Тег: deterrence

Personal Deterrence Doctrine

Bitarch’s Column

I will start by noting that this is a thought experiment and a test of a philosophical concept, not a discussion of technological implementation.

The essence of the idea is very simple. There is a potential aggressor in the form of a group of people (a criminal organization). You probably already guess who is being referred to. Although besides a Westphalian state, this could also be an aggressive ECU or a territorial community. A lone individual possessing a technology, which we will conventionally call MinMAD, opposes the criminal organization.

This technology ensures mutual assured destruction (MAD) of only two individuals—if the victim of aggression dies, one person from the criminal organization dies immediately (for example, a random government official, regardless of their relationship to the specific case). The victim of aggression may use conventional weapons to oppose the criminal organization (for example, firing a machine gun at a police squad sent to detain them) and remain alive as long as the aggressor does not destroy them. But if a cruise missile is then launched at their house and they perish, a random member of the criminal organization will die instantly. They can also activate MinMAD independently, for example, if they are taken prisoner. In that case, both they and one random member of the criminal organization will die immediately.

From the conditions of the problem, it is clear that both the criminal organization and the victim are not anonymous. Suppose that in a certain territory, at least 10-20% of the residents have MinMAD. Question: is it possible to maintain institutionalized coercion (the state) in this territory?

My assumption is an absolute “no”: no one will want to participate in the criminal organization (the state), knowing that there is a very high probability they could die. Accordingly, the necessary deterrent effect is achieved, forcing government officials to abandon coercion and seek other ways of making a living that are not based on robbery (which is what “taxes” actually are).

Ancap-chan’s Comment

Bitarch and I disagreed on the prospects of such a doctrine, and now we are submitting the discussion for your judgment.

I believe that we already live in a society where this experiment was conducted and led to results that differ significantly from those intended. In the past, the state was relatively compact, and those who opposed it were executed. This led to the emergence of tactics of individual terror by the resistance, which strongly demotivated government employees from performing their duties. But since then, the state has adapted to this threat, and, firstly, it has exponentially expanded the number of government employees, budget workers, and other beneficiaries of the existing system, and secondly, it has stopped killing its opponents, preferring more “vegetarian” methods, such as short prison sentences and fines. Thus, on the one hand, the resistor is demotivated from self-sacrifice, since they only face temporary inconvenience—and on the other hand, the risk of death for government employees has become significantly lower, since there are now millions of them.

So—no. A modern deterrence doctrine should imply the elimination of specifically the person who gives the order to initiate violence, and the higher their position in the state hierarchy, the better. Also, a modern deterrence doctrine should, whenever possible, remove the person practicing it from the line of fire, rather than relying on proud self-sacrifice. A “minimal” deterrence doctrine is like a vaccination against a disease for the state, rather than the disease itself.

P.S. By the way, since the deterrence doctrine is so prominent in Bitarch’s work, he created a separate VKontakte public page, where he puts all materials on this topic to make access to them more convenient.

Anarchist Deterrence Doctrine)

Containment Doctrine – a new video from Libertarian band

I am pleased to present to you a new video from our Libertarian band team. In the first five, we gave a brief introduction to why libertarianism is relevant, the paths it takes, and where it is heading. Now, we have decided to deal with the specifics. In this six-minute video, we briefly explain why a war of all against all is a ridiculous scare story, where the state came from, and why, after its abolition, it is unlikely to be able to rise again.

I hope you appreciate the increased artistic level. They say the main character of the video was very non-illusorily hit in the face with a rifle butt; I am admired by his heroism and love for art.

– Omae wa mou shindeiru.
– Nani?

“The Ten Plagues of Egypt” as an Example of Deterrence Doctrine

Bitarch’s Column

One may have different views on the truthfulness of the stories described in the Bible, but that does not negate their philosophical meaning. A rather interesting idea was described in the Book of Exodus, known as the “Ten Plagues of Egypt.” In essence, it describes the idea of applying a strategy known today as “deterrence by punishment” or the deterrence doctrine (DD), two millennia before the research of the RAND Corporation in the mid-20th century.

