Introduction By Leonard C. Lewin
http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/reportironmountain3.shtml
Report Dated March 1966
Article Dated June 1967
SECTION 6
SUBSTITUTES FOR THE FUNCTIONS OF WAR
BY NOW it should be clear that the most detailed and comprehensive
master plan for a transition to world peace will remain academic if it fails
to deal forth-rightly with the problem of the critical nonmilitary functions
of war. The social needs they serve are essential; if the war system no
longer exists to meet them, substitute institutions will have to be established
for the purpose. These surrogates must be "realistic," which is
to say of scope and nature that can be conceived and implemented in the
context of present-day social capabilities. This is not the truism it may
appear to be; the requirements of radical social change often reveal the
distinction between a most conservative projection and a wildly utopian
scheme to be fine indeed.
In this section we will consider some possible substitutes
for these functions. Only in rare instances have they been put forth for
the purposes which concern us I here, but we see no reason to limit ourselves
to proposals that address themselves explicitly to the problem as we I have
outlined it. We will disregard the ostensible, or military, functions of
war; it is a premise of this study that the transition to peace implies
absolutely will no longer exist in any relevant sense. We will also disregard
the non critical functions exemplified at the end of the preceding section.
Economic
Economic surrogates for war must meet two principal criteria.
They must be "wasteful," in the common sense of the word, and
they must operate outside the normal supply-demand system. A corollary that
should be obvious is that the magnitude of the waste must be subject to
arbitrary control. Public housing starts, to meet the needs of a particular
society. An economy as advanced and complex as our own requirements of a
stable economy might dictate. An
economy as advanced and complex as our own requites the planned average
annual destruction of not less than 10 percent of gross national product1
if it is effectively to fulfill its stabilizing function. When the mass
of a balance wheel is inadequate to the power it is intended to control,
its effect can be self-defeating, as with a runaway locomotive. The analogy,
though crude2, is especially apt for the American economy, as our record
of cyclical depressions shows. All have taken place during periods of grossly
inadequate military spending.
Those few economic conversion programs which by implication
acknowledge the nonmilitary economic function of war (at least to some extent)
tend to assume that so-called social-welfare expenditures will fill the
vacuum created by the disappearance of military spending. When one considers
the backlog of unfinished business--proposed but still unexecuted--in this
field, the assumption seems plausible. Let us examine briefly, the following
list, which is more or less typical of general social welfare programs.3
Health. Drastic expansion of medical research, education,
and training facilities; hospital and clinic construction; the general objective
of complete government guaranteed health care for all, at a level consistent
with current developments in medical technology.
Education. The equivalent of the foregoing in teacher training;
schools and libraries; the drastic upgrading of standards, with the general
objective of making available for all an attainable educational goal equivalent
to what is now considered a professional degree.
Housing. Clean, comfortable, safe, and spacious living space
for all, at the level now enjoyed by about 15 percent of the population
in this country (less in most others).
Transportation. The establishment of a system of mass public
transportation making it possible for all to travel to and from areas of
work and recreation quickly, comfortably, and conveniently, and to travel
privately for pleasure rather than necessity.
Physical environment. The development and protection of water
supplies, forests, parks, and other natural resources; the elimination of
chemical and bacterial contaminants from air, water, and soil.
Poverty. The genuine elimination of poverty, defined by a
standard consistent with current economic productivity, by means of a guaranteed
annual income or whatever system of distribution will best assure its achievement.
This is only a sampler of the more obvious domestic social
welfare items, and we have listed it in a deliberately broad, perhaps extravagant,
manner. In the past, such a vague and ambitious sounding "program"
would have been dismissed out of hand, without serious consideration; it
would clearly have been, prima facie, far too costly, quite apart from its
political implications.4 Our objection to it, on the other hand, could hardly
be more contradictory. As an economic substitute for war it is inadequate
because it would be far too cheap. If this seems paradoxical, it must be
remembered that up to now all proposed social-welfare programs have had
to be measured within the war economy, not as a replacement for it. The
old slogan about a battleship or an ICBM costing as much as x hospitals
or y schools or z homes takes on a very different meaning if there are to
be no more battleships or ICBM's.
