| Saturday,
January 9, 1999
I mentioned Strategy of Technology
in a recent letter to subscribers, and discovered that some had never heard of it. That
goes to show that this web site is more complicated than it ought to be, and suggests that
I need to do more work on organization to let people know what's here. Herewith a short
explanation:
Fair warning: this is done informally and from memory, and I may have one or two
details wrong.
Strategy of Technology was written in the 60's and
published in 1970. The authors of record were Stefan T. Possony and Jerry Pournelle, and
the book, long out of print, was published by Dunellen The University Press of Cambridge,
Mass., which no longer exists. There was in fact a third author, Francis X. Kane, Ph.D.,
(Col. USAF, Ret'd) then the Director of Plans for USAF Systems Command.
The book was a success d' estime: that is, it was quite influential, but sold something
under 20,000 copies, and went out of print when the publisher vanished. For a while it was
a textbook in all three Service Academies and remained so for several years at the Air
Force Academy in Colorado Springs. It was also used at the Air War College in Alabama and
the National War College, and it's my understanding that Xerox copies are used (with our
permission) in some classes at the war colleges to this day. Strategy of Technology was
very much a book for the Seventy Years War (or Cold War if you like); although the
principles remain true and important, all the examples are pretty well drawn from that
conflict and specifics are directed to weaknesses in the nomenklatura system that governed
the USSR in those times.
Over the years we rewrote some of the chapters and published them in various places
including my own THERE WILL BE WAR series (books that were about 3/4 science fiction but
which contained significant non-fiction essays on military history and principles). Dr.
Possony had a disabling stroke in the mid-1980's and died shortly after the Cold War
ended; he was lucid enough to know that the USSR was brought down, and that
he had been a key player in that game. As one of the authors
of the seminal THE PROTRACTED CONFLICT (with Robert Strausz-Hupe and William Kintner) as
well as STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY, and in countless other ways, he had a major influence in
winning the Seventy Years War. In my judgment we would not have won the Cold War without
him; he was one of the great men of this century although few have heard of him today.
The book has been out of print for years, and when this web site began I was urged to
make copies available here, which I did. I have posted the "revised" edition,
which contains most of the first edition, prefaces, and some extensively reworked chapters
done mostly by Kane and myself, although Stefan had a hand in some of the earlier
revision, and we did discuss the later ones with him. After his stroke he remained aware
but had great difficulty in communication, which produced extreme frustration as he tried
to convey important thoughts that came out incoherently; a very painful situation for all
concerned.
The html code which presents the book with extensive notes was done by professionals
working as volunteers, and has some minor flaws, (I would be grateful to anyone who can
correct them) but the book can be read here. I have been urged to make it available in
Acrobat pdf format, but I have never had the time to do so. Perhaps one day.
When we put it up here we called it an experiment in shareware, and I asked that if you
read the book you send me a dollar; a dollar bill in an envelope will do. Some have also
added a couple of dollars to checks sent as subscriptions to this web site. Over the
years that has amounted to a couple of hundred dollars, and at his birthday party a week
or so ago Dr. Kane and I agreed that rather than divide this small sum, I'll just send it
all to Dr. Possony's widow, who still lives in Mountain View.
Regina Possony was a survivor of Stalin's prison camps (they met in the United States
after both had fled). She was born in Berlin and her father was an influential Communist
politician who fled with his family to the USSR on the rise of Hitler; they were of course
put into a labor camp. As both Jews and Communists they would hardly have survived in
Berlin, so a Russian camp was a stark but better alternative to remaining in
Nazi Germany. As a young girl
Mrs. Possony had met Albert Einstein on a family visit to the United States, and from the
USSR prison camp wrote him a letter addressed to "Dr. Albert Einstein, United States of
America". The US Post Office delivered it to him at Princeton
University. Einstein was gracious enough to reply, and even to send a small
package of food and hygienic goods, which raised her status somewhat in
Stalin's estimation. After Stefan's stroke she singlehandedly kept him alive for a decade
when no one expected him to live a month.
Stefan T. Possony was a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution until he died. He had
formerly been a Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University, and a Pentagon
intelligence officer for the United States. Prior to the invasion of France in 1940 he was
an intelligence officer in the French Air Ministry, to which he came from the Air Ministry
of Czechoslovakia. His escape from France during the confusion of the Fall of France was a
fascinating story; at one point he contemplated using a kayak to paddle to Spain, but
managed to get one of the last tickets to Oran.