This biblical plot, in modern terms, describes a struggle for the right of a specific minority group to secede from a state. For those who have not read the Bible or no longer remember the details, let us recall its essence. In Ancient Egypt, the Jews were in a state of slavery; the Pharaoh categorically refused to let them go. Moses, the leader of the Jewish community, threatened the Pharaoh with misfortunes for himself and his subjects until he agreed to release the Jews. These misfortunes (“the Egyptian plagues”) became increasingly severe each time—from the completely harmless reddening of the Nile’s water and the plague of frogs to the death of the firstborn children of the Pharaoh and his subjects. Nine times the Pharaoh refused to release the Jews; on the tenth, he let them go.

Thus, the Pharaoh continuously initiated aggression against the Jews by keeping them in slavery. The costs of keeping them were minimal, and the profit was enormous. After Moses began the “deterrence campaign,” the Pharaoh’s costs gradually increased (accordingly, the profit and moral satisfaction from keeping the Jews began to decrease). At a certain point, the cost of retention exceeded the total profit from their retention, and the Pharaoh gave up.

How can this be applied to modern times? Very simply—consider all supporters of etatism to be your enemies, who constantly initiate aggression against us through the institution of the state. Constantly increase the costs of initiating violence until the benefit from a salary, social status, or moral satisfaction becomes less than the damage that will be inflicted upon them.

Is someone calling to beat opposition members with chains? Their photo, name, and address appear in the public domain, and such a person’s peaceful life comes to an end. Do old women from Putin’s squads barge into your office? You have every right to use at least pepper spray against them (although, of course, it would be safer to hold a security license and a contract with Navalny’s headquarters, where these women are barging in). Do teachers at school call you a fifth column and enemies of the people? Their photos appear in hallways, the lock on the front door somehow strangely jams, you have to buy solvents to clean the door and walls, wake up to snowballs hitting the window, and so on.

Of course, this is not enough, for Moses not only asked the Lord to send plagues but also exhorted the Pharaoh. So, one must not only express their “fuck you” to the supporters of the state but also explain the desired alternative and encourage repentance; otherwise, the sent plagues will be seen by them as meaningless harassment, and this will only harden them or drive them into the depths of apathy.

A question regarding military actions in Ancapistan

For example, there is a large amorphous country in the north of the continent; the climate there is cold, there are few valuable resources, and a freedom-loving people live there, where almost everyone has an AK under their bed. There are cities in Ancapistan, where order is maintained by private companies and a small PMC for special operations.
Suddenly, some valuable resource is found in this beautiful country. A neighboring country, Etatistan, is an ordinary country with corruption and standing armed forces (of a sort). And Etatistan decided to seize this resource. It failed to acquire it through market methods (the landowner did not sell his land, and blackmailing him to get it also failed), and Etatistan declares war on Ancapistan.
And my question is: how can Ancapistan defend itself in order to maintain its independence and remain Ancapistan?
How can an armed people, who have plenty of firearms and light armored vehicles (like jeeps and BMPs), withstand an army with aviation and heavy equipment?

Baker

This question has been hanging for a long time; I was too lazy to answer it because I had already answered a very similar one. And then a post on the Freedom pride channel appeared, which touches upon a related topic. Why not take advantage of such a free ride?

As is easy to see, the topic of direct military confrontation between a non-state society and a state military machine worries many, because war is historically the most important thing a state had to be able to do if it wanted to survive; and thanks to its competencies in military affairs, practically the entire Earth is today divided among states, while non-state societies lead a marginal existence on the fringes of civilization.

Zolotorev, whom I am quoting, emphasizes that the ancap community, all other things being equal, is definitely wealthier than the state; due to decentralization, it can afford more flexible tactics, and the costs of implementing a state from scratch on the territory of Ancapistan conquered by the state would be disproportionately high for the state—in other words, the game would not be worth the candle.

Freedom pride shows why it would be difficult for a single gang to seize power in a conditions of an already established ancap. But it also states that if it were not a gang, but a state, it would become a problem.

Therefore, in conclusion, I want to suggest you read my longread on the doctrine of deterrence, which shows exactly that a means has already been invented to prevent a state from attacking you—the threat of guaranteed destruction of the state leader. The state is centralized, and this is its weakest point: it is enough to demotivate a very small circle of people from attacking, and the attack will not take place.

So, of course, an AK under the pillow is great sports equipment, but the key role in the conflict will be played by that very small PMC for special operations you described. This “department for working with difficult clients” at the insurance company, in the event of military action, simply captures the commander-in-chief of Etatistan and twists his balls until he agrees to withdraw the troops and pay a penalty. And if they can’t capture him alive, the problem will be solved by a dozen Tomahawks or something along those lines. This is significantly cheaper than heavy armored vehicles and other means of destroying large military formations that Etatistan possesses.

