Arms Race, there was no winner.

Since we discussed Daniel Ellsberg in yesterday's post, and with President Trump's long anticipated withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal it seemed like a good time to discuss Mr. Ellsberg's early days in the pentagon.

One of the early briefings involved the SIOP (Single Integrated Operational Plan) that coordinated the use of nuclear weapons by the various branches of the US military. He was horrified.

"I thought they were the most dangerous, depraved, essentially monstrous people. They really had conducted a doomsday machine." He said, in 1961.

They were ready to use it, too. And, they had a plan, a big plan. According to the SIOP there were one hundred and seventy hydrogen and atomic weapons aimed at Moscow. If a branch of the service had a bomb they wanted to explode it over Moscow. There was only one plan and it involved launching everything, right away.

Soon, Ellsberg learned something kept secret from even his Rand associates. Certainly kept away the US public. The Soviet Union had only 4 operational intercontinental ballistic missiles at the time. America nuclear superiority was absolute.

Which led him to the startling conclusion the arms race was not with the Soviets, it was in fact between the branches of the American services. The air force was competing with the navy for defense spending priorities, shiny new weapon systems, a bigger piece of the pie. That was how you made general, or admiral.

And they ran with it. Devising more, better, bigger ways to reduce the Soviet Union to rubble. A Rand analyst, Herman Kahn, actually told SAC officers, to their faces, "Gentlemen, you don't have a war plan, you have a war orgasm." In one ear and out the other, without ever being noticed in between.

In hindsight, it might have been easy, at that point to turn back. Certainly, once the genie was out of the bottle there was no putting it back. But, there was still some hope of stopping the mad rush to apocalypse. It would have required diplomacy, common sense, cooperation, and empathy, but it might have been possible.

Yesterday, I was reminded how far down the rabbit hole we have fallen. At least nine countries, maybe more have nuclear weapons, and they all believe they need them to maintain sovereignty, peace through strength, you know. Soon, we will add Iran to the list. And the brink of the abyss gets closer every day.

"In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche