To the scientists at RAND, the Cold War was a totally new system of conflict. Past experience and politics were no help in predicting how the other side would behave. They turned instead to a method of predicting behaviour in uncertain situations: the theory of games. It had been developed by the famous mathematician John von Neumann, who had worked at RAND. In the 1920s, in Berlin, he had watched poker games and seen how each players strategy depended on what he thought the other side would rationally do. von Neumann had shown how to give numerical values to the different choices and so decide on the best move. William Gorham, RAND Corporation 1953–1962 It was seen like a game; a game in which there were rational players and in which each side had certain information about the capabilities of the other side. The notion of Kriegspiel evolved at RAND, which was the game of chess in which you dont see the opponents pieces. You have two chessboards, each complete, with a blind between them; and you have to presume from indirect information where the opponents chess pieces are and then make the best judgement you can to get more information. RAND strategists studied every piece of information they could find about the Soviet Union. They even wrote their own operational code of the Politburo and commissioned the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead to study the Russian attitude to authority. From this came complex mathematical models that showed the Air Force the best possible moves. But, in the process, the idea of the Cold War as a political conflict that could be resolved was fading away. It became, instead, a mechanical system in which all parts worked according to rational laws – and that included the enemy. So, the strategists job was to keep it balanced, in equilibirum. The most influential figure at RAND was Albert Wohlstetter, a mathematical logician. He was also a devoted fan of modern architecture and abstract design; and a close friend of the famous architect Le Corbusier. Whilst Wohlstetter saw the system of conflict as dangerously unstable, he was convinced the Soviet Union might attack: not because it wanted to, but because the rational logic of the system would force it to pull the trigger first. Albert Wohlstetter, RAND Corporation 1951–[present] I drew the analogy with the Western gun duel. The gunman and the sheriff were not necessarily morally... were not morally equivalent in any sense, but they each might find themselves in the position where they had to draw first in order to survive. And this would be a rational act, if they found themselves in that position. And so I wanted to design a posture where it would never make sense for an adversary, in his own terms, to attack. Wohlstetter invented what were to become the familiar icons of the nuclear age. He proposed that hundreds of missiles should be protected in concrete silos underground. Fleets of bombers were to be in the air twenty-four hours a day, controlled by a system he designed called Failsafe. The aim was to convince the Soviets that if they attacked, America would always have enough missiles left to destroy them in return. The Cold War would become safer by stabilising what Wohlstetter called the delicate balance of terror. Adam Cutis To The Brink of Eternity (Pandora´sBox )urania-josegalisifilho.blogspot.de/2013/01/john-von-neumann-19031957-by-hans.html
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 10:05:21 +0000
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