The Wizards of Armageddon
About: This article is published in Foreign Affairs.The article was published on 1983-01-01. It has received 55 citations till now.
Citations
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Journal Article•
179 citations
TL;DR: Hobbes's theory of international relations focuses not upon the determinations of anarchy in any conventional sense but upon issues of knowledge, ideology, and legitimacy in the construction of political orders both domestically and internationally.
Abstract: Hobbes has long been a central figure in the theory of international relations. He has also been a badly misunderstood one. While often invoked to support contemporary theories of international politics, Hobbes's thinking actually challenges rational-choice theories, the structural realism of Kenneth Waltz, and the “rationalist” approach of the English school. Indeed, the skeptical foundations of his political vision place him closer to contemporary postpositivist positions, though here, too, his views raise difficult and important questions for such a stance. In general, Hobbes's theory of international relations focuses not upon the determinations of anarchy in any conventional sense but upon issues of knowledge, ideology, and legitimacy in the construction of political orders both domestically and internationally.
144 citations
Dissertation•
20 Jan 2019
TL;DR: This dissertation argues that SAGE, and indeed, the entire ColdWar project of nuclearand-command, can be understood as a sequence of “garbage-can-like” decisions, resulting in a conglomeration of independent systems whose behavior appeared reasonable from the perspective of the using organization, but which nonetheless failed to cohere against the far greater danger of a global thermonuclear exchange.
Abstract: During the late 1950s, the United States Air Force initiated development on nearly twodozen military “command and control systems.” What they shared in common was a novel application of digital electronics to the problem of nuclear warfare. Most of these systems descended, in some fashion, from a program called “SAGE,” the Semiautomatic Ground Environment, which gathered data from a network of radar stations for processing at large Air Defense Direction Centers, where digital computers assisted human operators in tracking, identifying, and, potentially, intercepting and destroying hostile aircraft. Although histories of SAGE have been written before, they have tended to stress digital computing as a rationalist response to the threat of mass raids by nuclear-armed Soviet bombers. Nevertheless, organizational sociology suggests that large bureaucratic organizations, such as the United States Air Force, often defy our intuition that decisions, technological or otherwise, must follow a perceived problem to its potential solution. According to the so-called “garbage-can model of organizational choice,” problems and solutions may, in certain circumstances, arise independently and join together unpredictably, because the basic social phenomena do not conform to bureaucratic ideals. This dissertation argues that SAGE, and indeed, the entire ColdWar project of nuclearand-command, can be understood as a sequence of “garbage-can-like” decisions, resulting in a conglomeration of independent systems whose behavior appeared reasonable from the perspective of the using organization, but which nonetheless failed to cohere against the far greater danger of a global thermonuclear exchange. They did, however, succeed at satisfying the government’s need to act by projecting uncomfortable questions of political organization onto popular technology programs.
104 citations
Book•
30 Jul 2002
TL;DR: The authors summarized much of what is known about prior counter-insurgency and made recommendations for improving it based on the RAND Corporation's decades-long study of the subject, and concluded that many of the alleged differences between past and current COIN are overstated, while many specific details do vary greatly, insurgency is a more general phenomenon that is not a product of Cold War peculiarities.
Abstract: : As part of the global war on terror, Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom showcased the dazzling technological capability and professional prowess of the U.S. military in conventional operations. Yet the subsequent challenges posed by insurgency and instability in both Afghanistan and Iraq have proved much more difficult to surmount for both military and civilian agencies. Further, this difficulty in coping with insurgency may embolden future opponents to embrace insurgency as the only viable means of combating the United States. Thus, both the current and future conduct of the war on terror demand that the United States improve its ability to conduct counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. This study seeks to summarize much of what is known about prior COIN and to make recommendations for improving it based on RAND Corporation's decades-long study of the subject. The body of work generated from this study covers many aspects of COIN, from the most abstract theories of why insurgency takes place to tactical operations. It also covers a wide array of cases, varied in both geography and time, from the British experience in Malaya to the French in Algeria to the United States in El Salvador. However, the research is limited in that almost all of it is based on cases that occurred in the context of the Cold War. Some might question the continuing relevance of studies centered on conflicts that took place in such a radically different geopolitical context. This study is based on the premise that, while many specific details do vary greatly, insurgency and counterinsurgency is a more general phenomenon that is not a product of Cold War peculiarities. Further, many of the alleged differences between past and current COIN are overstated. For example, the fragmented nature of the insurgency in Iraq is often remarked on as almost without precedent. Yet many insurgencies during the Cold War were also highly fragmented. A RAND counterinsurgency bibliography is included.
