Policy Science
Applying Knowledge on Behalf of Human Dignity
Greetings:
This site contains papers about strategic thinking and public policy, reflecting new ideas and research developed for
the Rapid Learning Economics, International Scientific Networks, and Government Learning
projects, and related writing of Lloyd Etheredge. It includes a
reference copy of the annotated bibliography of Harold D. Lasswell's work prepared by Rodney
Muth et al. and published in 1990: References. (For books, other publications,
and teaching materials, and annotations of key works by Ithiel de Sola Pool, see my
academic homepage.)
This site also includes a cv.
Rapid Learning Economics and Other Current Projects
- 1.) "Animal Spirits" and Fast Economic Recovery: Reading the Lessons Correctly. Understanding Keynes in context.
Urgent implications for restoring moral credibility of institutions. October 20, 2014.
- 2.) The Optimistic Case for Rapid Learning Economics. Billions of people will continue to suffer until
we improve the reliability of economic science. Improving the reliability of economic science is not difficult. For example: There is broad professional agreement about
several types of missing variables. We have good ideas about where to look for them. The analysis draws upon CBO data and lessons from 2-year GDP forecasts for government
and about 50 Blue Chip models since the late 1970s. [Specifically: this paper outlines, from three perspectives, an optimistic scientific case that a rapid learning
system for macroeconomics is possible. Such an achievement, by using the best scientific methods, is likely to provide a better future for billions of people.
The three perspectives are: 1.) The existence of “upgrade” variables, widely acknowledged by the profession (discussed above); 2.) The existence of competing theories that
will produce scientific learning about important challenges as new data systems allow them to be tested; 3.) The existence of improved scientific methods for data analysis
and fast machine-assisted learning, developed by NIH and the biomedical sciences, that can yield rapid discoveries for the US and other G-20 economies.] November 19, 2015.
- 3.) Preventing the Next Recession: Early Warning, Prevention, and Big Data. Three ideas about developing an
early warning/prevention sub-project to prepare for the next recession (US and G-20): 1.) Real-Time Data & an Early Warning System; 2.) Data About Emotions and Options
for Political Leaders (as Applied Psychologists) using Google's gdeltproject.org databases; 3.) “Asset Bubble” Watch Lists and Automatic "Special Risk" Triggers.
March 22, 2016.
- 4.) Financing(and Organizing) the Transition to Precision Medicine. Activating up to $1.5 Trilllion in Stimulus
Borrowing. Current interest rates are close to 0 %. (Thus a simple key to faster G-20 economic recovery (and to a more effective monetary policy) is to organize and
frame attractive options for governments, corporations, and individuals to borrow from the trillions of dollars of available funds and create additional demand.
(Merely waiting for corporations to borrow for added plant and equipment – a traditional pathway – has not been working as it did in the past.)
This paper outlines a (draft) option, with ideas from a new, multi-disciplinary, rapid learning system under development for economics.
It recommends a creative package, building on an initiative by NIH and the Obama Administration (the Kaiser Health Plan) that requires leadership and further work,
but that probably can be structured to induce $1.5 trillion (or much more) in stimulus. April 19, 2016.
- 5.) Empowering Monetary Policy: Special Lending for a Future of Neighborhood Parks, Playgrounds, and
Community Gardens Across America. A Special Borrowing Rights initiative to allow states, counties, and cities to acquire land and pay for the design and construction
of as many neighborhood parks, playgrounds, and community gardens as they wish to have, financed with near-0% long-term loans. Financing for up to one neighborhood park,
playground, or community garden/block will be available if states, counties, and cities commit to the stimulus projects within the next 18 months. April 20, 2016.
- 6.) Empowering Monetary Policy: Fast-Trigger Lending to Refinance Consumer and Medical Debt of Social Security Recipients.
A one-time Special Borrowing Rights initiative to allow Social Security beneficiaries to re-finance, with a near-0% loan, up to $10,000 in consumer or medical debt.
The Special Borrowing Rights initiative will be fully collateralized and riskless to the federal government: Recipients will agree to monthly repayments deducted
automatically from their Social Security checks, including a modest (actuarially-determined) life insurance policy to provide automatic payment of any remaining
balance if the loan is not fully repaid in the recipient’s lifetime. April 21, 2016.
- 7.) Marketing Monetary Policy Solutions: Restructuring the Medical Debt of Americans. A Special Borrowing Rights, one-time stimulus
that allows Americans with medical debts to restructure their costs and payments with access to near-0% loans, save money, and free-up income for other uses.
If Wall Street is being bailed-out, this package provides legitimate relief to 40 million adults who are paying off medical bills over time and 27 million Americans who
are being contacted by collection agencies over unpaid medical bills. April 22, 2016.
- 8.) Monetary Policy and Federal Endowment Loans:A New Future for Higher Education and the Performing Arts Across America.
A stimulus package to make substantial Federal Endowment Loans at near-0% interest (the Fed’s current rate for its best customers) available to educational, cultural,
performing arts and other non-profit institutions across America. State-level agencies (or other suitable, credit-wor-thy institutions) will guarantee these no-risk loans
and repayment schedules. As a one-time stimulus initiative, the Federal Endowment Loans will be available only for 18 months. April 23, 2016.
- 9.) Solving the Wrong Problem? A Christensen-Level Repair Package. Clayton Christensen's simple sociological model (2012) has
outperformed traditional models of monetary policy, for which the Obama Administration and the Fed and other governments may have wasted many years and trillions of dollars.
This memo reviews the model, recommends testing it, and explores new and more effective policy implications if the behavioral model checks-out. “Cash hoards in the billions are sitting unused on the pristine balance sheets of Fortune 500 corporations. Billions in capital is also sitting inert and uninvested at
private equity funds. . . . It’s as if our leaders in Washington, all highly credentialed, are standing on a beach holding their fire hoses full open, pouring more capital
into an ocean of capital. We are trying to solve the wrong problem.” - Christensen (2012). Includes a copy of Christensen's original OpEd, "A Capitalist Dilemma: Whoever
Wins on Tuesday." The New York Times, November 3, 2012. April 24, 2016.
- 10.) Segmenting and Restructuring Government Debt. Segment the recovery-related government debt.
The segmented portion of G-20 public debt will be amortized, with a fixed schedule, by temporary, ear-marked surcharges at the higher end of wealth- and income-related taxes.
The segmented debt will be restructured to a near-0% long-term rate. Solves brutal political problems of rising interest rates on the cumulative debt and re-establishes
a sense of moral crediblity for government and the political process. April 25, 2016.
- 11.) An Educational Theory of Economic Stimulus: A Fast Investment in Schumpeter. Apply MOOC technology to create a bold
national stimulus and growth initiative by the private sector, philanthropists, and higher education (perhaps with the Obama Administration or a coalition of partners)
to provide a first-year of MBA education, with courses equal to the best in the world (free, or nearly free), to all interested Americans (including high school students).
The complementary business education for all interested Americans will focus on inviting entrepreneurship and support individuals with the skills, spirit, and knowledge
that they need to start a business or to grow a business. April 27, 2016.
- 12.) A New Theory of Economic Stimulus: The Example of a Rapid Learning Education System. Reviews
the emerging science of rapid learning systems as a theory of economic stimulus with three elements (in addition to money), drawing lessons from the first rapid learning
system \for biomedical sciences, healthcare, and genetics-based Precision Medicine. Recommends, as a stimulus investment: Design and activate a national rapid learning system for K-12 education that meets three requirements (digitization,
discovery, and implementation). Incorporate ideas and cross-sector conversations from the first national rapid learning system (for health). Includes an overview paper
by a former head of the OMB Health Branch, Lynn Etheredge, "A Rapid Learning Education System - Lessons from a Rapid Learning Health System. Prospectus." May 1, 2016.
- 13.) An Option for Fast and Effective Monetary Policy:Using Variations in Public and Private Productivity to Stimulate
Borrowing. Analyze variations in productivity across similar public and private organizations. Rank the investments that will raise the productivity of each
organization to the best of its type. Make a persuasive case that these investments, begun now, will be in the rational self-interest of these organizations.
Designate $100 billion in near-0% loans to companies, and to state and local governments, who will borrow to make these investments in the next 18 months. May 10. 2016.
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- Prospectus: Equal Justice Under Law - A Rapid Learning System. March 26, 2016.
- Updates for Maryland and Montgomery County Schools concerning new online resources:
The LearnStorm
Challenge 2016 in two urban areas (Bay Area and Chicago), the first state (Utah), and the first country (Ireland). February 8, 2016
with further analysis and copies of press releases; and
the
universal, free AP and first year of college via edX.org and the Modern States Education Alliance. February 18, 2016.
- Comment: NSF's (Untrustworthy) Self-Correction Plan. Comments on NSF's plan to improve the reliability of economic
science and other social and behavioral sciences. A copy of the NSF document is attached. February 9, 2016.
- A Code of Journalistic Ethics for Science; Recruiting an Outstanding Editor-in-Chief. Memorandum to
AAAS Officers and Council Members. Includes historical materials and a recommendation that AAAS adopt a Code of Journalistic Ethics and the Boston Globe decision
rules for investigative reporting (e.g., of NSF) portrayed in the recent movie, Spotlight. January 12, 2016. A reference copy of the
Society for Professional Journalism Code of Ethics.
- Two Strategies Against ISIS. Discusses the earlier success of the CCC model and the "teenage males playing video games" hypothesis and its
policy implications. January 6, 2016.
I. International Scientific Networks Project
A. Major Papers
- A Rapid Learning System for G-20 Macroeconomics: From Greenspan to Shiller and Big Data. Background to the Rapid Learning Economics Project (above).
There is an emerging agreement that there are variables missing in
economic science (e.g., Robert Shiller, Alan Greenspan, Olivier Blanchard, Lawrence Summers, Joseph Stiglitz, and others). Shiller has recommended developing an inclusive behavioral science framework that "accounts for actual human behavior." Greenspan has outlined new variables and specific metrics for new international forecasting equations that include ideas
from the libertarian tradition. The purpose of this project is to build upon Greenspan's outline and Shiller's vision and
use them as a stimulus for expanded, multi-disciplinary, and inclusive R&D data systems that can be deployed internationally
to create a rapid learning system for macroeconomics.
This draft proposal illustrates nine clusters of new ideas that are ready to be evolved into metrics and included in new R&D data systems for rapid learning - e.g., seven competing theories of restoring confidence. The third year of the project will explore applications of the "Everything Included"
methods for Big Data analysis that assist the discovery of unknown variables and new paradigms in cancer and other biomedical
research - a rate of scientific discovery and accomplishment that also could be true of macroeconomics.
Attachments, including Vogelstein
et al., "Cancer Genome Landscapes", "The Case of the Unreturned Cafeteria Trays," and a brief bio and cv. March 6, 2014.
"'Animal Spirits" and Fast Economic Recovery: Reading the Lessons Correctly"
illustrates the potential benefits of the project by showing how a modest degree of empathy, applied to a touchstone model
in economics, provides a fresh reading and new ideas about additional variables, causal pathways, policy options, and political frameworks that could contribute to public discussion and policy. Benefits could be rapid if datasets become available quickly. October 20, 2014.
- UN Recommendations: Fresh Thinking for the 21st Century. Prepared for
a project of the World Academy of Art and Science to suggest fresh ideas to Secretary
General Ban Ki-Moon. (January, 2007).
- User Interfaces for the Global Virtual Library:
Creative Options for Information Freedom and Economics. Revised draft. June 14, 2005.
- Budget and Budget Narrative: US-Islamic World
Service. Draft. May 6, 2004.
- Book Prospectus: Planet Broadband and Democratic Leadership:
How Visionaries Can Change the World.(11/2003).
Full text of earlier (2002) book draft.
- "Consumer-Oriented Broadcasting and Video Archives
for Health".
Strategy paper invited by a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
re a North American startup. (2001; revised 2002). Jackson Hole Group outline of
a digital age strategy for consumer-oriented health information & health management software & reform (slides),
compliments of Lynn Etheredge. [The term HEROIC, used on the slides, is an acronym].(September, 2002).
Update Spring 2003: Health Information Prescriptions (3/2003) startup announcement for the
prototypes in Iowa and Georgia developed by the National Library of Medicine and the Society for Internal
Medicine Foundation. Each participating physician receives prescription pads customized to their
specifications, wall charts for their offices, etc. Provides patients with a direct online link to specific
wwww.medlineplus.gov pages and databases for each condition or topic. Sandy Foote took the
lead to bring the pieces together. Initial feedback is highly favorable and the project should be ready to
expand across specialties and languages soon. The databases can be accessed via the Internet by physicians and
patients in all countries, currently in English and Spanish.
- "How International Broadcasting + the Internet Can Change
the World". Presentation prepared for the Challenges to International Broadcasting
meeting hosted by Radio Canada International in Montreal, May 21-24, 2000.
- "New Sources
of Programming: Examples from North America" re institutional partnerships for a potential
global CSPAN.
- "Five Internet Projects That Can Change the World". A basic planning
document of the International Scientific Networks Project. (1999). An expanded version,
"A Strategy for Human Rights: Five Internet Projects That Can Change
the World", prepared for a faculty seminar
at Columbia
University, is published in an edited volume from the seminar, George G. Andreopolous (Ed.) Concepts and
Strategies for International Human Rights (NY: Peter Lang, 2002), pp. 185-211.
- "Global Knowledge Management for Policy: A Proposal" (1997).
- "Overview: A Purchasing Cooperative for Health, Science, and Education for UDCs." A presentation to the World
Bank's Global Knowledge Partners Group, NYC (1997). For the current status,
see the work of unicttaskforce.org.
- "Stakeholder Financing for International Scientific Channels"
(1997).
- "Report of the Lederberg Working Group" (1994).
- "Income-Producing Options - International Scientific Channels" (1994).
B. Working Papers and Memoranda
- Memorandum on MOOCs from President Obama's Council of Advisers on Science
and Technology. December 2013.
- Overview of the World Academy of Art & Science Berkeley Conference to
build global capacity, using MOOCs and related technology, for 360+ million additional students, bringing higher education
capacity of non-OECD to the level of OECD, with curriculum equal to the best in the world. The www.unicon.org
Website is one evolution of this Grand Strategy conference. A handout from my presentation: Grand Strategy:
Adding Content, Societal Benefits, Enrollment, Alliances, and Resources"
. November, 2013.
- Announcement of Stanford's first free global course,
Introduction to Artifical Intelligence, to be taught in the Fall of 2011 by Sebastian
Thrun and Peter Norvig to 58,000+ students
worldwide! This is a copy of John Markoff's article,
"Virtual and Artificial, but 58,000 Want Course," The New York Times, August 15, 2011.
People interested to sign-up may do so at http://www.ai-class.com; two additional Stanford
courses on Machine Learning, and Introduction to Databases, also will be offered and links are
available on the URL cited above. This is a major step upward, after about a decade, in the
technical capability and leadership for accelerating international science. There will be interactive
features, beyond simply placing lectures and syllabi online. About 75,000 people had signed-up
by 8/16/2011.
- Political Opportunities: Memoranda for the CSIS Commission on Smart Global Health Policy.
(October 2009).
- Memorandum re the new UK Database of Uncertainties About the
Effects of Treatments (DUETS) system. Suggestion of DUETs as a model and political/
intellectual strategy for mental health and NSF social science-related policy questions in the US.
(November 2007).
- A new free global colloquium service for technical science! - similar to the Princeton
initiative - has been launched, in "alpha release," by UC San Diego Computer Center, NSF, and
the Public Library of Science (PLOS): http://www.scivee.tv. This site also provides
technical advice for creating presentations and Youtube-like options for research scientists
and other users to evolve the technology, create global virtual colloquia series and large-scale
collaboration systems.
(September, 2007).
- Information from Princeton's University Channel/global C-SPAN
startup, to make videos of academic lectures and events from all over the world available to US
(and global) audiences, without charge, via the Internet (http://uc.princeton.edu). The
site includes an open letter of invitation to the world's universities, thinktanks, and
foundations (to submit their own material that might be of interest to wider public audiences)
from the estimable President of Princeton, Dr. Shirley Tilghman. (March, 2007).
Update: September 2007: A new
youtube.com user interface is available at www.youtube.com/uchannel. The Youtube portal provides
further technical
opportunities (e.g., tags) for students; and also for users, worldwide, to create user groups and
global virtual colloquim series in different areas.
- A followup announcement from MIT that all of its 1,800 courses
will be online, without charge, by the end of 2007. At the current startup level, there are 1.5
million users/month, 60% from abroad. (March, 2007).
- Startup announcement for the first rapid learning (US healthcare)
system, from the US Institute of Medicine and RWJF. The extension to a global system is getting underway
with added leadership from the UK. (August, 2006).
- Startup announcement from AAAS (June, 2006).
- Startup announcement! (September 2003). The next step in the development of
capabilities for fast discovery international scientific communication. The video-on-demand
initiative,
led by the New York Academy of Sciences and Dr. Ellis Rubinstein, is described
in "Excerpts from the Prospectus for the (Joshua Lederberg) Science Without Borders
Program". It brings to life core ideas of the 1994 Lederberg Report and the
International Scientific Networks discussions. [In early 2005 the colloquium/ebriefing
service was receiving 120,000 hits/year.]
- "Memorandum: Good news: http://videocast.nih.gov", November
2001. NIH's exciting startup of Webcasting/ video-on-demand domestic (global) lecture series with the best
and latest ideas from
US and non-US scientists: 156 events now scheduled, 716 events recorded and archived for
desktop video-on-demand availability to any Internet user. And
"Memorandum: Expanding Submarine Cable Capacity by Region".
An update re the new terabit/second intercontinental capacities. October 2001.
- Memorandum re MIT's step forward. Story from The New York Times,
April 4, 2001 re MIT's initiative to allocate up to $100 million to create public
Web sites for its 2,000 courses - available without charge worldwide. A 10-year
vision for global science is discussed at the end of article.
- "A New Generation of Public Broadcasting", November 29,
2000. Draft proposal for a reinvention of
PBS, with the addition
of user-supported CSPANs for different nonprofit institutions and professions,
combining Internet and direct-broadcast satellite.
- Memorandum of November 15, 2000 concerning kaisernetwork.org, the first national Internet
channel to accelerate professional linkups and policy
development (for health) and www.researchchannel.com, a nonprofit startup
from the University of Washington.
- Memorandum of September 9, 2000 with the
announcements of Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the WebMD Foundation of the
initial 10,000 Internet links for health in 130 UDCs.
- "Startup Programming for a Global Affairs Channel" (1999).
- "Opening Remarks: Testimony to the United States Advisory Commission
on Public Diplomacy" (1998).
- "Draft Plan: A Global Affairs Channel" (1998).
- "Proposal to the ISA Executive Committee" (1997).
- "Internet Colloquium: Technology in Language Instruction".
A draft proposal, in the spirit of Yale's EIINet, to use three international capture
points and (then) evolve to a large-scale collaboration system. Developed with MIT's Center for
Educational Computing Initiatives. (1997).
- EIINet, a successful prototype to evaluate the emerging
global Internet for regularly-scheduled global research colloquia. Created
at Yale Medical School pursuant to a recommendation of the Lederberg working group. A description in
Science published in March, 1996.
II. Government Learning Project
A. Overviews, Literature Reviews and Related Work
- Letter to the AAAS Executive Board concerning NSF's ending of the guarantee of the "gold
standard" of Scientific
Merit, peer-review, research funding. Discusses the need for AAAS to organize leading institutions and push back. Includes a letter to
PCAST reviewing the deadly effects on Economics during the current crisis, of trusting the NSF leadership to be scientifically competent,
politically independent, and to act in the public interest. November 11, 2014.
- Letter to Denis McDonough, White House Chief of Staff, May 20, 2013, relating the issues
arising in the IRS/Tea Party scandal to the National Science Foundation's partisan bias and disguised suppression of social science research that might anger Republicans. Includes three summary attachments of the potential
(illegitimately blocked) for rapid learning systems that President Obama should know about:
- AttachmentA Background material for the Yale
Corporation related to breakdowns of the rule of law, February 5, 2013;
- Attachment B Overview for NIH of the transformative, rapid learning, potential of neuroscience and investigations of the Primate Subordination Syndrome (currently on NSF's Too Hot to Handle list), January 12, 2013;
- Attachment C Recommendation for an emergency appropriation and a rapid learning system for macro-economics for the American Economic Association, May 2, 2013.
- Additional useful background is NSF's Budget Request for the Social, Behavioral,
and Economic Sciences (2014) illustrating the non-existence of a rapid learning plan for macro-economics to accelerate economic recovery. And Bromhead et al., Right-Wing Political Extremism in the Great Depression, illustrating the dangerous interactions of time and economic
hardship. The prolonged unemployment of teenage males has been identified by the intelligence community as a key predictor
of political instability, and of recruitment to terrorism, gang and ethnic violence, and support for violent, messianic leaders. The equations are in the danger zone in several Western European countries and elsewhere. It
does little good to spend $80 billion/year for DNI research, and seek to learn from history, if NSF continues to block initiatives for rapid learning to improve macro-economics (see Attachment C, above).
- Letter to Dr. Claudia Goslin, AEA President, recommending an
emergency appropriation and an NIH-model rapid learning
system for macro-economics. May 2, 2013.
- Letter to Dr. Michael Lauer and his NIH strategic planning associates concerning
an NIH Rapid Learning system to evaluate the Primate Subordination Syndrome theory and
its
public health implications.January 31, 2013
- Background Documents for an Accountability Meeting of the AAAS Council, February 2013,
concerning NSF and National Science Board Breakdowns and a proposed finding of No Confidence.
- Six Steps to a Rapid Learning System for Medicaid. Draft, November 2012.
- Letter to Dr. William Press and the AAAS
Board forwarding evidence from NIH ("Rutgers Researcher Exploring Effects of Racism on
Immune System") that contradicts NSF's claim that it must suppress studies
of racism because of political pressure. October 25, 2012.
- Letter to Dr. William Press - President of the AAAS
outlining the case for a public legal response to breakdowns in the NSF reviewing system and
other dysfunctionalities introduced by the Bush-era appointments to the National Science
Board. May 9, 2012
- Status of the Primate Subordination Syndrome paradigm.
A cover letter to the President of the Association of American Universities
outlines the emerging neuroscience, connect-the-dots, ideas about a Primate Subordination
Syndrome that might play an unrecognized causal role in human, status-correlated, behavior and
unsolved societal problems. [The file includes a reference copy of Dr. Sapolsky's "The Influence of Social
Hierarchy on Primate Health" from Science (April 29, 2005) and the Congressional testimony
of NSF's Deputy Director.] New measurements related to the Primate Subordination Syndrome may contribute to
a deeper understanding of the processes involved in the Arab Spring
and empowerment for revolutionary overthrows of authoritarian regimes. February 27, 2012.
Recapitalization: Documents Uploaded for Review and Public Comment to the President's Council of Advisers on
Science and Technology (2010).
Dept. of Justice & AAAS: "The Gathering Storm Case." (August 2008).
