Pentagon Video Warns of “Unavoidable” Dystopian Future for World’s Biggest Cities

(The Intercept obtained a video from Special Ops University (funny huh?) which claims the world will be a horrible dystopian nightmare for most of the world’s population by 2030 so they have to retool the military to deal with this new urban warfare model. The video itself is unremarkable and the forecast is certainly lacking in statistical integrity. But it is interesting for three different points:

1. The enemy of all national armies in the future are the poor huddled masses left behind as a by-product of neoliberal economic ideology. And this video seems to suggest a large percentage of those unfortunate populations amount to not much more than biological waste which needs to be eradicated like one wipes out an infestation of cockroaches.
2. The students watching this at Special Ops U. are clearly being brainwashed into thinking they are somehow being entrusted with this “special knowledge” of the future of mankind and are being tasked with the awesome responsibility of that privileged insight. This builds the much needed elitist mentality among these young soldiers and the even more important “us verses them” outlook toward… poor people from their own countries.
3. It is an “unavoidable” future we face.

You should know: Special Ops are the guys who run irregular and unconventional warfare operations like what happened in Libya and what is happening in Syria. Fact is, they create dystopian landscapes like the ones pictured in the video, they don’t simply respond to them. And they do it on behalf of the major banking cartels of the world who benefit most from the imposition of neoliberal economic austerity programs which also create such horrors. So I guess this video is just a Special Ops guy outlining a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What is scariest about this video is when I think about how many other members of special police forces or tactical units over the decades across the globe have viewed similar films or videos. The Tonton Macoute, Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, Battalion 3–16 , Esquadrão da Morte, Caravan of Death, Freikorps, Grey Wolves , SAVAK  … these are all James Steel/School of the Americans types of ‘special” forces who’s main targets were always the dissidents of the poor underclasses of various nations who opposed the horrors of the world they found themselves in. Seems to me this video is straight out of School of the Americas and unfortunately, it’s being used as a teaching tool for our soldiers now. )

by Nick Turse, Intercept

The year is 2030. Forget about the flying cars, robot maids, and moving sidewalks we were promised. They’re not happening. But that doesn’t mean the future is a total unknown.

According to a startling Pentagon video obtained by The Intercept, the future of global cities will be an amalgam of the settings of “Escape from New York” and “Robocop” — with dashes of the “Warriors” and “Divergent” thrown in. It will be a world of Robert Kaplan-esque urban hellscapes — brutal and anarchic supercities filled with gangs of youth-gone-wild, a restive underclass, criminal syndicates, and bands of malicious hackers.

At least that’s the scenario outlined in “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” a five-minute video that has been used at the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations University. All that stands between the coming chaos and the good people of Lagos and Dhaka (or maybe even New York City) is the U.S. Army, according to the video, which The Intercept obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.

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