Bradley Manning

The example of Bradley Manning underscores a current security reality, in which numerous actors generally have open access to secrets and could potentially leak them. As the number of witnesses to any classified information increase – and as these witnesses perceive a more generous transparently shared culture, OR as these witnesses perceive greater injustices in each cover-up – the risk of leaks increases. Repudiations for why leaking is unethical vary: it represents a breach of a code of conduct, that while transparency is admirable, leaking isn't itself transparent but “underhanded”; that it's immoral– seditious or unconscionable; that the appropriate channels (chain of command) are available to those seeking to address and redress wrongs and expose any crimes that may have been committed.

Is war possible in an age of yawning security and a greater proliferation of transparency and security-less networks? Do the advantages of wartime secrecy – that we know something the enemy doesn't and where these secrets constitution our sole advantage – exist in an age of total transparency? Could a transparent world eradicate the advantages of war and thus bring on the futility of war for all parties involved? Could a superabundant pervasiveness of transparency lead to the end of warfare?