- Overview of the Gathering Storm Case. Further
deterioration. The
National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering became [as public,
semi-government institutions] egregious liars. In this
Gathering Storm Report they changed
from trusted scientific advice to
interest group politics. The leaders of the two organizations [Charles Vest and Ralph Cicerone]
conspired with other high-level insiders. They decided to scare the American people
about jobs and 600,000 (alleged)
Chinese and Indian science and engineering graduates/year to get political support for
a doubling of their (physical
science) share of
the national science budget and similar increases for all of the interest groups involved
in K-12 science and math education. The cornucopia of 19 interest group payoffs/recommendations included
huge
investment tax giveaways to large corporations (who - e.g., Exxon - were generously represented on
the panel, the
National Academy's conflict of interest rules having been ignored). Their "scientific advice"
included a triage of the national science
budget - doubling funds for the insider coalition from the physical sciences over the next seven
years, holding biomedical research steady - and marginalizing the leftover social sciences. The 53
economists who were members of the National Academy are excluded from review or voting after two
early warnings published
in Science that the 600,000 scary number was wrong (a fact confirmed by Fareed Zakaria, in an
enclosed excerpt) and that the economic analysis being used to derive the national policy
recommendations was mindless.
- Ethics Appendix: Analysis of Ethical
Issues and Supporting Documentation. Includes discussion of the fellow-traveler report, similarly
embarrassing, from the National Science Board recommending doubling everything, etc. for K-12
science and math education. For policy analysis numerators and denominators were introduced by
social scientists, beginning in the 1960s - e.g., comparing cost/benefit ratios for different
investment pathways. The truly mindless US National Science Board joined the physical scientists
of the National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering in dispensing with these concepts.
- Pantheons and Guarantors Appendix. The full
pantheon of distinguished scientists who put their reputations on the
line for 19 urgent recommendations to the nation without the facts, homework, and thoughtful
analysis to meet serious scientific and ethical standards.
AAAS: Communication to Dr. James McCarthy, President of AAAS, and the
AAAS Governing Council concerning AAAS, the "final favor" requested by Socrates, and the withdrawal
of Bruce Alberts. [The redefinition of "conflict of interest" discussed briefly in this message
refers to issues discussed in a letter to Attorney General Mukasey (below) on March 26, 2008 that was forwarded to
Dr. McCarthy and the AAAS Governing Council.] April 7, 2008.
Dept. of Justice: Letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey concerning prosecutorial
discretion, attesting that the self-correction mechanisms of science have failed and have been exhausted.
Includes background documentation concerning three violations of law and the unresponsive revision of
National Academy procedures and the official redefinition of "conflict of interest" Policies on Committee Composition and Balance and
Conflicts of Interest" and Our Study Process under Bruce Alberts. March 26, 2008.
AAAS: Letter to Dr. James McCarthy, President of AAAS. Discusses
further NAS erosions after the Carnegie Commission meeting: the hiring of Barbara Boyle Torrey,
the hiring of Richard Atkinson, and the erosion of macroeconomic data systems. March 17, 2008.
Dept. of Justice: Letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey concerning prosecutorial
discretion , the erosion of government credibility, and the current paralysis of
the government's/NSF's agenda-setting system in several key areas of science. March 12, 2008.
AAAS: Letter to Dr. James McCarthy, President of AAAS with further
discussion of the mistaken appointment of Bruce Alberts. March 9, 2008.
AAAS: Letter to Dr. Holdren. Chair of the AAAS Governing Council,
recommending that the Council, at its forthcoming meeting, rescind the appointment of Bruce Alberts
to become Editor-in-Chief of Science in March 2008 and reopen the search. January 31, 2008.
Dept. of Justice Filing: "Breach of Contract, Conspiracy, Fraud, and Coverups Affecting
NSF Programs." The Luce Commission Case (September 2007).
- Abstract, Table of Contents, Main Text.
- Attachments - Tab 1. Prefaces to the National Academy Report (1988, 1989)
- Attachments - Tab 2. Gabriel Almond's "shell game" critique of Luce et al.
- Attachments - Tab 3. National Damage - Macroeconomics (I). Early warnings. Includes a briefing
paper for NSF's Inspector General, "A Breakdown Crafted By Silences" (2002)
- Attachments - Tab 4. National Damage - Macroeconomics (II). A supporting letter from Robert
Reischauer, former head of CBO, and recent statements from 2 Nobel Prize winners and 2 former
CEA Chairmen. (Reischauer is commenting on the "Breakdown. . . " paper (2002) at Tab 3)
- Attachments - Tab 5. Coverup issues: Letter from Donald Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief of
Science, and related correspondence.
NSF Recommendations: Fresh Thinking for the 21st Century. Selected Recommendations
for NSF's Five-Year Plan (2006-2011). (March, 2007).
"A Project to Rethink and Upgrade Economic Statistics".
(November, 2005). An
overview letter to
Robert Rubin (9/27/2005) and a related memorandum to Dr. David Lightfoot and the NSF Working
Group on Transformative Research, "NSF and
67 Ways to Guess Gross Domestic Product." Brings to Dr. Lightfoot's attention a recent Op Ed
piece in the Financial Times by John Kay and calls into question the complacency of NSF
and the National Science Board.
"Wisdom and Public Policy" by Lloyd S. Etheredge.
A reference copy of a chapter in
A Handbook of Wisdom:
Psychological Perspectives edited by Robert Sternberg and Jennifer Jordan published by Cambridge
University Press in 2005.
Transformative research and improving NSF processes.. Letter
to Dr. Nina Fedoroff's Taskforce, March 2005. Discusses the case of hierarchical imagery and clinical
ideas - and reactivated fears and top-level breakdowns of scientific integrity.
"Increasing Resources for Political Science: Nine
Strategies for APSA". Draft (5/7/2004) with a cover letter to Dr. Susanne Rudolph and Dr.
Margaret Levi, President and President-elect of APSA. Suggests nine strategies; also a redesignation
of the role of the three APSA Vice Presidents, and 50% release time and expenses for the Chair of
the Development Committee to develop proposals for "midrange" ($10 million - $100 million,
in the definition of the National Science Board) investments.
"How to Nurture Creativity and Progress in the Social Sciences:
Comment on the National Science Board's Draft Report". January, 2003.
Supplemental filing recommending 12 Centers for Comparative Foreign Policy at international sites.
January, 2003. The NSF Infrastructure Task Force has been charged to identify the investments (e.g.,
facilities, global observation and measurement capabilities, and datasets) to assure the maximum productivity
for
research faculty, in all NSF-supported fields, during the next decade. I.e., for state-of-the-art
research & fast discovery science about the most important questions in their fields. The national science
budget is expected to double and the new infrastructure investment budget under discussion is about $18 billion
to $20 billion.
"Science and Public Policy: Millennium Questions".
Prepared for the Policy
Sciences meeting, Yale Law School, October 27-29, 2000.
- New Languages Syllabus. One of the Millennium Questions:
"Is it possible to create new languages to aid self-expression, communication, or improve understanding
of the physical or social world? Or to expand the range of esthetic experience or the power to communicate or
evoke esthetic experience?". A draft syllabus for an interdisciplinary undergraduate course.
Revised, July 2004.
"What's Next? The Intellectual Legacy of Ithiel de Sola Pool".
Presented to a symposium at MIT. Later, this was published as the final
chapter in the second volume of Ithiel Pool's papers that I edited, Humane Politics
and Methods of Inquiry (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publications, 2000). (1997).
"Wisdom and Good Judgment in Politics" from Political
Psychology, 13:3 (1992). The original paper had to be cut substantially and
condensed to meet page
limitations of the symposium issue. The uncut
version flows more smoothly, identifies additional research issues, and begins with the
story (apologies to Mark Twain's "The Good Little Boy and the Bad Little Boy")
of "The Good President and the Bad President."
"Thinking About Government Learning". With James Short.
From Journal of Management Studies, 20:1 (1983). Definitions (e.g., intelligence &
effectiveness, individual & organizational) and three
case-study illustrations of the distinctions.
Flow diagram for a simulation model of the American political
system. Based on Aaron Wildavsky's "The Past and Future Presidency" in The Public
Interest, 41 (1975). Draft, 1982.
"Government Learning: An Overview". The original
review, supported by NSF, to develop the field with an interdisciplinary foundation. It
expanded the idea of cumulative diagnostic repertoires (from The Case of the Unreturned
Cafeteria Trays (below)) and laid the foundation for follow-on steps in
foreign policy (e.g., Can Governments Learn? & nuclear
deterrence ("On Being More Rational Than the Rationality
Assumption")) and domestic social & economic policy/ideology. (1981)
"Decision Making and Learning in Scientific Emergencies: The
NRC and Three Mile Island." A review, with
Philip Tetlock, of ten literatures in the behavioral sciences
to
study and improve small group decision making and learning in government. Develops a framework
and methodology for multivariate content analysis and AI/cognitive modeling
to integrate these approachs and analyze
tapes of the meetings of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Three Mile Island
crisis. Among others, builds upon Barber's Power in Committees, Axelrod's cognitive
mapping, Holsti, Hermann, Bales, Suedfeld, Steinbruner, Verba,
Osgood et al., Janis, Alker, and earlier work by Tetlock and myself. Still a state-of-the-art
research design, esp. for political science. (1980).
"Why Do Politicians Speak Vaguely?". A brief exercise re an
aspect of professional political behavior, with
fourteen specialized theories, along the lines of Cafeteria Trays. (1976).
"The Case of the Unreturned Cafeteria Trays". An introduction to
thirty theories that are useful for public policy and the analysis of individual
behavior. With an independent file to download only Figure 1.
(1976).
B. Modeling Non-Rational Behavior
. (See also the sections on ideology and economic behavior,
and international
relations, below).
- [See, above, the February 2012 entry at II. A. "Status of the Primate Subordination Syndrome
paradigm.]
- Grand Challenges: Mapping the Brain-Mind Connection of Emotion
and Politics. A more developed statement of ideas for the NSF Report on
Grand Challenges of Mind and Brain (below)(November 2006).
- Comments on the NSF Report on Grand Challenges of Mind and Brain .
September 15, 2006. Suggested studies of hierarchical images/hierarchical psychology and effects on
nonrational behavior, conflict (including recruitment of adolescent males to terrorism),
motivational arousal and suppression, cognitive inhibition, problems of labor force and economic
participation of Blacks and other victims of historical discrimination in US and other countries.
- July 2003 & August 2003: Submission to the National Mental Health Advisory Committee
(NIMH) concerning new measures
of the
properties of strong (e.g., reified) hierarchical
images to clarify causal mechanisms in motivational arousal and inhibition, including types of
non-rational behavior (especially, in extreme form, mental illness), the development of rational and
independent thought, and
linkages with brain physiology. In the long run, there may be implications or clues for improved treatment
of some forms of mental
illness. Based on
the new approach to the study of ideological assumptions developed in the 1980s that continues
to be delayed, with an unknown future, in the current NSB
infrastructure-investment process. Letters of July 17, 2003 and of
July 21, 2003 to
Dr. Insel, Chairman. The letter of July 21 includes a summary review of 55+ features of liberal activism to
illustrate potential shared
processes in bipolar phenomena clarified by the model. Letters refer to the forthcoming "Wisdom in Public
Policy" chapter (online above, pp. 20-24)
to place the observations in a wider context (e.g., Plato's cave). Followup letters on August 2, 2003 to Dr.
Virginia Cain on 8/2/2003 at NIH re applications to the study of anomie and addictions, and
measurement issues. And on 8/4/2003, with a copy of an early model of Black
domination/oppression by Abram Kardiner and Lionel Ovesey suggesting a syndrome with common features (e.g.,
passivity, inhibitions of rationality and higher cognitive abilities, increased stress, etc.) for
subordinated
Blacks and women, subordinates in organizations, Mexicans (now) or native Americans, etc. & a shared causal
mechanism (of hierarchical entrapment/hierarchical lock-ins via
reified images that create a defining context for the self) in heightening stress-related physiological
effects and health
behaviors for subordinates in status hierarchies.
