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The closed world: Systems discourse, military strategy and post WWII American historical consciousness

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Abstract

This essay proposes a cultural and historical explanation for the American Military's fascination with computing. Three key elements of post-WWII US political culture — apocalyptic struggle with the USSR, subsuming all other conflicts: a long history of antimilitarist sentiment in American politics; and the rise of science-based military power — contributed to a sense of the world as a closed system accessible to American technological control. A developing scientific systems discourse, centrally including computer science and AI, was adopted for strategic thinking and military technology. The Strategic Computing and Strategic Defense Initiatives are discussed as contemporary examples of this conjunction.

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References

  1. Flamm, K. (1987).Creating the Computer and Targeting Technology. Brooking Institution.

  2. See Edwards, P. (1985). Border Wars: The Science and Politics of Artificial Intelligence.Radical America. 19.

  3. Also see Edwards, P. and R. Gordon (forthcoming). Defense Research and High Technology, in Edwards and Gordon (eds.)Strategic Computing: Defense Research and High Technology. Columbia University Press.

  4. Jacky, J. (forthcoming). Software Engineers and Hackers: Programming and Military Computing, in Edwards and Gordon op. cit.

  5. See the many articles on this topic in theCPSR Newsletter, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Palo Alto, California.

  6. Also see Pullum, G. (forthcoming). Natural Language Interfaces and Strategic Computing, in Edwards and Gordon, op. cit., available in a somewhat different form inAI & Society. 1,1. 47–58.

  7. See Chapman, G. The New generation of High Tech Weapons, and Edwards, P., Computers and Weapons systems: An Historical Overview. Both in Bellin and Chapman (eds.)Computers in Battle. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovitch.

  8. Also see Gibson, J. (1986).The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam. Atlantic Monthly Press, and van Creveld, M. (1985).Command in War. Harvard University Press.

  9. Harry S. Truman, cited in Ambrose, S. (1985).Rise to Globalism. Penguin. 86.

  10. Ambrose, ibid. 87.

  11. Huntington, S. (1981).American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony. Belknap Press.

  12. Ambrose, op. cit. xiv.

  13. See, for example, the lionizing of science and scientists in James Phinney Baxter's history of the Office of Scientific Research and Development,Scientists Against Time. (1946). Little, Brown.

  14. See Flamm, op. cit., and Edwards, Computers and Military systems. Op. cit.

  15. Compare Baritz, L. (1985).Backfire. Ballantine.

  16. On containment doctrine see Gaddis. J.L. (1982).Strategies of Containment. Oxford University Press.

  17. Ambrose, op. cit. 80.

  18. Jacobs, J.F. (1983).SAGE Overview. Annals of the History of Computing. 5.

  19. Kaplan. op. cit.

  20. Winograd, T. and F. Flores (1986).Understanding Computers and Cognition. Ablex. 98.

  21. For other aspects of the discussion in this section see Edwards, P. (1986).Artificial Intelligence and High Technology War: The Perspective of the Formal Machine. Silicon Valley Research Group Working Paper 6.

  22. Edwards, P. (forthcoming).The Army and the Microworld: Computers and the Militarized Politics of Gender Signs, also published as Silicon Valley Research Group working Paper 8. Both papers are available from the Silicon Valley Research Group, University of California, Santa Cruz.

  23. See Jacky, op. cit.

  24. Kaplan, op. cit. p336.

  25. McNamara, cited in ibid. 336.

  26. Westmoreland, cited in Baritz, op. cit. 35.

  27. DARPA (1987).Strategic Computing: Second Annual Report. DARPA.

  28. DARPA (1983).Strategic Computing — New Generation Computing Technology: A Strategic Plan for its Development and Application to Critical Problems in Defense. DARPA. 3.

  29. See Gray, C.H. (unpublished ms. 1987).Artificial Intelligence and Real War. History of Consciousness Program, University of California, Santa Cruz.

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  1. Silicon Valley Research Group, Stevenson College, University of California, USA

    Paul N Edwards

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  1. Paul N Edwards
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Edwards, P.N. The closed world: Systems discourse, military strategy and post WWII American historical consciousness. AI & Soc 2, 245–255 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01908547

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