Chapter 1 - Notes

1. Since we wrote this in 1968-69, the Soviets have invaded Czechoslovakia to consolidate the Empire's power there; invaded Afghanistan; placed tens of divisions on the Chinese border; interfered in the Middle East; used Cuban mercenaries to destabilize a great part of Africa; induced the Communist regime in Poland to enslave its own working class; and established a beachhead on this continent in Nicaragua. Is further evidence of Soviet aggressive tendencies needed?

2. Robert Strausz-Hupe et al, Protracted Conflict (New York: Harper 1969); Stefan T. Possony, A Century of Conflict, 5th ed. (Chicago: Regnery, 1969); Richard Pipes, Survival Is Not Enough (New York: Simon and Schuster Touchstone Books, 1986)

3. We define as technological base the sum total of resources needed to produce and constantly modernize the tools of war and peace. Those resources include scientists, inventors, engineers, laboratories, laboratory equipment, funds, information flow, incentives, etc., as well as industry and the economy as a whole, which we do not discuss in this book.

4. The theory is essentially that of Lewis Richardson, who made up differential equations to try to demonstrate the mathematical relationship between the arms expenditures of nations and international blocs, and found a reasonable fit in the single case of the Pre-World War I Entente and Alliance. No empirical confirmation of the Richardson theory has been found, and the specialized assumptions required to make the World War I history fit the theory leave the entire effort in a questionable state. Richardson's theory is presented in L.F. Richardson, Arms and Insecurity (Pittsburgh, Boxwood Press, 1960). His most vigorous champion in the 1960's was Anatol Rappaport, in Fights, Games, and Debates (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960). The results of one unsuccessful attempt to find a modern instance of a Richardson arms race are reported in Pournelle, Stability and National Security (U.S. Air Force, 1969). We have found that in the modern era, expenditures on weapons simply do not fit the Richardson equations.

5. In common engineering parlance, an increase by an order of magnitude is approximately a tenfold increase. Astronomers, be wary.

6. We would, of course, have not only to invent and develop these bombers but build them in quantity, fly them, train the pilots, etc., and do it all within the time limits of U.S.S.R. deployment.

7. Since this book is intended to be a discussion of principles, not of current specific problems, it may be well in print long after the present war in Vietnam is ended. We venture to predict, however, that for many years after this is written (1970) there will be wars in Asia, including South East Asia and the area formerly known as Indo-China, and their outcomes will be of concern to the United States.

8. The authors recall the frustration of Wernher Von Braun and other rocketry experts when the last of the V-2 rockets brought to the United States were used, not for the development of rocket sciences, but as supersonic test beds for aircraft parts to avoid spending the funds required for construction of supersonic wind tunnels. This retarded the development of both missiles and supersonic aircraft, of course.

9. General d'Armee Andre Beaufre, Introduction to Strategy (New York: Praeger, 1965), p. 22.

10. Demosthenes, First Phillipic to the People of Athens.

11.We wrote this analysis in the 1960's. The principles haven't changed. The action we advocate is now called a "competitive strategy."

12. We should note that as part of the budget process to gather Congressional support, major programs such as Apollo and SDI had t identify "spinoffs" which can find application in the commercial world.

13. Note that technological fogs exist even within nations. Corporations keep trade secrets from each other and even within corporations the various divisions and profit centers preserve their competitive advantages.

14. Richard Pipes, Survival Is Not Enough p. 29

15. In the first edition of this work and in other places Stefan Possony referred to a secret Soviet group which he called "the Brotherhood", and which in some ways corresponded to what we now know is the nomenklatura.