Since the list is general , we have elected to forestall the
tangential controversy that surrounds arbitrary cost projections by offering
no individual cost estimates. But the maximum program that could be physically
effected along the lines indicated could approach the established level
of military spending only for a limited time--in our opinion, subject to
a detailed cost-and- feasibility analysis, less than ten years. In this
short period, at this rate, the major goals of the program would have been
achieved. Its capital-investment phase would have been completed, and it
would have established a permanent comparatively modest level of annual
operating cost-- within the framework of the general economy.
Here is the basic weakness of the social-welfare surrogate.
On the short- term basis, a maximum program of this sort could replace a
normal military spending program, provided it was designed, like the military
model, to be subject to arbitrary control. Public housing starts, for example,
or the development of modern medical enters might be accelerated or halted
from time to time, as the requirement of a stable economy might dictate.
But on the long term basis, social-welfare spending, no matter how often
redefined, would necessarily become an integral, accepted part of the economy,
of no more value as a stabilizer than the automobile industry or old age
and survivors' insurance. Apart from whatever merit social-welfare programs
are deemed to have for their own sake, their function as a substitute for
war in the economy would thus be self-liquidating. They might serve, however,
as expedients
pending the development of more durable substitute measures.
Another economic surrogate that has been proposed is a series
of giant "space research" programs. These have already demonstrated
their utility in more modest scale within the military economy. What has
been implied, although not yet expressly put forth, is the development of
a long-range sequence of space-research projects with largely unattainable
goals This kind of program offers several advantages lacking in the social
welfare model. First, it is unlikely to phase itself out, regardless of
the predictable "surprises" science has in store for us: the universe
is too big. In the event some individual project unexpectedly succeeds there
would be no dearth of substitute problems. For example, if colonization
of the moon proceeds on schedule, it could then become "necessary"
to establish a beachhead on Mars or Jupiter, and so on. Second, it need
be no more dependent on the general supply-demand economy than its military
prototype. Third, it lends itself extraordinarily well to arbitrary control.
Space research can be viewed as the nearest modern equivalent
yet devised to the pyramid-building, and similar ritualistic enterprises,
of ancient societies. It is true that the scientific value of the space
program, even of what has already been accomplished, is substantial on its
own terms. But current programs are absurdly and obviously disproportionate,
in the relationship of the knowledge sought to the expenditures committed.
All but a small fraction of the space budget, measured by the standards
of comparable scientific objectives, must be charged de facto to the military
economy. Future space research, projected as a war surrogate, would further
reduce the "scientific" rationale of its budget to a minuscule
percentage indeed. As a purely economic substitute for war, therefore, extension
of the space program warrants serious consideration.
In Section 3 we pointed out that certain disarmament models,
which we called conservative, postulated extremely expensive and elaborate
inspection systems. Would it be possible to extend and institutionalize
such systems to the point where they might serve as economic surrogates
for war spending? The organization of fail safe inspection machinery could
well be ritualized in a manner similar to that of established military processes.
"Inspection teams" might be very like armies, and their technical
equipment might be very like weapons. Inflating the inspection budget to
military scale presents no difficulty. The appeal of this kind of scheme
lies in the comparative ease of transition between two parallel systems.
The "elaborate inspection" surrogate is fundamentally
fallacious, however. Although it might be economically useful, as well as
politically necessary, during the disarmament transition, it would fail
as a substitute for the economic function of war for one simple reason.
Peace-keeping inspection is part of a war system, not of a peace system.
It implies the possibility of weapons maintenance or manufacture, which
could not exist in a world at peace as here defined. Massive inspection
also implies sanctions, and thus war-readiness.
The same fallacy is more obvious in plans to create a patently
useless "defense conversion" apparatus. The long-discredited proposal
to build "total" civil defense facilities is one example; another
is the plan to establish a giant antimissile missile complex (Nike-X,et.al.).