- "Measuring Hierarchical Models of Political Behavior:
Oedipus and Reagan,
Russia and America, Part I" (1996). A presentation of a wider set of issues, expanding upon earlier
policy work (below)
to test ideological assumptions. (My co-author, the psychoanalyst Lawrence Freedman, became ill and we set
aside further
work.)
- "On Being More Rational Than the Rationality Assumption:
Dramatic Requirements, Nuclear Deterrence and the Agenda for Learning."
Rational deterrence via making rationality assumptions and using the non-rational psychology of
impression
management. Also,
improving the use of social science for learning and the control of the US/USSR arms race. A paper
during the Cold War later published in Eric Singer
and Valerie Hudson (Eds.), Political Psychology and Foreign Policy. (1992).
- "Hardball Politics: A Model" from Political Psychology 1:1
(1979), pp. 3 - 26.
The lead article in our first issue. A new model based on progress in the
psychoanalytic study of narcissism. The paper includes a comparison with 13
earlier personality-based explanations of this type of power-oriented behavior
and decision making in international & domestic politics. (The original formulation was
Lasswell's power-compensation
hypothesis in Power and Personality). Later, I used the model to analyze baseline
behaviors and learning/nonlearning in Can Governments Learn?. The model identifies a syndrome that
includes non-rational (sometimes, self-deceptive and self-destructive) elements and
may improve our understanding of puzzling cases that are not fully explained by traditional
realpolitik models. [Including the new (post Cold War) era of "optional wars."]
Figure 2 explains what psychologists mean
by the term "borderline," and related terms like "idealizing transferences" for
images of high offices in the psychology of ambitious, upwardly mobile, and aggressive people.
C. Domestic Policy (including ideological assumptions, economics, and national science policy)
[The suggestion (represented in some of the papers and correspondence, below) for a competitive
test of ideological assumptions, in the tradition of the
Michelson-Morley experiment in physics, is broader than testing the hypotheses in the hierarchical
psychodrama model of
ideological passions and beliefs. It may be helpful to say that I do not believe that the
truths about social and economic policy issues lie at a single point along the current
liberal-conservative dimension in American politics. And they may not lie along this
dimension at all.]
- 2012
Recommendations for the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program
- 1. Bring Content Analysis Online. June 5, 2012.
- 2. Purchasing Cooperatives for UDC Development.
June 5, 2012.
- 3. An http://www.videocast.nih.gov for Energy
Research and Fast Discovery Science. June 5, 2012.
- 4. Visual Displays and Accountable Payments to
Accelerate Philanthropy and UDC Development. June 5, 2012.
- 5. Global Blue Button for Rarer Diseases and 350+ Million
Beneficiaries: Extending www.grdr.info. June 5, 2012
- 6. A MyGov Prototype: Citizen
Questions for State and Local Government and a National Rapid Learning System. June 5, 2012.
- 7. China Connections: EPIC-Compatible/OpenVista as a Global
Standard. June 9, 2012.
- 8. A national ER (Emergency Room) Net plus Blue Button.
June 9, 2012.
- 9. A Social Planetarium/Observatory System: How
Federal Data Can Educate and Empower at the State and Local Level. A Washington, DC Prototype .
June 9, 2012.
- 10. ER-Net/Blue Button and Fast Biometric ID for
Vulnerable Populations. June 10, 2012.
- 11. Big Data: Free Supercomputing Time
and Analysis Software for Discovery. June 11, 2012.
- 12. Free Small Business Advertising and a State/Local Extension
for GSA Purchasing. June 11, 2012.
- 13. Senior Home Safety Data and Medicare-Paid
Home Evaluations. June 11, 2012.
- 14. Blue Button Plus (a Rapid Learning Genome Option for
Citizens): Fast Discovery of Precursor Indicators by Putting VA Data Online. June 11, 2012.
- 15. Liberating FDA Data for Rapid Learning and Precision Medicine.
June 12, 2012.
- 16. A New World of "Must Have" Applications and
Library of Congress Partnerships.June 12, 2012.
- 17. Rethinking Federal Data for Economic
Growth: Preparing for a Presidential Commission in January 2013. June 5, 2012.
- 18. The Medicare Show - PBS: Citizen Questions
and Feedback. June 12, 2012
- 19. The Medicaid Show - PBS: Citizen Questions
and Feedback. June 12, 2012.
- 20.EZ-GPS. June 12, 2012.
- 21. California Public Policy and Federal/Big Data.
June 12, 2012.
- 22. Wiki-State and Knowing the World. June 13, 2012.
- 23. A National Library for the Environment
and Energy Research. June 13, 2012.
- 24. EZ-GPS (Global). June 14, 2012.
- 25. Release of FDA's National, Heavy Metals, Market
Basket Data. June 23, 2012.
- 2011
- "Economics: Smoking Gun Testimony by NSF's Deputy
Director" email to Mr. Arthur Brisbane, Public Editor of
The New York Times, concerning the urgent need for an independent Commission - like we
created after 9/11 or the explosion of NASA's space shuttle - to understand the scientific
mistakes and the (scientific/academic) institutional failures that contributed to the global
economic crisis. Attached a copy of the Testimony
of NSF Deputy Director Cora Marrett on July 26, 2011, disclosing that the national peer-review
system for Economics (and other fields of scientific research) was quietly discontinued by NSF more
than two decades ago. Also includes
Ezra Klein's, "Financial Crisis and Stimulus: Could This
Time be Different?" from The Washington Post of October 8, 2011 and
Letter to PCAST of 8/10/2011 re Urgent Learning Agendas
and NSF Scientific Failures Since the Global Crisis began.
- Letters to AAAS and the House Committee
on Science, Technology and Space concerning the Science
Integrity Board. Documents the NSF/National Science Board problems that the initiative is
intended to correct and includes a copy of the discussion (below) September 18, 2011.
- "The Bill of Rights for Scientific Freedom - # 1. The Need
for a Sciencr Integrity Board. September 11, 2011
- A Bill of Rights for Scientific Freedom, draft and
a cover letter to Dr. Kenneth Prewitt (COSSA) and Dr. Nina Fedoroff (AAAS). Includes a
copy of a column by David Brooks on the Republican Narrative/still-untested-theory concerning the
Nanny State. Also of possible interest: Here is a copy of the 8/8/2011 editorial in
Science by Kenneth Prewitt, "Social
Science, Spared Again". Prewitt
includes, as a footnote, a reference to his Science editorial thirty years ago, when
seigneurs of the national science Establishment began their misbegotten experiment of
undisclosed surrender and (extraordinarily illegal and unethical) top-down enforcement.
September 4, 2011.
- Binyamin Appelbaum's article from the front
page of The New York Times, "On Economy, Raw Data Gets a Grain of Salt," August 16, 2011.
See also the data reports from the ALFRED system, # 164 in recommendations to the Fischhoff panel, at II.
D., below. August 17, 2011.
- Letter to PCAST re 4 scientific
upgrades to help with economic recovery. When the space shuttle Challenger exploded, or a
bridge collapses, we know the proper scientific response. August 9, 2011.
- An InterSociety letter to Congress, via AAAS,
from 140+ scientific societies
and universities supporting NSF and, specifically, its Social, Behavioral, and Economics (SBE)
programs. July 11, 2011.
- 2008 and 2009
Rescuing NSF Political Science: Honest Broker Problems and
Scientific Opportunities. An email of October 28, 2009 to the American National Election Studies
Board re honest broker problems; opportunities for a Nobel Prize in economics for ANES if they
test hierarchical psychodrama models; and
suggestions for Senator Mikulski re two successful political science predictions warning against
policy mistakes in domestic and foreign policy. A background letter of October 25, 2009 to
Dr. Henry Brady re the Coburn amendment and NSF problems/
strategy.
- 2006 and 2007
- See the NSF Recommendations: Fresh Thinking for the 21st Century report in
section A. Overviews, Literature Reviews and Related Work, above.
- 2005
- A copy of an email to National Academy of Science members (May 2005)
and others. The message forwarded an
editorial from The New York Times (May 9, 2005) publicly indicating, for the
first time, that nobody
knows
how to interpret National
Academy of Sciences/National Research Council reports and recommendations & expressing hope
for a
civic upgrade under the new NAS President.
- A copy of an email to National Academy of Science members (March 2005) asking their help for
a civic initiative to
raise the standards of the NAS/NRC system. Contains background information from Milbank (below),
and Reischauer and a
letter
to Science (February, 2005) referring to Carl Sagan's prediction of cultural and
civic erosion.
- A copy of Dana Milbank's February 2004 article, circulated with a cover note, after a year of
further inaction (2/5/2005). "White House Forecasts Often Miss the
Mark".
- A brief summary, beginning in the 1990's, to place several of the following items into
context:
- At the beginning of the decade, the National Research Council's professional staff recommended
an initiative to develop new measures and statistical controls (and test ideological
assumptions) to improve
economic forecasting & evidence-based
democratic discussions.
The staff recommendation grew from discussions that I initiated with them (after an earlier
proposal was derailed in the 1980s) and they arranged
for an invitation to develop a draft prospectus (below). Dr. Sue Woolsey, a former political appointee and wife of
a CIA Director was
used, by Dr. Frank Press (then director of the NAS/NRC system), to kill the project and counsel
the staff to shut up about initiatives along these lines.
- Subsequently, Dr. Woolsey received a promotion and Bruce Alberts, head of the NAS/NRC system,
hired Mrs. Barbara Torrey
(discussed below) to replace her. Mrs. Torrey maintained
the constraints on the behavioral sciences and supervised the staff (e.g., economics, social policy,
education, and national statistics)into the early years of this current decade.
- During the 1990s the President of the University of California system, Jack Peltason, tried
(e.g., through a telephone call to President Clinton's science adviser) to reverse
the scientific erosion and civic marginalizing of American universities. However his successor,
Dr. Richard Atkinson, withdrew the support of the UC system in a letter
(letter from Dr. Atkinson) widely circulated in the UC system. He
expressed the view that universities should not contest these issues about the role of
evidence-based v. belief-based public policy. Dr. Bruce Alberts hired Dr.
Atkinson to provide the senior/national scientific supervision for the National Research Council's
initiatives, and selection of its study panels, for the behavioral sciences - a post which he
still
holds as of this writing (May 2005).
- Dr. Alberts and the Governing Council of the National Research Council have been well-informed
about the gaps and
problems of missing statistical controls needed for reliable scientific research. Although
frequently informed about the nature of
the problems, Dr. Warren Washington and the National Science Board/National Science Foundation continued to use the
NAS/NRC system as its contractor for agenda-setting advice concerning national research investments
for social and economic sciences.
- 2004
- Across these years, there have been at least three unsuccessful investigations by the National Science
Board/National Science Foundation Inspector General's staff. Across these years, too, the earlier
(predictable and uncorrected) statistical problems of
macro-economic forecasting of GDP, recessions, government revenues, etc. continued to grow, with damaging
consequences to the nation and our social science research capabilities.
- [Today, the field of macroeconomic forecasting is almost stagnant because there are few academic specialists
left and - without new data systems to test new ideas - few capable younger economists enter the field.]
- Most recently, the NAS/NRC
system
was relied upon again by the NSB and NSF for the latest round of advice concerning new research infrastructure investments for fast discovery
economics & social science in the 21st century. In this current planning cycle the NAS/NRC system
derailed all innovation for improved
economic data systems and renewed scientific competition from new ideas - not a word of
originality
- from the
professional staff & no honest scientific mention of the sharp criticisms and aggressively
suppressed ideas within the
scientific community.
