Brett Daniel Shehadey
Special Contributor for In Homeland Security
Isaac Asimov is one of the most popular and influential science fiction writers in history. He is widely known for novels like: Fantastic Voyage, Bicentennial Man or I, Robot. But his greatest legacy is the “Foundation” series which one the Hugo award in 1966 for “Best All-Time Series.”
Originally the work was inspired by Edward Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Every American president should be required to read the original “Foundation” trilogy (1951-53) upon taking office. Why? Because it charts out the doom of an empire and how not to lose humanity’s progress.
It is a fitting parallel to the declining American empire and the state of the backsliding of the world order. “Foundation” is all about not falling back into barbarism. After the [Galactic] Empire inevitably collapses, the disorder and brutality will arise.
Through a study of Roman history and long, lingering, changes and trials, there can be found ways to break the cycle, but only through clever calculation and preparation. This is where Asimov’s character Heri Seldon comes into the picture. The brilliant psychohistorian—the futuristic field of psychological history—Heri Seldon predicts the fall of the Empire like the historian Edward Gibbon thrown back anachronistically through time and warns the pitfalls of reliance on force and violence inevitably leading to decay. It is nothing short of strategic brilliance which must prevail in keeping Seldon’s plan.
The Emperor is cajoled by Seldon into creating the Foundation(s) that will be the storehouse for all human knowledge when the current Empire and order is destroyed and humanity stumbles back into chaos. Thus, in order to prevent the dark ages of warlords and the thousand years of rediscovery of science, the “Foundation” of the Empire will be in motion at the farthest reaches of the Empire. This was a planet called Terminus (a name found in Gibbon’s work that signifies the ancient Roman god for territories and expansion).
There was much trickery with the Seldon’s plan over hundreds of years through his mathematical and psychological predictions, but the ultimate idea was to save human progress before its destruction. Ancient Rome, the British Empire, the USA, or the Galactic Empire lack the mental dexterity involved in their ability to continue exerting positive influence because they rely on the force of arms and empire, rather than on a stronger “foundation” based on knowledge, mathematics and science.
The best quote in the entire series is from the most prominent leader of the first crisis, Salvor Hardin: “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” It is under the banner of innovation, technology, and political and economic mastery in which the Foundation comes to secure a new order for humanity.
The most interesting aspects are the non-violent and extremely long term strategies that are cleverly enacted by the leadership- always being one step ahead of your opponents. Asimov steps out of the physical dimension and brilliantly inserts political stratagems throughout the centuries for those in the Foundation and later throughout the galaxy to adhere to the Seldon Plan. The Plan is not without many challenges along the way and many cases seem doomed to fail. The point was not so much the Plan itself but the very idea of the “Foundation.”
Could this ever be used today by politicians?
It is now 2013 and since 1951, Asimov is still teaching us lessons. If the US constructed a version of the “foundation” in real life, for example, would it offer a greater solace in an uncertain future?
If Washington planned ahead even 50 years in advance, let alone 200, could they design a mechanism that would preserve the global system and inspire even greater peace, progress and prosperity?
As the world stagnates, crime rises, authoritarianism replaces the masses and the US loses the world, it becomes less a work of fiction that such a lifeboat operation could preserve the West’s full advance of human progress.
By creating an Americanized “foundation” of some of the brightest American minds, it creates a storehouse of technological innovation and knowledge. A relocated “second” [government] site, would spawn global engineers for the project of creating an even greater America.
Possible locations for such an establishment might already exist within governments, if they could be set up as independent “satellite” states. Over 25 years of global political conversion back the “liberal plan” would have a generational effect of assimilation and consensus.
Of course, this is all just fiction. This is all just abstract thought. But what if a small successful innovative and technologically superior island state might govern invisibly like in the novels as a distant isolated planet?
If Hari Seldon were here, he might lend us a hand. Until then, we will have to wait for psychohistory to become a 21st century reality. Sounds in part like it could be very similar to Big Data and its proper interpretation. A time is coming when we will mix our “Foundation” with “I, Robot” and solicit the aid of advanced AI predictive political and strategic models to help steer us along our decision-making path. Decades into the future we might even find that a mysterious “Foundation” has been guiding us all along.
*First published by Eurasia Review on May 14, 2013. Minor revisions.
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