Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four
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Part Five: Report From Iron Mountain
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The foregoing functions of war are essential to the survival of the social
systems we know today. With two possible exceptions they are also essential to
any kind of stable social organization that might survive in a warless world.
Discussion of the ways and means of transition to such a world are meaningless
unless a) substitute institutions can be devised to fill these functions, or b)
it can reasonably be hypothecated that the loss or partial loss of any one
function need not destroy the viability of future societies.
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SECTION 7 - SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
THE NATURE OF WAR
War is not, as is widely assumed, primarily an instrument of policy utilized by
nations to extend or defend their expressed political values or their economic
interests. On the contrary, it is itself the principal basis of organization on
which all modern societies are constructed. The common proximate cause of war is
the apparent interference of one nation with the aspirations of another.
But at the root of all ostensible differences of national interest lie the
dynamic requirements of the war system itself for periodic armed conflict.
Readiness for war characterizes contemporary social systems more broadly than
their economic and political structures, which it subsumes.
Economic analyses of the anticipated problems of transition to peace have not
recognized the broad pre-eminence of war in the definition of social systems. The
same is true, with rare and only partial exceptions, of model disarmament
"scenarios." For this reason, the value of this previous work is limited to the
mechanical aspects of transition. Certain features of these models may perhaps
be applicable to a real situation of conversion to peace; this will depend on
their compatibility with a substantive, rather than a procedural, peace plan.
Such a plan can be developed only from the premise of full understanding of the
nature of the war system it proposes to abolish, which in turn presupposes
detailed comprehension of the functions the war system performs for society. It
will require the construction of a detailed and feasible system of substitutes
for those functions that are necessary to the stability and survival of human
societies.
THE FUNCTIONS OF WAR
The visible, military function of war requires no elucidation; it is not only
obvious but also irrelevant to a transition to the condition of peace, in which
it will by definition be superfluous. It is also subsidiary in social
significance to the implied, non-military functions of war; those critical to
transition can be summarized in five principal groupings.
1. ECONOMIC. War has provided both ancient and modern societies with a
dependable system for stabilizing and controlling national economies. No
alternate method of control has yet been tested in a complex modern economy that
has shown itself remotely comparable in scope or effectiveness.
2. POLITICAL. The permanent possibility of war is the foundation for stable government; it supplies the basis for general acceptance of political authority. It has enabled societies to maintain necessary class distinctions, and it has ensured the subordination of the citizen to the state, by virtue of the residual war powers inherent in the concept of nationhood. No modern political ruling group has successfully controlled its constituency after failing to sustain the continuing credibility of an external threat of war.
3. SOCIOLOGICAL. War, through the medium of military institutions, has uniquely served societies, throughout the course of known history, as an indispensable controller of dangerous social dissidence and destructive antisocial tendencies. As the most formidable of threats to life itself, and as the only one susceptible to mitigation by social organization alone, it has played another equally fundamental role: the war system has provided the machinery through which the motivational forces governing human behavior have been translated into binding social allegiance. It has thus ensured the degree of social cohesion necessary to the viability of nations. No other institution, or groups of institutions, in modern societies, has successfully served these functions.
4. ECOLOGICAL. War has been the principal evolutionary device for maintaining a satisfactory ecological balance between gross human population and supplies available for its survival. It is unique to the human species.
5. CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC. War-orientation has determined the basic standards
of value in the creative arts, and has provided the fundamental motivational
source of scientific and technological progress. The concepts that the arts
express values independent of their own forms and that the successful pursuit of
knowledge has intrinsic social value have long been accepted in modern
societies; the development of the arts and sciences during this period has been
corollary to the parallel development of weaponry.
SUBSTITUTES FOR THE FUNCTIONS OF WAR: CRITERIA
The foregoing functions of war are essential to the survival of the social
systems we know today. With two possible exceptions they are also essential to
any kind of stable social organization that might survive in a warless world.
Discussion of the ways and means of transition to such a world are meaningless
unless a) substitute institutions can be devised to fill these functions, or b)
it can reasonably be hypothecated that the loss or partial loss of any one
function need not destroy the viability of future societies.
Such substitute institutions and hypotheses must meet varying criteria. In
general, they must be technically feasible, politically acceptable, and
potentially credible to the members of the societies that adopt them.