These programs, of course, are economic rather than strategic. Nevertheless,
they are not substitutes for military spending but merely different forms
of it.
A more sophisticated variant is the proposal to establish
the "Unarmed Forces" of the United States. This would conveniently
maintain the entire institutional military structure, redirecting it essentially
toward social-welfare activities on a global scale. It would be, in effect,
a giant military Peace Corps. There is
nothing inherently unworkable about this plan, and using the existing military
system to effectuate its own demise is both ingenious and convenient. But
even on a greatly magnified world basis, social-welfare expenditures must
sooner or later re-enter the atmosphere of the normal economy. The practical
transitional virtues of such a scheme would thus be eventually negated by
its inadequacy as a permanent economic stabilizer.
Political
The war system makes the stable government of societies possible.
It does this essentially by providing an external necessity for a society
to accept political rule. In so doing, it establishes the basis for nationhood
and the authority of government to control its constituents. What other
institution or combination of
programs might serve these functions in its place?
We have already pointed out that the end of war means the
end of national sovereignty, and thus the end of nationhood as we know it
today. But this does not necessarily mean the end of nations in the administrative
sense, and internal political power will remain essential to a stable society.
The emerging "nations" of the peace epoch must continue to draw
political authority from some source.
A number of proposals have been made governing the relations
between nations after total disarmament; all are basically juridical in
nature. They contemplate institutions more or less like a World Court, or
a United Nations, but vested with real authority. They may or may not serve
their ostensible post military purpose of settling international disputes,
but we need not discuss that here. None would offer effective external pressure
on a peace-world nation to organize itself politically.
It might be argued that a well-armed international police
force, operating under the authority of such a supranational "court,"
could well serve the function of external enemy. This, however, would constitute
a military operation, like the inspection schemes mentioned, and, like them,
would be inconsistent with the premise of an end to the war system. It is
possible that a variant of the "Unarmed Forces" idea might be
developed in such a way that its "constructive" (i.e., social
welfare) activities could be combined with and economic "threat"
of sufficient size and credibility to warrant political organization. Would
this kind of threat also be contradictory of our basic premise? --that is,
in our view, but we are skeptical of its capacity to evoke credibility.
Also, the obvious destabilizing effect of any global social welfare surrogate
on politically necessary class relationships would create an entirely new
set of transition problems at least equal in magnitude.
Credibility, in fact, lies at the heart of the problem of
developing a political substitute for war. This is where the space-race
proposals, in many ways so well suited as economic substitutes for war,
fall short. The most ambitious and unrealistic space project cannot of itself
generate a believable external menace. It has been hotly argued that such
a menace would offer the "last, best hope of peace," etc., by
uniting mankind against the danger of destruction by "creatures"
from other planets or from outer space. Experiments have been proposed to
test the credibility of an out-of-our-world invasion threat; it is
possible that a few of the more difficult-to-explain "flying saucer"
incidents of recent years were in fact early experiments of this kind. If
so, they could hardly have been judged encouraging. We anticipate no difficulties
in making a "need" for a giant super space program credible for
economic purposes, even were there not ample precedent; extending it, for
political purposes, to include features unfortunately associated with science
fiction would obviously be a more dubious undertaking.
Nevertheless, an effective political substitute for war would
require "alternate enemies," some of which might seem equally
far- fetched in the context of the current war system. It may be, for instance,
that gross pollution of the environment can eventually replace the possibility
of mass destruction by nuclear weapons as the principal apparent threat
to the survival of the species. Poisoning of the air, and of the principal
sources of food and water supply, is already well advanced, and at first
glance would seem promising in this respect; it constitutes a threat that
can be dealt with only through social organization and political power.
But from present indications it will be a generation to a generation and
a half before environmental pollution, however severe, will be sufficiently
menacing, on a global scale, to offer a possible basis for a solution.
It is true that the rate of pollution could be increased selectively
for this purpose; in fact, the mere modifying of existing programs for the
deterrence of pollution could speed up the process enough to make the threat
credible much sooner. But the pollution problem has been so widely publicized
in recent
years that it seems highly improbable that a program of deliberate environmental
poisoning could be implemented in a politically acceptable manner.