He had fled Czechoslovakia during the Nazi invasion. He had come to
Prague from Vienna,
where he obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Vienna and joined the
Schusschnigg
ministry opposing the Anschluss with Germany; he was on the Gestapo's wanted list, and
left for Czechoslovakia as the Wehrmacht rode in. He used to say that the Gestapo got his
library three times, in Vienna, Prague, and Paris. In the 70's and early 80's Stefan was
quietly influential, directing several Pentagon studies of Soviet leadership and strategy.
His biography of Lenin is still about the best tool for understanding the
founder of the USSR. Alas it is long out of print.
Stefan Possony was perhaps the single most important member of my Citizens Advisory Council on
National Space Policy which among other duties assisted Dr. Kane in writing Transition
Team papers on space and military policy for the incoming Reagan Administration. Possony
was one of the major architects of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Strategy of
Technology introduced the notion of a strategy of "assured survival" in contrast
to "assured destruction" and Assured Survival is the title of one chapter of
that book.
Dr. Kane and I would like to revise the book and get it back in print, since the
principles seem even more important now than they were when it was written. We're both
getting old enough that we wonder if that will happen, but it should. As written it's
still worth reading (in my judgment), and several War College students have used it as
part of their advanced degree work. Revising it was going to be the project of one USAF
officer at the post graduate school, but he was needed as director of a weapons lab and
left the school before that could be done. Meanwhile, the book
exists here.
Jerry Pournelle
Studio City, CA
Saturday, January 09, 1999
Donald McArthur and
others have reminded me that psychobabble and pseudoscience, crystals and auras and
psychic phenomena, are creeping into our universities as well as our culture. I am
reminded that Niven, Flynn, and I took a shot at this stuff in FALLEN ANGELS,
a book that I haven't mentioned recently, but which still sells, and we're still pretty
proud of it. It's a science fiction novel about an eco-disaster that we never planned on,
as well as a compliment to science fiction fans. Mostly it's not a bad read.
(You can see McArthur's Washington Post letter here.)
But in fact it is a serious subject, and I need to write on it. The problem is that the
schools don't teach kids to read or do much with numbers, and the result is that only the
'educated' classes CAN tell the difference between science and cult magic, and it is often
not to their interest to let the rest of the citizens know that the nonsense they learned
in school is just that. And since the teachers don't know the difference between real
science and politically correct nonsense either, how are the citizens to learn better?
Dioxin is a great example: it became dangerous when some people built on a flood plain.
The Congess says you aren't part of disaster relief if you build your community on a flood
plain; a Missouri community was flooded out in an entirely predictable flood, and since
they couldn't get disaster relief any other way, the fact that dioxin was in the soil was
used to get around the restrictions. The odd thing is that it did the community little
good; but the legend of dioxin, which is deadly if you happen to be a guinea pig but gives
you acne if you're a human, continues to this day. The legal findings about dioxin won't
hold up in a science court, but we don't HAVE any science courts. And so forth.
The Internet is a place for a lot of information and misinformation and gives few
guidelines to how to tell the one from the other. The advice I had at a AAAS panel on the
subject a few years ago was to go to places where at least they CARE about the truth. This
is one of them. I am under no illusion that I am infallible; but at least I care, and I
try to get things right, and I'm open to correction. By correction I do not mean tirades
void of facts...
Meanwhile we have all kinds of anti-science phenomena getting publicity. Mostly that
doesn't bother me: I can live with Psychic Friends and Millenialists like Gary North who
are honest about what they are saying will at least cause you to look at the universe from
a different perspective: while I tend to the rationalist view of the universe (I suppose
if I need a label you can call me a Thomist), I know there are other valid ways to see the
world. But there is a difference between a frank Revalationist view and the
pseudoscientists, who mask their irrationality under the fancy that they know what they
are talking about, and that they too are "scientific". Some know better and are
frauds; more dangerous perhaps are those who really believe the nonsense they propagate.
For anyone interested in Thoth Missiles, here's
a pointer.
Several readers have told me that
Interplay's BALDUR'S GATE is the
best fantasy role playing game they ever saw. It arrived today. I have so much work to do
I don't know when I'll get to it, but I clearly have to. It never rains but it pours...
While I was looking there, I realized that I used to know how to grab off images from
other web sites, but I have forgotten the method. I know there is a way, because I have
done it, but I sure don't seem to be able to now. Odd.
Thanks to several readers who pointed out that it's absurdly simple: right click and
save as. How and why I forgot that is beyond me. Age? Anyway, thanks.
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