Specifically, they must be characterized as follows:
6. ECONOMIC. An acceptable economic surrogate for the war system will require the expenditure of resources for completely nonproductive purposes at a level comparable to that of the military expenditures otherwise demanded by the size and complexity of each society. Such a substitute system of apparent "waste" must be of a nature that will permit it to remain independent of the normal supply-demand economy; it must be subject to arbitrary political control.
7. POLITICAL. A viable political substitute fir war must posit a generalized external menace to each society of a nature and degree sufficient to require the organization and acceptance of political authority.
8. SOCIOLOGICAL. First, in the permanent absence of war, new institutions must be developed that will effectively control the socially destructive segments of societies. Second, for purposes of adapting the physical and psychological dynamics of human behavior to the needs of social organization, a credible substitute for war must generate an omnipresent and readily understood fear of personal destruction. This fear must be of a nature and degree sufficient to ensure adherence to societal values to the full extent that they are acknowledged to transcend the value of individual human life.
9. ECOLOGICAL. A substitute for war in its function as the uniquely human system of population control must ensure the survival, if not necessarily the improvement, of the species, in terms of its relations to environmental supply.
10. CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC. A surrogate for the function of war as the
determinant of cultural values must establish a basis of socio-moral conflict of
equally compelling force and scope. A substitute motivational basis for the
quest for scientific knowledge must be similarly informed by a comparable sense
of internal necessity.
SUBSTITUTES FOR THE FUNCTIONS OF WAR: MODELS
The following substitute institutions, among others, have been proposed for
consideration as replacements for the non-military functions of war. That they
may not have been originally set forth for that purpose does not preclude or
invalidate their possible application here.
11. ECONOMIC. a) A comprehensive social-welfare program, directed toward maximum improvement of general conditions of human life. b) A giant open-end space research program, aimed at unreachable targets. c) A permanent, ritualized, ultra-elaborate disarmament inspection system, and variants of such a system.
12. POLITICAL a) An omnipresent, virtually omnipotent international police force. b) An established and recognized extraterrestrial menace. c) Massive global environmental pollution. d) Fictitious alternate enemies.
13. SOCIOLOGICAL: CONTROL FUNCTION. a) Programs generally derived from the Peace Corps model. b) A modern, sophisticated form of slavery. MOTIVATIONAL FUNCTION. a) Intensified environmental pollution. b) New religions or other mythologies. c) Socially oriented blood games. d) Combination forms.
14. ECOLOGICAL. A comprehensive program of applied eugenics.
15. CULTURAL. No replacement institution offered. SCIENTIFIC. The secondary
requirements of the space research, social welfare, and / or eugenics programs.
SUBSTITUTES FOR THE FUNCTIONS OF WAR: EVALUATION
The models listed above reflect only the beginning of the quest for substitute
institutions for the functions of war, rather than a recapitulation of
alternatives. It would be both premature and inappropriate, therefore, to offer
final judgments on their applicability to a transition to peace and after.
Furthermore, since the necessary but complex project of correlating the
compatibility of proposed surrogates for different functions could be treated
only in exemplary fashion at this time, we have elected to withhold such
hypothetical correlations as were tested as statistically inadequate.
Nevertheless, some tentative and cursory comments on these proposed functional
"solutions" will indicate the scope of the difficulties involved in this area of
peace planning.
ECONOMIC. The social-welfare model cannot be expected to remain outside the
normal economy after the conclusion of its predominantly capital-investment
phase; its value in this function can therefore be only temporary. The
space-research substitute appears to meet both major criteria, and should be
examined in greater detail, especially in respect to its probable effects on
other war functions. "Elaborate inspection" schemes, although superficially
attractive, are inconsistent with the basic premise of a transition to peace.
The "unarmed forces" variant, logistically similar, is subject to the same
functional criticism as the general social-welfare model.
POLITICAL. Like the inspection-scheme surrogates, proposals for plenipotentiary international police are inherently incompatible with the ending of the war system. The "unarmed forces" variant, amended to include unlimited powers of economic sanction, might conceivably be expanded to constitute a credible external menace. Development of an acceptable threat from "outer space," presumably in conjunction with a space-research surrogate for economic control, appears unpromising in terms of credibility. The environmental-pollution model does not seem sufficiently responsive to immediate social control, except through arbitrary acceleration of current pollution trends; this in turn raises questions of political acceptability. New, less regressive, approaches to the creation of fictitious global "enemies" invite further investigation.
