A few days ago Twitter deleted a post by the president of Nigeria. The president of Nigeria then retaliated by completely banning Twitter in Nigeria. Twitter banned in Nigeria Given the ever increasing political activity and eagerness from major corporations to jump into the political arena how long do you think it will be before we see an actual war between a corporation with vast capital and resources and a nation/state with the same resources plus a military and an axe to grind.

What would such a war between a corporation and nation look like? Do you think we have already had such a war? How far could such a thing go?

I think we’ve had them. I haven’t done a lot of reading about the firm, but doesn’t the British East India Company fit this description?

I think Dubai and Singapore are getting close to this. I think we will see corps forced to shelter in pockets of capitalism from the predations of the left.

Nigeria and Ghana are the epicenter of internet fraud. Banning social media in Nigeria will be better for the rest of the world.

This has already happened, just look at history. Corporate interests have used the U.S. military to do their bidding. Central America Banana Wars, constant conflict in the Middle East, Greneda.

The methods today are economic warfare and propaganda. But this is usually in support of a particular faction in a given government, or a rival faction that is looking to take over.

As far as shooting wars with private armies, I don't see that happening. Only sovereign governments have the power of policing and warfare. Step over that line and you will be put down pretty hard.

Lefty Sig, I think a war torn and extremely militant African or middle eastern nation with little to lose might be bold enough to attempt an actual shooting war against a major corporation that the authoritarian leader viewed as an existential threat.

I don’t believe such a scenario is outside the realm of possibilities. I believe this is why’s owners of social media platforms travel with as much security if not more security than presidents of nations. It’s not just their wealth that warrants that security but the fact that they have made some very powerful enemies.

I think it’s only a matter of time until a social media platform angers a lunatic authoritarian who actually has the ability and reckless nature to hit back hard. Yes, it’s not very likely but it is possible. Lil Kim retaliated against Sony and didn’t have to fire a shot.

I saw some show years ago where in the future the corporations ran everything...it was a cop who got sent back in time to fix some issue...I think it was “time continuum” or something like that..

But we are really getting close

I think that even if the country used it's military capacity (or intelligence - think Cuba) to strike at the country, the company would inevitably use economic means to strike at the country. The easiest target would, IMHO, almost inevitably be the country's ability to borrow money and service debt. Everything the company could try to affect - the credit rating itself, private or public access to raw materials and sophisticated services such as engineering, the country's reputation as a good place to do buisness - ultimately affects that. And just about every country is in the middle of one debt headache or another.

Now, would a country necessarily use military or intelligence capability against a country? What we've seen so far from Russia, China, North Korea, Japan, and Germany is that industrial espionage is alive and well and has been since at least WWII. We've also seen what could be considered hybridized attacks, including both Putin's "little green men" approach and Israel's mixed use of military intervention, online shenanigans and local vandalism on a grand scale. My WAG would be that some kind of custom-tailored hybridized attack would be most likely, with all of the elements of governmental intervention on tap.

Obviously any assets and personnel in the country would be an easy place to start - think in terms of the oil companies' equipment, oil, money and employees sequestered in Venezuela. Communications could be riddled with taps or broken up. Red tape could multiply, financial transactions could be slowed to a crawl or rendered impossible, transshipments of goods or equipment could be fiddled with ad nauseam. Something as simple as police harassment, demonstrations/riots/strikes or boycotts would, of course, be easy to arrange.

Diplomacy, which covers a range of potential sins, would also be brought to bear. Maybe a fellow government could be predjudiced against the company or convinced to do the country a favor. Countries or nongovernmental organizations could be bullied financially, militarily or through embassies. Sanctions could be levied (Iraq under Trump), infrastructure or important goods could be held up (Russian natural gas piped to Western Europe), insurgencies and wars can be countenanced or encouraged (Iraq in Yemen).

Countries are financial players too. Sovereign funds can be withdrawn from investments just as stock holdings can be sold cheap to activists, the yakuza, hostile takeover types, or just plain buisness people who are hostile to the company's existing management (think in terms of the founder of Papa John's being forced out of the company). Countries may foster competing buisnesses, even if they eventually get rid of the company's "owner" as inconvenient (AliBaba in China, a couple of the Russian oil companies). Companies may simply step into countries where the company is operating and take over as the biggest investor there (China's Belt And Road Initiative) - at which point they have more influence and control over the environment in that country in which the company has to do buisness than the company ever could.

There may be a few other tricks in the bag, but I think this basically brings us around to military and intelligence intervention. In theory, these options can be brought to bear in any country in which the company has an interest as well, of course, as online or in other media. As mentioned earlier, industrial espionage is a major practice among several governments. That means they not only have access to specific industrial information, but understand an economy's strengths and weaknesses and know which people to go to in order to get information or something done. The country may already have or be able to develop a broader intelligence or military presence in a country in which they wish to target the company. Put together the full range of those options and it may be pretty easy to hit a company on more fronts than it could possibly defend.

Oh, and don't forget the courts - neither the company nor the country will. There aren't generally courts that intervene in cases involving private companies and governments, but ultimately all you really need for the purposes of conflict is a court that's willing to assert jurisdiction. Contracts may specify a jurisdiction for conflict resolution. Assets or putative offenses may be in countries that have no part in the quarrel. And both the government (by law) and the company (in pretty much any country where it's chartered, holding assets or doing buisness) will be subject to some courts for some things in the ordinary course of buisness.