However unlikely some of the possible alternate enemies we
have mentioned may seem, we must emphasize that one must be found, of credible
quality and magnitude, if a transition to peace is ever to come about without
social disintegration. It is more probable, in our judgment, that such a
threat will have to be invented, rather than developed from unknown conditions.
For this reason, we believe further speculation about its putative nature
ill-advised in this context. Since there is considerable doubt, in our minds,
that any viable political surrogate can be devised, we are reluctant to
compromise, by premature discussion, any possible option that may eventually
lie open to our government.
Sociological
Of the many functions of war we have found convenient to group
together in this classification, two are critical. In a world of peace,
the continuing stability of society will require: 1) an effective substitute
for military institutions that can neutralize destabilizing social elements
and 2) a credible motivational
surrogate for war that can insure social cohesiveness. The first is an essential
element of social control; the second is the basic mechanism for adapting
individual human drives to the needs of society.
Most proposals that address themselves, explicitly or otherwise,
to the postwar problem of controlling the socially alienated turn to some
variant of the Peace Corp. or the so-called Job Corps for a solution. The
socially disaffected, the economically unprepared, the psychologically unconformable,
the hard-core "delinquents," the incorrigible "subversives,"
and the rest of the unemployable are seen as somehow transformed by the
discipline of a service modeled on military precedent into more or less
dedicated social service workers. This presumption also informs the otherwise
hardheaded ratiocination of the "Unarmed Forces" plan.
The problem has been addressed, in the language of popular
sociology, by Secretary McNamara. "Even in our abundant societies,
we have reason enough to worry over the tensions that coil and tighten among
underprivileged young people, and finally flail out in delinquency and crime.
What are we to expect ... where mounting frustrations are likely to fester
into eruptions of violence and extremism?" In a seemingly unrelated
passage, he continues: "It seems to me that we could move toward remedying
that inequity [of the Selective Service System] by asking every young person
in the United States to give two years of service to his country -- whether
in one of the military services, in the Peace Corps, or in some other volunteer
developmental work at home or abroad. We could encourage other countries
to do the same." Here, as elsewhere throughout this significant speech,
Mr. McNamara has focused, indirectly but unmistakably, on one of the key
issues bearing on a possible transition to peace, and has later indicated,
also indirectly, a rough approach to its resolution,
again phrased in the language of the current war system.
It seems clear that Mr. McNamara and other proponents of the
peace-corps surrogate for this war function lean heavily on the success
of the paramilitary Depression programs mentioned in the last section. We
find the precedent wholly inadequate in degree. Neither the lack of relevant
precedent, however, nor the dubious social-welfare sentimentality characterizing
this approach warrant its rejection without careful study. It may be viable
provided, first, that the military origin of the Corps format be effectively
rendered our of its operational activity, and second, that the transition
from paramilitary activities to "developmental work" can be effected
without regard to the attitudes of the Corps personnel or to the "value"
of the work it is expected to perform.
Another possible surrogate for the control of potential enemies of society
is the reintroduction, in some form consistent with modern technology and
political processes, of slavery. Up to now, this has been suggested only
in fiction, notably in the works of Wells, Huxley, Orwell, and others engaged
in the imaginative anticitution is needed, as the "alternate enemy"
needed to the sociology of the future. But the fantasies projected in Brave
New World and 1984
have seemed less and less implausible over the years since their publication.
The traditional association of slavery with ancient pre industrial cultures
should not blind us to its adaptability to advanced forms of social organization,
nor should its equally traditional incompatibility with Western moral and
economic
values. It is entirely possible that the development of a sophisticated
form of slavery may be an absolute pre-requisite for social control in a
world at peace. As a practical matter, conversion of the code of military
discipline to a euphemized form of enslavement would entail surprisingly
little revision; the logical step would be the adoption of some form of
"universal" military service.
When it comes to postulating a credible substitute for war
capable of directing human behavior patterns in behalf of social organization,
few options suggest themselves. Like its political function, the motivational
function of war requires the existence of a genuinely menacing social enemy.
