The Future Character of Conflict published by the British Defence Ministry outlines potential terror attacks in next 20 years.

It states:

The merging of state proxies, extremist ideologies and criminal interests into a toxic cocktail, along with the effects of globalisation, such as more porous borders, will make some non-state actors harder to counteract…

They could employ a wide spectrum of military capabilities, albeit some at a limited scale, but they will nevertheless be capable of innovative tactics that exploit inherent UK vulnerabilities.

The report goes on to say how social networking sites would be vehicles for rapidly spreading conflict from region to region, and the increasing technological advancement of former developing countries like China can rival or surpass the defence capabilities of the UK.

A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

While this could be very likely be true, the emphasis of this report is on violence…as if conflict necessarily has to be expressed through violence.

Social networks provide a new way of expressing conflict — through dialogue. It is much harder to bomb the crap out a person if we’re carrying out a Tweet conversation with him, or suicide bomb one of our friends or fans in Facebook.

I know from personal experience that within a few tweets on Twitter, I’ve already formed a new friend, and already learned a new perspective.  And these new networks are spreading around the globe, crossing geographic borders, incredibly fast, allowing conflict to be addressed through dialogue.

I myself feel like governmental and geographical borders are losing relevance…conflict addressed through dialogue rather than terror cocktails is what’s bound to happen. Conflict is unsustainable with the momentum of such bridging.

Of course, we shall see whether destruction or dialogue wins out in the end.  My bet is, given a few years, dialogue will prevail.

(transferred from globalpov.blogspot.com to perspectivemapper.com)