- [Several letters of
historical interest also are included in the References section of
the Website.]
- Letter to Dr. Warren Washington, National Science Board,
August 14, 2004 reviewing deficiencies in the search for a new NSF Assistant Director for the
Social & Behavioral Sciences and Economics. Also discusses the need for the National Science
Board to move more quickly re new economic and world politics measures in a changing world
(e.g., with one observation
available only every 3 months for economic time series) and conduct by Dr. Bruce Alberts
et al. that inhibited the independence, quality, and initiative of the NAS/NRC professional staff.
Letter to Dr. Warren Washington, National Science Board, August 22, 2004
with supplemental information about inhibiting management of social science researchers in the
NAS/NRC advisory system;
includes copies of two Washington Post stories about Mrs. Barbara
Torrey, who was chosen by Dr. Bruce Alberts et al. to supervise the social science staff and
projects at the NRC
in the 1990s and the early years of this decade. [Mrs. Torrey is reported to have tried,
apparently for political
motives, and in violation of government employment law and the First Amendment, to fire and
defame a
young government
researcher who (legitimately) provided unclassified estimates of casualties in the first Iraq
War to a reporter.] The Washington Post stories review the lawsuit on behalf of the
29-year-old woman, a GS-11 analyst, with support from the American Civil
Liberties Union, Covington & Burling, the American Statistical Association's Committee on
Scientific Freedom and Human Rights, and others which shredded the veracity and legitimacy of
Mrs. Torrey's
claims and
justifications. [Subsequently, Mrs. Torrey was hired by
Drs. Bruce Alberts,
Smelser, et al. to
supervise the NAS/NRC social science staff and projects in economics, social policy, and national
statistics.]
- Washington Post article, 3/15/2004, "Link Between
Taxation, Unemployment is Absent" by Jonathan Weisman. An (unsettling) portrayal of the de facto
scientific standards of academic
macroeconomic theory and national policy advice supported by NSF (and shaped by its advisory committees) across
the past 40+ years: “We know it’s there. We just can’t find it in the data.”
- Washington Post article, 2/24/2004, "White
House Forecasts Often Miss the Mark" by Dana Milbank, noting
that the (still, uncorrected) breakdown of scientific models of the US economy became dramatically
apparent 7 years ago . . . Forwarded to Dr. Washington and the National Science Board and to
Dr. Bruce Alberts (NAS/NRC) as a
supplement to earlier petitions.
- Report from Michael Brintnall re a successful and
dramatic turn-around
in government funding for social and behavioral sciences (against a baseline of 0.5% for
non-defense, non-homeland security). Includes a 22% increase for economic statistics.
February 2004.
- 2003
- Petitions to the National Science Board (12/2/2003) and National Academy
of
Sciences/NRC (12/7/2003) to terminate the NAS/NRC contracts for behavioral science advice; and
for
recusals from this termination decision process of officials and members responsible for the old
system. Expresses concern that academic science has captured too many government agencies.
Cover letter to Dr. John Marburger (12/9/2003)[excerpt: "It is a changing, uncertain, and sometimes
dangerous world. And these are exactly the circumstances when we need social science to assess
reality and be sure
that we have an independent capacity to update our images and understanding about how the
economy is changing and the world beyond our borders. The nation cannot afford to rely upon
these two institutions for effective planning. The institutional problems are extensive and
similar to the breakdowns associated with the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger . . ."
Follow up petition on December 13, 2003 asking the National Science Board to apply
principles
of justice in addition to cancelling contracts. Specifically, that they
apply the same serious penalties, and send the same messages, as if the observed misconduct involved
cancer research by a
lower status contractor.
- A background letter of December 2003, concerning the uncorrected
capture and misuse of the NSF/NAS/NRC system by interest groups within a national science
Establishment,
with the
predictable effect of
monopoly power - to restrain competition
and innovation in economics and other behavioral sciences. Similar letters to Senators McCain
and Bennett
and Representative Boehlert, Chairs
of the Congressional
oversight committees.
- Two recent Op Ed pieces from the Financial Times by other authors. First,
Dr. Lee Bollinger's commentary on November 13, 2003 calling
for an historic reassessment of
how we organize and use our universities to address urgent challenges. For example Dr. Bollinger,
the
President of Columbia University, distinguishes between respect for the academic freedom of
individual tenured faculty members and the requirement
for university leaders to play a larger role for new
hiring (e.g., he cites economics) to change "intellectual solipsism." Second, a copy of "Bring the President's
Nerds Back In From the Cold"
by Robert Hahn and Scott Wallsten (October 30,2003) reporting the loss of scientific/academic
credibility in Washington and the demotion of the Council
of Economic Advisers. [I believe the demotion reflected frustration and legitimate anger increased
by the failure of the 53 leading mathematical macroeconomic models two years ago (including growing
unreliability of government revenue and other estimates); and especially the failure of
self-correction by
institutions responsible for the reliability and rapid improvement of science-based policy advice.]
- Overview of intellectual and institutional breakdowns [e.g., NSF, NAS/NRC,
CEA, Dept. of Commerce, the economics profession] for
the
National Economic Council (October 2003). Self-correction is unlikely. No CEO or Board of Directors
of a major corporation
would tolerate a corporate accounting system, for their own decisions, as delayed and
unreliable as our national accounting system has become. Notes Alan Greenspan's (ignored) testimony,
several
years ago, that we have diminishing returns to perpetual reanalysis of established datasets.
Suggests that
there is a changing world that needs to
be understood and that we will need to encourage new, experimental, and
prototype datasets;
scientific competition; and to anticipate a long-term and interdisciplinary process.
- Two overview letters in August 2003 to Congressional oversight committees discussing the
breakdown of the 53 models and damage to the country in the historical context of the cumulative
mismanagement and institutional failure of government scientific institutions - e.g., as a result of
"interest group capture" of these
public institutions and inadquate safeguards.
- As of August 2003 the Fed had cut interest rates 13 times since 2001 without seeing the effects that
established academic models predicted. And since 2001 all 53 principal macroeconomic models (
private sector/academic, CBO, and
Administration) have become unreliable for
policy-making and prediction. A column by Paul
Krugman of July 25, 2003 in The New York Times confirming that
last-generation macro-economic models
have failed & continuing damage to the country. The problem also was confirmed recently by Cathy Minehan,
President of the Boston
Fed, at a research conference that she convened in June. She said in her opening address: "All our models
and forecasts say we'll see a better second half. But we said that last year. Now don't get me wrong:
mathematical models are wonderful tools. But are there ways this process can be done better? . . . I hope so."
[Quoted S. Dubner, "Calculating the Irrational in Economics," The New York Times, June 28, 2003,
p. A17). A news story "The Amazing Disappearing Tax Revenue" by Jonathan
Weisman in The Washington Post of July 26, 2003 (p. E01) reports
an expert consensus in Washington that none of the scientific models (CBO, Executive branch, private sector)
for forecasting government revenue are working reliably: $270 billion+ of
government revenue unexpectedly is
missing - and the explanations are unknown and beyond the capacity of current data sets to explain. A
letter to the National Science Board, forwarding a column by Robert J. Samuelson in The
Washington Post of July 30, 2003 that also discusses the failure of all models for science-based policy
making and prediction since 2001. [On August 6 Samuelson corrected one of his numbers in this column: the household
survey data, after a statistical adjustment, showed a job loss of nearly 700,000 from early 2001
through June 2003], The letter draws an analogy to FAA investigations of airplane crashes and recommends
that NSF shift to a fast discovery mode.
- A letter to the National Science Board - July 3, 2003 reviewing
three competing models that might help to explain why the breakdown of science-based economic policy has
become the most serious and egregious failure of NSF programs. Includes an application of Kuhn's model of
blocked innovation and learning. ["Monopoly rent" for economists. For political scientists, any measures of hierarchical images that
show non-zero coefficients (e.g., for Blacks) for
politically- linked behavior will begin to shift the life's work of reigning members of the National
Academy of Sciences to the "history"
section of the social sciences (and also change the last generation mythologizing
of the American politics field].
Contrasts NAS/NRC problems as a sole-source contractor and resulting damage to the country with the exemplary leadership of the Medicine
(Institute of Medicine) and
Engineering Academies in their areas of responsibility. As a result of several decades of high-quality
collaboration, there were hundreds of sensors aboard the space shuttle that permit us to do fast-discovery
science to learn from the recent disaster - a contrast with the debilitating inhibition of NAS/NRC leadership
for
better economic data systems.
- 2002
- Letter from Dr. Robert Reischauer, former Director of the Congressional
Budget Office and member of the Exec. Committee of Harvard's Board of Overseers, confirming serious
deficiencies in national data systems for economic research and policy making. 12/2002.
Note that there may be several reasons for the current failure of all 53 last-generation scientific
models - e.g., a.) changing reality; b.) bad data; and c.) essentially good (but too narrow) economic
models also can give unreliable results
because - for a discipline that uses regression analysis to compute averaged coefficients from
historical time series - of the cumulative
error and garbage knowingly produced by two decades of continuing failures
of scientific and statistical integrity. Discusses failures to measure adequately and control for the
(psychological)
treatment variables that were (and often remain) a principal component of government policy. (See A Breakdown Crafted By
Silences, below).
- Proposal to Senator Mikulski and the National Science Board. Suggests
development of Evidence-Based Policy Centers, responsive to state and local officials, civic groups, and
individual citizens. (August 14, 2002).
- "A Breakdown Crafted by Silences:
Scientific Mismanagement and National Policy Error". A longer analytic paper about the issues (below) for
the Inspector General's Office, National Science Foundation (September 10, 2002). Supplemental
filing noting the independent evaluation of the National Association for Business Economics that
about 20% of the "final" GDP numbers (a $2 trillion component) are potentially inaccurate and
also may confound real
changes with inflation.
- Letter re economic data reliability & forecasting issues for CBO (August 6, 2002).
News stories on August 1, 2002 suggested that erroneous government economic data for 1999-2001 caused
Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve to mis-time policy interventions; and contributed to the costs
and continuing effects of the recent recession. The letter to Mr. Crippen at CBO reviews concerns about
deficient scientific performance and oversight; includes a copy of a letter to Dr. Colwell at NSF
(August 1, 2002) about the same issues.
- NSB oversight review of data, econometric & integrity
issues. (June 5, 2002). Emphasizes logic-of-science and statistical concerns about effects of missing
variables
on current economic forecasting (e.g., GDP, tax revenue, Social Security). Notes that the effects of even
random
measurement error are
not random when using regression analysis (as economists do) - e.g., random measurement error in the
independent variable, in the bivariate case, always
biases the computed coefficients toward zero. Suggests that the scientists who control the
NAS/NRC process may have lacked the statistical training to appreciate their wider damage: Without
measurement of relevant variables that government officials are seeking to change, the style of
conducting national macro-economic research, via the regime imposed by the NAS/NRC, is
equivalent
to biological/chemical research without washing test tubes. They corrupted the data series and
made economic forecasts based on
regression analysis and quarterly data since the election of Ronald Reagan uninterpretable. {Alternatively,
they may have known what they were doing.]
- Overview for NSF re stall-out of progress in economics. Expresses
puzzlement at the pattern of failed scientific integrity we observe by Dr. Bruce Alberts er al. at
the NRC and seigniors of the
National Academy
of Sciences: killing any major competition between models, preventing measurement of missing variables,
failing to improve the national data series that are unreliable, and being institutionally indifferent
to scientific failures of forecasts.
- A further critique of the Committee on National
Statistics, operated by the National Research Council with public funds from five federal agencies.
