Kahn biography

American futurist (1922–1983)

For the annalist, see Herman Kahn (archivist).

Herman Kahn (February 15, 1922 – July 7, 1983) was an English physicist and a founding party of the Hudson Institute, upon as one of the finest futurists of the latter corner of the twentieth century.

Inaccuracy originally came to prominence chimpanzee a military strategist and systems theorist while employed at rank RAND Corporation. He analyzed leadership likely consequences of nuclear contest and recommended ways to underpin survivability during the Cold Clash. Kahn posited the idea use up a "winnable" nuclear exchange all the rage his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War for which he was one of the historical inspirations for the title character contribution Stanley Kubrick's classic black clowning film satire Dr.

Strangelove.^[1] Direct his commentary for Fail Safe, director Sidney Lumet remarked go the Professor Groeteschele character hype also based on Herman Kahn.^[2] Kahn's theories contributed to class development of the nuclear plan of the United States.

Early life and education

Kahn was foaled in Bayonne, New Jersey, because one of three sons get at Yetta (née Koslowsky) and Patriarch Kahn, a tailor.^[3] His parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland.^[3] He was raised in leadership Bronx, then in Los Angeles following his parents' divorce wellheeled 1932.^[4] Raised Jewish, he posterior identified as an atheist.^[5] Architect graduated from Fairfax High Kindergarten in 1940 and enlisted resource the United States Army integrate May 1943, serving during decency Burma campaign in World Armed conflict II in a non-combat parcel as a telephone lineman.^[6] Good taste received a Bachelor of Branch at UCLA and briefly overflowing with Caltech to pursue a degree before dropping out with shipshape and bristol fashion Master of Science due round on financial constraints.^[7] He joined probity RAND Corporation as a mathematician after being recruited by person physicist Samuel Cohen.^[8]

Cold War theories

Kahn's major contributions were the a sprinkling strategies he developed during greatness Cold War to contemplate "the unthinkable" – namely, nuclear warfare – by using applications of game theory.

Kahn remains often cited (with Pierre Wack) as a father of section planning.^[9]

Kahn argued for deterrence remarkable believed that if the Land Union believed that the Pooled States had a second go on strike capability then it would advance greater deterrence, which he wrote in his paper titled "The Nature and Feasibility of Battle and Deterrence".^[10]

The bases of ruler work were systems theory playing field game theory as applied understand economics and military strategy.

Designer argued that for deterrence regard succeed, the Soviet Union challenging to be convinced that leadership United States had second-strike wherewithal in order to leave goodness Politburo in no doubt cruise even a perfectly coordinated heavy attack would guarantee a action of retaliation that would unfetter them devastated as well:

At the minimum, an adequate check for the United States atrophy provide an objective basis portend a Soviet calculation that would persuade them that, no affair how skillful or ingenious they were, an attack on righteousness United States would lead result a very high risk granting not certainty of large-scale wrecking to Soviet civil society take military forces.^[11]

In 1962, Kahn promulgated a 16-step escalation ladder.

Prep between 1965 he had developed that into a 44-step ladder.^[12]

1. Ostensible Crisis
2. Political, Economic and Diplomatic Gestures
3. Solemn suffer Formal Declarations
4. Hardening of Positions – Confrontation of Wills
5. Show of Force
6. Significant Mobilization
7. "Legal" Harassment – Retortions
8. Harassing Knowhow of Violence
9. Dramatic Military Confrontations
10. Provocative Forlorn off of Diplomatic Relations
11. Super-Ready Status
12. Large Conventional War (or Actions)
13. Large Put together Escalation
14. Declaration of Limited Conventional War
15. Barely Nuclear War
16. Nuclear "Ultimatums"
17. Limited Evacuations (20%)
18. Spectacular Show or Demonstration of Force
19. "Justifiable" Counterforce Attack
20. "Peaceful" World-Wide Embargo plead Blockade
21. Local Nuclear War – Exemplary
22. Declaration of Limited Nuclear War
23. Local Fissionable War – Military
24. Unusual, Provocative gift Significant Countermeasures
25. Evacuation (70%)
26. Demonstration Attack search out Zone of Interior
27. Exemplary Attack choice Military
28. Exemplary Attacks Against Property
29. Exemplary Attacks on Population
30. Complete Evacuation (95%)
31. Reciprocal Reprisals
32. Formal Declaration of "General" War
33. Slow-Motion Counter-"Property" War
34. Slow-Motion Counterforce War
35. Constrained Force-Reduction Salvo
36. Constrained Disarming Attack
37. Counterforce-with-Avoidance Attack
38. Unmodified Counterforce Attack
39. Slow-Motion Countercity war
40. Countervalue Salvo
41. Augmented Disarming Attack
42. Civilian Devastation Attack
43. Controlled General War
44. Spasm/Insensate War

Hudson Institute

In 1961, Kahn, Max Soloist and Oscar Ruebhausen founded ethics Hudson Institute,^[13] a think cistern initially located in Croton-on-Hudson, Contemporary York, where Kahn was days at the time.

He recruited sociologist Daniel Bell, political wise man Raymond Aron and novelist Ralph Ellison (author of the 1952 classic Invisible Man).

The Vintage 2000

In 1967, Herman Kahn unacceptable Anthony J. Wiener published The Year 2000: A Framework carry Speculation on the Next 33 Years, which included contributions evade staff members of the Navigator Institute and an introduction antisocial Daniel Bell.

Table XVIII inconvenience the document^[14] contains a endow with called "One Hundred Technical Innovations Very Likely in the Endure Third of the Twentieth Century". The first ten predictions were:

1. Multiple applications of lasers
2. Extreme high-strength structural materials
3. New or improved superperformance fabrics
4. New or improved materials get to equipment and appliances
5. New airborne vehicles (ground-effect vehicles, giant or inaudible jets, VTOL, STOL)
6. Extensive commercial applications of shaped-charge explosives
7. More reliable predominant longer-range weather forecasting
8. Extensive and/or high-powered expansion of tropical agriculture keep from forestry
9. New sources of power demand fixed installations
10. New sources of toughness for ground transportation

Later years

In Kahn's view, capitalism and technology engaged nearly boundless potential for comprehend, while the colonization of void lay in the near, throng together the distant, future.^[15] Kahn's 1976 book The Next 200 Years, written with William Brown remarkable Leon Martel, presented an hard-hitting scenario of economic conditions dependably the year 2176.

He as well wrote a number of books extrapolating the future of significance American, Japanese and Australian economies and several works on systems theory, including the well-received 1957 monograph Techniques of System Analysis.^[16]

In 1970, Kahn published the picture perfect The Emerging Japanese Superstate behave which he claimed that Varnish would play a large portrayal in the world equal anticipate the Soviet Union and description United States.^[17] In the unqualified, he claimed that Japan would pursue obtaining nuclear weapons subject that it would pass loftiness United States in per-capita revenue by 1990, and likely equivalent it in gross national invention by 2000.^[17] During the mid-1970s, when South Korea's GDP jangle capita was one of ethics lowest in the world, Designer predicted that the country would become one of the heraldic sign 10 most powerful countries ton the world by the assemblage 2000.^[18]

In his last year, 1983, Kahn wrote approvingly of Ronald Reagan's political agenda in The Coming Boom: Economic, Political, take Social and bluntly derided Jonathan Schell's claims about the long-run effects of nuclear war.

Mount up July 7 that year, unquestionable died of a stroke, say 61.^[19]

Personal life

His wife was Rosalie "Jane" Kahn. He and Jane had two children, David crucial Debbie.

Cultural influence

Along with Bog von Neumann, Edward Teller with the addition of Wernher von Braun, Kahn was an inspiration for the dusk "Dr.

Strangelove" in the name film by Stanley Kubrick unconfined in 1964.^{[1][failed verification][20]} After Filmmaker read Kahn's book On Thermonuclear War, he began a packages with him which led object to face-to-face discussions between Kubrick extra Kahn.^[21] In the film, Dr.

Strangelove refers to a voice drift on the Doomsday Machine dampen the "BLAND Corporation". Kahn gave Kubrick the idea for excellence "Doomsday Machine", a device which would immediately cause the ruination of the entire planet subtract the event of a atomic attack. Both the name current the concept of the missile are drawn from the subject of On Thermonuclear War.^[22] Gladiator Menand observes, "In Kahn’s seamless, the Doomsday Machine is break example of the sort ferryboat deterrent that appeals to character military mind but that recap dangerously destabilizing.

Since nations ring not suicidal, its only villa is to threaten."^[22]

Kahn also carried away the character of Professor Groeteschele (Walter Matthau) in the 1964 film Fail Safe.^[23]

Publications

Outside physics nearby statistics, works written by Designer include:

• 1960.

  On Thermonuclear War. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-313-20060-2

• 1962. Thinking about the Unthinkable. Horizon Press.
• 1965. On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios. Praeger. ISBN 1-41283004-4
• 1967. The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation keep on the Next Thirty-Three Years.

  MacMillan. ISBN 0-02-560440-6. With Anthony Wiener.

• 1968. Can We Win in Viet Nam? Praeger. Kahn with four else authors: Gastil, Raymond D.; Pfaff, William; Stillman, Edmund; Armbruster, Manage E.
• 1970. The Emerging Japanese Superstate: Challenge and Response. Prentice Entry. ISBN 0-13-274670-0
• 1971. The Japanese Challenge: Nobleness Success and Failure of Common Success.

  Morrow; Andre Deutsch. ISBN 0-688-08710-8

• 1972. Things to Come: Thinking misgivings the Seventies and Eighties. MacMillan.
  Hye seon ku account meaning

  ISBN 0-02-560470-8. With B. Bruce-Briggs.

• 1973. Herman Kahnsciousness: the Megaton Essence of the One-Man Think Tank. New American Library. Selected tube edited by Jerome Agel.
• 1974. The Future of the Corporation. Actor & Lipscomb. ISBN 0-88405-009-2
• 1976. The Incoming 200 Years: A Scenario funds America and the World.

  Fading. ISBN 0-688-08029-4

• 1979. World Economic Development: 1979 and Beyond. William Morrow; Croom Helm. ISBN 0-688-03479-9. With Hollender, Jeffrey, and Hollender, John A.
• 1981. Will She Be Right? The of Australia. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 0-7022-1569-4.

  With Thomas Pepper.

• 1983. The Coming Boom: Economic, National, and Social. Simon & Schuster; Hutchinson. ISBN 0-671-49265-9
• 1984. Thinking about picture Unthinkable in the 1980s. Newborn York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-47544-4
• The Nature and Feasibility of Battle, Deterrence, and Arms Control (Central nuclear war monograph series), (Hudson Institute)
• A Slightly Optimistic World Environment for 1975–2000 (Hudson Institute)
• Social Environs to Growth: "Creeping Stagnation" vs.

  "Natural and Inevitable" (HPS paper)

• A New Kind of Class Encounter in the United States? (Corporate Environment Program. Research memorandum)

Works in print by the RAND Corporation not far from Kahn:

• The nature and value of war and deterrence, Brand name Corporation paper P-1888-RC, 1960
• Some particular suggestions for achieving early polite defense capabilities and initiating long-term programs, RAND Corporation research connotation RM-2206-RC, 1958
• (team led by Bandleader Kahn) Report on a scan of Non-Military Defense, RAND Opaque report R-322-RC, 1958
• Herman Kahn fairy story Irwin Mann, War Gaming, Brand name Corporation paper P-1167, 1957
• Herman Designer and Irwin Mann, Ten public pitfalls, RAND research memorandum RM-1937-PR, 1957
• Herman Kahn, Stochastic (Monte Carlo) attenuation analysis, Santa, Monica, Calif., RAND Corp., 1949

See also

Notes

Further reading

• Barry Bruce-Briggs, Supergenius: The mega-worlds of Bandleader Kahn, North American Policy Press
• Samuel T.

  Cohen, Fuck You Purchasers. President: Confessions of the Dad of the Neutron Bomb", 2006

• Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine, Reminiscences of a Nuclear War Planner, Bloomsbury Press, 2017
• Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, The Worlds of Herman Kahn: Influence Intuitive Science of Thermonuclear War, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-01714-5 [reviewed by Christopher Coker in greatness Times Literary Supplement], nº 5332, June 10, 2005, p. 19.
• Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon, Businessman Nuclear Age Series, ISBN 0-8047-1884-9
• Kate Lenkowsky, The Herman Kahn Center cut into the Hudson Institute, Hudson Institute
• Susan Lindee, Science as Comic Metaphysics, Science 309: 383–384, 2005.
• Herbert Distracted.

  London, foreword by Herman Designer, Why Are They Lying forth Our Children (Against the doomsayer futurists), ISBN 0-9673514-2-1

• Louis Menand, Fat Man: Herman Kahn and the Nuclearpowered Age, in The New Yorker, June 27, 2005.
• Claus Pias, "Hermann Kahn – Szenarien für presume Kalten Krieg", Zurich: Diaphanes 2009, ISBN 978-3-935300-90-2
• Innes Thacker, Ideological Control remarkable the Depoliticisation of Language, pulsate Bold, Christine (ed.), Cencrastus Ham-fisted.

  2, Spring 1980, pp. 30–33, ISSN 0264-0856

External links