General, i have fought just as many nuclear wars as you have: Forecasts, future scenarios, and the politics of armageddon

American Historical Review

Volumn 117, Issue 5, 2012, Pages 1431-1460

  Connelly, Matthew ^a   Fay, Matt ^b   Ferrini, Giulia ^c   Kaufman, Micki ^d   Leonard, Will ^a   Monsky, Harrison ^e   Musto, Ryan ^f   Paine, Taunton ^f   Standish, Nicholas ^f   Walker, Lydia ^g  

^a Columbia University ^*  (United States)

^b TEMPLE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY OF ROME   (Italy)

^d CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

^e YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^f LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

^g HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84875779657     PISSN: 00028762     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ahr/117.5.1431     Document Type: Review

References (238)

1. The intelligence community's classified budget is more than $80 billion, having doubled in size since 2001. In 1973, it was estimated that over $100 million was already being spent just on military computer models and simulations-over $400 million in today's dollars, or more than the entire budget of the National Archives and Records Administration. "Overall U.S. Intelligence Budget Tops $80 Billion," Los Angeles Times, October 28, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/28/nation/la-na-intel- budget-20101029;
2. Garry D. Brewer and Martin Shubik, The War Game: A Critique of Military Problem Solving (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 41.
3. Bernard Cazes, Histoire des futurs: Les figures de l'avenir de saint Augustin au XXIe sìecle (Paris, 1986), chaps. 9-10.
4. On utopian thought, see the monumental and still-invaluable introduction to the subject by Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Cambridge, Mass., 1979).
5. Russell Jacoby, Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age (New York, 2005);
6. and Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (New York, 2005).
7. Robert Heilbroner, Visions of the Future: The Distant Past, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (New York, 1995).
8. The classic studies of the idea of progress and of posterity are J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into Its Origin and Growth (London, 1920), http://openlibrary.org/books/OL14014092M/The-idea-of-progress;
9. Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers, 2nd ed. (New Haven, Conn., 2003).
10. Arthur Herman, The Idea of Decline in Western History (New York, 1997).
11. Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 1994);
12. and Michael Adas, Prophets of Rebellion: Millenarian Protest Movements against the European Colonial Order (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1979).
13. I. F. Clarke, Voices Prophesying War: Future Wars, 1763-3749, 2nd ed. (New York, 1992).
14. Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), 271-276.
15. Important examples of how one can combine intellectual and political histories of the future include Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990), chap. 4;
16. and Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918 (Cambridge, Mass., 2003).
17. Michael E. Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and "Nation Building" in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2000);
18. Matthew Connelly, Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population (Cambridge, Mass., 2008);
19. and Nick Cullather, The Hungry World: America's Cold War Battle against Poverty in Asia (Cambridge, Mass., 2010).
20. On nuclear war specifically, see the insightful intellectual biography of Herman Kahn by Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, The Worlds of Herman Kahn: The Intuitive Science of Thermonuclear War (Cambridge, Mass., 2005);
21. as well as David Alan Rosenberg's earlier call for a field of research on nuclear planning and procurement, "The History of World War III, 1945-1990: A Conceptual Framework," in Robert David Johnson, ed., On Cultural Ground: Essays in International History (Chicago, 1994), 197-235.
22. Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (Stanford, Calif., 1991), 254, and see also 9-10 on the perceived obsolescence of traditional strategic thought.
23. As Herman Kahn argued, "the unrealized and unexperienced, but historically plausible, problems of World Wars III and IV are more valuable than the experienced problems of World Wars I and II"; Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, 2nd ed. (New York, 1969), 416.
24. John Mueller, Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al Qaeda (New York, 2010), 29-33.
25. Bernard Brodie opened the debate with his extremely prescient edited volume The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (New York, 1946).
26. The classic statement is Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (1966; repr., New Haven, Conn., 2008), 94;
27. Robert Jervis, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984), 135-138.
28. Stephen I. Schwartz, ed., Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons since 1940 (Washington, D.C., 1998).
29. Marc Bloch, The Historian's Craft, trans. Peter Putnam (New York, 1953), xvi.
30. "Memorandum of Establishment of Service of Strategic Information," https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intelligence/kent-csi/vol17no2/html/v17i2a05p-0029.htm.