The principal difference is that for purposes of motivating basic allegiance,
as distinct from accepting political authority, the "alternate enemy"
must imply a more immediate, tangible, and directly felt threat of destruction.
It must justify the need for taking and paying a "blood price"
in wide areas of human concern.
In this respect, the possible substitute enemies noted earlier
would be insufficient. One exception might be the environmental- pollution
model, if the danger to society it posed was genuinely imminent. The fictive
models would have to carry the weight of extraordinary conviction, underscored
with a not
inconsiderable actual sacrifice of life; the construction of an up-to-date
mythological or religious structure for this purpose would present difficulties
in our era, but must certainly be considered.
Games theorists have suggested, in other contexts, the development
of "blood games" for the effective control of individual aggressive
impulses. It is an ironic commentary on the current state-of war and peace
studies that it was left not to scientists but to the makers of a commercial
film to develop a model for this notion, on the implausible level of popular
melodrama, as a ritualized manhunt. More realistically, such a ritual might
be socialized, in the manner of the Spanish Inquisition and the less formal
witch trials of other periods, for purposes of "social purification,"
"state security," or other rationale both
acceptable and credible to postwar societies. The feasibility of such an
updated version of still another ancient institution, though doubtful, is
considerably less fanciful than the wishful notion of many peace planners
that a lasting condition of peace can be brought about without the most
painstaking examination of every possible surrogate for the essential functions
of war. What is involved here, in a sense, is the quest for William James's
"moral equivalent of war."
It is also possible that the two functions considered under
this heading may be jointly served, in the sense of establishing the antisocial,
for whom a control institution is needed, as the "alternate enemy"
needed to hold society together. The relentless and irreversible advance
of unemployability at all levels of
society, and the similar extension of generalized alienation from accepted
values may make some such program necessary even as an adjunct to the war
system. As before, we will not speculate on the specific forms this kind
of program might take, except to note that there is again ample precedent,
in the treatment meted out to disfavored, allegedly menacing, ethnic groups
in certain societies during certain historical periods.
Ecological
Considering the shortcomings of war as a mechanism of selective
population control, it might appear that devising substitutes for this function
should be comparatively simple. Schematically this is so, but the problem
of timing the transition to a new ecological balancing device makes the
feasibility of substitution less certain.
It must be remembered that the limitation of war in this function
is entirely eugenic. War has not been genetically progressive. But as a
system of gross population control to preserve the species it cannot fairly
be faulted. And, as has been pointed out, the nature of war is itself in
transition. Current trends in
warfare--the increased strategic bombing of civilians and the greater military
importance now attached to the destruction of sources of supply ( as opposed
to purely "military" bases and personnel)--strongly suggest that
a truly qualitative improvement is in the making. Assuming the war system
is to continue, it is
more than probable that the regressively selective quality of war will have
been reversed, as its victims become more genetically representative of
their societies.
There is no question but that a universal requirement that
procreation be limited to the products of artificial insemination would
provide a fully adequate substitute control for population levels. Such
a reproductive system would, of course have the added advantage of being
susceptible of direct eugenic management. Its predictable further development
--conception and embryonic growth taking place wholly under laboratory conditions
--would extend
these controls to their logical conclusion. The ecological function of war
under these circumstances would not only be superseded but surpassed in
effectiveness.
The indicated intermediate step--total control of conception
with a variant of the ubiquitous "pill," via water supplies, or
certain essential foodstuffs, offset by a controlled "antidote"--is
already under developmental There would appear to be no foreseeable need
to revert to any of the outmoded practices
referred to in the previous section (infanticide, etc.) as there might have
been if the possibility of transition to peace had arisen two generations
ago.
The real question here, therefore, does not concern the viability
of this war substitute, but the political problems involved in bringing
it about. It cannot be established while the war system is still in effect.