SOCIOLOGICAL: CONTROL FUNCTION. Although the various substitutes proposed for this function that are modeled roughly on the Peace Corps appear grossly inadequate in potential scope, they should not be ruled out without further study. Slavery, in a technologically modern and conceptually euphemized form, may prove a more efficient and flexible institution in this area.
MOTIVATIONAL FUNCTION. Although none of the proposed substitutes for war as the guarantor of social allegiance can be dismissed out of hand, each presents serious and special difficulties. Intensified environmental threats may raise ecological dangers; mythmaking dissociated from tar may no longer be politically feasible; purposeful blood games and rituals can far more readily be devised than implemented. An institution combining this function with the preceding one, based on, but not necessarily imitative of, the precedent of organized ethnic repression, warrants careful consideration.
ECOLOGICAL. The only apparent problem in the application of an adequate eugenic substitute for war is that of timing; it cannot be effectuated until the transition to peace has been completed, which involved a serious temporary risk of ecological failure.
CULTURAL. No plausible substitute for this function of war has yet been proposed. It may be, however, that a basic cultural value-determinant is not necessary to the survival of a stable society.
SCIENTIFIC. The same might be said for the function of war as the prime mover of
the search for knowledge. However, adoption of either a giant space-research
program, a comprehensive social-welfare program, or a master program of eugenic
control would provide motivation for limited technologies.
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
It is apparent from the foregoing that no program or combination of programs yet
proposed for a transition to peace has remotely approached meeting the
comprehensive functional requirements of a world without war. Although one
projected system for filling the economic function of war seems promising,
similar optimism cannot be expressed in the equally essential political and
sociological areas. The other major nonmilitary functions of war---ecological,
cultural, scientific---raise very different problems, but it is at least
possible that detailed programming of substitutes in these areas is not
prerequisite to transition. More important, it is not enough to develop adequate
but separate surrogates for the major war functions; they must be fully
compatible and in no degree self-canceling.
Until such a unified program is developed, at least hypothetically, it is
impossible for this or any other group to furnish meaningful answers to the
questions originally presented to us. When asked how best to prepare for the
advent of peace, we must first reply, as strongly as we can, that the war system
cannot responsibly be allowed to disappear until 1) we know exactly what it is
we plan to put in its place, and 2) we are certain, beyond reasonable doubt,
that these substitute institutions will serve their purposes in terms of the
survival and stability of society. It will then be time enough to develop
methods for effectuating the transition; procedural programming must follow, not
precede, substantive solutions.
Such solutions, if indeed they exist, will not be arrived at without a
revolutionary revision of the modes of thought heretofore considered appropriate
to peace research. That we have examined the fundamental questions involved from
a dispassionate, value-free point of view should not imply that we do not
appreciate the intellectual and emotional difficulties that must be overcome on
all decision-making levels before these questions are generally acknowledged by
others for what they are. They reflect, on an intellectual level, traditional
emotional resistance to new (more lethal and thus more "shocking") forms of
weaponry. The understated comment of then-Senator Hubert Humphrey on the
publication of ON THERMONUCLEAR WAR is still very much to the point: "New
thoughts, particularly those which appear to contradict current assumptions, are
always painful for the mind to contemplate."
Nor, simply because we have not discussed them, do we minimize the massive
reconciliation of conflicting interests with domestic as well as international
agreement on proceeding toward genuine peace presupposes. This factor was
excluded from the purview of our assignment, but we would be remiss if we failed
to take it into account. Although no insuperable obstacle lies in the path of
reaching such general agreements, formidable short-term private-group and
general-class interest in maintaining the war system is well established and
widely recognized. The resistance to peace stemming from such interest is only
tangential, in the long run, to the basic functions of war, but it will not be
easily overcome, in this country or elsewhere. Some observers, in fact, believe
that it cannot be overcome at all in our time, that the price of peace is,
simply, too high. This bears on our overall conclusions to the extent that
timing in the transference to substitute institutions may often be the critical
factor in their political feasibility.
It is uncertain, at this time, whether peace will ever be possible. It is far
more questionable, by the objective standard of continued social survival rather
than that of emotional pacifism, that it would be desirable even if it were
demonstrably attainable. The war system, for all its subjective repugnance to
important sections of "public opinion" has demonstrated its effectiveness since
the beginning of recorded history; it has provided the basis for the development
of many impressively durable civilizations, including that which is dominant
today. It has consistently provided unambiguous social priorities. It is, on the
whole, a known quantity.
A viable system of peace, assuming that the great and complex questions of
substitute institutions raised in this Report are both soluble and solved, would
still constitute a venture into the unknown, with the inevitable risks attendant
on the unforeseen, however small and however well hedged.
Government decision-makers tend to choose peace over war whenever a real option
exists, because it usually appears to be the "safer" choice. Under most
immediate circumstances they are likely to be right. But in terms of long-range
social stability, the opposite is true. At our present state of knowledge and
reasonable inference, it is the war system that must be identified with
stability, the peace system that must be identified with social speculation,
however justifiable the speculation may appear, in terms of subjective moral or
emotional values. A nuclear physicist once remarked, in respect to a possible
disarmament agreement: "If we could change the world into a world in which no
weapons could be made, that would be stabilizing. But agreements we can expect
with the Soviets would be destabilizing." The qualification and the bias are
equally irrelevant; any condition of genuine total peace, however achieved,
would be destabilizing until proved otherwise.
If it were necessary at this moment to opt irrevocably for the retention or for
the dissolution of the war system, common prudence would dictate the former
course. But it is not yet necessary, late as the hour appears. And more factors
must eventually enter the war-peace equation than even the most determined
search for alternative institutions for the functions of war can be expected to
reveal.
One group of such factors has been given only passing mention in this Report; it
centers around the possible obsolescence of the war system itself. We have
noted, for instance, the limitations of the war system in filling its ecological
function and the declining importance of this aspect of war. It by no means
stretches the imagination to visualize comparable developments which may
compromise the efficacy of war as, for example, an economic controller or as an
organizer of social allegiance. This kind of possibility, however remote, serves
as a reminder that all calculations of contingency not only involve the weighing
of one group of risks against another, but require a respectful allowance for
error on both sides of the scale.
More expedient reason for pursuing the investigation of alternate ways and means
to serve the current functions of war is narrowly political. It is possible that
one or more major sovereign nations may arrive, through ambiguous leadership, at
a position in which a ruling administrative class may lose control of basic
public opinion or of its ability to rationalize a desired war.
It is not hard to imagine, in such circumstances, a situation in which such
governments may feel forced to initiate serious full-scale disarmament
proceedings (perhaps provoked by "accidental" nuclear explosions), and that such
negotiations may lead to the actual disestablishment of military institutions.
As our Report has made clear, this could be catastrophic.
It seems evident that, in the event an important part of the world is suddenly
plunged without sufficient warning into an inadvertent peace, even partial and
inadequate preparation for the possibility may be better than none. The
difference could even be critical. The models considered in the preceding
chapter, both those that seem promising and those that do not, have one positive
feature in common--an inherent flexibility of phasing. And despite our
strictures against knowingly proceeding into peace-transition procedures without
thorough substantive preparation, our government must nevertheless be ready to
move in this direction with whatever limited resources of planning are on hand
at the time---if circumstances so require. An arbitrary all-or-nothing approach
is no more realistic in the development of contingency peace programming than it
is anywhere else.
But the principal cause for concern over the continuing effectiveness of the war
system, and the more important reason for hedging with peace planning, lies in
the backwardness of current war-system programming. Its controls have not kept
pace with the technological advances it has made possible. Despite its
unarguable success to date, even in this era of unprecedented potential in mass
destruction, it continues to operate largely on a laissez-faire basis. To the
best of our knowledge, no serious quantified studies have even been conducted to
determine, for example:
---optimum levels of armament production, for purposes of economic control, at
any given relationship between civilian production and consumption patterns;
---correlation factors between draft recruitment policies and measurable social
dissidence;
---minimum levels of population destruction necessary to maintain war-threat
credibility under varying political conditions;
---optimum cyclical frequency of "shooting" wars under varying circumstances of
historical relationship.