31. Edwin T. Layton, Roger Pineau, and John Costello, "And I Was There": Pearl Harbor and Midway-Breaking the Secrets (New York, 1985), 167-168.
32. Ludwell Lee Montague, "The Origins of National Intelligence Estimating," Studies in Intelligence 16, no. 2 (1972): 63-70, here 63-66.
33. Ludwell Lee Montague, General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950-February 1953 (University Park, Pa., 1992), 161.
34. JIC 250/1, "Estimate of Soviet Postwar Capabilities and Intentions," January 31, 1945, Declassified Documents Reference System [hereafter DDRS], Document Number: CK3100390672.
35. Richard E. Ericson, "The Soviet Statistical Debate: Khanin vs. TsSU," in Henry S. Rowen and Charles Wolf, eds., The Impoverished Superpower: Perestroika and the Soviet Military Burden (San Francisco, 1988), 63-92;
36. and Alain Blum and Martine Mespoulet, L'anarchie bu-reaucratique: Statistique et pouvoir sous Staline (Paris, 2003).
37. David C. Engerman, Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts (New York, 2009), 99, 107-108.
38. JIC 250/1, "Estimate of Soviet Postwar Capabilities and Intentions," January 31, 1945.
39. On the idea of separating estimates from policy, see Lawrence Freedman, US Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic Threat, 2nd ed. (Princeton, N.J., 1986), 41-43.
40. Montague, "The Origins of National Intelligence Estimating," 67.
41. JIC 250/4, "Air Capabilities and Intentions of the U.S.S.R. in the Post-War Period," October 19, 1945, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives at College Park, Md. [hereafter NARA II], Record Group [hereafter RG] 165, ABC 336 Russia (August 22, 1943), Sec. 1-A, Box 250.
42. Charles A. Ziegler, "Intelligence Assessments of Soviet Atomic Capability, 1945-1949: Myths, Monopolies, and Maskirovka," Intelligence and National Security 12, no. 4 (1997): 1-24, here 10-11, 22.
43. "Minutes of the Sixth Meeting of the National Intelligence Authority," August 21, 1946, in Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS], 1945-1950: Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment (Washington, D.C., 1996), 395-400, here 397, emphasis in the original;
44. A. C. Peterson memorandum for Col. Ennis, November 20, 1947, Digital National Security Archive, nsarchive.chadwyck.com [hereafter DNSA], Item Number: HN00237.
45. Mark Riebling, Wedge: The Secret War between the FBI and CIA (New York, 1994), 70.
46. "Minutes of the Sixth Meeting of the National Intelligence Authority," August 21, 1946, 396.
47. Hoyt S. Vandenberg memorandum for National Intelligence Authority, August 13, 1946, in FRUS, 1945-1950, 394-395.
48. ORE 3/1, "Soviet Capabilities for the Development and Production of Certain Types of Weapons and Equipment," October 31, 1946, DDRS, Document Number: CK3100533980, emphasis added.
49. L. R. Groves to AEC, November 21, 1946, in FRUS, 1945-1950, 458-460;
50. J. S. Earman, "Coordination of Intelligence Activities Related to Foreign Atomic Energy Developments and Potentialities," April 18, 1947, ibid., 510-511.
51. JIS 80/15, "Soviet Capabilities," November 9, 1945, DDRS, Document Number: CK3100346219.
52. JCS 1764/1, "Guidance on Military Aspects of United States Policy," July 14, 1947, DNSA, Item Number: NP00044;
53. "Interdepartmental Intelligence Study," December 15, 1947, in FRUS, 1947, vol. 1: General; The United Nations, 904-905.
54. "Atomic Energy Intelligence," July 1, 1947, DNSA, Item Number: NP00043;
55. A. C. Peterson, "Intelligence Liaison," November 20, 1947, ibid., Item Number: HN00237.
56. JCS 1764/1, "Guidance on Military Aspects of United States Policy," July 14, 1947, DNSA, Item Number: NP00044;
57. JGPC 314/3, "Estimate of the Possible Development in the World Political Situation up to 1957," December 11, 1947, DDRS, Document Number: CK3100346257.
58. JIC 397/M, "Soviet Capabilities and Critical U.S. Overseas Areas 1952-1957," July 14, 1947, NARA II, RG 165, ABC USSR (March 2, 1946), Sec. 1-E, Box 381.
59. Donald P. Steury, "Origins of CIA's Analysis of the Soviet Union," in Gerald K. Haines and Robert E. Leggett, eds., Watching the Bear: Essays on CIA's Analysis of the Soviet Union (Langley, Va., 2003), 1-16, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/ csi-publications/books-and-monographs/watching-the-bear-essays-on-cias-analysis- of-the-soviet-union/article01.html.
60. ORE 60-48, "Threats to the Security of the United States," September 28, 1948, CIA FOIA Reading Room, www.foia.cia.gov [hereafter CIA FOIA], Document Number: 0000258368.
61. "Estimate of the Status of the Russian Atomic Energy Project," July 1, 1948, NARA II, RG 330, SOD Correspondence Control Section Numerical File, Folder (CD 11-1-2), Box 61;
62. Ziegler, "Intelligence Assessments," 13-14. On the Air Force, see John Prados, The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Intelligence Analysis and Russian Military Strength (Princeton, N.J., 1986), 18-19.
63. David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 2: The Atomic Energy Years, 1945-1950 (New York, 1964), 376.
64. Richard J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London, 2001), 224-229;
65. Michael S. Goodman, Spying on the Nuclear Bear: Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet Bomb (Stanford, Calif., 2007), 23-32.
66. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: Transcript of Hearing before Personnel Security Board and Texts of Principal Documents and Letters (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 467.
67. Jennifer S. Lerner and Philip E. Tetlock, "Accounting for the Effects of Accountability," Psychological Bulletin 125, no. 2 (1999): 255-275.
68. JIC 502, "Implications of Soviet Possession of Atomic Weapons," January 20, 1950, NARA II, RG 218, Central Decimal File, CCS 471.6 USSR (11-8-49), Box 88;
69. see also Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon, 93-94.
70. NSC-68, "A Report to the National Security Council," April 14, 1950, in FRUS, 1950, vol. 1: National Security Affairs; Foreign Economic Policy, 235-296, here 251-252.
71. ORE 18-50, "Current Capabilities of the Northern Korean Regime," June 18, 1950, CIA FOIA, Document Number: 0000258828.
72. "Memorandum for the President," October 12, 1950, CIA FOIA, Document Number: 0000121494.
73. Acheson quoted in Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton, N.J., 1991), 114;
74. Xiao-ming Zhang, Red Wings over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union, and the Air War in Korea (College Station, Tex., 2004), chap. 8.
75. Acheson may have been referring to the most recent intelligence estimate, which suggested that while there was already a danger that the USSR would start a general war, it would not reach the peak of its relative power for another two years; "The Danger of War with the USSR," September 25, 1950, DDRS, Document Number: CK3100327148.
76. Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, 123;
77. Bruce Cumings, "Nuclear Threats against North Korea: Consequences of the 'Forgotten' War," Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, www.japanfocus.org/-Bruce-Cumings/2055.
78. Kenneth Schaffel, The Emerging Shield: The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960 (Washington, D.C., 1991), 98-102, 119-122, 156-157.
79. "National Intelligence Estimate: Soviet Capabilities and Intentions," NIE 3, November 15, 1950, CIA FOIA, Document Number: 0000269240;
80. NIE 11, "Soviet Intentions in the Current Situation," December 5, 1950, ibid., Document Number: 0000269236.
81. Eugène Minkowski, Lived Time: Phenomenological and Psychopathological Studies, trans. Nancy Metzel (Evanston, Ill., 1970), 83-91, 186-188.
82. Kern, The Culture of Time and Space, 89-90.
83. Kern, The Culture of Time and Space, 282-283.
84. "Soviets Could Atom-Bomb 20 Cities," New York Times, October 10, 1951, 8.
85. "Matthews Favors U.S. War for Peace," New York Times, August 26, 1950, 1;
86. Austin Stevens, "General Removed over War Speech," New York Times, September 2, 1950, 1.
87. Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, 122-124;
88. Russell D. Buhite and Wm. Christopher Hamel, "War for Peace: The Question of an American Preventive War against the Soviet Union, 1945-1955," Diplomatic History 14, no. 3 (1990): 367-384, here 372-380.
89. Barton J. Bernstein, "New Light on the Korean War," International History Review 3, no. 2 (1981): 256-277, here 271-272.
90. Trachtenberg provides the best account of the preventive war debate in this period; History and Strategy, 112-132.
91. L. Aronsen, "Seeing Red: U.S. Air Force Assessments of the Soviet Union, 1945-1949," Intelligence and National Security 16, no. 2 (2001): 103-132, here 120-122, 127.
92. Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, 109.
93. Bertrand Russell, "No Funk, No Frivolity, No Fanaticism," New York Times, May 6, 1951, 7, 22;
94. and see also Raymond Fosdick, "Acts of Faith for a Time of Peril," New York Times, April 8, 1951, 9, 173.
95. Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, 120-121;
96. Perry Miller, "The End of the World," in Miller, Errand into the Wilderness (New York, 1956), 217-239, here 217.
97. Eugene Rabinowitch, "The Narrowing Way," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 9, no. 8 (October 1953): 294-295, 298, here 294.
98. Koselleck, Futures Past, 199-206.
99. Harry S. Truman, "Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union," January 7, 1953, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid = 14379.
100. David Alan Rosenberg, " 'A Smoking Radiating Ruin at the End of Two Hours': Documents on American Plans for Nuclear War with the Soviet Union, 1954-1955," International Security 6, no. 3 (Winter 1981/1982): 3-38, here 24-25.
101. Richard K. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (Washington, D.C., 1987), 37-47.
102. Robert R. Bowie and Richard H. Immerman, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy (New York, 1998), 49-51.
103. Engerman, Know Your Enemy, 113.
104. George F. Lemmer, "The Air Force and Strategic Deterrence, 1951-1960," December 1967, https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did = 485706.
105. Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963 (Princeton, N.J., 1999), 179-193.
106. "Solarium Project: Principal Points Made by JFD," May 8, 1953, DDRS, Document Number: CK3100116401. Our thanks to Richard Immerman for helping us locate this document.
107. "Project Solarium: Summary of Basic Concepts of Task Forces," July 30, 1953, NARA II, NSC Meeting Files, No. 157, Tab D, NSC Records; "Summaries Prepared by the NSC Staff of Project Solarium Presentations and Written Reports," in FRUS, 1952-1954, vol. 2, pt. 1: National Security Affairs, 399-434, here 430-431.
108. "Minutes of the 155th Meeting of the National Security Council," July 16, 1953, in FRUS, 1952-1954, vol. 2, pt. 1: 394-398, here 397.
109. Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Statement to Senior Military Officers," June 19, 1954, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kans., James Hagerty Diary, James Hagerty Papers, Box 1.
110. This account has emphasized the role of senior officials in deciding against preventive war despite pessimistic long-range forecasts regarding the Cold War competition.
111. Others might give greater emphasis to anti-nuclear protest movements. But the crucial period of 1950-1953 was a low point for this movement in the U.S. as well as other countries;
112. Lawrence S. Wittner, The Struggle against the Bomb, vol. 1: One World or None: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement through 1953 (Stanford, Calif., 1993), 310-329.
113. John W. Kestner, "Through the Looking Glass: American Perceptions of the Soviet Economy, 1941-1964" (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999);
114. Engerman, Know Your Enemy, 117-118.
115. On Eisenhower's larger effort to stabilize the Cold War competition and avoid open conflict, see Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, and Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace.
116. Montague, General Walter Bedell Smith, 131-136.
117. Sherman Kent, unpublished memoir draft, n.d., Yale University Manuscripts and Archives, New Haven, Conn., Sherman Kent Papers, Group 854, Series IV, Box 53, Memoirs, Folder 26, Series II, Tape No. 11, 9, 16-17.
118. "The 'Net Estimates' Problem," August 25, 1954, in FRUS, 1950-1955, 523-530.
119. "Diary Entry by the President," January 23, 1956, in FRUS, 1955-1957, vol. 19: National Security Policy, 187-188.
120. "The Repetition of the Net Evaluation Subcommittee Briefing," January 23, 1956, ibid., 188-191.
121. "Memorandum by the President to the Secretary of State," September 8, 1953, in FRUS, 1952-1954, vol. 2, pt. 1: 460-463, here 461, emphasis in the original.
122. Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Address before the General Assembly of the United Nations on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy," December 8, 1953, The American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb .edu/ws/index.php?pid = 9774.
