Back to my Old Self

Finished a book in two days, amongst all the other pre-holiday duties:  The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg.

There are many things a like about the book, some things I am really not engaged with, and probably have a way different reason for reading it than he had for writing it.

It begins with an admission that he copied way more top secret documents than just those having to do with the Vietnam War, information that he analyzed in his position at RAND which he obtained as an expert in decision making theories which evolved into questions about how would someone react to unknown unknowns and was there a chance that someone would drop an atomic bomb absent clear orders to do so.  Interesting hypothesis and exhaustive research concludes that such a risk was quite likely due to military delegation of authority and military bravado that they knew much more than their civilian chain of command.

I firmly believe Americans have the right to have this information and analysis and for the most part, Ellsberg seems neutrally competent in disclosing it notwithstanding his being forbidden to do such.  It's when he aligns his actions with the more recent ones of Snowden and Manning that I chagrin ... Snowden even writes an endorsement blurb on the back of the book.

As someone deep in the bowels of RAND, his premise of the need to completely disable the US and Russian computerized systems to launch lacks an implementation plan; he fully cites examples of presidential gains from taking an I will launch stance but does not opine as to what would take the place of that position of strength.

While he strongly articulates the end to the world that ensues if not from bombs themselves but from the nuclear winter that follows, it does not come across as hysteria, nor does it seem inevitable.  I only hope there are Ellsberg like staff in think tanks now that can not only interpret information but induce the powers to act upon those facts.