103 citations
TL;DR: A careful comparison demonstrates that in a certain sense the Schelling model is just an instance of Sakoda’s model, and some contrafactual historical reflection suggests that the final result was not inevitable.
Abstract: The Journal of Mathematical Sociology (JMS) started in 1971. The second issue contained its most cited article: Thomas C. Schelling, “Dynamic Models of Segregation†. In that article, Schelling presented a family of models, one of which became a canonical model. To date it is called the Schelling model—an eponym that affixes the inventor’s name to the invention, one of the highest forms of scientific recognition. In the very first issue of JMS, James Minoru Sakoda published an article entitled “The Checkerboard Model of Social Interaction†. Sakoda’s article more or less went unrecognized. Yet, a careful comparison demonstrates that in a certain sense the Schelling model is just an instance of Sakoda’s model. A precursor of that model was already part of Sakoda’s 1949 dissertation submitted to the University of California at Berkeley. A substantial amount of evidence indicates that in the 1970s Sakoda was well known and recognized as a computational social scientist, whereas Schelling was an unknown in the field. A generation later, the pattern of recognition almost completely reversed: Sakoda had become the unknown, while Schelling was the well-known inventor of the pioneering Schelling model. This article explains this puzzling pattern of recognition. Technical and social factors play a decisive role. Some contrafactual historical reflection suggests that the final result was not inevitable.
67 citations
Cites background from "The Wizards of Armageddon"
...172 For the controversy cf. [Kaplan, 1983, ch. 23] and the thoughtful and reflective discussion of Kaplan’s critic in Dodge’s Schelling-biography [Dodge, 2006, chs. 14, 18, and 19]....
[...]
...McNaughton had doubts about his competence, but Schelling “told him not to worry, that it was easy, that he would teach McNaughton everything he would need to know” [Kaplan, 1983, 333]....
[...]
...For a more general history of the strategic thought on how to use nuclear weapons see [Kaplan, 1983], [Erickson et al., 2013], and [Erickson, 2015]....
[...]
...…visit of McNaughton to Schelling in December 1964 plays a role.172 Based upon an interview with Schelling, Kaplan writes that Schelling told McNaughton “that the bombing should not last more than a few weeks; it would succeed by then or . . . it would never succeed” [Kaplan, 1983, 334]....
[...]
...For a more general history of the strategic thought on how to use nuclear weapons see [Kaplan, 1983], [Erickson et al....
[...]
References
More filters
Book•
13 Mar 2006
TL;DR: This book discusses philosophy of science and technology, anti-Technology: Romanticism, Luddism and the Ecology Movement, and social constructionism and Actor Network Theory.
Abstract: Introduction. 1. Philosophy of Science and Technology. 2. What is technology? Defining or Characterizing Technology. 3. Technocracy. 4. Rationality, Technological Rationality, and Reason. 5. Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Technology. 6. Technological Determinism. 7. Autonomous Technology. 8. Human Nature: Tool Making or Language?. 9. Women, Feminism and Technology. 10. Non-Western Technology and Local Knowledge. 11. Anti-Technology: Romanticism, Luddism and the Ecology Movement. 12. Social Constructionism and Actor Network Theory. Bibliography. Index.
164 citations
TL;DR: Hobbes's theory of international relations focuses not upon the determinations of anarchy in any conventional sense but upon issues of knowledge, ideology, and legitimacy in the construction of political orders both domestically and internationally.
Abstract: Hobbes has long been a central figure in the theory of international relations. He has also been a badly misunderstood one. While often invoked to support contemporary theories of international politics, Hobbes's thinking actually challenges rational-choice theories, the structural realism of Kenneth Waltz, and the “rationalist” approach of the English school. Indeed, the skeptical foundations of his political vision place him closer to contemporary postpositivist positions, though here, too, his views raise difficult and important questions for such a stance. In general, Hobbes's theory of international relations focuses not upon the determinations of anarchy in any conventional sense but upon issues of knowledge, ideology, and legitimacy in the construction of political orders both domestically and internationally.
144 citations
Dissertation•
20 Jan 2019
TL;DR: This dissertation argues that SAGE, and indeed, the entire ColdWar project of nuclearand-command, can be understood as a sequence of “garbage-can-like” decisions, resulting in a conglomeration of independent systems whose behavior appeared reasonable from the perspective of the using organization, but which nonetheless failed to cohere against the far greater danger of a global thermonuclear exchange.
