Here's something I was pondering the other day...
The nuclear strategists at RAND, some of whom went on to become McNamara's Whiz Kids, were significantly influenced by neoclassical economics. Partly this is just a natural overlap since both RAND nuclear strategy and neoclassicism use game theory. But there's more to it than that - national leaders are utility-maximizing rational actors, different outcomes are expressed as numeric utility values, etc.
This makes me wonder: what would a nuclear strategy inspired by a different branch of economics be like? For example, what would a Keynesian strategy look like? Or one based on behavioral economics?
A behavioral strategy strikes me as particularly interesting, although it would obviously require considerable tinkering with history to have it around by the 50s. I'm imagining strategists that take a very empirical approach, looking through history to see how leaders and societies respond to extreme stress and mass casualties. Or lock undergrads in a room with a telephone, tell them they're the leaders of the free world and the commies want Berlin, and see how they react.
This may not have a huge direct effect on the world. But if McNamara still recruits his aides from RAND, it could have interesting repercussions for defense procurement and policy in the 60s.
The nuclear strategists at RAND, some of whom went on to become McNamara's Whiz Kids, were significantly influenced by neoclassical economics. Partly this is just a natural overlap since both RAND nuclear strategy and neoclassicism use game theory. But there's more to it than that - national leaders are utility-maximizing rational actors, different outcomes are expressed as numeric utility values, etc.
This makes me wonder: what would a nuclear strategy inspired by a different branch of economics be like? For example, what would a Keynesian strategy look like? Or one based on behavioral economics?
A behavioral strategy strikes me as particularly interesting, although it would obviously require considerable tinkering with history to have it around by the 50s. I'm imagining strategists that take a very empirical approach, looking through history to see how leaders and societies respond to extreme stress and mass casualties. Or lock undergrads in a room with a telephone, tell them they're the leaders of the free world and the commies want Berlin, and see how they react.
This may not have a huge direct effect on the world. But if McNamara still recruits his aides from RAND, it could have interesting repercussions for defense procurement and policy in the 60s.