I will note that Etatistan cannot respond symmetrically, as there is no government in Ancapistan. And even sabotage at a PMC military base would only lead to the insurance company simply having to hire another PMC somewhere else, or simply announcing a substantial reward for the head of the dictator of Etatistan.

Although, to be honest, personally I don’t quite understand why the deposit could not be acquired through market means. Everything has its price, and if a price per share with a large premium to the market is offered, what is the point of refusing? But since that is the condition of the problem, then the word goes to the Tomahawks, provided that the shareholders of the deposit are willing to pay for it.

A so-so rocket against a so-so target

Will an institute of superheroism emerge under ancap? After all, it will cease to be illegal, and people might start taking justice into their own hands. Some actual millionaire could dress up in cool gear and punish violators of the NAP at night.

анонимный вопрос

The institute of superherosim already exists, albeit without any special effects. Take William Browder, for instance: offended that the RF killed his employee, he put on some cool gear and went to the lobbyists, ultimately punishing those who violated the NAP with the Magnitsky list. Mikhail Khodorkovsky put on cool gear and began funding the investigation into the murder of his employees in the CAR, and is also creating his own Shevchenko list. Alexander Litreev put on cool gear, flies around at night and deanonymizes shameful cops along with the Rosgvardiya officers who joined them.

Given how poorly the state functions in investigating certain incidents, we cannot guarantee that superheroes are not already operating in the field of direct physical punishment of NAP violators. For example, recently some owner of an award firearm for merits in the annexation of Crimea carelessly scratched himself with it. Let’s laugh at the safety regulation violator; let the superhero remain off-camera. Secret submarines, of course, also sink without any participation from superheroes.

Naturally, once the main enemy of any superhero—the state—is defeated, he will be able to turn his attention to the struggle against smaller bandits. It will be easier for him; he may even be able to afford to unobtrusively appear on camera in his cool gear from time to time, because the fear of retribution is a crucial element of the deterrence doctrine.

Alexander Litreev

Dobroum

I slightly supplemented the day before yesterday’s article with the response to Alexander Elesev. The supplement includes an advertisement for Alexander Litreev’s new project and a mysterious wish not to eat yellow snow.

I am also duplicating here from the article a mention of collecting ideas on applying the doctrine of deterrence to the state.

If you have fresh, interesting ideas regarding what non-violent threats and mechanisms for their implementation could be used by a citizen against government officials of various ranks, please share them in the comments or via private message. Authors of the most successful ideas can expect a reward in bitcoins.

Also, since the opportunity arose, I got to know the Dobroum project better, which turned out to be a quite interesting phenomenon, and I would like to tell you more about it.

Like my project, Dobroum is built around its own website, but it has significantly greater penetration into various social networks, of which the most developed and interesting is the YouTube channel (almost 20 thousand subscribers). The website states that Alexander was inspired to create the project by Freedomain Radio — a channel by Canadian blogger Stephan Molyneux, who is quite scandalous in the English-speaking world and is only occasionally mentioned by Mikhail Svetov in the Russian-speaking one. I am practically unfamiliar with the content of Molyneux’s ideas, except for a very laconic Wikipedia page, so I will not attempt to judge the continuity between Elesev and Molyneux in ideological terms.

Alexander himself pushes two main ideas in his videos and articles:

  • The root of state violence toward people lies in domestic violence. As violence in families is phased out, violence in society as a whole also decreases. Therefore, it is extremely important to raise one’s own offspring in a non-violent manner and spread this idea as widely as possible.
  • The rationality of society’s organization, its ability to develop and overcome prejudices, is directly linked to the average IQ in that very society. IQ, meanwhile, is far more determined by heredity than by education. Therefore, practices such as limiting immigration from disadvantaged countries, the absence of support for dysfunctional families, and encouraging birth rates among the intellectual elite are beneficial for society.

As his primary method, Alexander uses “reasoning from first principles,” in other words, deduction in the spirit of Rothbard. At the same time, as we see from the IQ case, he tends to trust research in the natural sciences and draw conclusions about the desired organization of society based on them, which is dangerously close to various scientistic social engineering practices so popular in the 20th century. Ideas of spontaneous orders and an evolutionary approach are not close to him, as far as I can judge.