123. Eisenhower, "Statement to Senior Military Officers," June 19, 1954;
124. Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Address at the Cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention," August 23, 1956, The American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid = 10583.
125. Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (NewYork, 1982), 37-38.
126. Les Aspin, "Debate over U.S. Strategic Forecasts: A Mixed Record," Strategic Review 8, no. 3 (1980): 29-43, 57-59, here 32;
127. Prados, The Soviet Estimate, 46-49.
128. "Intelligence Aspects of the 'Missile Gap,'" November 1968, CIA FOIA, Document Number: TSC 11848/68.
129. Christopher A. Preble, John F. Kennedy and the Missile Gap (DeKalb, Ill., 2004), 91.
130. Prados, The Soviet Estimate, 50.
131. "Archive of Nuclear Data," Natural Resources Defense Council, http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datainx.asp.
132. David Alan Rosenberg, "The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945-1960," International Security 7, no. 4 (1983): 3-71, here 63, 66;
133. Rosenberg, "The History of World War III," 205.
134. Eugene M. Zuckert to President Kennedy, October 26, 1962, DNSA, Item Number: NH00754.
135. See, e.g., "Report on the Character and Probable Results of General War," December 30, 1957, DNSA, Document Number: NH00369.
136. "War Game of Strategic Air Command Forces Reflected in P-59 Series Programming Documents," July 5, 1957, DNSA, Document Number: NH00364.
137. Arleigh Burke memorandum for Robert L. Dennison, Harry D. Felt, and Levering Smith, November 22, 1960, DNSA, Document Number: NH00281;
138. Rosenberg, "The Origins of Overkill," 64-65.
139. "Single Integrated Operational Plan Issues," November 2, 1960, DNSA, Document Number: NH00271.
140. "War Gaming of Single Integrated Operational Plan," June 2, 1961, DNSA, Document Number: NH00321.
141. "Atomic Strike Forces," April 12, 1961, 3, DNSA, Document Number: 00314.
142. R. H. S. Crossman, "Western Defence in the 1960s," Journal of the Royal United Services Institution 106, no. 623 (August 1961): 324-341, here 325.
143. Rosenberg, "The Origins of Overkill," 5-8;
144. Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon, 202-219.
145. Bruce G. Blair, Strategic Command and Control: Redefining the Nuclear Threat (Washington, D.C., 1985), 70-78.
146. Scott D. Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton, N.J., 1995), 59-61, 130-131, 228-246.
147. "Memorandum of Conference with the President," December 1, 1960, DNSA, Document Number: NH00290.
148. Brewer and Shubik, The War Game, 59, 100-103.
149. Paul Nitze, "Proposed Game on the Berlin Situation," August 22, 1961, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Mass. [hereafter JFKL], National Security Files [hereafter NSF], Box 82A, Berlin, General, 8/23/61-8/24/61.
150. Thomas Schelling, "Summary History of the Berlin Political War Game," n.d. but ca. September 1961, JFKL, NSF, Box 83, Berlin, General, 9/17/61-9/22/61;
151. Carl Kaysen Memorandum for Kennedy, September 22, 1961, ibid.
152. "Nuclear Crisis Group" oral history with Thomas Schelling and Alan Ferguson, November 22, 1988, DNSA, Item Number: BC02946;
153. Thomas Schelling, "Comments by T. C. Schelling on the Berlin Game Played at Camp David September 8-11," n.d. but ca. September 1961, JFKL, NSF, Box 83, Berlin, General, 9/17/61-9/22/61;
154. Marc Trachtenberg, David Rosenberg, and Stephen Van Evera, "An Interview with Carl Kaysen," August 3, 1988, http://web.mit.edu/SSP/ publications/working-papers/Kaysen%20 working%20paper.pdf.
155. Robert Komer, "Memorandum about Berlin War-Game, 27-29 September 1961," October 5, 1961, JFKL, NSF, Box 83, Berlin, General, 10/5/61-10/12/61.
156. "Abram Chayes to Secretary Dean Rusk on the Berlin Game," October 2, 1961, JFKL, NSF, Box 90, Berlin, Subjects, Berlin Game, 9/22/61-9/1/62 & undated.