The reason for this is simple: excess population is war material. As long
as any society must contemplate even a remote possibility of war, it must
maintain a maximum supportable population, even when so doing critically
aggravates an economic liability. This is paradoxical, in view of war's
role in reducing excess population, but it is readily understood. War controls
the general population level, but the ecological interest of any single
society lies in maintaining its hegemony vis-à-vis other societies.
The obvious analogy can be seen in any free-enterprise economy. Practices
damaging to the society as a whole --both competitive and monopolistic--
are abetted by the conflicting economic motives of individual capital
interests. The obvious precedent can be found in the seemingly irrational
political difficulties which have blocked universal adoption of simple birth-control
methods. Nations desperately in need of increasing unfavorable production
consumption ratios are nevertheless unwilling to gamble their possible military
requirements of twenty years hence for this purpose. Unilateral population
control, as practiced in ancient Japan and in other isolated societies,
is out of the question in today's world.
Since the eugenic solution cannot be achieved until the transition
to the peace system takes place, why not wait? One must qualify the inclination
to agree. As we noted earlier, a real possibility of an unprecedented global
crisis of insufficiency exists today, which the war system may not be able
to forestall. If this should come to pass before an agreed-upon transition
to peace were completed, the result might be irrevocably disastrous. There
is clearly no solution to this dilemma; it is a risk which must be taken.
But it tends to support the view that if a decision is made to eliminate
the war system, it were better done sooner than later.
Cultural and Scientific
Strictly speaking, the function of war as the determinant
of cultural values and as the prime mover of scientific progress may not
be critical in a world without war. Our criterion for the basic nonmilitary
functions of war has been: Are they necessary to the survival and stability
of society? The absolute need for substitute cultural value-determinants
and for the continued advance of scientific knowledge is not established.
We believe it important, however, in behalf of those for whom these functions
hold subjective significance, that it be known what they can reasonably
expect in culture and science after a transition to peace.
So far as the creative arts are concerned, there is no reason
to believe they would disappear, but only that they would change in character
and relative social importance. The elimination of war would in due course
deprive them of their principal conative force, but it would necessarily
take some time for the effect of this withdrawal to be felt. During the
transition, and perhaps for a generation thereafter, themes of socio-moral
conflict inspired by the war system would be increasingly transferred to
the idiom of purely personal sensibility. At the same time, a new aesthetic
would have to develop. Whatever its name, form, or rationale, its function
would be to express, in language appropriate to the new period, the once
discredited philosophy that art exists for its
own sake. This aesthetic would reject unequivocally the classic requirement
of paramilitary conflict as the substantive content of great art. The eventual
effect of the peace- world philosophy of art would be democratizing in the
extreme, in the sense that a generally acknowledged subjectivity of artistic
standards would equalize their new, content-free "values."
What may be expected to happen is that art would be reassigned
the role it once played in a few primitive peace-oriented social systems.
This was the function of pure decoration, entertainment, or play, entirely
free of the burden of expressing the socio-moral values and conflicts of
a war-oriented society. It is interesting that the groundwork for such a
value-free aesthetic is already being laid today, in growing experimentation
in art without content, perhaps in anticipation of a world without conflict.
A cult has developed around a new kind of cultural determinism, which proposes
that the technological form of a cultural expression determines its values
rather than does its ostensibly meaningful content. Its clear implication
is that there is no "good" or "bad" art, only that which
is appropriate to its (technological) times and that which is not. Its cultural
effect has been to promote circumstantial constructions and unplanned
expressions; it denies to art the reference of sequential logic. Its significance
in this context is that it provides al working model of one kind of value-free
culture we might reasonably anticipate in a world at peace.
So far as science is concerned, it might appear at first glance
that a giant space research program, the most promising among the proposed
economic surrogates for war, might also serve as the basic stimulator of
scientific research. The lack of fundamental organized social conflict inherent
in space work, however, would rule it out as an adequate motivational substitute
for war when applied to "pure" science. But it could no doubt
sustain the broad
range of technological activity that a space budget of military dimensions
would require. A similarly scaled social-welfare program could provide a
comparable impetus to low-keyed technological advances, especially in medicine,
rationalized construction methods, educational psychology, etc. The eugenic
substitute for the ecological function of war would also require continuing
research in certain areas of the life sciences.