Alexander lives in the USA, so this point should be kept in mind when he discusses Russian events. On the other hand, his videos concerning American problems specifically are very interesting.

In general, I subscribed to his YouTube channel, but I decided not to subscribe to the Telegram — there is too much ephemeral content there for my taste, and I am already close to the limit of my perception capabilities; I have to be very careful with subscriptions so as not to spend too much energy on scrolling. But of course, you decide for yourselves. In any case, among Russian-language channels, this is a fairly unique and quite pleasant example of such a slightly naive liberal-conservatism.

the title video on the Dobroum channel — apparently, it is intended that this should be watched first

Deterrence is not war

Bitarch, Ancap-tyan

Every time we mention the deterrence doctrine, it sparks a discussion. The first time, we spoke with the host of the Antistate channel, and now it has caught the attention of Alexander Elesev, the host of the Dobroum channel. Thus, the idea is controversial, and it is worth continuing to provide clarity, but not for too long, so that the reader does not get bored.

Alexander is far from the first person to voice this reproach: “You intend to fight the state; it’s useless, you will be declared terrorists and destroyed like the militants in Chechnya.”

However, the deterrence doctrine has nothing to do with war. If it can be used with the word “war” at all, then only as “cold.” The confrontation between the USSR and the USA in the 20th century, often called the “Cold War,” was in fact a manifestation of DD.

War is a conflict between several parties, the goal of which is to impose one’s will on the opponent. War is generally conducted by violent means (even if it is a cyberwar, there is an infringement on property). War can be waged until a peace treaty is concluded or until one of the parties completely loses its agency.

Deterrence is also a situation of conflict, but the main goal of deterrence is to make the use of aggressive violence disadvantageous for the opponent. Deterrence in itself is not violence, but only the threat of some damage, which may not be associated with violence at all, if we are talking, for example, about reputational damage. For example, you may not like that a gay couple is walking hand in hand, and you may want to throw filth at them. If they are unarmed, you will easily do so and receive moral satisfaction. But if they are armed, besides moral satisfaction, you have a non-illusory chance of catching a bullet. Weighing the benefits and costs, you will likely prefer not to interfere in other people’s affairs and send the filth you carefully prepared where it belongs: down the drain. Also, you might decide not to stand in the way of even unarmed gays if the name of the previous attacker is currently being dragged through the mud on every corner in the most unpleasant way. In this case, the fear of non-violent punishment will work as a deterrence mechanism.

Another important difference between DD and war: as long as deterrence takes place, there are winners, but no losers. Everyone continues to live their life, without violence and coercion to act, because deterrence is coercion to inaction. In the case we are discussing, when a person carries out secession and unilaterally exits the jurisdiction of the state, he does not overthrow the government and does not call for its overthrow. He does not interact with the state at all and suggests that state representatives reciprocate.

Let’s imagine this situation as a game and draw a simple matrix that describes this game:

If the official does not hinder the secession, his loss is minimal: from slight irritation to dismissal. If he successfully hinders it, the gain is also minimal: from slight moral satisfaction to a professional reward. If a person does not care about deterring the state but encounters no opposition, his gain is maximal. If he has to take deterrence measures and no opposition occurs, the gain decreases. Finally, if the person suffered from state opposition, or the official suffered as a result of the realization of the threat stated by the person, they lose to the maximum, and roughly to the same extent.

What can we see from this matrix?

If the game is a one-time event, then the person, wishing to maximize gain, relies on luck and applies no measures to deter the state. The official, however, wishing to maximize gain, hinders the secession and receives a reward from superiors.

If the game is repeated time and again with the same or new players, then the person more and more often incurs additional costs and chooses the deterrence doctrine, and the official, fearing this circumstance more and more, more and more often closes their eyes to the secession, preferring a small loss to a large one.

Nevertheless, there will still be free riders in society who prefer not to take any measures. If the officials are sufficiently frightened, the bluff will work.

An example of a similar game is the interaction between citizens who have the possibility of concealed carry and criminals. A weapon works as a tool of deterrence, and in a society where a citizen has the right to armed self-defense, violent crimes decrease. At the same time, unarmed free riders benefit from such a positive externality as increased safety, without spending on weapons themselves — but only as long as there are not too many of them.

A gun is a very compact and convenient deterrence tool against a person or a small group of people, but not against the state. That is exactly why we propose various more or less successful options for protection from the state, available both to organizations like ECU and to individuals.

