We Didn't Have An End Game For the Cold War

The United States led its NATO and other allies to defeat the Soviet Union in a Cold War that involved both military pressure and psychological warfare – including coordination of the stories told by news organizations. There were deceptions of long standing – and they played an essential part in defeating the Communists without nuclear war.

When the Soviet Union fell, and everyone, on all sides, had so much hope, we didn't have an end game -- and the United States was so tied up with lies, that it could not sort out problems before it -- or help the Russians sort out their problems.

We tied up not only the Russians, but ourselves, and the whole world, in ways that are still causing problems today. We need to get some stories straight http://www.mrshowalter.net/TeachingKidsToTieTheirShoes_AndGetStoriesStraight.htm. To do so will take work from staffed organizations http://www.mrshowalter.net/ConnectingDotsForStaffedOrganizations.htm .

The NYT Missile Defense board did a lot of work trying to clarify the issues involved, and establish lines of communication between the nations involved. http://www.mrshowalter.net/MDSum_SolvngIntractableProblems.htm

The following excerpts and links from the NYT Missile Defense board deal with patterns by which our military-industrial-press complex fought the Cold War – but didn't cleanly end it. And discuss how unresolved matters might be resolved now. The excerpts print out to about eight pages.

a_md6000s\

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_6000s/md6370_71_NeEndGame.htm

. . . there were some important extenuating circumstances -- in many minds, including mine at the time -- about the way the US fought to Cold War -- ugly as it was. That is, there were before the fall of the Soviet Union.

Bill Casey felt passionate about this - agonized about this. Yes - it had been and was going to be necessary to do terrible, morally indefensible things. Yes, gross injustice had been and was going to be done to many people. Yes, it had been and was going to be necessary to subvert the Constitution, and many of the most dearly held values of the American people and our allies.

These things had been, and would continue to be necessary -- to fight the Cold War, against forces of totalitarianism that, Casey sincerely felt, had to be stopped at all costs - including both practical and moral costs.

Yes, it had been and was going to be necessary to lie and cheat and steal -- and kill innocent people beyond the ability of any individual human being to count.

(Ever tried to physically count to five million?)

Yes, it was ugly -- ugly beyond anything you could get in your head -- ugly beyond telling.

But the US, Casey felt, could do these things. Do them in secret, concealed in elaborate patterns of lies. With the secrecy and the lies justified, not only by expediency, but because there was a real desire to preserve the good things about America -- the kindness, the flexibility -- the opportunity -- the beauty. Preserve them by isolating them from the ugliness.

Bill Casey deserved, I believe, the same criticism as Kissinger and his colleagues and proteges deserve -- that he took positions that "made Machiavelli seem like one of the Sisters of Mercy."

And acted on them.

rshowalter - 07:19am Jul 1, 2001 EST (#6371

HOWEVER, Bill Casey also not only respected -- he revered , the standards of decency, and openness, and flexibility -- that THE NEW YORK TIMES tries to stand for -- and usually does.

When I talked to Casey, he was very clear about the conflict -- and his sense of the terrible moral box he and others had gotten the United States into. When he talked to me, a special asset who, it had been provisionally decided, was not to be killed -- (at every meeting I had with Casey, I was sure he was re-evaluating that decision) -- what we talked about was finding an end game -- finding a way out of the horror .

Perhaps, if Casey hadn't had the brain tumor he had, and died in 1989, the terrible tragedy of the last decade might not have happened quite as it did. Perhaps some grace not found could have been found. I don't know. This happened.

When the Soviet Union fell, and everyone, on all sides, had so much hope, we didn't have an end game -- and the United States was so tied up with lies, that it could not sort out problems before it -- or help the Russians sort out their problems.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_6000s/md6551.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_6000s/md6606.htm

We should work to fix things now -- not go on making them worse.

a_md7000s\

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_7000s/md7054.htm

I believe that the postings make a point about the extent of information related, in various ways, to ordinary human argument. . . . .

" People "make sense" of their world in a kind of statistical way -- and it matters very much, whether the "information" they condense generalizations from is right or wrong.

. . . .

Matters of war and peace, and international cooperation between the US and Russia, in the world as it is, are intractably complicated, for similar reasons, and some of the interactions will take staffs to comb out and master.

This thread is built as an example of what would be required to meet the needs of this staffed communication.

When two cultures that are very different and have systematic misunderstandings have to make real peace, and learn to interact, that will take staffing, too.

We are different enough that we can't "take for granted" each other's minds -- minds that have been formed by "swimming" in very different "seas" of information.

Contact, and confident cooperation -- will take work, accomodation -- and, at a number of levels, i a lot of straight talking.