Apart from these partial substitutes for war, it must be kept
in mind that the momentum given to scientific progress by the great wars
of the past century, and even more by the anticipation of World War III,
is intellectually and materially enormous. It is our finding that if the
war system were to end tomorrow this momentum is so great that the pursuit
of scientific knowledge could reasonably be expected to go forward without
noticeable diminution for
perhaps two decades. It would then continue, at a progressively decreasing
tempo, for at least another two decades before the "bank account"
of today's unresolved problems would become exhausted. By the standards
of the questions we have learned to ask today, there would no longer be
anything worth knowing still unknown; we cannot conceive, by definition,
of the scientific questions to ask once those we can now comprehend are
answered.
This leads unavoidably to another matter: the intrinsic value
of the unlimited search for knowledge. We of course offer no independent
value judgments here, but it is germane to point out that a substantial
minority of scientific opinion feels that search to be circumscribed in
any case. This opinion is itself a factor in considering the need for a
substitute for the scientific function of war. For the record, we must also
take note of the precedent that during long periods of human history, often
covering thousands of years, in which no intrinsic social value was assigned
to scientific progress, stable societies did survive and flourish. Although
this could not have been possible in the modern industrial world, we cannot
be certain it may not again be true in a future world at peace.
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, nonmilitary 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 modem 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: Criterion
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:
1. 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.
2. Political. A viable political substitute for economic control,
appears unpromising in terms must posit a generalized external menace to
each society of a nature and degree sufficient to require the organization
and acceptance of political authority. 3. 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 substitutes proposed for this function that are
modeled 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.
4. 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 relation
to environmental supply.
5. Cultural and Scientific. A surrogate for the function of
war as the determinant of cultural values must establish a basis of sociomoral
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 nonmilitary functions
of war. That they may not have been originally set forth for that purpose
does not preclude or invalidate their possible application here.
1. 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.
a. 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.
3. Sociological: Control function. a) Programs generally derived
from the Peace Corps model. a) 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.
4. Ecological. A comprehensive welfare program, or a master
program of eugenic control.
5. 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.
More important, it is not enough to
develop 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 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;
myth making dissociated from war 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 involves 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 can-not 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 to 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 which 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 I 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 with social speculation,
however justifiable the speculation may appear, in terms of subjective I
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.
A 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 circumstance, 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 ever been conducted to determine, for example:
--optimum levels of armament production, for purposes of economic
control, at any given series of chronological points and under any given
relationship between civilian production and consumption patterns;
--correlation factors between draft recruitment policies and
mensurable 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
(1) 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.
(2) 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:
(a) The creative development of possible substitute institutions
for the principal nonmilitary functions of war.
(b) The careful matching of such institutions against the
criteria summarized in this Report, as refined, revised, and extended by
the agency.
(c) The testing and evaluation of substitute institutions,
for acceptability, feasibility, and credibility, against hypothecated transitional
and postwar conditions; the testing and evaluation of the effects of the
anticipated atrophy of certain unsubstituted functions.
(d) The development and testing of the correlativity of multiple
substitute institutions, with the eventual objective of establishing a comprehensive
program of compatible war substitutes suitable for a planned transition
to peace, if and when this is found to be possible and subsequently judged
desirable by
appropriate political authorities.
(e) The preparation of a wide-ranging schedule of partial,
uncorrelated, crash programs of adjustment suitable for reducing the dangers
of an unplanned transition to peace effected by force majeure.
Peace Research methods will include but not be limited to,
the following:
(a) The comprehensive interdisciplinary application of historical,
scientific, technological, and cultural data.
(b) The full utilization of modern methods of mathematical
modeling, analogical analysis, and other, more sophisticated, quantitative
techniques in process of development that are compatible with computer programming.
(c) The heuristic "peace games" procedures developed
during the course of its assignment by the Special Study Group, and further
extensions of this basic approach to the testing of institutional functions.
