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

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#31

Post by WillPostForFood » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 2:34 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #23

jjoonathan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 thei…

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.

Why preface this with an "if" like it is a hypothetical where we don't know what happened? It is history now and we know how it turned out. MAD worked, there was never a nuclear war or major conflict between superpowers.

Political leaders didn't fail and have been redeemed. Their constituents weren't betrayed, and the world moves on.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#32

Post by wombatmobile » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 2:36 AM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #4

Ellsberg's recent book The Doomsday Machine says the Pentagon Papers were his less-important material. His job at the Pentagon was nuclear policy, and he also had thousands of pages detailing that policy, which at the time was horrific. (The book goes into detail on just how horrific; much of it has been declassified now so he can source his claims.) He decided to release the Vietnam papers first because he felt that…

What a masterstroke, hiding the documents in black plastic bags on the outskirts of the town dump.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#33

Post by WillPostForFood » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 2:36 AM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #21

jjoonathan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

deescalation is the only rational option

Probably true, but you don't need to actually use first strike capability, you just need to convince the other side that you are willing to use it.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#34

Post by redis_mlc » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 3:29 AM UTC

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #15

DennisP wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

You can just watch the movie "Dr. Strangelove."

People thought it was SciFi, but it was actually a documentary.

The nuclear silo launch code for decades was "000000" to save time to launch.

Also, Reagan and Russia didn't care about some goofy MAD doctrine - they wanted actual ABM defenses. That's why there's an ABM ring allowed by treaty around Moscow, and why Reagan funded SDI (lasers weren't implemented, but anti-missile missiles were.) Reagan thought MAD was immoral if you could build a real defense, and he was right.

Something most people don't know is that Russia seriously planned to nuke Beijing durng their 1969 border dispute, but the US found out and told them not to. The CCP did their "wolf warrior" b.s. on Russia, and after the Russians had enough they decided to root out the problem once and for all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict

Ironically, the CCP asked Russia to declare a joint war on the US in the 50's and 60's twice for communist ideological reasons, but Russia laughed them off since there was no practical advantage for Russia.

Although Russia's weapons worked just fine, the US over-estimated Russian belligerence and grossly under-estimated the CCP.

The US Democrats are obsessed with the Russians, but it's the CCP that is completely unhinged. Xi wants to be god on earth over all other countries.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#35

Post by pbronez » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 3:43 AM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #33

DennisP wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

deescalation is the only rational option Probably true, but you don't need to actually use first strike capability, you just need to convince the other side that you are willing to use it.

“The Three Body Problem” series has some masterful exploration of this concept.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#36

Post by mjevans » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 3:45 AM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #20

gen220 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We need to survive to 'phasers and photon torpedoes' somehow.

Retaining the skills and active devices to use against inbound rocks and balls of ice in intersecting orbits is the silver lining to these military policies.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#37

Post by tehjoker » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

smegger001 wrote: post #28

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…

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 ma…

Well there's a reason there are safeguards agreements and inspections. The idea is a slow mutual drawdown and then eventually a rapid final disarmament once a critical low threshold is reached.

You can maintain the safeguards and inspections indefinitely via the IAEA.

https://www.ctbto.org/verification-regime/

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#38

Post by cat199 » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 5:19 AM UTC

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.

think you're missing the point -

the only people to survive a total nuclear war would be the elites sheltered in some bunker somewhere; the point is that decision makers were/are willing to risk destroying the species itself just so that the surviving 5 people could preserve their ideology/territory and 'win', not that nuclear war is a deterrent against local uprisings.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#39

Post by specialist » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 6:06 AM 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.

> The 'victim', Ellsberg, would seem to agree.

I don't recall the documentary I watched, but the impression I got was that Ellsberg needed or wanted Sheehan to make the call that he couldn't bring himself to make.

Re: Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light

#40

Post by cycomanic » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 6:55 AM UTC

smegger001 wrote: post #28

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…

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 ma…

The problem with that argument is that at some point acting insane to keep up pretenses and actually being insane becomes indistinguishable and you end up with the situation that only a young Russian nuclear officer disobeying orders is saving the world from nuclear Armageddon [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov