipelago by a mixture of carrots and sticks, American largess extending from political posts and business opportunities for the elite to infrastructure improvements, such as schools and hospitals for the poor. Despite the Abu Ghraib-like atrocities, most surrendering rebels were well treated. On July 4, 1902, TR declared the insurrection officially ended. 

The announcement marked the real beginning of his distinguished presidency.

Yes, where a state of war is concerned, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Only the nature of the war and the types of weapons evolve.  Today, we are faced with cyber warfare. Ransomware pirates are harbored in Russia by a Putin government aiming at rebuilding the old Soviet Union, smarting from American and European support for the Ukraine, and determined to destabilize North American and West European democracies.  China is in the game of stealing our intellectual property big time.  And North Korea, powerless to attack the U.S. despite Kim Jong-Un’s growing arsenal of nukes, periodically strives to disrupt our infrastructure through cyber warfare.

This is why on March 2, the Biden Administration released a fact sheet on its cybersecurity strategy, which reads in part:

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration released the National Cybersecurity Strategy to secure the full benefits of a safe and secure digital ecosystem for all Americans. In this decisive decade, the United States will reimagine cyberspace as a tool to achieve our goals in a way that reflects our values: economic security and prosperity; respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; trust in our democracy and democratic institutions; and an equitable and diverse society. To realize this vision, we must make fundamental shifts in how the United States allocates roles, responsibilities, and resources in cyberspace.

• We must rebalance the responsibility to defend cyberspace by shifting the burden for cybersecurity away from individuals, small businesses, and local governments, and onto the organizations that are most capable and best-positioned to reduce risks for all of us.
•  We must realign incentives to favor long-term investments by striking a careful balance between defending ourselves against urgent threats today and simultaneously strategically planning for and investing in a resilient future.

And, if today, we were able to eliminate all the cybersecurity threats facing America, tomorrow it would be something else.  Indeed, the more things change… well, you know.