Abstract: During the late 1950s, the United States Air Force initiated development on nearly twodozen military “command and control systems.” What they shared in common was a novel application of digital electronics to the problem of nuclear warfare. Most of these systems descended, in some fashion, from a program called “SAGE,” the Semiautomatic Ground Environment, which gathered data from a network of radar stations for processing at large Air Defense Direction Centers, where digital computers assisted human operators in tracking, identifying, and, potentially, intercepting and destroying hostile aircraft. Although histories of SAGE have been written before, they have tended to stress digital computing as a rationalist response to the threat of mass raids by nuclear-armed Soviet bombers. Nevertheless, organizational sociology suggests that large bureaucratic organizations, such as the United States Air Force, often defy our intuition that decisions, technological or otherwise, must follow a perceived problem to its potential solution. According to the so-called “garbage-can model of organizational choice,” problems and solutions may, in certain circumstances, arise independently and join together unpredictably, because the basic social phenomena do not conform to bureaucratic ideals. This dissertation argues that SAGE, and indeed, the entire ColdWar project of nuclearand-command, can be understood as a sequence of “garbage-can-like” decisions, resulting in a conglomeration of independent systems whose behavior appeared reasonable from the perspective of the using organization, but which nonetheless failed to cohere against the far greater danger of a global thermonuclear exchange. They did, however, succeed at satisfying the government’s need to act by projecting uncomfortable questions of political organization onto popular technology programs.
104 citations
Book•
30 Jul 2002
TL;DR: The authors summarized much of what is known about prior counter-insurgency and made recommendations for improving it based on the RAND Corporation's decades-long study of the subject, and concluded that many of the alleged differences between past and current COIN are overstated, while many specific details do vary greatly, insurgency is a more general phenomenon that is not a product of Cold War peculiarities.
Abstract: : As part of the global war on terror, Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom showcased the dazzling technological capability and professional prowess of the U.S. military in conventional operations. Yet the subsequent challenges posed by insurgency and instability in both Afghanistan and Iraq have proved much more difficult to surmount for both military and civilian agencies. Further, this difficulty in coping with insurgency may embolden future opponents to embrace insurgency as the only viable means of combating the United States. Thus, both the current and future conduct of the war on terror demand that the United States improve its ability to conduct counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. This study seeks to summarize much of what is known about prior COIN and to make recommendations for improving it based on RAND Corporation's decades-long study of the subject. The body of work generated from this study covers many aspects of COIN, from the most abstract theories of why insurgency takes place to tactical operations. It also covers a wide array of cases, varied in both geography and time, from the British experience in Malaya to the French in Algeria to the United States in El Salvador. However, the research is limited in that almost all of it is based on cases that occurred in the context of the Cold War. Some might question the continuing relevance of studies centered on conflicts that took place in such a radically different geopolitical context. This study is based on the premise that, while many specific details do vary greatly, insurgency and counterinsurgency is a more general phenomenon that is not a product of Cold War peculiarities. Further, many of the alleged differences between past and current COIN are overstated. For example, the fragmented nature of the insurgency in Iraq is often remarked on as almost without precedent. Yet many insurgencies during the Cold War were also highly fragmented. A RAND counterinsurgency bibliography is included.
103 citations
TL;DR: A careful comparison demonstrates that in a certain sense the Schelling model is just an instance of Sakoda’s model, and some contrafactual historical reflection suggests that the final result was not inevitable.
Abstract: The Journal of Mathematical Sociology (JMS) started in 1971. The second issue contained its most cited article: Thomas C. Schelling, “Dynamic Models of Segregation†. In that article, Schelling presented a family of models, one of which became a canonical model. To date it is called the Schelling model—an eponym that affixes the inventor’s name to the invention, one of the highest forms of scientific recognition. In the very first issue of JMS, James Minoru Sakoda published an article entitled “The Checkerboard Model of Social Interaction†. Sakoda’s article more or less went unrecognized. Yet, a careful comparison demonstrates that in a certain sense the Schelling model is just an instance of Sakoda’s model. A precursor of that model was already part of Sakoda’s 1949 dissertation submitted to the University of California at Berkeley. A substantial amount of evidence indicates that in the 1970s Sakoda was well known and recognized as a computational social scientist, whereas Schelling was an unknown in the field. A generation later, the pattern of recognition almost completely reversed: Sakoda had become the unknown, while Schelling was the well-known inventor of the pioneering Schelling model. This article explains this puzzling pattern of recognition. Technical and social factors play a decisive role. Some contrafactual historical reflection suggests that the final result was not inevitable.
67 citations