In my view RAND specifically and US nuclear strategy more generally is best seen as an attempt to generate rational approaches under conditions of considerable fear and considerable uncertainty. The evolution of RAND thinking demonstrates this was a difficult process but one that evolved in good faith. We should also acknowledge that it ultimately prevailed, despite taking existential risks with the fate of civilisation. The evolution of the strategy shows decreasing hubris and increasing realism, despite periodic forays into 'warfighting' strategies.
The author is presenting a caricature of the trajectory of RAND and of US nuclear strategy, as well as a caricature of systems analysis and OR, which is clearly just the repetition of the unsubstantiated opinions of secondary and tertiary sources.
The source Cynthia is using is Alex Abella's "Soldiers of Reason" which she has made evident. Abella's book is available for free on archive.org, https://archive.org/details/soldiersofreason00abel. If you bothered to inform yourself of the sources she used before writing your comment, you would know that Alex Abella had been granted access by RAND to their files that normally would have been unavailable to the public which was a primary source for writing his book. Thus Abella's book is not something that should be ignored in the clearly dishonest way you have just done. These are not caricatures she has made up and anyone familiar with the RAND environment would concur with how Abella and subsequently Cynthia have described its ideology and stratagem.
Sorry to say I find this to be a poor essay. It assumes its premises rather arguing them or evidencing them, relies entirely on secondary sources. Where is the actual argument? It just seems to be a series of slurs. I would be sympathetic to a critique of RAND and its formulations. But I don't see anything worthy of the name here. I don't see any primary argument even being attempted. There is not even a coherent claim here, let alone evidence and argument for this claim. If I was marking this as an undergraduate essay I would advise a complete revision, starting with a clear thesis - it has none. Similarly if I was reviewing this for publication. Very disappointing.
You seem to have quite the Ivory Tower malady. The policies of RAND over the decades have been clearly shown at this point to have been based off of a dishonest portrayal with fudged data of the actual nuclear threat during the Cold War years, such that the estimate of what the Soviets had for nuclear capability was way off. In addition, Daniel Ellsberg has done an immense service by leaking the RAND papers and showcasing that the Vietnam war was entirely unjustified and was waged not for the reasons that the American public were told. RAND played a central role in this lie. RAND has done nothing but to support an unjustifiable war drive, and today we are on the brink of WWIII and you say you see no problem with RAND's approach.?! You are either completely detached from reality or are supportive of the war hawk agenda. It is your sort of apathetic detached dribble that is what is disappointing. Why don't you exit out of your computer program and learn to be an actual human.
I cannot understand how you can defend such a lunatic asylum like the Rand and Nitze, Kahn and Wohlstetter as anything other than insane and only the forbearance of the USSR prevented the world ending up as a giant fireball.
FDR provoked Japan into Attacking America at Pearl Harbour by encircling Japan with an Oil Blockade. He persuaded the Dutch to stop selling Japan Oil from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies; after he refused Japan Oil from Ports in California. Without Oil Japan`s Industry , Army and Navy were Toast.
Really superb post on a matter of special interest to me, for several decades - thank you sincerely for this, Cynthia!
Not only am I a lifelong history geek (especially the stuff swept under), I was also raised in a cult, which included a special "school" (very scary scare quotes) designed by a man who was both the son of the cult's matriarch (and thus, immaculate and unquestionable, even when insane and abusive) and a mathematician who did work on duplex error correction on pre and early ARPANET.
I have no direct evidence whatsoever to prove any RAND connection to the school program itself - even very loose arms-length stuff, but every few years, I come across another very strange clue about how weird our school really was.
The combination of design your own curriculum - zero guidance (but huge pressure for results, considering you literally asked for it), insane levels of political and interpersonal competition (the golden boy could easily be shit of the week, next week - all depended on the dynamics needed for most effective emotional imbalance and manipulation) - random reward and punishment always being far stronger than rationally correlated, for real mind control...)
But then also very specific things. TONS of gaming. Chess and Go of course - but we were playing timed blind chess matches too - and Hex games on various board sizes (so we couldn't use just one adapted strategy - and this in the years before Hex was finally conclusively (mathematically) solved! We were also greatly encouraged to create our own gaming systems with all kinds of odd abstract interrelationships.
(everything from non decimal number systems to the five regular solids).
There was also language learning technology I later saw discussed by a CIA man from the same period. Scientific American every month, early computers.
But most memorable (and the one I have never heard anyone else remark on, from any other program) was our math training. It was always a highly competitive game, and usually weighted for players of many levels.
We used dice of many colours. Some get added, some factored, some are exponents or roots (and some younger players need solve fewer terms, for a super effective handicapping system). Never any money or perq for a reward - but in a hyper competitive structure, pride is THE prize.(think Ender's Game)
Here's what made it so memorable - several dozen of the best players, myself included, got to a point where we came to the answer through no logical means we could track. That is, the correct answer would present - but if we took enough time to double-check why that answer made sense - someone else would answer first and beat us!