These and other war-function factors are fully susceptible to analysis by
today's computer-based systems, but they have not been so treated; modern
analytical techniques have up to now been relegated to such aspects of the
ostensible functions of war as procurement, personnel deployment, weapons
analysis, and the like. We do not disparage these types of application, but only
deplore their lack of utilization to greater capacity in attacking problems of
broader scope. Our concern for efficiency in this context is not aesthetic,
economic, or humanistic. It stems from the axiom that no system can long survive
at either input or output levels that consistently or substantially deviate from
an optimum range. As their data grow increasingly sophisticated, the war system
and its functions are increasingly endangered by such deviations.
Our final conclusion, therefore, is that it will be necessary for our government
to plan in depth for two general contingencies. The first, and lesser, is the
possibility of a viable general peace; the second is the successful continuation
of the war system. In our view, careful preparation for the possibility of peace
should be extended, not because we take the position that the end of war would
necessarily be desirable, if it is in fact possible, but because it may be
thrust upon us in some form whether we are ready for it or not. Planning for
rationalizing and quantifying the war system, on the other hand, to ensure the
effectiveness of its major stabilizing functions, is not only more promising in
respect to anticipated results, but is essential; we can no longer take for
granted that it will continue to serve our purposes well merely because it
always has. The objective of government policy in regard to war and peace, in
this period of uncertainty, must be to preserve maximum options. The
recommendations which follow are directed to this end.
SECTION 8
RECOMMENDATIONS
16. We propose the establishment, under executive order of the President, of a
permanent WAR/PEACE Research Agency, empowered and mandated to execute the
programs described in (2) and (3) below. This agency (a) will be provided with
non-accountable funds sufficient to implement its responsibilities and decisions
at its own discretion, and (b) will have authority to preempt and utilize,
without restriction, any and all facilities of the executive branch of the
government in pursuit of its objectives. It will be organized along the lines of
the National Security Council, except that none of its governing, executive, or
operating personnel will hold other public office or governmental
responsibility. Its directorate will be drawn from the broadest practicable
spectrum of scientific disciplines, humanistic studies, applied creative arts,
operating technologies, and otherwise unclassified professional occupations. It
will be responsible solely to the President, or to other officers of government
temporarily deputized by him. Its operations will be governed entirely by its
own rules of procedure. Its authority will expressly include the unlimited right
to withhold information on its activities and its decisions, from anyone except
the President, whenever it deems such secrecy to be in the public interest.
17. The first of the War/Peace Research Agency's two principal responsibilities
will be to determine all that can be known, including what can reasonably be
inferred in terms of relevant statistical probabilities, that may bear on an
eventual transition to a general condition of peace. The findings in this Report
may be considered to constitute the beginning of this study and to indicate its
orientation; detailed records of the investigations and findings of the Special
Study Group on which this Report is based, will be furnished the agency, along
with whatever clarifying data the agency deems necessary. This aspect of the
agency's work will hereinafter be referred to as "Peace Research."
The Agency's Peace Research activities will necessarily include, but not be
limited to, the following:
18. The WAR/PEACE Research Agency's other principal responsibility will be "War
Research." Its fundamental objective will be to ensure the continuing viability
of the war system to fulfill its essential nonmilitary functions for as long as
the war system is judged necessary to or desirable for the survival of society.
To achieve this end, the War Research groups within the agency will engage in
the following activities:
War Research procedures will necessarily include, but not be limited to, the
following:
19. Since Both Programs of the WAR/PEACE RESEARCH Agency will share the same
purpose---to maintain governmental freedom of choice in respect to war and peace
until the direction of social survival is no longer in doubt -- it is of the
essence of this proposal that the agency be constituted without limitation of
time. Its examination of existing and proposed institutions will be
self-liquidating when its own function shall have been superseded by the
historical developments it will have, at least in part, initiated.
NOTES.........
SECTION 1
1. The Economic and Social Consequences of Disarmament: U.S. Reply to the Inquiry
of the Secretary-General of the United Nations (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, June
1964), pp. 8-9.
2. Herman Kahn, Thinking About the Unthinkable (New York: Horizon, 1962), p.35.
3. Robert S. McNamara, in an address before the American Society of News- paper
Editors, in Montreal, P.Q., Canada, 18 May 1966.
