Pager Blasts: Transformation of Threat

An Analysis
In Lebanon 11 people were killed in pager blasts and 3000 were injured on Wednesday in Lebanon.
The pager blasts is yet another surprise for the world. It is major transformation in warfare. The lethality of modern military equipment and artificial intelligence ( AI) , invention of drones, has eased the surveillance and recognition of targets. Advances in communication and AI, compel us to deliberate how modern warfare will bring devastation to human kind.
Internet and social media is already in use to target the will of the nation. Public opinion is being manufactured through proliferation of fake content, hate speech and by enhancing economic constraints through international institutions. Cyber warfare is already in play to achieve intended objectives. In warfare history, single individual has never been a target, it was always mass destruction. Pager attack, add complexity to ongoing conflicts and increases fear of society and state decreases trust on global system. Creating chaos through information warfare and Paralyzing human with such a precision an accuracy to inflict desired harm is catastrophic for peace and sanity.
Present global order has failed to provide relief to 8 billion people of the world.
Russia-Ukraine & Israel-Palestine war, stand off between Israel-Iran, China-Taiwan, US- Venezuela, and dozens of other small ongoing conflicts, established sanctuaries of terrorist in Afghanistan are reflection of big power’s failure to shape the global order. Russian-Ukraine war has already contributed significantly to create road blocks for energy needs of Asia and also EU major economies. It also raised concern for food security. Israel-Palestine war is third big blow after corona to global economy in last four years. It is biggest human made crisis in last one decade which will have compound effect on future-geo-politics.
Big powers’ clash has already entered into an advance stage with 159 countries in BRICKS, about to announce a common currency to replace petrodollar.
Human crisis has been increasing ever since cold war transited into war against terrorism. Already almost 90 million refugees in the world. During last one year one billion people witnessed severe hunger.
Year 2023 was worst for effects of climate hazards
Information warfare resulted into information disorder and cyber warfare has already started impacting human lives in many ways: disruption in banking, air traffic, energy flow, railway etc.UN role in all these crisis has been only of a commentator. Global institutional like UN, IMF and World Bank have proved to be ineffective and destabilizers. Parallel international system is emerging. In the contest of Titans, humans will be navigating in two opposing worlds.
The great game being played in Indo- Pacific regions, has provided India an opportunity to align itself with forces who were in search of opportunities to twist Pakistan’s arm. India has been able to side with those forces , to indirectly enforce economic constraints on Pakistan.
Our strategic culture needs to be modified to counter our adversaries’ efforts to exploit weak links in our political culture which promoted fissures. Harmony among political objectives can neutralize all threats emanating from our eastern adversary, western borders, technological advances, and great game being played in asia pacific and indo-pacific regions.
Information has emerged new but extremely significant norm in global politics. Digital media is shaping and breaking public opinion which are founding stones of governance and organised society.
90% of data, in existence today, has been created between 2021 – 2023. Digital information has become so entrenched in all aspects of our lives and society, that the recent growth in information production appears unstoppable. Each day on Earth we generate 500 million tweets, 294 billion emails, 4 million gigabytes of FB, 65 billion whatsapp messages and 720000 of new content daily on youtube.
This explosion of data creation underpins deep shifts in how we live, work, and interact with technology. Volume of data has resulted into complexities in its use as well as security of data.
According to the latest estimates, 402.74 million terabytes of data are created each day. (“Created” includes data that is newly generated, captured, copied, or consumed). In zettabytes, that equates to around 147 zettabytes per year, around 12 zettabytes per month, 2.8 zettabytes per week, or 0.4 zettabytes every day.
Here’s the big answer. According to IDC, the overall global datasphere reached 64 zettabytes in 2020. Some surprising findings in that report include: IoT data is the fastest-growing data segment, followed by social media.
A zetabyte is about a trillion gigabytes. One zettabyte is equal to one sextillion bytes or 1021(1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) bytes, or, one zettabyte is equal to a trillion gigabytes.
On average, our brains can receive up to 9,504,000 bits of information daily, calculated by multiplying the rate of 110 bits per second by the number of
In 2018 the total amount of data created, captured, copied and consumed in the world was 33 zettabytes (ZB) – the equivalent of 33 trillion gigabytes. This grew to 59ZB in 2020 and is predicted to reach a mind-boggling 175ZB by 2025. One zettabyte is 8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits.
To help visualise these numbers, let’s imagine that each bit is a £1 coin, which is around 3mm (0.1 inches) thick. One ZB made up of a stack of coins would be 2,550 lightyears. This can get you to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, 600 times. Currently, each year we produce 59 times that amount of data and the estimated compound growth rate is around 61%.
Most digital information is stored in three types of location. First is the global collection of what are called endpoints, which include all internet of things devices, PCs, smartphones and all other information storage devices. Second is the edge, which includes infrastructure such as cell towers, institutional servers and offices, such as universities, government offices, banks and factories. Third, most of the data is stored in what’s known as the core – traditional data servers and cloud data centres.
There are around 600 hyper scale data centres   ones with over 5,000 servers – in the world. Around 39% of them are in the US, while China, Japan, UK, Germany and Australia account for about 30% of the total.
The largest data servers in the world are China Telecom Data Centre, in Hohhot, China, which occupies 10.7 million square feet and the citadel in Tahoe Reno, Nevada, which occupies 7.2 million square feet and uses 815 megawatts of power.
To meet the ever-growing demand for digital data storage, around 100 new hyperscale data centres are built every two years. My recent study examined these trends and concluded that, at a 50% annual growth rate, around 150 years from now the number of digital bits would reach an impossible value, exceeding the number of all atoms on Earth. About 110 years from now, the power required to sustain this digital production will exceed the total planetary power consumption today.
As of 2023, China remains the leading market by the number of internet users in the world, followed by India and the United States. Overall, East Asia is the region with the highest number of internet users worldwide, whereas Northern Europe has the highest internet penetration rate.
Pakistan is vulnerable due to its prolonged political uncertainty , economic situation, energy shortfall, polarisation
Pakistan needs correct assessment of situation and adoption of policy both on foreign and domestic front.
Yoval Nova Herari, in his new book “Nexus”, criticises populist politics and says ” populists” use information as a weapons. But he misses the blatant repression and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Herari’s view of creation of networks due to information is very much relevant. Nexus is indeed the root cause of societies.
With every conflict, nature of media has also transformed.
Rise is communication technology challenged the persuasive power of political leaders.
Cold war ended giving rise to war against terrorism. Media proliferated with bigger changes in production industry and cable entertainment platforms. Fox, Disney, Sony, HBO, CBS, ESPN, etc occupied the center stage. Also fifty media companies run by 250 editorial executives were having control over entire content.
USSR disintegrated and cold war transformed into war against terrorism. That was beginning of 21st century. Internet and digital technology expanded like oceans. Capitalism gave rise to free market and multinational emerged new kings of the world.
Media transformed into digital domain and Twitter, FB, Google took over the duty of persuasion of masses.
War against terrorism is now taking new form “cyber warfare”, through hidden and virtual techniques.
End of cold war gave rise to unidentified enemy. In cyber warfare as well there is no visible enemy. In digital media also there is no visible content creator. World does not know who blasted Pagers on human bodies. We have entered into most destructive part of human history.
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Dr Atique Ur Rehman