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Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

propublica.org

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Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#11

Post by donarb »

hindsightbias wrote: post #3
some_random wrote: post #2

Wow. In an age of increasing scrutiny of journalists, particularly in regards to the leaking of classified documents, this is a really bad look. Journalists screwing over their sources is unacceptable in every case, we don't have any trouble understanding that when it comes to interviewing terrorists, I don't know why it's a question when it comes to this.

Some stories are bigger than sources. The 'victim', Ellsberg, would seem to agree. As far as I remember, Ellsberg was a true believer for a long time and originally wanted the information (not all of the papers) out so America would double down on VN. He thought it was still winnable. He moderated at some point in the process. Sheehan wasn't going to wait for his navel gazing and made him a progressive hero.

This is the problem I have about people who leak documents. They have an agenda and so only release the parts favorable to their bias rather than the whole archive. What was held back from the story that there were documents that showed that the US government was actively trying to get out of the war via back channel negotiations.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#12

Post by Symmetry »

willis936 wrote: post #7
jjoonathan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear conflict is inherently horrific, but I would hope we were (and are) willing to do appalling things to deter a nuclear attack on the US.

This is assuming the content of the papers is standard MAD. We don’t know what was in them.

It might be stuff like that he mentioned in his book like projections of the number of deaths from fallout in Western Europe if a first strike attack on the USSR went off perfectly with no effective response.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#13

Post by redis_mlc »

donarb wrote: post #11
hindsightbias wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some stories are bigger than sources. The 'victim', Ellsberg, would seem to agree. As far as I remember, Ellsberg was a true believer for a long time and originally wanted the information (not all of the papers) out so America would double down on VN. He thought it was still winnable. He moderated at some point in the process. Sheehan wasn't going to wait for his navel gazing and made him a progressive hero.

This is the problem I have about people who leak documents. They have an agenda and so only release the parts favorable to their bias rather than the whole archive. What was held back from the story that there were documents that showed that the US government was actively trying to get out of the war via back channel negotiations.

Don't over think this.

Militaries never have plans to quit a war. The other side always wants the upper hand in negotiations, hence both WW1 and WW2 going to the bitter end.

Source: I study WW2, and some others.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#14

Post by jjoonathan »

tehjoker wrote: post #10
willis936 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is assuming the content of the papers is standard MAD. We don’t know what was in them.

Standard MAD* was insane already. The governments of nation states were willing to toast the human race to preserve control by the elites of pieces of land and the illusion of a nation. They still are. Even if you are taken over by a dictatorship, you can struggle against it afterwards. Some dictatorships were even somewhat positive (e.g. Napoleon Bonaparte) even though I would have sided with the pro-republican move…

> to preserve control by the elites

Stretch Armstrong would be impressed, this one is not easy to frame through the class war lens.

Nukes don't stop a rebellion. They do make other nations think twice about launching nukes at us, though.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#15

Post by simonebrunozzi »

DennisP wrote: post #8
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, is anything from the nuclear documents in the book you mentioned? Or is it really all lost forever?

The documents themselves are lost, but Ellsberg was deeply involved in nuclear strategy and in the past few years has been able to get public declassified sources for much of what he remembered. The previously-classified history of US nuclear strategy is mostly what the book is about. (See my cousin comment for a short outline.)

Thanks a lot!

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#16

Post by tehjoker »

jjoonathan wrote: post #14
tehjoker wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standard MAD* was insane already. The governments of nation states were willing to toast the human race to preserve control by the elites of pieces of land and the illusion of a nation. They still are. Even if you are taken over by a dictatorship, you can struggle against it afterwards. Some dictatorships were even somewhat positive (e.g. Napoleon Bonaparte) even though I would have sided with the pro-republican move…

> to preserve control by the elites Stretch Armstrong would be impressed, this one is not easy to frame through the class war lens. Nukes don't stop a rebellion. They do make other nations think twice about launching nukes at us, though.

> Nukes don't stop a rebellion. They do make other nations think twice about launching nukes at us, though.

MAD works until it doesn't. Even small escalations can rapidly ramp up into a worst case scenario. There is another path though: Disarmament though international treaties with comprehensive monitoring. Unfortunately, that was not the path taken as nation states that managed to accrue small advantages decided to press them instead. Today, the US is modernizing the nuclear arsenal to the tune of over a trillion dollars and is investing in tactical nuclear weapons.

> Stretch Armstrong would be impressed, this one is not easy to frame through the class war lens.

The cold war was about (some form of) capitalism vs (some form of) communism, which was in fact class war... However, in this case you can also see it as the ruling class is defending itself against control by another nation's ruling class. The people at the bottom are forced to deal with whatever the ruling class decides with little input.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#17

Post by gen220 »

DennisP wrote: post #9
willis936 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is assuming the content of the papers is standard MAD. We don’t know what was in them.