Based on theoretical calculations that do not contradict historical examples, we indicate that the optimal deterrence doctrine against the state is the threat to specific functionaries who make decisions or execute them.

It is quite rightly pointed out to us that if the threat looks too intimidating, the state figures may take the risk of being under attack for a while and begin preventive purges, in other words, start a war. Similarly, harsh opposition to low-level security forces can cause a feeling of solidarity with fallen comrades. To minimize the danger of such an outcome, we suggest, first, to maximize the anonymity of those carrying out the threats, and second, to make threats non-lethal whenever possible, emphasizing ridicule and other types of humiliation, or, in the worst case, property damage. Here, one really wants to refer to the project announced recently by Alexander Litreev with the very telling name Russian Elephant. Alexander regularly deanonymizes various offenders in power, and it seems he now intends to put this on a conveyor belt.

And if we are to delve into philosophical generalizations, then maxims such as “live and let live” and “do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself” are not just good wishes. These are lines from a safety manual, written, as usual, in blood. This is the same kind of life wisdom as “don’t eat yellow snow” (remade by domestic meme-makers into “don’t eat yellow snack,” with an obvious reference to the NAP) — and this wisdom appeared precisely because people have successfully practiced the deterrence doctrine for many centuries.

If you have fresh interesting ideas about what non-violent threats and mechanisms for their implementation could be applied by a citizen against state employees of various ranks, share them in the comments or via DM. Authors of the most successful ideas can expect a reward in bitcoins.

Containment by “Dead Hand”

In May, Bitarch and I on one side, and Ved Neumann on the other, debated the applicability of the deterrence doctrine to ensure the secession of individuals from the state. Here is a description of the doctrine, and here is a summary article, which also briefly recounts the course of the discussion.

A frequent criticism of the described doctrine was that it remains unknown whether the threat against the key functionaries of the aggressor state will actually be carried out, while the death of a citizen seeking secession could be very swift, leaving them no time to organize retribution. Moreover, if they openly insure themselves somewhere, a sad fate might await the insurance company as well, as a warning against fulfilling various anti-state contracts.

Therefore, today we will talk a bit about how a citizen can ensure the implementation of individual deterrence without putting any outsiders at risk.

The dead hand principle is a kind of threat against a potential aggressor that will be executed only if the potential victim perishes. The most vivid embodiment is a grenade with the pin pulled, held in the very much living hand of the potential victim. Their death will lead to the dead hand relaxing and an explosion occurring. Clearly, a threat based on this principle can be scaled quite arbitrarily, up to a system implementing the automatic launch of intercontinental nuclear missiles in the event of an attack by a potential adversary, without waiting for special commands from a potentially already destroyed command post.

One could fantasize about purely engineering solutions in the spirit of the 20th century that would provide such a threat scheme for a person against the state leadership—for example, by pre-mining residences, deploying rocket launchers, or programmed combat drones, but all this looks disproportionately expensive, clumsy, and unreliable. Our information age implies a slightly different style.

For example, with the appearance of bitcoins, decentralized death betting markets became quite feasible, which is a veiled form of a contract killing. The mechanism is roughly as follows.

On a website that accepts bets on certain events that may or may not happen in real life (for instance, implemented on the Augur protocol), a potential victim of state aggression can place a bet on the death of a certain government official. The size of the bet must be large enough to tempt someone to ensure that very death. The money is bet on the fact that this official already died on some day in the past, which is obviously untrue; therefore, when the official actually dies, this bet will lose, and the winner of the wager will receive it. After the bet is placed, a potential hitman only needs to choose a day to execute the order, bet that the target will die on that specific day, then commit the murder, wait for the oracles to notify the system, receive their winnings, and carefully cash them out. This wager is our grenade, but a dead hand mechanism must still be organized.

One could take a more sophisticated route and place another bet on the same market, this time on one’s own death. If this bet wins, it triggers a smart contract that then places the bet on the official’s death. But it could be simpler: a smart contract that places a bet on the official’s death is given a delayed launch and triggers if it does not receive a cancellation code in time. That’s it; now you can notify the official that, unfortunately, if I accidentally die, your precious life is in great danger, so you had better treat me with the utmost care.

Of course, the more complex the predictions the service allows, the more carefully and moderately the impact can be planned. For example, the trigger could be not only death, but also arrest, and the threat not only death, but the burning of a house, or some other non-lethal nuisance (the most elegant thing I’ve come across was an order to spray a powerful odorant in an official’s residence; a house thoroughly stinking of mercaptans is no longer fit for habitation or sale, yet no one dies even accidentally).