Discusses the negligent and deficient performance of the National Research Council/National Academies
during the past decade in this area of their responsibility, including the blocking of new
measures and datasets for intellectual progress
in economics, and
political self-neutering. Also discusses observations by Robert Solow and Frank Press.
(March 20, 2002).
- Letter of February 21, 2002 for Dr. Rita Cowell, NSF, calling
to her attention
continuing (and current) self-censorship of the NAS/NRC Committee on
National Statistics of high-priority
research that would improve our understanding of the economy and inform public decision making.
- Letter of January 30, 2002 for NSF's Inspector-General.
A cross-agency comparison of standards for political
independence and scientific integrity, re lower de facto historical standards & unfair
treatment of social
scientists dependent upon NSF.
Letter of January 5, 2002 for NSF's Inspector-General. Notes that
600 scientists provided the Luce Commission (created at the request of NSF and supported with public funds)
with detailed discussions of their life's work and research
programs, and visions for their Centers and the country.
The letter raises a null hypothesis and requests review of the safeguards of the National
Academy of Sciences to prevent rationalized
self-interests of their judges, in their positions of public trust, from biasing the National Academy of Sciences' designations
of the "leading edge" priority research programs
in the social sciences for the
past decade. No disclosures of self-interest were included in the published Report; its "many others
could have been chosen" discussion of how decisions were made behind closed doors was not revealing;
and the letter also asks for an oversight review of whether
the conflicts of interest were disclosed as part of the internal review and sign-off of the Academy.
- 2001
- Overview for Dr. Irwin Feller (December 2, 2001) and
Overview for Dr. Bruce Alberts (November 23, 2001). Warns of
untested foundations of macro-economic theory; and
the paralysis in testing ideological assumptions that
limits the empirical base for democratic discussion, undergraduate education, and good
policy making. Preliminary filing with Dr. Eamon Kelly, National
Science Board (December 5, 2001).
- "Will the Bush Administration Unravel?" (June, 2001). A
comparison of George W. Bush with Warren G. Harding & cautionary forecast of the potential
for a Teapot Dome type of scandal. Includes commentary on
J. David Barber's typology of Presidential character, and the impeachment survival
of the active-positive Bill Clinton v. the outcome achieved by the active-
negative Richard Nixon, despite Richard Nixon's well-deserved reputation for hardball
political acumen. Followup to "Will the Bush Administration Unravel?"
(December 4, 2003) re
the risk of a Teapot Dome type of scandal: A letter to William Card and Senator Frist discussing
Robert Pear's (attached) story about Mr. Thomas Scully's ethics waiver and conflicts of interest
while negotiating tens of billions of dollars of benefits in the recent Medicare legislation. Also
discusses message-sending issues.
- Letter to the Editor of PS re ideology,
the stall-out of the social sciences, and restarting progress in empirically-
based v. belief-based social and economic policy. (January, 2001).
- Earlier. [Several letters of
historical interest are included in the References section of
the Website.]
- "Evidence-Based Policy Centers: A Proposal to Reinvent
Government Through Social Science". Organizing constituencies (including state & local)
for question-posing and question-answering. (1999).
- "Problems of Scientific Integrity That Affect Unfunded Research."
Testimony to the U. S.
Commission on Research Integrity. April 10, 1995. Harvard Medical School. History,
possible misperceptions, and discussion of institutional reforms, involving self-crafted
limitations of scientific agenda-setting institutions. Discusses the mistaken
top-down decision to kill the
testing of ideological assumptions and block the measurement for key variables in economic policy and
reliable science-based advising.
- "Commentary: The Scientific Scandal of the 1980s."
Political Psychology,
15:3 (1994). An invited discussion, ten years after the original publication of "President Reagan's
Counseling" (below), that addressed the "Emperor's New Clothes" problem
and non-testing of ideological assumptions, esp. weakening capacity for science-based economic policy.
Comments upon several hypotheses - e.g., innocence (unlikely), bullying &
intimidation,
bad decision makers,
Establishment self-defense, intensification of inhibition and fear inside
vivid hierarchical dramas.
- "Public Drama, Economic Growth, and the Agenda for Learning" (1992 rev.).
This is the 3 x 3
table, and new approach to ideological sensibilities and zeal inside Plato's Cave, and making ideological claims
testable, that is partly presented in the papers on
liberal activism and President Reagan's libertarian conservatism (below). It is an approach, via developments in self psychology,
in the spirit
of theory-development in physics - i.e., a more integrative theory of a wider class of phenomenon (as outlined in the
proposal to the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council for a new research program), that also renders them
testable and creates a
basis for an empirically-based dialogue and learning. Notice (footnote 29) that there are national probability samples
from 1957 and 1976 with TAT-based measures of achievement motivation that can establish baselines for future testing
of claims to alter national modal personality. Measures along the lines of Cartwright et al. (footnote 4) also might be adapted
for exploratory studies.
- "The Liberal Case: Political Activism in a Hierarchical Drama" (1992 rev.) This
is the first section of the paper (a second section reviewed earlier theories of liberal activism and
ideology). A summary table of 55+ features of a hierarchical imagery
model of liberal activism, grouped into several higher-order dimensions.
- "A Proposal to Study Leadership, Motivation, and Economic Growth". Draft prepared
at the invitation of the staff of the national agenda-setting Commission
of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council (1990). A proposal to reconsider
urgent initiatives derailed by the Luce/Smelser Commission. Outlines a naitonal strategy based on
the model of the Michelson-Morley experiment in physics.
- "President Reagan's Counseling" from Political Psychology 5:4 (1984), pp. 737-740.
An initial overview re understanding and evaluating these ideological arguments. There are a group of libertarian
conservatives who are remarkably self-assured about their moral
+ empirical preaching that strong and healthy, responsible, self-starting individuals are created by
government (pro-market/no-welfare-state) economic policy and are the key to making the whole package - market
economies, democracy, "1,000 points of light" and individual lives, work.
Hierarchical psychodrama models are in good repute within clinical psychology. Libertarian conservatives may
be wrong (or right) about the transference - i.e., if the applicable arena turns-out to be only family
relationships, rather than a national political economy psychodrama.
D. International Relations
See also "Hardball Politics" and "On Being More Rational Than the
Rationality Assumption" in Modeling Non-Rational Behavior
(above) and Can Governments Learn? on my academic
homepage.)
- "Testing the Hubris Model of Foreign
Policy Decisions: Iran in March 2012". Discusses competing predictions of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
[rational choice] v. the hubris model. Suggests that the US intelligence services and others
will inter alia seek to support a coup and/or other indigenous regime change implementing
the 1953 model upgraded by lessons (e.g., using social media capabilities) from the Arab Spring.
(The regime in Tehran will expect this model.) Includes a reference copy of Ray Takeyh, "Why Iran Thinks It Needs the
Bomb" from The Washington Post of February 17, 2012. February 23, 2012
- Improving National Intelligence: Memoranda Prepared for the [Fischhoff] Committee on Behavioral
and Social Science Research to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security."
(Fall 2009 - Fall 2010).
- 1. Hubris, the Cheney Syndrome, the Rory Stewart
Problem. September, 2009.
- 2. The Scientific Audit of Bueno de Mesquita's Work.
- 3. Israeli Comparisons; Forecasting the Political Behavior of
Teenage Males: The Enemy Image on Steroids.
- 4. Cognitive Reframing & Political
Opportunity Analysis; Global Health as an Opportunity.
- 5. Groupthink and $75 Billion/Year Bureaucracies.
- 6. Their Misperception Rates of America;
Cold War Lessons.
- 7. Correcting for Missing Variables: Tom Wolfe & Understanding
Global Finance.
- 8. Professional Workstations. Visual Analytics. Virtual
Environments October, 2009.
- 9. Survey Research Methods. Restarting Donald Campbell's
Research Program.
- 10. From Realpolitik to
Multi-Pathway, Multi-
Method Lobbying. October, 2009.
- 11. Youth Cohort Analysis. October, 2009.
- 12. Cross-cultural Political Psychology: Corrections &
Warnings via Sears and Gergen.
- 13. Think Long . . . . Better Intelligence about Created
Realities. Paul Kennedy & Pivotal States.
- 14. 1% of $75 Billion/Year = ?; R&D Systems.
- 15 Restarting Content Analysis. Forecasting
Political
Violence/Instability as an Effect of Global Economic Hardship.
16. Testing Recommendations: The War on Drugs.
- 17. Predator-Prey Models. Forecasting a Global Financial
System with Asymmetries of Brainpower
and Money.
- 18. McNamara's Lessons and the Groundhog Day
Challenge. The Fog of War Symposium.
- 19. Selecting Narratives: Yergin's N=11 Economic Crisis Narratives
List & the DNI's Yottabyte [10 to the 24th power] Database. References cited:
Yergin's Op Ed piece.
Bamford's review. Also: Narratives are trickier than scientific
theories.
- 20. Increasing Compassion.
- 21. Recapitalizing Academic Social Science. See
also # 14.
- 22. Forecasting Blowbacks: The Evolution of Global
Surveillance Systems.
- 23. Strengthening Coercive Diplomacy: Alexander
George's Legacy and Rapid Learning.
- 24. Two Footnotes: The 109-Circle War Strategy;
President Clinton's Unmet Need.
- 25. Admiral Blair's "For the first time, we have
a good understanding . . . " claim; Calibration methods.
- 26. $75 billion per year/ number of al-Qaeda members = ?.
On November 11, 2009 The Washington Post reported that there are fewer than 100
al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan and about 300 left in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
- 27. Quis custodiet . . . ? An Open, Science-Based, Future
for National Intelligence? President Ford's Surprise.
- 28. The Social Science of Post-Mortems. Colin Powell's
Surprise. How a National Academy Report Might Be Dangerously Wrong.
- 29. Civic Guarantees: Strong, embedded barriers.
- 30. Natural Declines in High-Performance Systems; The
Rationality of Redundancy & Global Knowledge Management.
- 31. Nuclear Security: Computing N's for Black-market and
Sting Operations.
- 32. From the Minuet to the Basketball Court; Online
Knowledge Management/Collaboration Systems to Support President Obama. November, 2009.
- 33. Iran: The Scientific Audit of Forecasting Models.
- 34. On (Sometimes) Not Trusting Academic Science.
The "Gathering Storm" of alleged international threats, the N = 600,000 hustle, and the poorly
analyzed case for tax give-aways to Exxon et al.: The leadership of the National Academy of Sciences
will lie to the American people for money.
- 35. Building on Global 2025: New Data,
Analysis, and Recapitalization Priorities.
- 36. Grand Strategy: The Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
Data, analysis, maximum velocity. See also # 32 and # 10.
- 37. 1.) Anticipating Smarter Opponents; 2.) DNI Capabilities
v. Hiding in Mountains (Osama bin Laden, Joaquin Guzman). [Not to endorse Forbes as
reliable social science, but Osama bin Laden and Joaquin Guzman are
# 37 & # 41 on the 2009 Forbes World's Most Powerful People List.]
See also # 16 (above).
- 38. Talking Back to the DNI: Portfolio Management Imperatives.
- 39. A Fresh Analysis of Power. Attachments include the
Forbes list, "World's Most Powerful People."
- 40. Fresh Thinking: Experiments to Reduce Terrorism and
UDC Violence. Looking ahead re "youth bulge" high unemployment UDCs. November, 2009.
- 41. The DNI and a Global Power
Experiment. Applying the National Library of Medicine/Pub Med model to the environment.
See also # 8 (above) re professional workstations. November, 2009.
- 42. Independent Re-Checks of "Threat Industry" (Mueller)
Analysis; Scientific Methods to Calibrate Vivid Imaginations. The Case of President Obama's
Afghanistan Speech (next week).