(3) 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:
(a) Quantification of existing application of the non-military
functions of war. Specific determinations will include, but not be limited
to: 1) the gross amount and the net proportion of nonproductive military
expenditures since World War II assignable to the need for war as an economic
stabilizer; 2) the amount and proportion of military expenditures and destruction
of life, property, and natural resources during this period assignable to
the need for war as an instrument for political control; 3) similar figures,
to the extent that they can be separately I arrived at, assignable to the
need for war to maintain social
cohesiveness; 4) levels of recruitment and expenditures on the draft and
other forms of personnel deployment attributable to the need for military
institutions to control social disaffection; 5) the statistical relationship
of war casualties to world food supplies; 6) the correlation of military
actions and expenditures
with cultural activities and scientific advances (including necessarily,
the development of mensurable standards in these areas).
(b) Establishment of a priori modern criteria for the execution
of the nonmilitary functions of war. These will include, but not be limited
to: 1) calculation of minimum and optimum ranges of military expenditure
required, under varying hypothetical conditions, to fulfill these several
functions, separately and
collectively; 2) determination of minimum and optimum levels of destruction
of life, property, and natural resources prerequisite to the credibility
of external threat essential to the political and motivational functions;
3) development of a negotiable formula governing the relationship between
military recruitment and
training policies and the exigencies of social control.
(c) Reconciliation of these criteria with prevailing economic,
political, sociological, and ecological limitations. The ultimate object
of this phase of War Research is to rationalize the heretofore informal
operations of the war system. It should provide practical working procedures
through which responsible
governmental authority may resolve the following war-function problems,
among others, under any given circumstances: 1) how to determine the optimum
quantity, nature, and timing of military expenditures to ensure a desired
degree of economic control; 2) how to organize the recruitment, deployment,
and ostensible use of military personnel to ensure a desired degree of acceptance
of authorized social values; 3) how to compute on a short-term basis, the
nature and extent of the loss of life and other resources which should be
suffered and/or inflicted during any single outbreak of hostilities to achieve
a desired degree of internal political authority and social allegiance;
4) how to project, over extended periods, the nature and quality of overt
warfare which must be planned and budgeted to achieve a desired degree of
contextual stability for the same purpose; factors to be determined
must include frequency of occurrence, length of phase, intensity of physical
destruction, extensiveness of geographical involvement, and optimum mean
loss of life; 5) how to extrapolate accurately from the foregoing, for ecological
purposes, the
continuing effect of the war system, over such extended cycles, on population
pressures, and to adjust the planning of casualty rates accordingly.
War Research procedures will necessarily include, but not
be limited to, the following:
(a) The collation of economic, military, and other relevant
data into uniform terms, permitting the reversible translation of heretofore
discrete categories of information.'
(b)The development and application of appropriate forms of
cost- effectiveness analysis suitable for adapting such new constructs to
computer terminology, programming, and projection.
(c) Extension of the "war games" methods of systems
testing to apply, as a quasi-adversary proceeding to the nonmilitary functions
of war.
(4) 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 Newspaper 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 Congressmen in 1965; it was later given limited
distribution among other persons engaged in related projects.)
2. David T. Bazelon, "The Politics of the Paper"
Commentary (November 1962), p. 409.
3. The Economic Impact of Disarmament (Washington: USGPO,
January 1962).
4. David T. Bazelon, "The Scarcity Makers," Commentary
(October 1962), p. 298.
5. Frank Pace, Jr., in an address before the American Bankers'
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 Naturgeschichts der Aggression (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. Bouthoul, in La Guerre (Paris: Presses universitaires
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 control
. Under these two conditions, the probability of the permanent elimination
of involuntary global
famine is 88 percent by 1978 and g5 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. Read 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, 196S).
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 frequently recurring correlation problems --chronological phasing--was
brought to light in this
way. One of the first combinations tested showed remarkably huge 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. Edwald Teller, quoted in War/Peace Report (December 1984).
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 mensurable "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 over- due
need for such translation is furnished by Kahl (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 to 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 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.
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