4. Alfred North Whitehead, in "The Anatomy of Some Scientific Ideas," included
in The Aims of Education (New York: Macmillan, 1929).
5. At Ann Arbor, Michigan, 16 June 1962.
6. Louis J. Halle, "Peace in Our Time? Nuclear Weapons as a Stabilizer," The New
Republic (28 December 1963).
SECTION 2
1. Kenneth E. Boulding, "The World War Industry as an Economic Problem," in
Emile Benoit and Kenneth E. Boulding (eds.), Disarmament and the Economy (New
York: Harper & Row, 1963).
2. McNamara, in ASNE Montreal address cited.
3. Report of the Committee on the Economic Impact of Defense and Disarmament
(Washington: USGPO, July 1965).
4. Sumner M. Rosen, "Disarmament and the Economy," War/Peace Report (March
1966).
SECTION 3
1. Vide William D. Grampp, "False Fears of Disarmament," Harvard Business Review
(Jan.-Feb.1964) for a concise example of this reasoning.
2. Seymour Melman, "The Cost of Inspection for Disarmament," in Benoit and
Boulding, op. cit.
SECTION 5
1. Arthur I. Waskow, Toward the Unarmed Forces of the United States (Washington:
Institute for Policy Studies, 1966), p.9. (This is the unabridged edition of the
text of a report and proposal prepared for a seminar of strategists and
Congressman in 1965; it was later given limited distribution among other persons
engaged in related projects.)
2. David T. Bazelon, "The Politics of the Paper Economy," Commentary (November
1962), p.409.
3. The Economic Impact of Disarmament (Washington: USGPO, January 1962), p.409.
4. David T. Bazelon, "The Scarcity Makers," Commentary (October 1962), p. 298.
5. Frank Pace, Jr., in an address before the American Banker's Association,
September 1957.
6. A random example, taken in this case from a story by David Deitch in the New
York Herald Tribune (9 February 1966).
7. Vide L. Gumplowicz, in Geschichte der Staatstheorien (Innsbruck: Wagner,
1905) and earlier writings.
8. K.Fischer, Das Militar (Zurich: Steinmetz Verlag, 1932), pp.42-43.
9. The obverse of this phenomenon is responsible for the principal combat
problem of present-day infantry officers: the unwillingness of otherwise
"trained" troops to fire at an enemy close enough to be recognizable as an
individual rather than simply as a target.
10. Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University
Press, 1960), p.42. 11. John D. Williams, "The Nonsense about Safe Driving,"
Fortune (September 1958).
12. Vide most recently K.Lorenz, in Das Sogenannte Bose: zur Naturgeschichte der
Agression (Vienna: G. Borotha-Schoeler Verlag, 1964).
13. Beginning with Herbert Spencer and his contemporaries, but largely ignored
for nearly a century.
14. As in recent draft-law controversy, in which the issue of selective
deferment of the culturally privileged is often carelessly equated with the
preservation of the biologically "fittest."
15. G.Bouthol, in La Guerre (Paris: Presses universitairies de France, 1953) and
many other more detailed studies. The useful concept of "polemology," for the
study of war as an independent discipline, is his, as is the notion of
"demographic relaxation," the sudden temporary decline in the rate of population
increase after major wars.
16. This seemingly premature statement is supported by one of our own test
studies. But it hypothecates both the stabilizing of world population growth and
the institution of fully adequate environmental controls. Under these two
conditions, the probability of the permanent elimination of involuntary global
famine is 68 percent by 1976 and 95 percent by 1981.
SECTION 6
1. This round figure is the median taken from our computations, which cover
varying contingencies, but it is sufficient for the purpose of general discussion.
2. But less misleading than the more elegant traditional metaphor, in which war
expenditures are referred to as the "ballast" of the economy but which suggests
incorrect quantitative relationships.
3. Typical in generality, scope, and rhetoric. We have not used any published
program as a model; similarities are unavoidably coincidental rather than
tendentious.
4. Vide the reception of a "Freedom Budget for all Americans," proposed by A.
Philip Randolph et al; it is a ten-year plan, estimated by its sponsors to cost
$185 billion.
5. Waskow, op.cit.
6. By several current theorists, most extensively and effectively by Robert R.
Harris in "The Real Enemy," an unpublished doctoral dissertation made available
to this study.