Naturally, to undertake these non-trivial measures, a person must be sufficiently wealthy, but this does not require exorbitant riches, so the task is quite manageable.

Containment Doctrine: An Attempt to Summarize

The discussion on the deterrence doctrine, conducted by Bitarch and me on one side, and the Anti-State public on the other, continues.

To ensure you don’t get confused, here is the backstory:
1. Deterrence Doctrine — Coercion to Non-Aggression. Ancap-tyan, May 8, additions made May 14.
2. Regarding the Deterrence Doctrine. Ved, May 9 (response to the first edition of the original article).
3. Again on the “Deterrence Doctrine” and Coercion to NAP. Ved, May 16 (response to the second edition of the original article).
4. Deterrence Doctrine, Response to Criticism. Bitarch, May 17.
and finally, the latest:
5. A Bit About Democracy, the Deterrence Doctrine, and Politi-ECU. Ved, May 26.

1. I described the development of the idea of a deterrence doctrine, namely, the prevention of war by designating a threat that is unacceptable to the adversary. It was argued that the only unacceptable threat to a total modern state is a threat to its leaders, whereas threats to the economy, infrastructure, army, and ordinary citizens do not prevent war and may even, conversely, lead to a total conflict until one of the parties is completely destroyed.

2, 3. Ved responded that the elimination of a leader leads either to their replacement while maintaining the previous course, or to the collapse of the state, or to the “deep state” replacing public policy—and a reversal of democracy would not be beneficial for us. Furthermore, a habit of terror tactics is fraught with danger: one gets used to them, begins using this tool left and right, like Daenerys with her “dracarys,” and then it turns out that for people, you are worse than any state. Now, crypto-anarchists are a different story: they develop their Bitcoin completely non-violently, and nothing can be opposed to them.

4. Bitarch countered that for the formation of corporate-type contractual jurisdictions—that is, rather providers of government services—the deterrence doctrine is perhaps indeed not very suitable. However, political-type contractual jurisdictions—that is, rather providers of a lifestyle, such as Catholic, liberal, or transhumanist ECUs—are characterized by greater motivation among their members and will therefore be more inclined to use force. Here, the deterrence doctrine would act as the lesser evil, since within its framework, force is only demonstrated.

5. Finally, Ved, in his rather detailed article, pointed out that not only is the service of “unacceptable damage through guaranteed destruction of leaders” migrating from a luxury category available only to superpowers into the mass segment as technology evolves, but services like a convenient flag, offshore jurisdictions, etc., will also become cheaper and penetrate business practice more widely, regardless of how large states try to fight it. Therefore, systematic political activity to develop alternatives to territorial states will yield the desired result without any waving of the deterrence doctrine.

As usual, when several intelligent people discuss correctly, it turns out they are talking about roughly the same thing, just from slightly different positions. Indeed, state leaders are unlikely to accept that some private individuals dare to threaten their power. For them, this is a familiar terrorist threat, and they will fight it with familiar anti-terrorist methods. Therefore, it is important not only that state aggression against private individuals is punished by damage to the leaders of the aggressor state. It is also important to convey to the aggressor the idea that this is specifically an interstate conflict, a conflict between equal subjects of law, which cannot be resolved unilaterally, even if it initially looked like the simple dismantling of an offshore platform.

Therefore, in a hypothetical conflict in the Andaman Sea, a contractual jurisdiction wishing to fulfill a contract for protection against aggression from the Kingdom of Thailand must clearly state that the married couple who purchased the platform are its citizens, and aggression against them is a casus belli; the conflict can be settled in an international court, but if Thailand refuses, there will be war. This is done not out of simple satisfaction of a sense of justice, but to expand the understanding of the state and state jurisdiction.

Without negotiations, it will be impossible to create a precedent. But without an explicit threat, there will be no negotiations. State representatives will simply refuse to recognize the contractual jurisdiction as a state, and therefore, as a subject of international law.

One might object that the resources of a state and a private company are incomparable, but that is a strange argument. First, they might be comparable. Second, it is like with computing power. If a laptop is sufficient for a specific task, the fact that the state has a supercomputer at its disposal does not give it a serious advantage. In other words, the deterrence doctrine begins to work precisely when the price becomes affordable for people. In this situation, individual statesmen may show off a bit, but they will quickly realize that the most profitable strategy is to be “sweeties” and truly safeguard the interests of people. As if the good old territorial state were no worse than the trendy ECUs.

