The Orbital Authority

War is the father of all things,” said the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus

do we really want a unified world? Is that the right thing for humanity? It may be our technical destiny. Is it our human destiny?

It is difficult to look at human history and say that large, homogeneous, peaceful countries work better. Actually, the main leaps in human development seem to come from periods of smaller, competing sovereign structures... See more

In a way, the modern world was created by a version of Orson Welles’ insight. We call it “capitalism.” England in the 18th century developed the core technology behind the modern world—not the steam engine, but the joint-stock company.

The English joint-stock company is a pseudostate. A sovereign state creates a layer of secondary state-like entiti... See more

Quigley’s fundamental thesis is that military technology drives political structure. The almost two hundred “unequal states” of the UN are not genuinely sovereign—they are mostly satellite states. A militarily dependent protectorate is very different from a state that maintains its independence by force of arms. This dependency is not limited to th... See more