poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (05/09/85)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Poli-Sci Digest Thu 9 May 85 Volume 5 Number 18
Contents: Vietnam
Introduction
Age of Responsibility
Embargo
Nuclear Power
Cars
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Date: Tuesday, 7 May 1985 12:10:26 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@cmu-cs-unh.arpa
Subject: Vietnam
I was barely old enough to get a draft card. Even so, I don't remember much
about the details of the war in the early 70s (other things are more
important in high school) and nothing about the war in the 60s. I have
recently read the book "On Strategy - A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam
War" by Harry G. Summers, Colonel of Infantry. This book has received the
highest praise from all parts of the political spectrum. Caspar
Weinberger's recent statements about the uses of military power are taken
directly from Summers work, as are the Army's 1981 field regulations.
Summers fought in Korea and Vietnam, and was in Hanoi at the time Saigon
fell to the North Vietnamese.
Summer's book was published in 1982, so he has covered most of the other
important books on Vietnam. Summers analyzes the history of our involvement
in Vietnam using primarily the age-old maxims of Clauswitz, as well as the
work of modern scholars. The bottom line is that the US violated all the
rules of war in Vietnam. They also misdiagnosed the situation, thinking
that they were fighting a revolutionary war (popular uprising) as opposed to
a guerrilla war (externally supported aggression). I didn't understand that
either. But after the 1968 Tet offensive, 80% of the Viet Cong were North
Vietnamese soldiers.
Summers analysis contains some (to me) surprises. For example, he does not
believe that press bias has much to do with the war outcome. There were a
few well-known examples of distorted stories. The most famous is the
picture of the Saigon police chief shooting a Viet Cong in the head. What
was not said is that this VC had just killed several of the chief's
relatives. Summers thinks that the true influence of the press is that for
the first time, they directly showed the American people the horrors of war.
He cites related historical examples. For example, in a Crimean campaign
earlier in this century, British generals lived in the lap of luxury, while
soldiers were starving. This was normal military behavior, but press reports
caused public outrage in Britain.
Summers talks a great deal about the coupling of political and military
objectives, and how we failed miserably to do this in Vietnam. In this
sense, the book has very little to say about tactics in Vietnam. There
isn't much to say. The US Army won almost every battle it fought, and dealt
terrible blows to the North Vietnamese (100,000 or more lost each time) in
the Ia Drang in 1965, Tet in 1968, and the Eastertide Offensive in 1972.
And yet the US lost the war.
Summers discusses how our confusion stems from our WWII and Korean War
experiences, our desire to avoid a confrontation with China and the Soviet
Union, and Johnson's desire to protect Great Society programs. From WWII we
got the idea that total victory is the only kind of victory. We regarded
Korea as a failure. In fact our goal in Korea was containment (which
MacArthur disagreed with, and was canned), and we achieved that goal. But
due to fears about a land battle with China, we didn't invade North Vietnam.
Johnson kept the US in a peacetime mode during the War. He feared that
bringing the war higher up in people's consciences would lead to budget cuts
in Great Society programs. An obvious example of the peacetime mode is the
fact that Creighton Abrams, and after him, William Westmoreland, the theater
commanders, reported to the admiral in charge of the Pacific Command.
Compare that to roles of Eisenhower and MacArthur in WWII.
I hope this gives some flavor of the book. If you are at all interested in
Vietnam, I urge you to read this book.
------------------------------
Date: 8-May-85
From: Wolf-Dieter Batz <L12%DHDURZ2.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA>
[This self-introduction was edited out of a list addition request:
it was apparently intended for general distribution. --JoSH]
Hello,
The special interest of our research group here in HEIDELBERG
(situated in the southwestern part of Germany) are the dynamics of
political processes initiated to regain democratic structures. As a
usable data base for research in this topic we consider processes in
Third World countries, especially Central and Southern America. Most
forward driven research in our group is actually concerned with the
case of BRAZIL.
If anyone is interested in exchange of information concerning this
topic we would like to hear about it. We think that this is also
interesting for economists, sociologists, and other scientists who
are concerned in any way.
So long folks & kind regards *** Wodi <l12@dhdurz2.bitnet>
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Date: 7 May 1985 09:07-PDT
From: king@Kestrel.ARPA
Subject: responsibility tests
From: LUBAR%hplabs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
Subject: responsibility tests
But, having flamed, I feel obligated to come up with some alternate
suggestion. Well, we could send all prospective "adults" (using that
word to mean someone who is mature and responsible) to a retreat ...
where responsibilities would take away from play time...
Then, anyone who keeps up with his or her
responsibilities would become an adult, and allowed to drink, drive,
vote, get married, etc.... Actually, given that sort of test, an
alternative way to qualify for adulthood might be to graduate college,
or to support onesself completely for a year. These are just off the
top of my head; my point is that I believe any test for responsibility
would have to make people demonstrate responsibility, not just answer
questions.
The test seems thoroughly artificial (and expensive).
I believe there is only one criterion for adulthood; the condition of
being self-supporting.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 May 85 11:16:25 PDT
From: David Alpern <ALPERN%SJRLVM4.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Drinking Age
Why punish people in a statistically prone group more than others?
If the punishment for driving while intoxicated meant something (and in
California at least they're trying to convince the public it does hurt)
the need for age group restrictions would be lessened. In fact, taken
to the extreme - alcohol available to all, but death to ANYONE caught
driving drunk (or walking on a road, or for that matter, how about just
being in public while drunk) - the problem would disappear damn fast.
Anyone care to speculate on why the judicial and legislative branches
have been willing to accept certain crimes as "expected" of normal
people, and thus not elligible for real punishment? Taking away
somebody's driving privileges is a lesser restriction than is jailing
them, but seems harder to get a court to impose.
- Dave
p.s. The opinions expressed herein may or may not even be my own, let
alone anyone elses.
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Date: 7 May 85 21:04:17 EDT
From: Mike <ZALESKI@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Drinking age
It seems to me that imposing some age based restriction is at least
as fair as any other stereotyped or prejudiced way of looking at a
group of people. How many Poli-Sci readers who favor some sort of
drinking age also complain about paying high insurance rates because
they are under 25?
Personally, I oppose any drinking restriction and am no fan of
the new wave of drunk driver crackdowns. Not because drunk driving
is good, but because government expanding its power also expands
its ability to abuse power. My preception is that the likelyhood
of being involved in a serious accident with a drunk driver (teenage
or whatever) is so small that it is hardly worth worrying about,
and indeed never was worth worrying about. Government roadblocks,
radar traps, and other such nonsense do give me some concern.
-- "The Model Citizen" Mike^Z
Zaleski@Rutgers [ allegra!, ihnp4! ] pegasus!mzal
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Date: Wed, 8 May 1985 10:54 EDT
From: Dean Sutherland <Sutherland@TL-20A.ARPA>
Subject: Dennett on drinking age
I like that. A "scarlet letter" approach. :-) More seriously, I believe that
stricter enforcement and harsher penalties would have some effect on drunk
driving statistics. Unfortunately, it is possible to go TOO for in that
direction.
A few years ago one of the South American countries (Brazil?) tried making the
second offense of drunk driving a capital crime. I haven't heard whether the
actual drunk driving rate decreased, but I did hear that political opponents of
the regime in power started getting picked up for drunk driving.
Since I can't quote a hard reference for this it may be merely apocryphal, but
it is illustrative of a possible problem with tough enforcement and penalties.
Dean F. Sutherland
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 May 85 10:52:15 pdt
From: upstill%ucbdegas@Berkeley (Steve Upstill)
Subject: Nicaragua Embargo
Would anyone care to defend the economic embargo of Nicaragua from
a political-scientific point of view? I'm not talking about its
salutory effects on Reagan's manhood, now. I'm not talking about
its effectiveness as punishment for Nicaragua not toeing the American
line. I want to know: What is this action intended to accomplish?
How will we know when it has succeeded? What can the Nicaraguan govt
to do get us to lift it? In other words, why are we doing this thing?
Obviously, you can see that I am opposed to it, but I am also honestly
curious: what is the rational purpose behind it, and what plan does it
enhance?
Steve Upstill
[Not to support or attack this particular case, but why isn't punishment
a valid political/scientific reason? --JoSH]
------------------------------
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley
Date: 8 May 85 15:02:03 CDT (Wed)
Subject: Nuclear Power vs. Nuclear Weapons
> 2. Operation of increasing numbers of reactors in a large number
> of politically volatile countries slowly but fairly surely leads
> to a proliferation of nuclear weapons...
So far nobody has used power reactors to make weapons; research reactors
are much easier to divert to plutonium production. So this is a non-issue,
since research reactors are damn near everywhere already.
> ...and sooner or later a
> terrorist group is going to lay their hands on 50 kilograms of
> plutonium.
Let us not forget that terrorists have easier ways of killing lots of
people, if they want to. Things like hydroelectric dams are seldom
guarded against serious attacks. There are several dams in North
America which have estimated death tolls of 100,000+ in the event of a
major dam burst.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
[If dams aren't "sexy" enough for a terrorist group (or banana republic),
the botulinus bacterium occurs naturally almost everywhere. Its cultivation
and the separation of the toxin (about ten times more lethal, per volume,
than nerve gas) is a project not much greater than a serious high-school
science fair project. May you live in interesting times... --JoSH]
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Date: 8 May 85 15:02:14 CDT (Wed)
Subject: autodrivers
> Lest you think this is completely off-the wall, compare the requirements for
> a super cruise control to the Strategic Computing Initiative's Autonomous
> Land Vehicle. The ALV goal is a vehicle that can travel over on- and
> off-road terrain at up to 60mph, using vision and maps for navigation...
Let us not forget that (a) the ALV is nowhere near functioning hardware,
and (b) we've heard big predictions before, from the same general sources.
"AI is really going to work *this* *time*." "Automated command/control
is really going to work *this* *time*." Color me skeptical.
For that matter, there is a large difference between the reliability and
maintenance demands of current high-end military systems and the sort of
characteristics we need for putting them in passenger cars. Systems in
passenger cars are exposed to severe environments, are frequently abused,
generally get hit-or-miss maintenance from half-competent people, and must
be cheap cheap cheap reliable reliable reliable. Reverting to manual
control in the event of computer failure is reasonable in most military
systems, since it is expected that the human beings involved will be
paying attention anyway (partly because they've learned not to trust the
automatic systems too much...), but is unacceptable in a car doing 90
(or even 55) on a busy Interstate with the passenger asleep. The ALV
technology is going to have to be a tremendous leap forward from today's
best military hardware to be even marginally viable for cars.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
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From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley
Date: 8 May 85 15:02:37 CDT (Wed)
Subject: traffic rates
> Although I have heard the two seconds following rule, it is completely
> at odds with what they teach you in driver education, one car length
> for each 10 MPH ...
Actually, what they taught me in driver education was "two seconds
following", on the grounds that the car/10mph rule doesn't address
the issue (reaction time) directly, and estimating distance is not
something most people do well.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
[Indeed. One is reminded of the driver testing officers in the Dave Barry
sketch who spend their time trying to guess how many car lengths away
various objects are... --JoSH]
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