The stranglehold on utilities, definitely, and we will see so much more of that, while young males will play this new young Bond game, thinking they could solve that problem or any other if only they laid down their joystick. Then they mothers will take away that game because it exhausts the energy budget, and these young males will be drafted as gunfodder in ongoing wars during which they will last for one minute because of drone strikes, and - yep, I‘m in such a good mood this morning.
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Blimey, this is tough. Both actually did succeed and we’re seeing the results of that. The rare earths are currently clamped down on and industry reserves around the globe - minus China - are running low, leading to a halt of numerous crucial production lines in the near future. Alternative deposits cannot be operational overnight or are disputed by various players not having their hands on them. This is going to lead to economic slumps, recession and various metastases of global crises. Cue financial and economic stability, both of which suffer already and will get worse if the situation isn’t defused.
Which leads directly into the second scheme, the global availability of weapons systems, long rage deployment/early warning and control abilities and the networked battlefield. This is an ability now pursued by all modern armies and working along 19th/20th century tactics like trench warfare with shallow fortifications for traditional infantry and deep ones for crucial military infrastructure. Even so-called ‘rebel’ forces now command modern air defences able to threaten all but the most highly developed attackers.
Modern warfare isn’t what it was 20 years ago - but crucially it’s also no longer what it was three years ago - and probably will not look the same in another three years. The complex demands of conflict with its grey-zone of hybrid aggression made defence a much more difficult game with deadly results. There’s a reason the world looks like it does today and the ubiquity of intelligent weapons systems is a big part of it. The challenge is now to prepare for the conflict as it might look in the future, while not neglecting the threats of today. Tricky.
So while both are already a fact of our current day environment, and while the economic repercussions of disturbances of global trade are no doubt going to be drastic, I still vote for the arms trade as the bigger potential damage. Economies, even when severely disturbed and disrupted, have a way of adapting. Capital is invested where reliable conditions guarantee a foreseeable return of investment. Shortages demand the price but rarely end an entire economic branch. Rare earths are going to be crucial for the foreseeable future, but if it comes to it the killing over them will happen with the arms of today and tomorrow*.
Have to go with the arms deal.
*Meaning actually, also with the rare earths of today and tomorrow since none of our weapons systems function without their chips and batteries. I ought to change my vote.
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I’m going with the utilities thingy. Having sat at the dining table and paid the household bills, I would love 007 to get down to my local wifi provider and brutally defeat him in a game of “Cards Against Humanity” and save all of us from the numbing headache of everyday domestic living.
Plus, I really can’t remember exactly what the corrupted arms deal actually was. I do remember Koskov’s rather irreverent/irrelevant villainous behaviour and that Whitaker had clearly grown up loving Airfix kits. But other than something to do with heroin, it’s all a bit of rather confused blur. Except that TD is brilliant at this whole Bond-thing.
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Koskov was inspired by the Octopussy scheme.
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To be entirely fair, having put the boot into Scaramanga the other day, I would offer that both Kamal and Koskov would be terrific dinner/middle-age pub crawl company. Not a regular thing, but more of a memorable one-off.
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Come to think of it, the plan in The Living Daylights depends on James Bond existing. Koskov insists on Bond at the “defection” and on at least a couple of occasions everything seems to hinge on Koskov’s bet that Bond is or will become involved. So in this fictional world, the arms deal/drugs/diamonds/whatever is going on thing would not even have been conceived if Bond did not exist?
Is The Living Daylights as meta as some others, that things happen only because James Bond is James Bond?
(I accept this is also the rationale behind the plot in From Russia with Love).
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And more or less the entire Craig era.
“I am the author of all your pain”
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Yes, and a number of the Brosnans I s’pose, but any notion that the “personal” angle only came in from say Licence to Kill onwards does seem to overlook how very, very, oh-so-very personal From Russia with Love has been, since 1957.
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Yes, but IMHO it works much better to have OG SPECTRE structure an elaborate revenge scheme against the agent who dared to screw up one of their major operations than it does to have a character build an entire international crime organization with the sole goal of making life miserable for his childhood rival.
One approach establishes Bond’s bona fides as a major player in a game with high stakes. The other reduces everything to the world’s most expensive Jerry Springer episode.
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June 6.
But for Bond…
Which successful scheme would be worse?
- Goldfinger - domination of the gold market, economic instability in the West by nuking America’s supply
- A View to a Kill - domination of the microchip market, economic instability in the West by earthquaking America’s supply
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To be fair, Blofeld only uses his organization after it is running successfully to torture Bond once he gets involved.
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These days, Bond could not even use his car without microchips.
Which brings me to wonder: wouldn’t the next reboot be fun if Bond could only use analog gadgets? Or build gadgets himself, with Q giving him advice how to do it?
McGruberBond.
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Since the dollar isn’t backed by gold reserves any more, nor any other currency I can think of, I don’t think Goldfinger’s plan would achieve a lot in terms of economic fallout; at least not in the way it’s described in the film. However, a nuke detonating on US soil would no doubt result in major military consequences regardless. The political lesson of 9/11 clearly was that the US cannot be seen helpless in the face of such an attack, so this would surely result in a retaliatory strike against whoever the attack is pinned on. This would be the worst possible outcome, albeit probably unintentional*.
The chip situation is another example like yesterday’s: initially hugely disruptive, but in the middle and long run the situation would level itself out, possibly by alternative approaches. We see this with AI chips right now.
*Unless it’s a combination with a YOLT/TSWLM plan to get two or more Nuclear Weapons States to exterminate each other.
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Yes, but in the meantime think of the chaos and confusion as mapmakers try deal with the altered coastline and sudden new cities like Costa Del Lex and Otisburg.
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I’m going with chips if nothing else than to give Zorin some love. That Walken was a Bond villain is still mindblowing brilliant, even if his villainy involves the goofiest of horse tracks, Grace Jones and Dolph, and airships. Oh yes, and dodgy back projection.
“Go get him!”
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June 7.
“But for Bond…”
Which outcome would have been worse?
- You Only Live Twice - it’s World War Three!
- The Spy who Loved Me - er… it’s World War Three! With pre-nuked New York and Moscow.
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I’m beginning to see a pattern…
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Pure egotism makes me choose YOLT.
I wouldn’t have been born then two years later.
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Hard one. Nuclear Armageddon is a bummer no matter what year it is.
If the world had ended in 1967, we’d have missed the Moon landing, at least three Beatle albums, stay-on pull tabs for soda cans and a lot of cool video games. On the other hand, we’d also have been spared a few assassinations, the Tet Offensive, the Nixon administration, bell bottoms and the third season of Star Trek, so it’s kind of a wash. Except we’d also have missed Roger’s era entirely, so that may make it the bigger tragedy for me.
The interesting thing to consider is how badly “success” would have gone for either of the villains. It’s unclear how Blofeld thinks a bombed-out and irradiated Earth would be any fun to rule over, or what kind of wealth would be possible in the wake of global economic collapse. Whatever pitiful mutants survived would be fighting over scraps of food, not gold or paper currency. Meanwhile for an eco-terrorist, Stromberg seems to have neglected the devastating impact of nuclear fallout on the world’s oceans. Plus if all that’s left of humanity is his little “world beneath the sea,” it wouldn’t have lasted past a generation, as he forgot to bring along any females.
In real world terms, which I guess is the question, at least with Blofeld’s scheme there’s the possibility, however slim, that the world powers would inch back from the precipice, whereas with Stromberg the entire crisis would’ve been sparked by the annihilation of New York and Moscow. So if it’s “everyone probably dies” versus “everyone probably dies and millions are dead already,” then TSWLM “wins.”
Millions dead vs “Never Got A Roger Bond” is a toughie, but I do have some perspective. I vote Stromberg.
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YOLT
If Bond had failed to intervene in the magnificent volcano base of YOLT, we would have been DENIED! the magnificent tanker base in TSWLM. And frankly, the spectacular (it does feel smaller and more cramped so therefore not quite magnificent) space station of MR.
If Bond hadn’t got the job done, Lewis Gilbert would have had to have gone and done something else entirely (expanding the Educating Rita franchise perhaps) instead of just the same thing over and over again.
Say what you like about John Glen - he wasn’t going to the run risk of Bond messing up and putting the world out of business. Really, if all you’re doing is running around Europe after a typrewriter then you’re guaranteed to return and have Bond chase an egg, then a chip, then a cello.
No, for all concerned, YOLT it is.
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