- 43. The Experimental Methods
chapter: World Politics, One Laptop per Child, Afghanistan.
- 44. Testing the Jervis Hypotheses and Beyond.
- 45. The Afghanistan chapter & the credibility of
social/behavioral science.
- 46. The Anti-Americanism chapter; the DNI v. Tom Friedman;
Anatol Rapoport.
- 47. The Complex, Adaptive Systems chapter; Failure
cascades and the global financial system.
- 48. The Peace Process chapter and the National Academy's
advice.
- 49. Relationship-Building: Measures needed.
December, 2009.
- 50. Neuroscience, the DNI, Fast Discovery R&D for
Foreign Language Competence.
- 51. Grand Strategy: Human Rights. Data, analysis,
maximum velocity. See also # 32, # 10 and # 11.
- 52. The Personality and Politics chapter: Who leads the
Taliban? December 2009.
- 53. A National Intelligence Ombudsman.
- 54. Lessons by the NIC Global Trends 2010 authors.
Published by the National Intelligence Council in 1997.
- 55. The Early Warning Systems chapter: Lacunae?
- 56. The Upgrading Public Databases chapter; Improving
the yield of social science research.
- 57. A Thought-Provocation Standard; The Daily Show
v. the DNI; <100 al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, 300 in Pakistan.
- 58. The Analysis & Forecasting: Non-Rational Behavior
chapter.
- 59. The Premature Conclusions chapter. December, 2009.
- 60. A Rational Plan: $75 billion/year and sorting-out R&D
responsibilities for the social/behavioral sciences.
- 61. The War on Drugs: Upgrading data and analysis.
George Shultz and George Soros.
- 62. Rarer Events and New DNI/NIC Forecasting Methods:
Obama, 9/11, and the global financial crisis. Note that the National Intelligence Council's
method for
Global Trends 2010 was to select the most likely future. The end of the Cold War also was
a rare and unexpected event.
- 63. The Simulations chapter: The fourteen lessons of
Dr. Petraeus.
- 64. The Accountability chapter: Integrity designs
for bad weather; Cheney, Gonzalez, Nixon.
- 65. Request: The Pentagon Papers of the
Bush Administration?
- 66. Weakening Print Journalism: A special forecast and DNI
analysis of Swensen and Schmidt.
- 67. The World Social Capital chapter: Recommending
a special DNI/NIC analysis.
- 68. Justice: The Bending History in the Direction of
Justice chapter; Fwd: President Obama's Nobel Prize address.
- 69. The Secrecy and Culture of Secrecy chapter. Connecting
Moynihan, Ellsberg, Richard Herrmann, Loch Johnson, and Wegner.
- 70. The Scenario Methods chapter: Intelligence, creativity,
wisdom.
- 71. Deterring Frankenstein's Monster: Images, metaphors,
and Paul Samuelson.
- 72. Data-Intensive Discovery for US Leadership: Global
health + Archimedes methodology.
- 73. Quiet Power: Constructive influence & the Trilateral
Commission's lists: www.trilateral.org December, 2009.
- 74. Copenhagen Lessons; Finding Jason Bourne; Visiting
Admiral Blair's Command Centers.
- 75. Two Tests: Admiral Blair's system v. professional
journalists; Mirror neuron activation and empathy.
- 76. New Explanations: Why was gasoline $4/gallon?
- 77. A Smart Power chapter: Beyond super-automated global
watchlists.
- 78. The Nation-Building/Failed States chapter; Somalia
and other return engagements. December, 2009.
- 79. Deepening the Warnings: Government data and
business/economic journalism v. social science. Attachments:
Supporting letter from Robert Reischauer, former head of CBO and John
Kay's 67 Ways to Guess Gross Domestic Product.
- 80. US Government-to-World Communication
Flows: Emerging properties of complex adaptive systems?
- 81. An Urgent Warning to Admiral Blair and the DNI System:
Andrew Ross Sorkin, hubris, and repetition.
- 82. The World Cultural Change chapter.
December, 2009.
- 83. Rapid Learning: A new high-priority
declassification rule. See also # 65.
- 84. The Nature of Intelligence chapter. Who was smarter -
Reagan or Kissinger - about Cold War politics? Discuss, using theories of Salovey and Sternberg.
- 85. The Emotional Consensus chapter; Lasswell +
Victor Hugo.
- 86. The Human Performance chapter; post-Detroit
lessons.
- 87. Grand Strategy: A special NIC study re US
leadership for conventional arms control, limiting military budgets.
- 88, The Russian Relationship chapter: Prototyping NIC
special studies.
- 89. World Human Potential. January, 2010.
- 90. Revenge Cultures and US/Civilized Behavior. In
addition to the examples of Afghanistan and Pakistan, note that
Israel and the US are legal cultures, while honor/revenge cultural elements are much stronger among
Israel's Arab enemies. Thus, a research hypothesis: An historic public drama that took land and
demeaned Arabs may, from within
their cultures, demand additional [and not fully recognized] mechanisms to signal civilized
behavior and an honorable
settlement. Perhaps especially among young Arab males (see # 3, above). January, 2010.
- 91. The Suicide Bombing chapter: Changing an emotional
consensus. See also # 10 and # 11, above.
- 92. Better Forecasts: Meta-Rules for uncertain futures
and three other suggestions. January, 2010.
- 93. A Perfect & Exciting Example of DNI
Data-sharing; From the physical environment to content analysis. See # 15, above, for
further discussion of improved social science based on renewed content analysis methods.
- 94, The Auditing Computer Systems chapter.
- 95. The Institutional Memory Chapter: Four aspects of an
unsolved problem, here and abroad.
- 96. The Merit of Scientific Boldness; Fwd: Walter Pincus.
Includes articles by Walter Pincus and Matthew Green re intelligence breakdowns in Afghanistan.
- 97. The Global Wealth: Better analysis of
money and politics chapter.
- 98. Wartime Scientific Advice - 1. National
Academy field observations and Fwd: Karen DeYoung.
- 99. Wartime Scientific Advice - 2. Connecting dots -
Yemen is another youth-bulge/high unemployment UDC. See also # 40, above.
- 100. The Combinatorial Thinking + Grand Strategy =
Change the World chapter. Includes An
Experiment to Accelerate Scientific Progress. See also # 4 and # 40, above.
- 101. The Getting Governments to Listen chapter; Fwd:
Graham & Talent on bioterrorism & political behavior.
- 102. The Comparative Government Performance chapter:
Would the underwear and shoe bombers have been boarded on El-Al?
- 103. The Incentive Systems chapter. Meta-solutions
and rapid-learning systems for data and analysis.
- 104. The Psychological Warfare chapter: Theirs and the
US response; integrating Keohane. See also # 46, above.
- 105. The Global Financial Sector chapter: Krugman's
leading-edge concerns.
- 106. People, Databases, and Federal Budgets: Three
suggestions.
- 107. Rational Rebalancing Options. Fwd: Friedman
on jihadist death cults with exploding underpants; NIC: background and vision.
- 108. Progress: Global rapid learning networks for
international health.
- 109. The Rapid Learning Systems chapter. Includes
a summary of three major areas for new data systems and analysis tools, from previous memoranda.
[This summary was forwarded as part of a recapitalization recommendation to PCAST - a copy is at
II. A. (above)]. January, 2010.
- 110. The "Who's Afraid of Governments?"
challenge.
- 111. The Measures of Effectiveness chapter:
Fwd: PNSR Report. Click here for the text of the Project on
National Security Reform Report.
- 112. New visual analytics/display capabilities for
global data: NIH presentation by Hans Rosling. March, 2010.
- 113. Hierarchical Psychodrama Models and
Regime Collapse; Fwd: PCAST Recommendations for neurosciences and rapid learning. Click here
for the overview of new hierachical psychodrama models,
Neuropsychology and Rapid Learning Systems about Social
Problems" from II. A. (above). Click here for the benefits
of applying neuroscience/hierarchical psychodrama models to issues in American voting.
March, 2010.
- 114. Testing Theories of Paul Kennedy, Joseph Nye, and Niall
Ferguson: The National Academy of Sciences and Complex, Adaptive Systems on the Edge of
Chaos?
Includes a column by David Ignatius and Niall Ferguson's article in the new Foreign
Affairs (March/April 2010), "Complexity and Collapse: Empires on the Edge of Chaos." Ferguson's
model suggests that new complex adaptive systems models might improve intelligence forecasting, esp.
for America: The unraveling of the Ming dynasty "took little more than a decade." The Roman Empire's
final collapse was within the span of a generation. The Soviet Union's collapse took less than
five years. . . . March, 2010.
- 115. Neuropsychology and the new Tea Party
Terrorism.
- 116. Supplemental Discussion: 1.) Content analysis and
the New York Times on Google's translation achievements; 2.) Faster national learning rates in
world politics.
- 117. Better Anti-Terrorist Effectiveness Measures:
Illegal Immigration (N=12 million) as a Surrogate Test. March, 2010.
- 118. Admiral Dennis Blair is on his own. Andrew Lo's
advice. Continuing stagnation of academic social science & the Republican era.
- 119. Untested Theories about Databases,
Analysis Methods, and Effectiveness; Fwd: Financial Times "Concern is Mounting . . ."
article, 3/10/2010.
- 120. Hierarchical Psychodrama Models: Fwd: Reality
Show Contestants Willing to Kill in French Experiment.
- 121. A Hierarchical Psychodrama Theory of Terrorism:
The Neuroscience Paradigm and the Michigan Militia Case.. The
Letter to Henry Brady, APSA President, referenced in the memo, suggests a need for vigilance
re potential political
Republican opposition to a neuroscience paradigm because it could be seen to provide, via
scientific progress, competitive
advantages to Democrats. For example, the neuroscience paradigm may provide insights
to improve democratic functioning and accelerate progressive politics by increasing political
participation. It also can provide scientific evidence to evaluate claims that hierarchical
psychodramas of the militant Right are
playing a contributory role in recent cases of domestic political violence and terrorism. While
the National Science Foundation is supposed to be politically independent it became, in the
recent Republican Era, exquisitely sensitive to what Congress might approve, to Republican demands
for a more neutralized civic role of government-funded social science and to the potential
retaliation of Republican zealots, and to the perceptions
of current public moods about political activism. March, 2010.
- 122. Recalibrating Theories and Imagination; accelerating
science and American foreign policy. Includes "An Experiment to Accelerate Scientific
Innovation." April, 2010.
- 123. Pentagon Papers Research Programs:
Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq (2). A Strong National Academy of Sciences Recommendation. Includes a
reference copy of "How to End the War in Afghanistan" with the baseline conceptual map
of David Miliband,
an MIT-trained social scientist who is the British Foreign Minister. His article was published
in the April 2010 New York Review of Books.
- 124. Public Opinion Polls: An Urgent,
Fast Audit for the Behavioral Science/Human Terrain System in Afghanistan.
- 125. Behavioral Science from Vietnam to
Afghanistan: Methods, Theories, Policies. April, 2010.
- 126. The US Afghanistan Model (2010):
Theory, data, graphics and analysis from the perspective of behavioral science. Forwards a
High Resolution Powerpoint of the US
Afghanistan strategy and the related article from The New York Times that appeared April 27, 2010.
- 127. The Urgent Need to Apply Behavioral Science to
International Security: New Evidence + 2 Examples.
- 128. Fwd: "Nine Scenarios for Imminent Apocalypse";
Implications. Includes a version of Johan Rockstrom et al., "Planetary Boundaries: Exploring
the Safe Operating Space for Humanity." Discusses the urgent need for the Obama Administration
to develop meta-models (above the study
of physical processes) to understand global political
learning and agenda setting and how to accelerate these processes. May, 2010.