Ved writes about the expansion of the practice of offshore jurisdictions, but as we see, existing offshores are quite helpless against political pressure from large powers. Even Switzerland allowed its arms to be twisted—first in the sphere of banking regulation, and recently in questions of special tax regimes for foreign companies (thus largely losing its ability to be a convenient contractual jurisdiction). What can be said about somewhere like Cyprus? Meanwhile, the use of the deterrence doctrine could help an offshore protect itself from political pressure by traditional states.

The movement toward the desired future, in which the monopoly of territorial states on aggressive violence will be trampled and the sovereignty of the individual, conversely, will triumph, occurs along several vectors simultaneously, and arguments over which one is the only important one, or which are not needed at all, smell of sheer preference. Some people undermine the territoriality of states by creating extraterritorial analogues. Others undermine the ability of states to rob people through monetary emission and develop the cryptocurrency industry. A third group undermines the monopoly on violence itself by making weapons cheap, precise, and stealthy, to launch the deterrence doctrine and prevent the doctrine of total war.

This can be viewed in different ways, but progress in this direction is already happening, and nothing can be done about it. It is within our power only to formulate a doctrine for the use of new means of warfare to minimize damage and maximize benefit. The doctrine consists of justified political demands backed by the threat of destroying the adversary’s leaders, which can be illustrated by non-lethal demonstrations.

The doctrine of tank wedges. Once very progressive)))

Containment Doctrine, Response to Criticism

Bitarch’s Column

The admin of the “Anti-state” public page Ved Neumann wrote a critical review of the article co-authored by Ancap-chan and me titled “Containment Doctrine — Coercion to Non-Aggression“.

I want to immediately point out the main point of his review, as all subsequent criticism will be based on this fact. Ved does not account for the difference between corporate (CorpETU) and ideological (PolitETU) jurisdiction providers. He himself is a supporter of the former, which is why a clear bias toward them is evident. CorpETU is a “cyberpunk world,” meaning ETUs that prioritize economic calculation and financial gain. PolitETU are, in essence, ideologized extraterritorial states where the criteria for membership are political views, culture, or religion. Examples could be socialist, Marxist, Catholic, Orthodox, traditionalist, transhumanist, or liberal ETUs.

The differences between CorpETU and PolitETU are vast, including the willingness to sacrifice one’s life, renounce habitual comfort, and the likelihood of attracting the majority of the ETUand population (who are not libertarians). These differences are well-described in Oleg Tarakanov’s article “Not Ancap: The Difference Between Extraterritorial States and Private Security Companies“.

Brief conclusion: Ved is completely right regarding the inapplicability of the containment doctrine (CD) to CorpETU (he promotes panarchy with an emphasis on them, so he thinks with some bias), but CD can certainly be used to “divide” the state into PolitETUs.

Next, I will try to analyze some points of this review separately.

> “The difference implicitly implied by you (which in fact is not a difference, as any separatist groups count on the same thing) is that people will consider your actions just and will not view you as terrorists and crazy psychopaths. But this is just another delusion, stemming from the fact that you think many different people can be convinced of the justice of some single ethical theory or political paradigm. ‘Since I believe in something, others believe in it or will believe if I tell them about it.’ They will not believe. Even without considering propaganda, they will not believe. For the absolute overwhelming majority of people, the state is not something bad, evil, a monopoly on violence, or even some single subject of social relations that needs to be opposed for some reason. Which is fair, because it is not such a subject — all this is merely a conceptual simplification, based moreover on a certain set of axioms. But more on this later.”

Polls show exactly the opposite — trust in the state is constantly declining even in developed countries like the USA, and is currently at a minimum level, while the polarization of views is at a maximum. This is excellent soil for the legitimization of PolitETU in the eyes of the majority of the population. Of course, a powerful advertising campaign is needed.

Supporters of the nation-state and democracy were also considered crazy at first, and a decade later it became a mainstream idea. The same can be said about the abolition of slavery.

> “If the system is fragile (very authoritarian with a strong power vertical tied to one person), then with the removal of this person, everything will simply collapse like a house of cards and a civil war will begin. It is not clear how the formation of ten warring Thailands in place of Thailand will help the hypothetical systeders; most likely, sooner or later, not one army, but two or three will come to them, and they will be much more aggressive. It is also unclear how this will help the establishment of ancap or ETU anywhere else. Local residents will definitely not be grateful to ancaps.”

In the original article, the emphasis was placed on the protection of extraterritorial sovereignty, and these systeders (who tried to create a very small but territorial state) were cited only as an interesting example. CD is indeed applicable mainly for the creation of ETUs, but not for territorial separatism.

Ancaps and CorpETUs might not be welcomed in a hypothetical Thailand immediately. But there are certainly ideological disagreements there, and they could become a good basis for turning Thailand not into ten new territorial states, but into, say, five PolitETUs.

> “More to come. How do you intend to define the target for your attack or your influence? Every state system consists of thousands of functionaries, and it is practically impossible to figure out who among them is an important actor by observing from the outside. By being interested in politics, we know a few dozen key figures in the Russian establishment, and often these are not the people that foreign journalists would notice (Indeed, how do you understand whether Milonov, Mizulina, or the head of Roskomnadzor possess real power?). And what about neighboring Turkey? How much do you know about the actors in Erdogan’s government and the balance of power in their country? What about New Guinea or Ecuador?”

On one hand, I want to point out that the victim always knows best where to direct the retribution, so even if it is decentralized, it will be targeted accurately enough; on the other hand, for a deterrent effect, indirect involvement of the object of retribution in the aggression is sufficient — for example, it could be one of the deputies who voted for a repressive norm, or a key government contractor whose affiliation is beyond doubt, even if some details remain in the shadows.

> “What such terrorist activity can really do is harm democracy by redistributing power between public and non-public figures in the governments of many countries (As we saw after September 11, 2001).”

It is worth distinguishing between terrorist activity (against the civilian population) and extremist activity (against the state). Extremism will most likely look positive in the eyes of the population (as I noted earlier, the majority of the population even in wealthy countries now hates the state). As for the destruction of democracy, it only plays into the hands of libertarians, as it legitimizes the territorial monopoly of the state.

> “And finally, it is simply madness to fight a knowingly stronger opponent using his own methods.”

What “same” methods?! The opponent is territorial; his objects are fixed and located in the same places. ETUs, however, are not tied to a territory, and an attempt to arrest even one member of an ETU will likely lead to huge collateral casualties (which is unacceptable damage for the authorities).

> “The success of Bitcoin is that it is a completely new technology that the state system has never encountered and has no idea what to do with.”

Nevertheless, the state has unerringly figured out how to maximize the difficulty of wide Bitcoin adoption and, if it wishes, easily declares its use for purchasing legal goods illegal. Law-abiding citizens are forced to remain in fiat for everyday purchases. Similarly, the state can hinder the activities of extraterritorial jurisdictions in areas where people are forced to act openly and offline. But this defensive tactic is unable to bring the state victory, both in the case of Bitcoin and in the case of ETU.

> “It is impossible to forbid performing mathematical calculations on your own computer (which is what it was originally intended for), which means it is impossible to forbid mining. It is also impossible to forbid the exchange of data about the results of these calculations (how do you imagine that?), which can happen even offline, which means the circulation of Bitcoin cannot be forbidden. Because it is not money. Blockchain can be camouflaged as something as far removed from money as possible, so that not even the most absurd regulation can do anything to it without simultaneously forbidding the Internet and computers. This is exactly the point of Bitcoin. And this is exactly how the confrontation with the state should look — through technical and intellectual superiority over its slow and clumsy system, using all its flaws and weaknesses inseparable from the state, filling all the gaps in the legal, political, and economic system. And finally, creating an alternative that is impossible within the framework of the existing state system, but surpasses it in all parameters.”

I completely agree here. Projects like Bitnation will greatly help the creation of ETUs.

> “And in the maximum volume, having achieved success, you will simply become ‘another intelligence agency,’ i.e., another machine of violence and another Gestapo, deciding who lives and who does not.”

Even if we consider a “hard scenario” (bloody meat grinder, realization of the futility of war, emergence of tolerance for people with different views, renunciation of territorial monopoly and the creation of competing ETUs), which is unlikely given the global trend toward humanization, the result will be a panarchy with peacefully coexistng people of various views, and by no means “another Gestapo.” History has a great example of such a transition — the emergence of tolerance toward non-believers and peaceful coexistence with them on one territory after the Reformation and the subsequent religious wars.