This thread has clarified concerns, objective and emotional, between the Russian and American sides at a level of detail that does not seem to have happened before -- supplying some foundations of common ground that are going to be necessary parts of any real peace.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_7000s/md7194.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_7000s/md7375.htm

rshowalter - 10:34am Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7375

For all sorts of big and little reasons, to deal with inefficiency and ugliness at all sorts of levels, we need effective presses -- that present the truth -- and we need ways of getting things checked

. . .

By facing some facts gracefully -- facts that are coming out anyway, and making reasonable accomodations, in the interests of the whole world, including nearly all American citizens, we could have a much safer, more reasonable world.

Why doesn't it happen? The number of possibilities is getting narrowed down.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_7000s/md7916.htm

In very large programs, that have gone on for long duration, basic policies of deception become institutionalized, and cannot be effectively hidden from organizations that wish to determine the truth about them.

rshowalter - 07:01pm Aug 19, 2001 EST (#7917

What should be a celebration connects to too much pain, too much tragedy -- too much agony. I think very largely because, when the Cold War should have been over, a decade ago, Americans didn't have an end game.

Russians Mark 10 Years After Coup By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_7000s/md7918.htm

MD6058 rshowalter 6/26/01 7:23am
I'd like to post links to a Guardian thread where I've said many of the most important things I'd like people to know. Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/0

including the key story, #13.. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?7@@.ee7a163/13 ... to #23.. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?7@@.ee7a163/24

note #26 ... http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/25

On nuclear disarmament:
MD7394 rshowalter 7/24/01 10:04pm

I believe that this is a time with creative opportunities, where it may be possible to sort out a few problems, long a source of horror, so that the world can be somewhat more productive, somewhat safer, and somewhat less ugly than before.

The cold war should be over. The main barrier to ending it, now, is fictions - lies, that have gone on too long.

a_md8000s\

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_8000s/md8408.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_8000s/md8518.htm

We need some "islands of technical fact" to be determined, beyond reasonable doubt, or in a clear context.

a_md11000s\

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_11000s/md11577.htm

I've been arguing for getting facts, and facts on which assumptions rest, checked. Gisterme , for a very long time, in many ways -- has been saying -- no checking - not in any way that can't be manipulated-- you have to trust us.

Ken Lay said that, too. For a long time, it worked. But the consequences could have been improved.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_11000s/md11601.htm

rshow55 - 08:12pm Feb 17, 2002 EST (#11601 of 11603)

Much has happened since President Dwight D. Eisehhower, who was Roosevelt's Supreme Commander in Europe, gave his FAREWELL ADDRESS . http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm on the 17th of January, 1961. But the ideals, shared by most Americans then and now, that were set out in that adress have not changed. I feel some of the speech is worth quoting here.

"America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment. . . .

"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

" This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence--economic, political, even spiritual---is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

" In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

" We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

. . . .

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_11000s/md11625.htm

Much has happened since President Dwight D. Eisehhower . . gave his FAREWELL ADDRESS . http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm . . .

Much has changed. Changes that Eisenhower was arguing for with all his strenth did not occur. The military industrial complex was not brought under the control of the political process in the way Eisenhower asked.

. . . the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned against so forcefully has grown into the structure of America for forty more years.

Eisenhower spoke in the middle of the Cold War. Eisenhower didn't discuss what the "end game" might be, at the end of that struggle. We need to think about it, both in terms of what has happened, and what needs to happen in the future.

The good, old ideals, liberal and conservative at once, that Eisenhower valued and spoke of in his Farewell Adress are valued still by Americans, and valued very widely all over the world. But there are things about America that many criticise - including many of our friends -- that I believe would have appalled Eisenhower as well.

We need to reinforce and focus the good things about America, and our American traditions and ideals -- and to do so we need to become clear about, and reform, some "necessary evils," put into place during the Cold War, that are necessary no longer, but are now cancers, and blots on the hopes of America and the hopes of the world. It is both right and practical that we do this.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md_11000s/md11721.htm

Things can be hard to plan . . . but they are even worse when they are NOT planned. The end of the Cold War wasn't planned, or anticipated at just the time it happened, in the ways that happened. There were no reasonably prepared plans for peace -- there had been little thought about transitions to peace. Bill Casey was terribly worried about it, and insisted that I worry about it.

World War II was a very different situation -- from mid 1944, the US had big, well organized teams working out how to adjust from wartime to peacetime.

. . . .

And so patterns that had come to exist were continued - - and justified in any way that the "establishments involved" could find. . . .Things kept on going - under circumstances very different from the ones that had justified them in the first place.

And this happened in a situation where neither the President nor the Congress had effective oversight on the most important things the military was doing and saying.

See ARMED TO EXCESS by Bob Kerrey http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/02/opinion/02KERR.html to get a sense of the degree that the House and Senate had been "taken out of the loop." They are still "out of the loop" in key ways.

Programs grew subject to the institutional imperatives behind them, with much of the "justifying discourse" of a standard that, in my opinion, would have done little credit to Enron.