157. Komer, "Memorandum about Berlin War-Game."
158. "Consequences of Thermonuclear War under Various Conditions of Outbreak," October 28, 1961, DNSA, Item Number: NH00152.
159. Kaysen memorandum for Kennedy, emphasis in the original; Acheson quoted in Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 304, and see also 302-303.
160. Thomas B. Allen, War Games: The Secret World of the Creators, Players, and Policy Makers Rehearsing World War III Today (New York, 1989), 31.
161. "General Norstad and Lemnitzer Exchange Views on NATO Education/Information Program," May 17, 1962, DDRS, Document Number: CK3100272531.
162. "Final Report of Politico-Military Game-Olympiad I-62: Decade After," December 3, 1962, DDRS, Document Number: CK3100262484.
163. These scenarios of nuclear race war were probably developed by Colonel James Y. Adams, who commanded troops at Heartbreak Ridge in one of the last and bloodiest engagements of the Korean War.
164. "Final Report of Politico-Military Game SIGMA II-65," August 20, 1965, DDRS, Document Number: CK3100260286.
165. Allen, War Games, 45-46.
166. "A Report on Strategic Developments over the Next Decade for the Inter-Agency Panel," October 12, 1962, DNSA, Item Number: NH00158.
167. "Epsilon 72: Simulation Documentation," October 30, 1972, http://www.foia.cia.gov/best-of-crest/CIA-RDP80R01731R002400130002-4.pdf.
168. Peter Pringle and William Arkin, S.I.O.P.: The Secret U.S. Plan for Nuclear War (New York, 1983), 23-36.
169. "Beta I & II-67," March 21, 1967, NARA II, CIA General Records, 80B01676R, Box 0016, Folder 0012, two exercises that were inspired in part by a desire to show how anti-ballistic missile systems could discourage proliferation.
170. While Albert Wohlstetter's quantitative methods would be more influential, he was himself influenced by his wife Roberta Wohlstetter's historical research, which was later published as Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford, Calif., 1962). Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon, 92, 97-110;
171. Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990), 48-49.
172. For an overview, see Alfred H. Hausrath, Venture Simulation in War, Business, and Politics (New York, 1971).
173. Special Studies Group, "Project 47: Strategic Nuclear Study," September 1962, NARA II, RG 200, Records of Robert S. McNamara, Defense Programs and Operations, Box 19.
174. I. B. Holley, Jr., "The Evolution of Operations Research and Its Impact on the Military Establishment: The Air Force Experience," in Monte D. Wright and Lawrence J. Paszek, eds., Science, Technology, and Warfare: Proceedings of the Third Military History Symposium, United States Air Force Academy, 8-9 May 1969 (1969; repr., Honolulu, 2001), 89-121, Office of Air Force History, http://www.afhso .af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-100929-008.pdf.
175. E. S. Quade, "Military Systems Analysis," in Stanford L. Optner, ed., Systems Analysis: Selected Readings (Middlesex, 1973), 121-140;
176. E. S. Quade and W. I. Boucher, eds., Systems Analysis and Policy Planning: Applications in Defense (New York, 1968).
177. Joseph P. Martino, "Methods of Technological Forecasting," in Walter A. Hahn and Kenneth F. Gordon, eds., Assessing the Future and Policy Planning (London, 1973), 19-40, here 26-28;
178. Herman Kahn and B. Bruce-Briggs, Things to Come: Thinking about the Seventies and Eighties (New York, 1972), 188-190.
179. Norman Dalkey and Olaf Helmer, "An Experimental Application of the DELPHI Method to the Use of Experts," Management Science 9, no. 3 (1963): 458-467;
180. Martino, "Methods of Technological Forecasting," 22-26;
181. Theodore Gordon, "Futures Research: Did It Meet Its Promise? Can It Meet Its Promise?" Technological Forecasting and Social Change 36, no. 1-2 (1989): 21-26, here 23.
182. On some of the complications of technology forecasting more generally, see Kahn and Bruce-Briggs, Things to Come, 187-188.
183. "Intelligence Assumptions for Planning," February 14, 1964, CIA FOIA, Document Number: 0000794608;
184. "Innovation, Research, and Development of Intelligence Analysis," Andrew Marshall to Henry Kissinger, May 1, 1970, NARA II, Nixon Presidential Materials, National Security Council Files, Name Files, Box 825, Andrew Marshall.
