SECTION 1 - SCOPE OF THE STUDY
When The Special Study Group was established in August, 1963, its members
were instructed to govern their deliberations in accordance with three principal
criteria. Briefly stated, they were these: 1) military-style objectivity; 2)
avoidance of preconceived value assumptions; 3) inclusion of all relevant areas
of theory and data.
These guideposts are by no means as obvious as they may appear at first glance,
and we believe it necessary to indicate clearly how they were to inform our
work. For they express succinctly the limitations of previous "peace studies,"
and imply the nature of both government and unofficial dissatisfaction with
these earlier efforts. It is not our intention here to minimize the significance of
the work of our predecessors, or to belittle the quality of their contributions.
What we have tried to do, and believe we have done, is extend their scope. We
hope that our conclusions may serve in turn as a starting point for still broader
and more detailed examinations of every aspect of the problems of transition to
peace and of the questions which must be answer- ed before such a transition
can be allowed to get under way.
It is a truism that objectivity is more often an intention expressed than an
attitude achieved, but the intention---conscious, unambiguous, and constantly
self-critical -- is a precondition to its achievement. We believe it no accident
that we were charged to use a "military contingency" model for our study, and
we owe a considerable debt to the civilian war planning agencies for their
pioneering work in the objective examination of the contingencies of nuclear
war. There is no such precedent in the peace studies. Much of the usefulness of
even the most elaborate and carefully reasoned programs for economic
conversion to peace, for example, has been vitiated by a wishful eagerness to
demonstrate that peace is not only possible, but even cheap or easy. One official
report is replete with references to the critical role of "dynamic optimism" on
economic developments, and goes on to submit, as evidence, that it "would be
hard to imagine that the American people would not respond very positively to
an agreed and safeguarded program to substitute an international rule of law and
order," etc. Another line of argument frequently taken is that disarmament
would entail comparatively little disruption of the economy, since it need only
be partial; we will deal with this approach later. Yet genuine objectivity in war
studies is often critized as inhuman. As Herman Kahn, the writer on strategic
studies best known to the general public, put it: "Critics frequently object to the
icy rationality of the Hudson Institute, the Rand Corporation, and other such
organizations. I'm always tempted to ask in reply, `Would you prefer a warm,
human error? Do you feel better with a nice emotional mistake.'" And, as
When The Special Study Group was established in August, 1963, its members
were instructed to govern their deliberations in accordance with three principal
criteria. Briefly stated, they were these: 1) military-style objectivity; 2)
avoidance of preconceived value assumptions; 3) inclusion of all relevant areas
of theory and data.
These guideposts are by no means as obvious as they may appear at first glance,
and we believe it necessary to indicate clearly how they were to inform our
work. For they express succinctly the limitations of previous "peace studies,"
and imply the nature of both government and unofficial dissatisfaction with
these earlier efforts. It is not our intention here to minimize the significance of
the work of our predecessors, or to belittle the quality of their contributions.
What we have tried to do, and believe we have done, is extend their scope. We
hope that our conclusions may serve in turn as a starting point for still broader
and more detailed examinations of every aspect of the problems of transition to
peace and of the questions which must be answer- ed before such a transition
can be allowed to get under way.
It is a truism that objectivity is more often an intention expressed than an
attitude achieved, but the intention---conscious, unambiguous, and constantly
self-critical -- is a precondition to its achievement. We believe it no accident
that we were charged to use a "military contingency" model for our study, and
we owe a considerable debt to the civilian war planning agencies for their
pioneering work in the objective examination of the contingencies of nuclear
war. There is no such precedent in the peace studies. Much of the usefulness of
even the most elaborate and carefully reasoned programs for economic
conversion to peace, for example, has been vitiated by a wishful eagerness to
demonstrate that peace is not only possible, but even cheap or easy. One official
report is replete with references to the critical role of "dynamic optimism" on
economic developments, and goes on to submit, as evidence, that it "would be
hard to imagine that the American people would not respond very positively to
an agreed and safeguarded program to substitute an international rule of law and
order," etc. Another line of argument frequently taken is that disarmament
would entail comparatively little disruption of the economy, since it need only
be partial; we will deal with this approach later. Yet genuine objectivity in war
studies is often critized as inhuman. As Herman Kahn, the writer on strategic
studies best known to the general public, put it: "Critics frequently object to the
icy rationality of the Hudson Institute, the Rand Corporation, and other such
organizations. I'm always tempted to ask in reply, `Would you prefer a warm,
human error? Do you feel better with a nice emotional mistake.'" And, as