Controls are needed on all necessary social functions, including the military function. Our controls on military function have been defective, because too much power has been given to a "hidden government." The rationales used to justify military programs and forces have distorted our foreign policy and domestic politics.

Good adjustments would be likely if influential people asked questions that required real answers.

That isn't impossible. There have been some answers supplied on this thread. Just because it was possible that some NYT people might be paying attention.

a_new_2000s\

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_2000s/2228.htm

we must remember core lessons of our past. From Bosnia to Berlin to The Hague, on a Road Toward a Continent's Future by ROGER COHEN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/weekinreview/15WORD.html ends as follows:

" Communism promised equality. Hitler promised the 1,000-year Reich. Milosevic promised glory. All the West offers, alongside the prosperity of this boardwalk, is the rule of law. It's enough. It's more than enough on a continent that now knows, as no other, the price of the law's absence. .....

For the rule of law to be enough, the rule of law has to be respected, and information flows have to be good enough (and organized well enough) so that crucial decisions are reasonably made.

Because, as Friedman says in Global Village Idiocy http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/12/opinion/12FRIE.html , "the world is being wired together technologically" there are new technical possiblities that can permit us to connect more humanely and efficiently, socially, politically, and culturally, when it matters enough to the people involved.

Lchic and I did a 2 hour, 70 post session on negotiation in the middle east that I think summarizes a good deal about new opportunities in conflict resolution made possible by the internet, and prototyped to some degree here MD2000.

The session goes from http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.eea14e1/1253 to http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.eea14e1/1318 . It includes many links to this NYT Missile Defense thread. The suggestions are directed, by way of example, to Friedman and Fisk, but are flexible, general, and inexpensive. I believe that if the staffed organizations of Europe, the US, and other countries thought about these opportunities, and adapted them their needs and responsibilities, the good things being talked about and hoped for about the "end of the cold war" could become real, in realistic, nutsy-boltsy, comfortable human ways.

a_new_4000s\

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_4000s/4233.htm

Thinking about 9/11/00, and chances wasted between then and 9/11/2001 . .

9/11/1990 the Soviet Union was at the edge of collapse. By late August 1991 it had collapsed.

We didn't have an end game.

Things have gone far, far worse, and terribly differently from what we've hoped. The agony of Russia since that time is a great tragedy - a larger world tragedy than the losses of our 9/11 . And risks, agonies, and lost chances continue.

In many ways, many of the people involved don't know how to do any better.

Some "models" are breaking -- some non-games played out on the basis of old models have gone very badly - and we need to learn to do better.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_4000s/4233b.htm

Some things happening, it seems to me, are just as dangerous as they seem - and more dangerous than they seem on the surface.

When we try to impose our will on Saddam - on Iraq - however reasonable our reasons -- we ought to remember these ancient lines from Maurice. Not to say that they apply simply - but that the compexities connected to these words are vital matters of decency, life and death.

"This only makes a war lawful: that it is a struggle for law against force; for the life of the people as expressed in their laws, their language, and their government, against any effort to impose on them a law, a language, a government that is not theirs."

People in the Islamic countries want to accomodate modernity - in many ways - but they are conflicted and confused, so are we, and some things are going very wrong - many times surreally wrong. It is a time to be very careful.

4135 rshow55 9/2/02 7:23pm> . sets out Piaget's developmental stages

4136 rshow55 9/2/02 7:28pm contains a good poem, and asks "When information flows are degraded, and other patterns are manipulated, can we be reduced to thinking and acting like children? http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?224@@.ee74d94/5493

. . . We can't afford to make childish mistakes now. Nor can we forget that children can be very brutal.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_4000s/4306.htm

a_new_8000s\

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_8000s/8274.htm

24pm Jan 28, 2003 EST (#8275

I'm working on this thread, doing what I think I'm obligated to do - and if I'm "connecting the dots" wrongly on some things - well, people do that - and that's a reason why checking against facts is essential. One fact that I notice about this thread is that it has gone on a long time - and involved many careful postings by gisterme , almarst , and other interesting folks. And lunarchick - who I think does wonderful work - and connects us to the whole world.

I make no apologies about my guesses about who gisterme is - and how those guesses have evolved over time. Given enough different crosschecks - consistency testing can be very, very good.

The "game" of plausible denial has uses - but the issues involved are heavy - and values are only worth as much as they are. There should be an exception made about gisterme - - given the stakes now.

If we're careful, we can take the incidence of death and agony from war way down from where it is. I'm trying to help that process along. If I change the odds 1% - that works out to a lot more than 1000 lives/hour worked. If we sorted out just a few things, from where we are now, we could take the incidence of agony and death down to less than a tenth what it was in the 20th century. If we botch it, this century could easily be worse.

Here's a key point. When facts matter enough - it should be morally forcing to get them checked - and checked to closure. Sometimes that takes some work - and false checking can be worse than nothing.

Iraq needs to be checked. For good reasons. And forced to do things it has agreed to do. But not only Iraq.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_8000s/8979.htm

If the body of assertions about facts set out on this board were checked - the risks and costs the world faces would be much less. For a stable World Of Order needs to be based on understanding - not lethal, wasteful misunderstanding. We're at a point where, for this to happen - leaders of nation states outside the US are going to have to ask for checking. It should be easier now, than at some times in the past.

a_new_9000s\

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9139.htm

rshow55 - 05:09pm Feb 20, 2003 EST (# 9139

Here's a problem summary from Wizard's Chess http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/05/opinion/05SUN1.html

. Washington must simultaneously cope with three separate and potentially grave threats — from Iraq, from North Korea and from the threat of reconstituted international terrorist networks.

Those are all real, valid reasons for concern. How are current developments inconsistent with full satisfaction of these concerns?

From the American perspective, and also from the perspective of other nations that hope for international order, and international law, some key things may be going very well. If people, both Americans and others, take reasonable care, and show some courage - including the courage to face the fact that nations, even the US, are fallible - and bear checking.

It is much too easy for people, including almarst , to discount honest and worthwhile ideals on the part of the US and the UK. Motivations for real nations are, of course, mixed. But by world standards - both the US and the UK have stood for - and made sacrifices for - some very admirable things.

. . .

All the same, things are going strangely - and responsible people who have been bending over backwards to avoid the issue are going to have to face up to this question:

" are the interests of the US, and the US military-industrial complex built to win the Cold War, the same?

They aren't identical interests. The military-industrial complex can "desperately need" a war in Iraq - under circumstances where that doesn't meet the reasonable needs of American citizens at all. This is a question that is getting harder and harder to avoid - under conditions where international law is having to be negotiated into being.

There are good reasons for Americans, and people elsewhere, to be concerned about disproportions between means and ends. And unnecessary carnage. The things Eisenhower warned about in his FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961 have happened . - http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm That needs to be faced.

One good way to face some key things would be to check the assertions about fact on this board - specifically the technically straightforward facts about missile defense that have been evaded - by institutions that have, most times, considerably less ability to predict and face up to consequences and disporportions than NASA does. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/296

Currently, nations seem prepared to expend tens of billions to engage in fights that look avoidable - kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people - displace millions, and anger hundreds of millions - - but whenever there is any whiff of a reason not to - nations see to it that key facts can't be checked, - even if it could be done for tiny amounts of effort. Strange. But maybe a pattern that may change. If, when it mattered enough, checking was morally forcing to at least most decent people - we'd live in a much better world.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9141.htm

International relations and international law are being renegotiated . It seems to me that if we find ways to get facts straight - and if leaders of other nations also take positions that they actually believe, and can actually be proud of - a lot might sort out well.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9600.htm

Since World War II - the United States did something very difficult - it defeated a messianic movement - world Communism - with nuclear weapons present - with miraculously few deaths or injuries compared to what could have been.

I set out some of of that, from my personal perspective, in reference to the movie b Casablanca , in PSYCHWARE, CASABLANCA, AND TERROR http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/0 . Especially the core story part, from posting 13 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/12 to posting 23 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/22 There is a comment in #26 that I feel some may find interesting, as well.

I've been working hard, and at considerable personal risk and inconvenience - hoping the get some key facts about the past understood.

A lot of it was very ugly. Uglier than it should have been - especially after 1991 - when we should have had an end game, and didn't.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9699.htm

rshow55 - 10:19am Mar 9, 2003 EST (# 9699

It would be easier to get (partly persuade, partly force) Iraq and N. Korea to reform if we were partly persuaded, partly forced, to do so ourselves. (Since our faults are relatively so small, in our own estimation - it should be easy for us. )

Procedures set out in http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/296 and many times on this thread could work out all the logic needed to do that effectively.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9701.htm

With respect to a number of our diplomatic problems - all the big ones - we need to get solutions that work on the things that actually matter - even if we can't possibly agree on some key ideas, facts, or principles. That can be sensible and honest - but some conventions can have their uses.

Anybody who wants to go to "end game" without a good many cycles, from where we are - knows more than I do.

Casey had a penchant for "elegant" asymptotic solutions - one shot to a completion - not enough thought about adjustments, and end games . . .

a_new_10000s\

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_10000s/10631.htm

rshow55 - 11:17am Mar 28, 2003 EST (# 10631

"This war will prove dangerously destabilizing for decades to come "

If people are at all sensible, this war will show a lot about how stable things have become.

And with some reasonable work, things can become much more so.

a_new_13000s\

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_13000s/13551.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_13000s/13693.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_13000s/13695.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_13000s/13844new.htm

a_new_14000s\

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_14000s/14843.htm