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Failures of perspective in decision-making can be due to aspects of the social utility paradox, but more often result from simple mistakes caused by inadequate thought.

Herman Kahn

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Herman Kahn
Age: 61 †
Born: 1922
Born: February 15
Died: 1983
Died: July 7
Futurist
Lobbyist
Mathematician
Strategist
Bayonne
New Jersey
Simple
Dues
Making
Mistakes
Often
Result
Utility
Social
Aspect
Inadequate
Thought
Perspective
Failures
Mistake
Paradox
Results
Caused
Decision
Aspects

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Authority is not power that's coercion. Authority is not knowledge that's persuasion, or seduction. Authority is simply that the author has the right to make a statement and to be heard.
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The widespread diffusion of nuclear weapons would make many nations able, and in some cases also create the pressure, to aggravate an on-going crisis, or even touch off a war between two other powers for purposes of their own.
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Human and moral factors must always be considered. They must never be missing from policies and from public discussion.
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World War I broke out largely because of an arms race, and World War II because of the lack of an arms race.
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Nuclear war is such an emotional subject that many people see the weapons themselves as the common enemy of humanity.
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Clearly, the first task is to gain acceptance of a more reasonable view of the future, one that opens possibilities rather than forecloses them.
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There was no race - but to the extent that there was an arms competition, it was almost entirely on the Soviet side, first to catch up and then to surpass the Americans.
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Nevertheless, during the sixty years of the twentieth century many problems have come increasingly into the realm of acceptable public discussion.
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In 1960 I published a book that attempted to direct attention to the possibility of a thermonuclear war, to ways of reducing the likelihood of such a war, and to methods for coping with the consequences should war occur despite our efforts to avoid it.
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A healthy and fully functioning society must allocate its resources among a variety of competing interests, all of which are more or less valid but none of which should take precedence over national security.
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My guess is that nuclear weapons will be used sometime in the next hundred years, but that their use is much more likely to be small and limited than widespread and unconstrained.
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The objective of nuclear-weapons policy should not be solely to decrease the number of weapons in the world, but to make the world safer - which is not necessarily the same thing.
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A surprising number of government committees will make important decisions on fundamental matters with less attention than each individual would give to buying a suit.
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Hopefully, nations will refuse to accept a situation in which nuclear accidents actually do occur, and, if at all possible, they will do something to correct a system which makes them likely.
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I'm against fashionable thinking.
Herman Kahn
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It may literally turn out that a Hottentot, an educated and literate Hottentot it is true, but one who is a member of a relatively primitive society, would be able to make bombs.
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Many people believe that the current system must inevitably end in total annihilation. They reject, sometimes very emotionally, any attempts to analyze this notion.
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For some years I have spent my time on exactly these questions - both in thinking about ways to prevent war, and in thinking about how to fight, survive, and terminate a war, should it occur.
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To the extent that these advanced weapons or their components are treated as articles of commerce, perhaps for peaceful uses as in the Plowshare program, their cost would be well within the resources available to many large private organizations.
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It is immoral from almost any point of view to refuse to defend yourself and others from very grave and terrible threats, even as there are limits to the means that can be used in such defense.
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