7. In ASNE, Montreal address cited.
8. The Tenth Victim.
9. For an examination of some of its social implications, see Seymour Rubenfeld, Family of Outcasts: A New Theory of Delinquency (New York: Free Press,
1965).
10. As in Nazi Germany; this type of "ideological" ethnic repression, directed
to specific sociological ends, should not be confused with traditional economic
exploitation, as of Negroes in the U.S., South Africa, etc.
11. By teams of experimental biologists in Massachusetts, Michigan, and
California, as well as in Mexico and the U.S.S.R. Preliminary test applications
are scheduled in Southeast Asia, in countries not yet announced.
12. Expressed in the writings of H. Marshall McLuhan, in Understanding Media:
The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964) and elsewhere.
13. This rather optimistic estimate was derived by plotting a three-dimensional
distribution of three arbitrarily defined variables; the macro-structural,
relating to the extension of knowledge beyond the capacity of conscious
experience; the organic, dealing with the manifestations of terrestrial life as
inherently comprehensible; and the infra-particular, covering the sub-conceptual
requirements of natural phenomena. Values were assigned to the known and unknown
in each parameter, tested against data from earlier chronologies, and modified
heuristically until predictable correlations reached a useful level of accuracy.
"Two decades" means, in this case, 20.6 years, with a standard deviation of only
1.8 years. (An incidental finding, not pursued to the same degree of accuracy,
suggests a greatly accelerated resolution of issues in the biological sciences
after 1972.)
SECTION 7
1. Since they represent an examination of too small a percentage of the eventual
options, in terms of "multiple mating," the subsystem we developed for this
application. But an example will indicate how one of the most frequen- tly
recurring correlation problems--chronological phasing--was brought to light in
this way. One of the first combinations tested showed remarkably high
coefficients of compatibility, on a post hoc static basis, but no variations of
timing, using a thirty-year transition module, permitted even marginal
synchronization. The combination was thus disqualified. This would not rule out
the possible adequacy of combinations using modifications of the same factors,
however, since minor variations in a proposed final condition may have
disproportionate effects on phasing.
2. Edward Teller, quoted in War/Peace Report (December 1964).
3. E.g., the highly publicized "Delphi Technique" and other, more sophisticated
procedures. A new system, especially suitable for institutional analysis, was
developed during the course of this study in order to hypothecate measurable
"peace games"; a manual of this system is being prepared and will be submitted
for general distribution among appropriate agencies. For older, but still
useful, techniques, see Norman C. Dalkey's Games and Simulations (Santa Monica,
Calif.:Rand, 1964).
SECTION 8
1. A primer-level example of the obvious and long overdue need for such
translation is furnished by Kahn (in Thinking About the Unthinkable,p.102).
Under the heading "Some Awkward Choices" he compares four hypothetical policies:
a certain loss of $3,000; a .1 chance of loss of $300,000; a.01 chance of loss
of $30,000,000; and a .001 chance of loss of $3,000,000,000. A government
decision-maker would "very likely" choose in that order. But what if "lives are
at stake rather than dollars?" Kahn suggests that the order of choice would be
reversed, although current experience does not support this opinion. Rational
war research can and must make it possible to express, without ambiguity, lives
in terms of dollars and vice versa; the choices need not be, and cannot be,
"awkward."
2. Again, an overdue extension of an obvious application of techniques up to now
limited such circumscribed purposes as improving kill-ammunition ratios
determining local choice between precision and saturation bombing, and other
minor tactical, and occasionally strategic, ends. The slowness of Rand, I.D.A.,
and other responsible analytic organizations to extend cost-effectiveness and
related concepts beyond early-phase applications has already been widely
remarked on and criticized elsewhere.
3. The inclusion of institutional factors in war-game techniques has been given
some rudimentary consideration in the Hudson Institute's Study for Hypothetical
Narratives for Use in Command and Control Systems Planning (by William Pfaff and
Edmund Stillman; Final report published in 1963). But here, as with other war
and peace studies to date, what has blocked the logical extension of new
analytic techniques has been a general failure to understand and properly
evaluate the non-military functions of war.
-EOF-
(end Report From Iron Mountain)
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Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four
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