I have heard of similar faster-than-standard-reasoning training in other areas before, and I'm sure someone else has done this with math drills - but it still reads rather "other-than" even a half a century later! Minds are very adaptible!
For any curious - yes an unusual number of scholars out the far side, with and without formal higher education. Also massive ongoing emotional problems.
Best summary I've found? - it was one half "Magister Ludi" (from Hesse) and one half "Electric Skillet" (from Brunner's masterpiece "Shockwave Rider")
Cheers for what you (and Matthew) do! Stimulating and inspiring for many more than ever say! Just as with the music biz I know still better than writing, we Canucks can be a tough crowd, but we're still reading and thinking junkies, too!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And should you have a bored moment, here's one of my own attempts to explain reality to an audience which doesn't really want to hear (sentimental, rather than efficient, but someone has to go back for the slow group, right?) ;o)
- Anyhow - there are all of those relatives, yet to be persuaded...
That was what needed to read to understand my son when he talks about the theory of games in all
this rigmarole we are living, so many things sum up, from the religious one that we never discard
because clearly it is there in front of our eyes. They are true believers in evil things without being completely evil themselves, they are also true malignant people, and also useful idiots. this person who is writting these words lived and worked in a community of German ex-pats of the 2nd World
War,. in one or other moment I related to many of them and I can tell you that you could find all
shades of them, also it is a community that has everything to do with nuclear development.
A vey interesting place to study, from the standpoint of modern history
I like JQA, but I'll say this: At least currently, the US ain't no "she." If the USA were one person, it would be a 15-y-o bully boy on meth and fentanyl, carrying a AR-15 and lookin' for a fight and someone to rape.
Excellent review development of the psychic sickness the feeling of absolute power brings upon the heartless.
The culmination of this mental disease we see now in The War Against Russia for the fulfillment of their insane fantasy to be God? devoid of any spirit as mentioned by Adams.
Power corrupts absolutely and through this article we see it described.
This fantasy will fail and it will be interesting to watch it happen in the coming year.
The odds to win are impossible being reliant on a pure fantasy of fear of which the spirit of life simply ignores.
In my view RAND specifically and US nuclear strategy more generally is best seen as an attempt to generate rational approaches under conditions of considerable fear and considerable uncertainty. The evolution of RAND thinking demonstrates this was a difficult process but one that evolved in good faith. We should also acknowledge that it ultimately prevailed, despite taking existential risks with the fate of civilisation. The evolution of the strategy shows decreasing hubris and increasing realism, despite periodic forays into 'warfighting' strategies.
The author is presenting a caricature of the trajectory of RAND and of US nuclear strategy, as well as a caricature of systems analysis and OR, which is clearly just the repetition of the unsubstantiated opinions of secondary and tertiary sources.
The source Cynthia is using is Alex Abella's "Soldiers of Reason" which she has made evident. Abella's book is available for free on archive.org, https://archive.org/details/soldiersofreason00abel. If you bothered to inform yourself of the sources she used before writing your comment, you would know that Alex Abella had been granted access by RAND to their files that normally would have been unavailable to the public which was a primary source for writing his book. Thus Abella's book is not something that should be ignored in the clearly dishonest way you have just done. These are not caricatures she has made up and anyone familiar with the RAND environment would concur with how Abella and subsequently Cynthia have described its ideology and stratagem.
Sorry to say I find this to be a poor essay. It assumes its premises rather arguing them or evidencing them, relies entirely on secondary sources. Where is the actual argument? It just seems to be a series of slurs. I would be sympathetic to a critique of RAND and its formulations. But I don't see anything worthy of the name here. I don't see any primary argument even being attempted. There is not even a coherent claim here, let alone evidence and argument for this claim. If I was marking this as an undergraduate essay I would advise a complete revision, starting with a clear thesis - it has none. Similarly if I was reviewing this for publication. Very disappointing.
You seem to have quite the Ivory Tower malady. The policies of RAND over the decades have been clearly shown at this point to have been based off of a dishonest portrayal with fudged data of the actual nuclear threat during the Cold War years, such that the estimate of what the Soviets had for nuclear capability was way off. In addition, Daniel Ellsberg has done an immense service by leaking the RAND papers and showcasing that the Vietnam war was entirely unjustified and was waged not for the reasons that the American public were told. RAND played a central role in this lie. RAND has done nothing but to support an unjustifiable war drive, and today we are on the brink of WWIII and you say you see no problem with RAND's approach.?! You are either completely detached from reality or are supportive of the war hawk agenda. It is your sort of apathetic detached dribble that is what is disappointing. Why don't you exit out of your computer program and learn to be an actual human.