185. Department of Defense, "Report to the President and the Secretary of Defense on the Department of Defense by the Blue Ribbon Defense Panel," July 1, 1970, Defense Technical Information Center, Document Number: AD-A013 261, 7, 72-74, 154-155, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic//tr/fulltext/u2/a013261.pdf.
186. Phillip Karber, "Net Assessment & Strategy Development for the Secretary of Defense: Future Implications from Early Formulations" (paper presented at the conference on "Net Assessment: Past, Present and Future," Washington, D.C., March 28-29, 2008), 30-31, http://lsgs. georgetown.edu/faculty/research/NA&SD%20for%20SecDef.pdf.
187. Robert S. McNamara with Brian VanDeMark, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York, 1995), 292-293;
188. Harold P. Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962-1968 (Washington, D.C., 1998), 93-104;
189. Prados, The Soviet Estimate, 218-224.
190. Freedman, U.S. Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic Threat, 52-54.
191. Allen, War Games, 142-143;
192. Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon, 213-216.
193. "Innovation, Research, and Development of Intelligence Analysis," May 1, 1970, 1-4.
194. "Innovation, Research, and Development of Intelligence Analysis."
195. George E. Pickett, James G. Roche, and Barry D. Watts, "Net Assessment: A Historical Review," in Andrew W. Marshall, J. J. Martin, and Henry S. Rowen, eds., On Not Confusing Ourselves: Essays on National Security Strategy in Honor of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter (San Francisco, 1991), 159-185, here 166-169.
196. A. W. Marshall, Long-Term Competition with the Soviets: A Framework for Strategic Analysis, RAND Report R-862-PR (Santa Monica, Calif., 1972), 33-34.
197. Robert Randolph, "Social and Technological Forecasting in the Soviet Union," Futures 8, no. 6 (1976): 485-495, here 487-489, 492;
198. "USSR: Forecasting and Planning Weapons Acquisition," January 1988, CIA FOIA, Document Number: 0000500618;
199. Marshall, Long-Term Competition with the Soviets, 38-39;
200. Jacob W. Kipp, "The Methodology of Foresight and Forecasting in Soviet Military Affairs," May 1988, Defense Technical Information Center, Document Number: AD-A196 677, 19-22, http://www .dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/ a196677.pdf.
201. Thomas G. Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War (New York, 2008), 163-164.
202. Marshall, Long-Term Competition with the Soviets, 36;
203. Dima P. Adamsky, "Through the Looking Glass: The Soviet Military-Technical Revolution and the American Revolution in Military Affairs," Journal of Strategic Studies 31, no. 2 (2008): 257-294, here 263-265, 278.
204. Raymond L. Garthoff, "Polyakov's Run," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 56, no. 5 (September/October 2000): 37-40;
205. David Wise, Cassidy's Run: The Secret Spy War over Nerve Gas (New York, 2001);
206. Steven Block, "The Growing Threat of Biological Weapons," American Scientist 89, no. 1 (January/February 2001): 28-37, here 31, http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/2001/1/the-growing-threat-of- biological-weapons.
207. Stephen Peter Rosen, "The Impact of the Office of Net Assessment on the American Military in the Matter of the Revolution in Military Affairs," Journal of Strategic Studies 34, no. 4 (2010): 469-482;
208. Adamsky, "Through the Looking Glass," 268-270, 276-279.
209. One of the more eye-opening reports detailed how SAC subverted protocols requiring presidential authorization by setting each of the eight digits in ICBM launch codes to zero.
210. Bruce G. Blair, "Keeping Presidents in the Nuclear Dark: The SIOP Option That Wasn't," Defense Monitor 33, no. 2 (2004): 1-3, 7.
211. Mueller, Atomic Obsession, chap. 5. On the lack of faith in deterrence, see, for instance, Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 78.
212. Jan Hoffenaar and Christopher Findlay, eds., Military Planning for European Theatre Conflict during the Cold War: An Oral History Roundtable, Stockholm, 24-25 April 2006 (Zurich, 2007), 60-61;
213. Robert Jervis, "Was the Cold War a Security Dilemma?" Journal of Cold War Studies 3, no. 1 (2001): 36-60, here 59.
214. John G. Hines, Ellis M. Mishulovich, and John F. Shull, Soviet Intentions, 1965-1985, vol. 1: An Analytical Comparison of U.S.-Soviet Assessments during the Cold War (McLean, Va., 1995);
215. Pavel Podvig, "The Window of Vulnerability That Wasn't: Soviet Military Buildup in the 1970s-A Research Note," International Security 33, no. 1 (2008): 118-138.
216. William Burr and Jeffrey T. Richelson, "Whether to 'Strangle the Baby in the Cradle': The United States and the Chinese Nuclear Program, 1960-64," International Security 25, no. 3 (Winter 2000-2001): 54-99.
217. "The Chances of an Imminent Chinese Communist Nuclear Explosion," August 26, 1964, CIA FOIA, Document Number: 0001095915;
218. "Communist China's Strategic Weapons Program," August 3, 1967, ibid., Document Number: 0001101531.
219. Moeed Yusuf, Predicting Proliferation: The History of the Future of Nuclear Weapons (Washington, D.C., 2009).
220. Astute analysts such as Schelling understood that predicting political change was more important, and more difficult; "A Report on Strategic Developments over the Next Decade for the Inter-Agency Panel," October 12, 1962.
221. "The President's News Conference," March 21, 1963, The American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9124;
222. Richard Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (New York, 2008), 71.
223. Brazil is a case in point. One 1975 National Intelligence Estimate predicted that it was capable of producing a nuclear device by the early 1980s. Ten years later, another NIE found that it was still five-plus years away, or "at least 1990." "National Intelligence Estimate: The Outlook for Brazil," NIE 93-1-75, July 11,1975, CIAFOIA, Document Number: 0000753961;
224. The founding of the Institute for the Future in 1968 by former RAND analysts presaged an attempt through the 1970s to diffuse technology forecasting to civil and commercial applications. Olaf Helmer, "Future's Future," Technological Forecasting and Social Change 36, no. 1-2 (1989): 39-41, here 39.
225. James R. Bright, ed., Technological Forecasting for Industry and Government: Methods and Applications (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968);
226. Gordon Wills, David Ashton, and Bernard Taylor, eds., Technological Forecasting and Corporate Strategy (New York, 1969);
227. Marvin J. Cetron and Christine A. Ralph, Industrial Applications of Technological Forecasting: Its Utilization in R&D Management (New York, 1971).
228. James Colgrove, State of Immunity: The Politics of Vaccination in Twentieth-Century America (Berkeley, Calif., 2006), 241-245.
229. Gordon Adams, "The Politics of National Security Budgets," Stanley Foundation Policy Analysis Brief, February 2007, 10-11, http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pab/pab07natsecbudget. pdf.
230. Philip E. Tetlock and Barbara Mellers, "Intelligent Management of Intelligence Agencies: Beyond Accountability Ping-Pong," American Psychologist 66, no. 6 (2011): 542-554.
231. The classic study of political scientists' failure to predict the end of the Cold War, or even to seriously consider the possibility, is John Lewis Gaddis, "International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War," International Security 17, no. 3 (Winter 1992-1993): 5-58.
232. Intense scrutiny has revealed that some analysts recognized the Soviet Union's decline, but they gave policymakers scant warning that it was on the verge of collapse. Once it began, estimates were quick to predict a Russian civil war, possibly with nuclear weapons. George Kolt is considered the most prescient analyst.
233. Kolt, "The Soviet Cauldron," in Eugene B. Rumer and Celeste A. Wallander, eds., Russia Watch: Essays in Honor of George Kolt (Washington, D.C., 2007), 84-92;
234. Benjamin B. Fischer, At Cold War's End: US Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991 (Washington, D.C., 1999).
235. Sam J. Tangredi, All Possible Wars? Toward a Consensus View of the Future Security Environment, 2001-2025 (Washington, D.C., 2000).
236. Robert Gates, who coined the term, had been a veteran CIA analyst and later director of central intelligence before becoming defense secretary. "A Pentagon Battle over 'the Next War,' " Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2008.
237. Reports that the Reagans consulted astrologers for White House scheduling, even when choosing the date for signing the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty, elicited an angry "non-denial denial." Donald T. Regan, For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington (San Diego, 1988), 3;
238. "Good Heavens! An Astrologer Dictating the President's Schedule?" Time Magazine, May 16, 1988.