Book Review: Military and Scientific Affairs: Design for Survival
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000415 |
| Published date | 01 December 1965 |
| Date | 01 December 1965 |
| Author | John Gellner |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
542
INTERNATIONAL
JouRNAL
relations
can
more
easily
use
the
results"
(assuming
they
are
not scared
away
already).
The
book
is
primarily
an analysis
in
depth
of conflicts
and
how
they
develop-or
might
possibly
develop-from
early
hostile
acts,
char-
acterized
as
"sub-crisis
maneuvering," to
the
ultimate
nuclear
stage,
"civilian
central
wars".
The
analysis
is
assisted
by
reference
to
Kahn's
principle
metaphor-the
escalation
ladder,
whose
various
rungs
repre-
sent
all
possible
stages
or
thresholds
in
crisis
development.
As
the
work
proceeds,
the
rungs
are
defined
with
appropriate illustrations,
or
scenarios,
in
order
to
justify
and
illuminate
each
category.
However,
Kahn
is
at
pains
to
point
out
the
limitations
of
the
escalation
ladder.
The
distance
between
the
rungs
is
often
arbitrary
and
does
not
allow
for
the
dynamics
of
escalation.
In
fact,
a
crisis
may
skip
several rungs
altogether, and
differences
in
national
style
or
military
thinking
may require
the
construction
of
another
model
for
societies
such
as
the
U.S.S.R.
The
book
also
contains
interesting
comment
on
various
related
subjects
such
as
the
nuclear
threshold,
de-escalation,
fighting a
strategic
nuclear
war
and
the
use
of
language and terminology,
much
of
which
is
an
elaboration
of
earlier
work.
(Understandably,
the author
is
very
conscious
of
not
being
taken the
wrong
way
and
to
emphasize
through-
out
the
importance
of
minimum
responses to challenges
and
of
negotiation.)
The
pre-occupation
of
the
author
is
the
education
of decision
makers
-no
doubt
on
both
sides of
the
Iron
Curtain-in
the
wide
variety
of
options
available
in
a
crisis
situation
and
in
the
need
for
careful
preparation
and
greater
skill
in
crisis
management.
The
Cuban missile
crisis
and
the
Bay of
Tonkin crisis
were,
he
suggests,
"relatively
simple
from the
command-and-control
and
decision-making points
of
view".
The
value
of
models,
of
course,
is
not
as
a
guide to
action
but
rather
to
stimulate
new
patterns
of
thought
and
to
assist
the
planner
in
creating
the
necessary machinery
to back
up
the
leader
on
the
day of
decision.
In a
sense,
the
new
semantics-the
fresh
and
apparently
inaccurate
use
of
words,
the
creation
of
new
words-helps
this
process
of
"thinking
about
the
unthinkable".
Almost everyone
quarrels
with
some
of
the
value
judgments
underlying
Herman
Kahn's
abstractions
and
shudders
at
the
bombard
of
contrived
terms; but
afterwards
the
concepts
are
not
easily
forgotten
and
our
language
is
never
the
same.
Ottawa
BRIAN
CRANE
DESIGN
FOR
SuRVIVAL.
By
General Thomas
S.
Power.
1964.
(New
York:
Coward-McCann.
Toronto:
Longmans.
255pp.
$6.25)
Marshal
Foch's
standard
question,
"De quoi
s'agit-i•?,"
was
expres-
sive of
the
good
field
commander's
desire-and
ability-to
cut away
the
extraneous
quickly
and
come
directly to
the
nub
of
the
question.
In
the
same
spirit,
Field-Marshal Montgomery
prided himself
on
being
able
to
reduce
a
complex
military situation to
utter
simplicity.
General
Power,
General
LeMay's
prize pupil
and
for
seven
years
commander
of
the
U.S.
Strategic
Air
Command,
clearly
possesses
that
capacity to
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