The argument for hybridization is based on several things. First and foremost, companies aren't countries any more than Al Qaueda ever was. At the same time, depending on where and how the conflict goes down, certain costs to the country are going to be avoidable or distasteful, such as damaged reputation, conflicts with other countries, or perhaps even lost lives. A hybrid attack with the proper elements could also wind up being less expensive in simple terms such as time and money. My guess is that one of the biggest arguments for it would also be that it's a way for the country to maximize the effect of its strengths while still keeping plenty of resources available to meet other demands on its time and resources - and there will always be something else that has to be dealt with.

The future of warfare is cyber.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
Lefty Sig, I think a war torn and extremely militant African or middle eastern nation with little to lose might be bold enough to attempt an actual shooting war against a major corporation that the authoritarian leader viewed as an existential threat.

I don’t believe such a scenario is outside the realm of possibilities. I believe this is why’s owners of social media platforms travel with as much security if not more security than presidents of nations. It’s not just their wealth that warrants that security but the fact that they have made some very powerful enemies.

I think it’s only a matter of time until a social media platform angers a lunatic authoritarian who actually has the ability and reckless nature to hit back hard. Yes, it’s not very likely but it is possible. Lil Kim retaliated against Sony and didn’t have to fire a shot.

I see your point. But I would think a sovereign nation would simply roll up with police or military and shut down the corporation without firing a shot, as you said about Kim and Sony. Or, just disconnect their infrastructure - power, communications, water, roads, etc. Or freeze all their accounts so they cannot pay for anything.

I don't really think a major corporation that is traded on any exchange would have the military hardware, personnel, and training to put up any kind of fight. Maybe a military security contractor could, but as soon as they do fight back, their accounts would be frozen, stock suspended or delisted, and a shareholder revolt would occur to remove any and all BoD members and/or executives that were complicit.

Any government doing this would suffer a near complete loss of investment and pullout of other corporations operating within their borders, causing a severe depression and putting the people deeper in to poverty than they already are.

This is one reason why China just doesn't allow all the joint ventures in China to eject the "foreign" company partner, take possession of all assets and IP and go their own way. That would bring all foreign investment to an immediate halt. If China does indeed become the largest and most dominant economy in the world, and can fully support its population and manufacturing economy with internal consumption, then they just might do that, or something close to it.

I believe it has already happened in our neighbors to the north, involving a company that is still in business to this day:
Hudsons Bay Co.
They fought for their interests, built forts and controlled territory. They were not opposed by government (quasi supported, though) and were quite powerful in their heyday.

A gray area for sure.
We were/are in the middle east largely due to the worlds oil needs. Michelin had a large rubber plantation in Vietnam that helped pull the French government, then us into that mess. Cuba and our Central America (banana republics) problems in the 20th century and beyond are closely related to commercial issues.
Does anyone thing the hackers in Russia are operating there without government knowledge and likely support?
Then there's the WuHu flu. Probably research for a future use that got loose. Even if it was totally innocent and accidental (right) there is a big lesson there as to the possibilities for the future.

State vs. corporation/business? Historical, and ongoing.

Some examples occur during in modern revolutions. Early on the agenda, the revolutionaries send armed revolutionaries to control the airwaves and presses. And the ruling power tries to take over or suppress any media seen as potentially favorable to the revolutionaries. That can happen via non-violent means (revoking licenses, cutting power to the station/printing presses, etc.) or just sending police/militia/army units in with governmental authority to break in, arrest everyone, and replace them with staff more favorable to the government.

Other approaches countries can take against companies: nationalize the local business outright, close down mineral companies' access to natural resources, remove access to the banking/finance system, change tax laws, charge import fees on their raw materials and export fees on the products they make, change regulations to become more onerous (or impossible), force them to take a minority position in the local operations by requiring them to take on local partners (or the government itself) as majority owners with low/no money being paid for the new ownership stake ....

Corporation/business vs. state?

Historically, states are much better armed and staffed than businesses, so for a corporation to want to succeed at 'actual war', they would have to do so obliquely, via pressure/influence on powerful states either more aligned with the corporation, or just antagonistic to the corporation's target and wanting to cause them mischief.

If the corporation can find a powerful nation that both is favorably disposed to the corporation as well as antagonistic to the target country....that'd be the jackpot.

Now if you're talking non-traditional war, a company could try to go clandestine and do cyber-stuff against government operations. The risk being, if discovered, then all the tools of 'actual war' could get applied to any operations/assets/staff the company has in within reach of the country or its allies.

Funny this was actually part of a paper I just wrote for college. I absolutely think this is a thing.

I believe what we saw with North Korea verses Sony and Nigeria’s president verses Twitter is only the beginning of a very interesting era. Twitter and Fuckbook all but declared war on a major political party and sitting president of the United States. To think that isn’t going to result in some sort of retribution taken at some point would be quite naive.

I know it sounds bad but I would root for just about any nation that took on Twitter with the goal of completely and totally destroying it. I view such an effort as good for humanity.

Twitter, I think is the worst thing to happen to media ever. It has turned many adults back into middle school cliques where someone is singled out and the others gang up on them.

It appeals to the worst in human nature - knee jerk emotional tribalism, untempered by time to think and reflect or depth or analysis.

The behavior in Twitter is in stark opposition to the values adults are supposed value.