The book is mostly about that content, which has been largely declassified now. It goes into quite a bit of detail. It was not just MAD. It included massive retaliation against every city in both the USSR and China in response to minor conventional battles, which they calculated would also kill most people in Europe from fallout. It gave independent launch authority to regional military commanders. First strike was p…

In response to your last statement, I found this Amazon review [1] (of all sources!) of Ellsberg's book fascinating.

It's written by an older gentleman who was apparently involved in Nuclear policy in the late 70s and early 80s.

Here is the relevant snippet:

> To a degree, my time on nuclear weapons was a decade later than Ellsberg, ironically my first day after my PhD was the day Ellsberg's material hit the NY Times. Coming from MIT, and Ellsberg then being at MIT, I was looked at a bit askance. Yet over the next decade as I became involved in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, especially during the Carter period, it was clear that the only way to use a nuclear weapon was not to use a nuclear weapon.

> The RISOP [Red Integrated Strategic Offensive Plan, or the US Government's best counterplan, i.e. how the Soviets would retaliate] scenarios showed the annihilation of life on the planet. There was no way to win, first strike or otherwise. A Russian and US nuclear war was the destruction of all. Ironically in my later discussions with my Russian partners after the fall it was clear that they too understood this, positioning or not.

So, it seems like NPT [2] states understand that first strike (against one another) is a bankrupt strategy, since it results in MAD [3], if not a global extinction event.

A state might not ever externally disavow the first strike strategy for posturing reasons, but it is almost certainly not viewed as an effective winning strategy, internally.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2SL7WCQW1R6KN/re...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferatio... Notable non-signatories of the NPT include India, Israel, Pakistan, and DPRK.

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#18

Post by jjoonathan »

DennisP wrote: post #9
willis936 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is assuming the content of the papers is standard MAD. We don’t know what was in them.

The book is mostly about that content, which has been largely declassified now. It goes into quite a bit of detail. It was not just MAD. It included massive retaliation against every city in both the USSR and China in response to minor conventional battles, which they calculated would also kill most people in Europe from fallout. It gave independent launch authority to regional military commanders. First strike was p…

"Minor" conventional battles that would have constituted effective declarations of war by a major nuclear power?

If two nuclear powers declare war on each other, that's it. Game Over. It feels redundant to be horrified by the possibility that warring nuclear powers would consider a first strike. Of course they would. That's... how war works.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#19

Post by jjoonathan »

tehjoker wrote: post #16
jjoonathan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to preserve control by the elites Stretch Armstrong would be impressed, this one is not easy to frame through the class war lens. Nukes don't stop a rebellion. They do make other nations think twice about launching nukes at us, though.

> Nukes don't stop a rebellion. They do make other nations think twice about launching nukes at us, though. MAD works until it doesn't. Even small escalations can rapidly ramp up into a worst case scenario. There is another path though: Disarmament though international treaties with comprehensive monitoring. Unfortunately, that was not the path taken as nation states that managed to accrue small advantages decided to…

> There is another path though: Disarmament though international treaties

I sleep better with a big deterrence arsenal than with a treaty that gets ignored the moment it becomes inconvenient.

> The cold war was about (some form of) capitalism vs (some form of) communism

The soviets didn't buck elite exploitation. Not for long and not by much.

If you think native elites are exploitative, I have news about foreign elites who have conquered you.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#20

Post by DennisP »

gen220 wrote: post #17
DennisP wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book is mostly about that content, which has been largely declassified now. It goes into quite a bit of detail. It was not just MAD. It included massive retaliation against every city in both the USSR and China in response to minor conventional battles, which they calculated would also kill most people in Europe from fallout. It gave independent launch authority to regional military commanders. First strike was p…

In response to your last statement, I found this Amazon review [1] (of all sources!) of Ellsberg's book fascinating. It's written by an older gentleman who was apparently involved in Nuclear policy in the late 70s and early 80s. Here is the relevant snippet: > To a degree, my time on nuclear weapons was a decade later than Ellsberg, ironically my first day after my PhD was the day Ellsberg's material hit the NY Times…

That would certainly be reasonable and I hope it's accurate. I'm a little worried though that we're spending a lot of money to make more accurate warheads, which are more useful for first strikes against silos, and arguably less useful for deterrence since the resulting "use them or lose them" dynamic is destabilizing.

One improvement we definitely have now is a more flexible strategy. Back in the late '50s and for a while after, they had a detailed plan to keep planes from flying too near each other's mushroom clouds, and since they didn't have decent computers it took a huge amount of work to do all the calculations. The thought of doing it more than once filled nuclear planners with horror, so they just kept to a single plan, which was to launch everything against all targets, regardless of the situation.

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