I cannot understand how you can defend such a lunatic asylum like the Rand and Nitze, Kahn and Wohlstetter as anything other than insane and only the forbearance of the USSR prevented the world ending up as a giant fireball.
You’re a little late to the party but I’m not defending RAND I’m critiquing this sophomoric essay.
FDR provoked Japan into Attacking America at Pearl Harbour by encircling Japan with an Oil Blockade. He persuaded the Dutch to stop selling Japan Oil from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies; after he refused Japan Oil from Ports in California. Without Oil Japan`s Industry , Army and Navy were Toast.
Really superb post on a matter of special interest to me, for several decades - thank you sincerely for this, Cynthia!
Not only am I a lifelong history geek (especially the stuff swept under), I was also raised in a cult, which included a special "school" (very scary scare quotes) designed by a man who was both the son of the cult's matriarch (and thus, immaculate and unquestionable, even when insane and abusive) and a mathematician who did work on duplex error correction on pre and early ARPANET.
I have no direct evidence whatsoever to prove any RAND connection to the school program itself - even very loose arms-length stuff, but every few years, I come across another very strange clue about how weird our school really was.
The combination of design your own curriculum - zero guidance (but huge pressure for results, considering you literally asked for it), insane levels of political and interpersonal competition (the golden boy could easily be shit of the week, next week - all depended on the dynamics needed for most effective emotional imbalance and manipulation) - random reward and punishment always being far stronger than rationally correlated, for real mind control...)
But then also very specific things. TONS of gaming. Chess and Go of course - but we were playing timed blind chess matches too - and Hex games on various board sizes (so we couldn't use just one adapted strategy - and this in the years before Hex was finally conclusively (mathematically) solved! We were also greatly encouraged to create our own gaming systems with all kinds of odd abstract interrelationships.
(everything from non decimal number systems to the five regular solids).
There was also language learning technology I later saw discussed by a CIA man from the same period. Scientific American every month, early computers.
But most memorable (and the one I have never heard anyone else remark on, from any other program) was our math training. It was always a highly competitive game, and usually weighted for players of many levels.
We used dice of many colours. Some get added, some factored, some are exponents or roots (and some younger players need solve fewer terms, for a super effective handicapping system). Never any money or perq for a reward - but in a hyper competitive structure, pride is THE prize.(think Ender's Game)
Here's what made it so memorable - several dozen of the best players, myself included, got to a point where we came to the answer through no logical means we could track. That is, the correct answer would present - but if we took enough time to double-check why that answer made sense - someone else would answer first and beat us!
I have heard of similar faster-than-standard-reasoning training in other areas before, and I'm sure someone else has done this with math drills - but it still reads rather "other-than" even a half a century later! Minds are very adaptible!
For any curious - yes an unusual number of scholars out the far side, with and without formal higher education. Also massive ongoing emotional problems.
Best summary I've found? - it was one half "Magister Ludi" (from Hesse) and one half "Electric Skillet" (from Brunner's masterpiece "Shockwave Rider")
Cheers for what you (and Matthew) do! Stimulating and inspiring for many more than ever say! Just as with the music biz I know still better than writing, we Canucks can be a tough crowd, but we're still reading and thinking junkies, too!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And should you have a bored moment, here's one of my own attempts to explain reality to an audience which doesn't really want to hear (sentimental, rather than efficient, but someone has to go back for the slow group, right?) ;o)
- Anyhow - there are all of those relatives, yet to be persuaded...
https://paulsnyders.substack.com/p/third-act-fafo-and-the-suez-moment
helping to realize democracy’s goals.” - the definition of 'democracy' - the governed choose their governors -
there are probably as many "goals" as there are people on this planet
That was what needed to read to understand my son when he talks about the theory of games in all
this rigmarole we are living, so many things sum up, from the religious one that we never discard
because clearly it is there in front of our eyes. They are true believers in evil things without being completely evil themselves, they are also true malignant people, and also useful idiots. this person who is writting these words lived and worked in a community of German ex-pats of the 2nd World
War,. in one or other moment I related to many of them and I can tell you that you could find all
shades of them, also it is a community that has everything to do with nuclear development.
A vey interesting place to study, from the standpoint of modern history
Great post, thanks!
I like JQA, but I'll say this: At least currently, the US ain't no "she." If the USA were one person, it would be a 15-y-o bully boy on meth and fentanyl, carrying a AR-15 and lookin' for a fight and someone to rape.
Excellent review development of the psychic sickness the feeling of absolute power brings upon the heartless.
The culmination of this mental disease we see now in The War Against Russia for the fulfillment of their insane fantasy to be God? devoid of any spirit as mentioned by Adams.
Power corrupts absolutely and through this article we see it described.
This fantasy will fail and it will be interesting to watch it happen in the coming year.
The odds to win are impossible being reliant on a pure fantasy of fear of which the spirit of life simply ignores.