Foreign Affairs 2091

FOREIGN AFFAIRS, SEPTEMBER 2091

Requiem of the human soul

Excerpt: Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs

September 2091

Defending America's Homeland: The Genetic Solution

Dr. Henry Wallright

The author, who has served in two Homeland Party administrations as National Security Advisor, presents his case for incorporating required genetic modification ("RGM") as part of the set of proposed constitutional changes in the upcoming Homeland Security Bill of Rights.

It was nearly one hundred years ago, this month, that the first warning shot came across the bows of the American ship of state, telling the people of our great country they were not invulnerable to the currents of global history. On September 11, 2001, a Muslim fundamentalist group, known as Al-Qaeda, perpetrated what, at that time, was the greatest act of terrorism against the American people. Two thousand innocent American civilians were killed as two hijacked planes were flown into the World Trade Center, in those days a symbol of America's global power.

This event occurred in the mid-point of what is now nostalgically referred to as America's Century - that began with the end of the Second World War and ended with the nuclear devastation of Columbus. At the time, legislators and media in our country believed their response to "September 11" , as it became known, was adequate. A series of Patriot Acts were passed. The Department of Homeland Defense was created. However, as the decades passed, the pendulum swung back towards the reassuring truisms of earlier times.

The mistake made by the administrations of the early twenty-first century was to view American's vulnerability to a nuclear terrorist attack through the lens of Islamic extremism. This was understandable, given that "September 11" was perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists, but it was a tragic error. By the mid-twenty first century, the threat of Islamic fundamentalism was fading. However, America's vulnerability to nuclear terrorism remained high, while a new generation of Americans forgot the terrible lessons that September 11 had taught them.

By the middle of the twenty-first century, a new threat had arisen, which our leaders ignored until the nuclear catastrophe of Columbus forced them – too late - to acknowledge it. This threat, as we now know, was the rising expectations of the developing countries as they began to compete with the developed world for an ever-shrinking pool of global resources. When the Class Action to Rectify Global Injustice ("CARGI") began to develop global momentum, the United States was too comfortable in its hegemony to realize the impact this movement could have on its security. Our leaders looked at the growing middle classes of the developing world, and saw only rising prosperity and greater global integration. They failed to see that the poorer underclasses of the developing countries were being left further behind and that these groups, instead of blaming their own local governments, were blaming the world order that had left them out, and ultimately, the driving force behind that world order – the United States.

The nuclear bomb that devastated Columbus, Ohio in 2063 finally taught a lesson to the American people they should have learned two generations earlier. This was the defining moment of our century. It pointed out the true vulnerability of a society that based its constitutional foundations on the concept of liberty rather than security. From this moment on, America's global hegemony was over. The United States had experienced the first military defeat in its history. Our leaders had no choice but to back down and succumb to the threat of more nuclear terror.

What was the lesson, then, that our country had tragically failed to learn? Quite simply, that in a world of nuclear proliferation, security and individual liberty are irreconcilable concepts. A country can have one or the other, but not both. Until Columbus , the United States chose liberty over security, and we paid the price dearly. Since Columbus, we have come to terms with the modern age, and have succeeded in securing our homeland from further terrorist outrages.

The people of the United States have grown up. We have had to learn that sacrifices of individual liberty are necessary, that the Founding Fathers lived in a different world where ideals of liberty were consistent with – not antagonist to – the security of the people. We are finally at a stage where the individual's right to security will soon be enshrined in the U.S. Constitution above all other rights. With these changes, our country will be ready to face the future with confidence.

Or will it? Are we in danger of making that classic military mistake of "fighting the last war"? We are inexorably slipping into a new form of world war that is engulfing the globe, a war being fought in new arenas, and once again we need to make the difficult decisions now. If we wait two generations, like our predecessors did after September 11, we are in danger of suffering a global defeat even beyond the proportions of Columbus .

In this new global war, it is axiomatic that our enemy is China. More controversial, however, is identifying the new arenas where the war is being fought. A generation ago, China's leaders realized that genetic modification was the most powerful military weapon that has ever become available to a nation – even more powerful than nuclear technology. Nuclear weapons have their structural limitations – the threat of retaliation; the development of satellite-based missile shields. Genetic modification, on the other hand, has the ability to create a nation militarily superior to other nations in the most important sphere of all – the human sphere.

Twenty-five years ago, China enacted legislation requiring that any genetic enhancements must incorporate a set of four genetic modifications. These had been identified by China's leadership as fundamental to creating a generation of super-warriors, capable of dominating the globe militarily and economically. The four enhancements were: prioritizing both the core aggression gene set and the doctrinal belief gene set in the genetic hierarchy; increasing average IQ; and speeding up instinctual reaction time. In the minds of China's leaders, this would lead to a generation of designer babies, now known as d-2 babies, who would grow up to be unyielding Chinese patriots, aggressively pursuing the country's goals, leading the world technologically and beating its enemies in the heat of battle.

While China was planning for a new generation capable of global dominance, here in the United States we were busy on legislation to permit Americans to choose the nature of their offspring according to our cherished values of the free market and individual liberty. While a generation of d-2 warriors were being born to Chinese parents, American parents were spending their money making Kelly Hendrick and Hal Burton the wealthiest two individuals in history, creating a generation of beautiful women and strong, good-looking men, incapable of competing with their Chinese counterparts.

In the simplest terms, while we in the United States looked at the new powers of genetic optimization in terms of freedom and choice, the Chinese leadership saw these powers in terms of military and economic global domination.

Now, the first of the d-2 generation are becoming adults and the choices made by our respective nations are only too apparent. It is not an exaggeration to say that global leadership is now, literally, in the Chinese DNA.

The leadership of all of our nations will, in the future, rest in the hands of these d-2 optimized humans. In recognition of this, Pew Global Research recently compared the characteristics of d-2s, aged between 18 and 21, in the major nations of the world. Their results are predictable – and disturbing. The average IQ of China's d-2 population is 14% higher than their counterparts in the U.S. Their instinctual response time is 18% faster. In anonymous answers to its questionnaire, 96% of Chinese d-2s said that they would "be prepared to die for their country" versus only 36% of American d-2s.

These are not mere statistics. They are already flowing into the realities of our lives. China's top universities no longer accept candidates unless their DNA has undergone required genetic modification ("RGM"). Furthermore, while it is difficult to conceive in a country as militaristic as China, two years ago the Chinese administration abolished the draft. Their military is so overwhelmed by top d-2 applicants that they are able to select only the most highly qualified. Our own experience in the United States , by contrast, is only too well-known. Twenty years ago, the first Homeland Administration was forced to re-introduce the draft because of the inability of the military to attract and retain enough troops to meet our global military commitments.

China's ever-increasing lead is far more than an issue of national pride – it is ultimately a struggle for global dominance in the next century, a struggle that the U.S. is steadily losing to its faster, stronger rival.

As a nation, we need to understand the new realities of the current world order: economic power, military power and the genetic make-up of our citizens are all integrated into one vast battle for global supremacy. This is a battle that the United States is in serious danger of losing to China unless we take immediate and bold steps. In Southern Africa, General Tobo's troops are committing outrage upon outrage, and the civilized world is unable to prevent further atrocities because of Tobo's links with China. Europe is in paralysis, terrified of the economic risks of taking sides against the Chinese powerhouse: they can no longer be viewed as our committed allies in this global struggle. Japan, our strongest and closest ally, is increasingly threatened by the possibility of another Chinese stranglehold, repeating the experience of China's economic conquest of Taiwan.

Looking back at our period, historians will identify this decade as the beginning of the greatest ever struggle for global dominance. Year by year, we are slipping from economic and cultural hostility with China into military conflict. The use of tactical nuclear weapons in more than one of the current regional conflicts is imminent. The United States must be on a total war footing if we are to avoid the 22 nd . century becoming the "century of the dragon".

As a result of the efforts of successive Homeland Party administrations, we are now investing appropriate amounts in our military to maintain leadership in this arena. The missing factor, however, is the genetic make-up of the American people. We must ensure that the next generation of Americans is capable of defending our nation's interests against the Chinese bid for global supremacy. The only way of achieving this is to implement immediately the policy of required genetic modification that the Chinese introduced a generation ago.

An American RGM program would parallel that already introduced successfully by the Chinese government. It would compel American parents who choose d2 enhancement for their offspring to incorporate the "American Homeland" panel into their other genetic choices. The panel would, like the Chinese RGM, include a dominant role for the core aggression and the doctrinal belief gene sets, along with an increase in IQ and a faster instinctual reaction time. Many parents already find these genetic enhancements attractive for their children.

Atavistic liberal critics have fought against the introduction of RGM in the United States for two decades, arguing that it is a violation of the right to privacy enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. These arguments echo the liberal denunciations of increased Homeland security earlier this century, prior to Columbus. In those heady days, mainstream Americans still believed our nation's security could be maintained without disturbing the civil liberties that had been our national tradition since the birth of our country. The complaints of the liberal critics compromised the efforts to improve Homeland security for decades, leading to the disaster of Columbus. We cannot afford another compromise in the struggle to maintain our nation's leadership in an increasingly hostile world.

Within the next year, we can expect passage of the Homeland Security Bill of Rights, at which point the Supreme Court will be empowered to give priority to the security of our citizens above all other rights enshrined in the original constitution. We can then begin implementation of RGM and prepare a new generation of Americans to defend against the Chinese threat.

After Columbus, Americans finally acknowledged that their inalienable right to security was incompatible with the individual liberties they had enjoyed in the past. At this point in our nation's history, we need to accept a new version of this lesson before it is too late. We cannot fail our children and permit them to grow up in a world dominated by Chinese power. With the implementation of RGM, we can look forward to a future for the United States where we maintain our nation's global leadership and continue to fight for the values of democracy and freedom over the tyranny that would be imposed by a Chinese global hegemony.

[Copyright note: The name Foreign Affairs is used by permission of the Council on Foreign Relations. The article published under the name Foreign Affairs is an entirely fictional creation and should in no way be viewed as representing the current or future views of Foreign Affairs.]

Requiem of the human soul