Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE America on War and Diplomacy I congratulate Stephen Rosen and Bob Tyrrell on a remarkable-and remarkably important-symposium in the November American Spectator. I fully agree...
...Agreed, systems analysis cannot quantify important aspects of war, like morale and generalship...
...Practically all the ones I know are engineers, physical scientists, or mathematicians by training...
...All share a preference for numbers over words which is good as far as it goes...
...In fact, though still inadequate, quality control is a leading concern of all reputable practitioners...
...The essence of systems analysis is the mathematical model, an' attempt to represent events by equations...
...I wish more would have a preference for experimental facts over numbers...
...Quite so...
...What then is the use of modeling...
...tradition versus change, etc...
...realistic or illusionist...
...Intangible elements-courage, intelligence, sheer luck-control the outcome of battles...
...What I miss in the symposium is any consideration of what seems to me the central issue: Is there any criterion short of the rule of the Charter of the United Nations which could tell us when we and our Allies have to oppose the international use of force...
...wise or foolish...
...If the representation is realistic, and //the input numbers are right, it follows logically that the output is right...
...an attempt to represent events by equations...
...Younger ones may have a degree in the field itself which usually means they have been trained as mathematicians...
...We all have thought a great deal about this but have failed to come up with anything more profound than the conclusion that American intervention should be decided on a case by case basis, with due regard given to the military, ideological, diplomatic, and domestic political costs that will be borne...
...May I raise two points-one small but important, the other large-and also important, I think...
...Those denotations have nothing to do with the use of force or coercion in international affairs...
...In my view, they have no place in the vocabulary of the subject...
...By every meaningful index, HenryJackson is a "liberal," as Paul Douglas and Dean Acheson were...
...Both groups represent positions that are flawed...
...that it has been avoided like the plague by people terrorized or traumatized by the word "Vietnam...
...Systems Reanalysis I should like to react to Eliot Cohen's attack on systems analysis in your November issue...
...Seldom should the results be taken as gospel...
...Aryeh H. Samuel Wheaton, Maryland first paragraph confirms one of my observations: "Systems analysts are willing-nay, eager-to condemn defective analysis, but not to re-examine the premises of the whole approach" (p...
...I consider systems analysis to be at about the same stage today that medicine was in 1850...
...In the meantime, the analysis profession has an obligation to strive for validity-often involving experimental validation of results-and improved techniques...
...I should admit that I make my living as a systems analyst and am not impartial...
...I myself have a degree in chemistry...
...Cohen rightly says that no model encompasses all of reality, and he could have added that the two conditions I have stated are rarely fulfilled...
...But I think that even an unbiased observer might admit that rational approaches are not bad in themselves...
...I cherish the hope that the state of the art will improve...
...I observed, however, that systems analysis is not the technique of a few adepts but a mode of thought adopted by many noneconomists...
...Cohen is wrong in supposing that most systems analysts are social scientists...
...Intellectually, he is right...
...Agreed, the choice of measures of effectiveness is often poor...
...aggressive or defensive...
...I fully agree that a ruthless reexamination of our foreign-cum-defense policy has been our highest priority for years...
...It is not surprising that mathematicians, engineers, and nat^ ural scientists find systems analysis congenial...
...The purpose of the symposium was to go beyond both and develop the ideas of Acheson, Jackson, and others to create operational foreign and defense policies for the 1980s...
...it has been said that when you went to a doctor then it was even money whether he would help or hurt you...
...We need better users as well as better practitioners...
...His second paragraph asserts that "systems analysis is...
...the models are not realistic and the input values are chosen to fit the convenience or bias of the user...
...In practice, however, men like Jesse Helms and Barry Goldwater are tolerably distinguishable from men like George Ball and George McGovern...
...Eugene V. Rostow Yale University Law School Stephen Rosen replies: I have no substantive quarrel with Professor Rostow's rejection of the words ''liberal" and ''conservative" in relation to foreign policy...
...Developing a general criterion for the use of American force is much harder...
...Foreign and defense policy can be prudent or reckless...
...But if you use the results as aids to your thinking, which may be classical military thinking, and allow for their inaccuracy, they may well be useful to you (the planner...
...Liberal" and "conservative" have significant denotations in political and social theory (freedom versus order...
...Those who have been trained in the humanist fields- history, politics, or English literature for that matter-should resist much more the blandishments of those who would substitute formulas for prudence and mathematical models for reflection...
...That is why it must fail, because no human activity, particularly war, is quantifiable and mathematically predictable...
...The small point: the use of the words "liberal" and "conservative" in relation to foreign policy...
...But it cannot be liberal or conservative...
...and that we must undertake the task now, on a crash basis, or (quite literally) die...
...My second point is more fundamental...
...In regard to his final paragraph let me point out that the founders of systems analysis and the authors of its sacred texts were and are economists...
...But, just as the Victorians went to the doctor anyway, the generals come to the systems analyst because there is no other way to look at things rationally...
Vol. 14 • February 1981 • No. 2
