Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light • Hacker News Board

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#21

Post by DennisP » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 10:34 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #18

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…

"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.

Before going full nuclear it's always possible to deescalate, and when a first strike means the end of civilization, deescalation is the only rational option.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#22

Post by curiousllama » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #18

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…

"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.

War != total war.

War is an extension of diplomacy. It’s a negotiation. If increasing costs on my adversary increases costs on me, it may make sense not to do so.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#23

Post by vkou » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 11:00 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #19

tehjoker wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 elit…

Regardless of who exploits whom under which regime, you'd have to have the mindset of a suicide bomber to prefer being dead than red - when you also unilaterally make that choice for hundreds of millions of people, many of whom entirely uninvolved in your conflict.

If they've reached the point where they actually have to use nuclear weapons in a MAD scenario, that political leader in question has failed at doing their job utterly, and completely irredeemably. It's a complete and utter betrayal of both their constituents, and the responsibility the world entrusted in them.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#24

Post by blackrock » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

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…

This is just disgusting.

And this is why having nukes to defend yourself, are so important.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#25

Post by boomboomsubban » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

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.

If Humphrey had been president, I could find fault in Ellsberg's decision not to release the diplomatic volumes. Knowing that Nixon held his own back channel negotiations to prevent peace and help his election chances, showing that Johnson made limited secret peace talks wasn't very relevant. Ellsberg's view that he didn't want to give Nixon an excuse to stall peace was a good call.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#26

Post by blackrock » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #19

tehjoker wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 elit…

When did foreign elites ever conquer America?

Isn’t the opposite true? That American elites conquered the rest of the world.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#27

Post by some_random » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

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.

>Some stories are bigger than sources.

Absolutely. However, is it bigger than every story you're ever going to run? Because if I'm a potential source, and I see that you're rag is fine with sending sources to jail for a source, I'm not going to talk to you. Worse, if I'm a guerrilla group with an embedded journalist, I may very logically decide that they are a threat.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#28

Post by smegger001 » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 12:00 AM UTC

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…

The problem from game theoretical prospective is if you disarm and the other side doesn't your screwed. If the other side disarms it and you don't you win. Neither of you disarm and you maintain the status quo. And as you cant compel the other side to disarm there is no way to get to the mutual disarmament mutual win condition. Disarmament is just a prisoner's dilemma with WMD's and thanks to John Nash we all know mathematically the best move is to defect.

MAD works best also when you act as militaristic and insane as possible so the other side is afraid to do anything lest you kick the nuclear football. Hopefully everyone with access to the nukes knows this, but you cant admit you know this lest the enemy spies find out its a bluff thus weakening the bluff so both sides have to keep up the keefab at all time even internally. so while both sides may act like paranoid crackhead with a gun on the edge of starting Nuclear Armageddon for looking at them funny. They know its a suicide to actually fallow through. And it works. Why do you think the whole world puts up with the ongoing shit show in North Korea? They have nukes and can hit Tokyo Seoul Honolulu and Seattle.

Besides we don't even know that doesn't work. We haven't had a World War or major European war since the end of ww2. If we look back historically going 75 years without a major European war is amazing. all of the big wars since have pretty much been with major powers with non industrialized nations or collapsed failed nation states.

As for elites using nukes on the proles, that is ridicules and violates the don't shit where you eat rule. IE radiation poisoning doesn't care about your net-worth.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#29

Post by Layke1123 » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 12:18 AM UTC

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.

Oh, we were actively trying to not drop napalm in Vietnam? If only we could have been a little faster in not dropping napalm. Dratz!

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#30

Post by WillPostForFood » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 2:28 AM UTC

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…

The goal of not disavowing a first strike was to deter a conventional attack. If your explicit policy is "we will only use nukes if you use nukes" then the implicit policy is: you can invade Europe without fear of nuclear escalation.

Instead of being upset at hypothetical nuclear fallout that never happened, we should look at the policy as a massive success at preventing war from happening.