- 129. Update: "Dow Falls 1,000 - Experts Still Baffled."
Implications.
- 130. Update: Newsweek to be Sold. Declining
Journalism and (Lagging) Democratic Adaptations. Implications.
- 131. Update: British Government Falls. Growing Political
Instability as an Effect of Global Economic Hardship. Implications.
- 132. Richard Clarke's New Alarm: Cyber War/Cybersecurity;
the North Korea chapter.
- 133. Good News! Recapitalization and President Obama's new
strategic framework. Relevant behavioral science investments for the more hopeful G-20 global
governance system. May, 2010
- 134. The North Korea Chapter: Fwd: "Five Possible Ways
to War" by David Sanger and the G-20 system.
- 135. Functional requirements of the new Group of 20
global system. [See also # 133.]
- 136. Recapitalizing social science: Subra Suresh
as the new NSF Director. June, 2010.
- 137. The Washington Post series:
The Relevance of Behavioral Science. July, 2010.
- 138. The Political Influence Chapter: Jervis v. Powers
and the National Academy of Sciences Report. Includes part of the exchange in the New York
Review of Books and Thomas Powers' view: "This is fundamental. If you can't get this right
you can't get anything right" on interpretation of evidence re political influence and the IRAQ WMD
estimates. August, 2010.
- 139. Reinventing Statistics and Econometrics:
A Powerful Idea? Friedman on "Really Unusually Uncertain . . ." Faster Learning via Parallel
Breakthroughs with Computational Biology. A reinterpreation of forecasting failures and a
counter-hypothesis, across cases. August, 2010.
- 140. Homeland Security and Databases: Cross-
Border Challenges and Testbeds. Forwards, and discusses, the Washington Post Report
concerning the 99% failure rate of US Homeland Security re the physical
outflow of $25 billion/year in cash across US borders. Suggests that this is a bit scary if we
are depending upon current computer databases and analysis methods, etc. to keep America safe
from the potential flow of terrorists, arms (including bioterror weapons), and terrorist-supporting
money into the U.S. Suggests some ideas that the National Academy might want to recommend.
August 2010.
- 141. Testing New Reality-Creation Theories of
World Politics. Revisits the earlier recommendation to restart and upgrade content analysis
methods as a recapitalization investment for fast discovery R&D across many areas of concern.
Also discusses
several ideas suggested by a recent interview of former Under Secretary Richard Armitage and
the possibility of a cross-national test of democracies - e.g., whether the
Fox News/John Boehner/Mitch McConnell dumbing-down effects are universal or just in the US.
August, 2010.
- 142. Interpreting Data: Bueno de
Mesquita's Methods, Behavioral Science, and More Successful Afghanistan Policies. Discusses
cognitive reframing and new forecasts/policy options/experiments based on Pay for Performance.
Includes Greg Jaffe, "U.S. to Temper Stance on Afghanistan Corruption" from the Washington Post
of
September 3, 2010 and Greg Miller and Joshua Partlow, "CIA Pays Officials Around Karzai" from
the Washington Post of August 27, 2010. Includes a citation to CIA Director Panetta's recent
estimate of 60 to 100, maybe less, Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and raises questions of reframing
and cost-benefit analysis comparing US methods/policy options.
- 143. Good Ideas from the Wolfram Data Summit;
New NSF $5,000/year Global Trends Data Grants? DALLAS. Includes announcement of
the new Q4 DALLAS launch by Microsoft and Wolfram et al. September, 2010.
- 144. Wolfram Conference - 2. The New UN
32-foot x 8-foot Earth Dashboard Visual Display System. Discusses use of visual display
systems as a management + political tool.
- 145. The National Academy's Afghanistan
Chapter: 9 Years of Data, Theories, Forecasts, Lessons. Includes Nordland, "Security in
Afghanistan is Deteriorating . . ." from the NYT of 9/11/2010 and Shane et al., "Secret Assault
on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents," NYT of 8/14/2010. This chapter will be a critical test for
the behavioral sciences. Silence is going to be taken as evidence that academic behavioral
scientists are useless and that we have nothing left to contribute of importance about any
urgent national problem/challenge, when I think that the opposite is the case.
- 146. Moving Forward:
Linking Environmental and Political Data. Pakistan Flooding and Fwd: Solomon, "Drowning Today,
Parched Tomorrow" (NYT 8/15/2010). Evidence of progress in the US/DNI system re
linking scientific to political forecasts and initiatives in Pakistan. Further steps
in DNI capabilities to link science-based models and forecasts to policy analysis may improve
policy intelligence in
all countries. Notes
recommendations re scientific-
policy links in Ascher et al., Knowledge and Environmental Policy MIT Press, 2010.
- 147. Global Health and DNI's Political
Opportunity Analysis. Includes C. Forrest, Bartek, Rubinstein and Groft, "The Case for a Global
Rare-Diseases Registry" from
Lancet (8/2/2010) [re opportunities to benefit 250 million people, including US citizens,
by a creative use of new global Internet capability] and "Is It Time We Paid More Attention to
Rare Diseases?" by Frances
Perraudin in Time
(8/21/2010). A further
discussion of Political Opportunity Analysis based on emerging capabilities with US leadership.
The DNI may find that we under-estimate
similar capabilities across many areas and what (now) can be accomplished.
- 148. Wolfram 3: Data Architectures for Rapid
Learning Systems.
- 149. DNI Assistance: NSF Political Science,
NIMH, and Other Implications. If behavioral science research is to help us to understand the
world of the 21st century, it ought to include many non-US sites and subjects. Suggests a
government planning process, with a state-of-the-art scientific strategy. Perhaps beginning with
comparative politics and the theory of voting? September, 2010. [See also the groundwork of
Gergen and Sears, cited in # 12, above.]
- 150. Misperception Analysis as a Component
of DNI Briefings? Hoffman's Evidence re President Reagan and the End of the Cold War. Includes
excerpts from David Hoffman's recent The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and
Its Dangerous Legacy, re President Reagan's changing perceptions. Notes that Reagan's
change/learning was not, by Hoffman's account, solely a
cognitive process. What actually happened may have broader implications for IR theory, including
a theory of (potential) learning agendas in current violent conflicts involving other actors.
- 151. Tony Blair's Memoirs re Cheney: Was Jihadism a Rational
Response to Bush-Cheney Foreign Policy? An Experiment. Returns to issues of learning by the
US intelligence community re giving advice about generic, recurring problems (e.g., # 1 Hubris,
the
Cheney Syndrome, the Rory Stewart Problem, above). Draws upon Tony Blair's recent discussion
of
Dick Cheney and suggests the analogy of the likely response
of Christian fundamentalists, in the US, if Stalin had declared an equivalent and urgent agenda
"to destroy the power of the Christian fundamentalists/fundamentalist preachers" in America to
"modernize" American society. Suggests an American experiment by the Obama Administration
to test two models of current violent jihadism and - possibly - get better political results. This
submission builds on the disclosures/discovery about Ronald Reagan (the previous submission, #150)
that he misunderstood how even Soviet leaders [with the intelligence resources of the KGB and its
diplomatic corps and decades of experience with America - LE] could dangerously misperceive US foreign
policy and
the character of the American government. The new experiment could test a theory that
there is
equivalent, current, misperception remaining in the Islamic world.
- 152. The Need to Be More Intelligent . . . :
MI-5 (UK) Forecasts. Implications. Discusses the $750 billion - $1 trillion spent across the
past decade by the DNI system in the US and counterpart intelligence agencies in NATO, the former
Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia, etc. Draws upon observations by the head of MI-5 (UK) that suggest the
next 10 years will simply continue these levels of expenditures to limit terrorist attacks while
facing a future of adaptive opponents and "potent new threats." Asks whether the Fischhoff study
and
the US National Academy of Sciences might suggest fresh ideas about better understanding of "extremist"
groups and how to do political outreach? September 20, 2010. [See also # 10, above.]
- 153. Behavioral Science: What Do You Need in Order to Best
Carry Out Your Mission? The DNI and Fast Discovery R&D; NSF, DARPA/IARPA, and Other Models.
Suggests that the DNI, General Clapper, may assume that the nation's academic behavioral scientists
- via NSF funding and peer review - are working as hard and productively as possible, with
funding to do their best work on their best R&D ideas, to advance our understanding of human
behavior as quickly as possible. . . It would be useful to inform General Clapper that this
assumption is inaccurate. Discusses neutralizing and limiting political pressures and institutional
dysfunctions - at NSF and also limiting the National Academy of Sciences advisory input - that
have been
uncorrected since the Reagan years. Suggests asking for General Clapper's
help - e.g., to provide a catalyst for oversight review by the Obama Administration - to achieve a
national system that works. One of the benefits of behavioral science is that it can ask
fundamental questions that allow people to rethink what they are doing.
- 154. Priority Requests: Cloud Computing for Behavioral
Science R&D; Federal Curated Data Systems via DALLAS, Daniel Goroff at OSTP.
- 155. The National Academy's Role to Challenge Petraeus:
"This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kid's lives
;"
Bob Woodward's New Book.
- 156. A New Era: Wars Fought on the Basis of Assumptions of
Behavioral Science . . . Beyond Beltway Bandits and Proprietary Data. Fwd: Friedman on Permanent
Threat Analysis Industries.. Thomas Friedman: "I was recently at a Washington Nationals
baseball game. While waiting for a hot dog, I overheard the conversation behind me. A management
consultant for a big national firm was telling his colleagues that his job was to 'market products
to the Department of Homeland Security.' I thought to myself: 'Oh, my! Inventing studies about
terrorist threats and selling them to the U. S. government, is that an industry now?'"
- 157. Pillar's Theory: Is the Militarized GWOT
Running Out of Time? Updating Katzenstein/Keohane with a Multi-Method, Multi-Study Architecture.
September 30, 2010.
- 158. High Rates of Unexpected Events? Reinventing
Statistics: World Politics + Acceleration. Can the DNI be as Successful as a Hedge Fund Manager?
October 4, 2010. How frequently does Fate deal America a new hand? If the answer of the National
Academy of Sciences/Fischhoff Commission is "annually," and the probability of a particular hand
is 2%, then the intuitive statistician will think that it is rare and unlikely. But suppose that
Fate deals a new hand every quarter? Every month? Every day? . . .
- 159. Forecasting and Using the Ithiel de Sola Pool and
McLuhan Effects. Reinventing World Politics as Control of the Future. October 5, 2010.
- 160. Wolfram 4: The BBC's Leading Edge Ontology/Indexing
System - World Soccer & the London Olympics. Evolving solutions to data indexing, storage,
retrieval, display, and analysis with very large, complex databases. The BBC - with enough financial
support to be a global,
open source, intelligence service - monitors more than 200 global TV channels and has about 12,000
journalists in the UK and 80 global locations. There is a generic and urgent need for domain
ontologies beyond Google's Bayesian search.
- 161. Why is Deterrence Not Working? Evaluating
GWOT Strategies.
- 162. Wolfram 5: Data-Empowered, Rapid-Learning
Behavioral Science. Cross-disciplinary comparisons. The Global Content Analysis System (GCAS).
October 7, 2010.
- 163. Rapid Response Discussions/Evaluation of the
Fischhoff Report; Budget Cycles.
- 164. Wolfram 6: Upper Bounds to CIA
Performance; A
Better Future for Economists and National Academy Recommendations. Notes from ALFRED.
- 165. Post-Woodward Analysis: Afghanistan, the Obama
Administration, and Behavioral Science? Applying President Reagan's Hypothesis to Mullah
Omar? October 10, 2010.
- 166. Beyond the usual Fairy Godmother List of
solutions? Fwd: Kaiser on Leebaert.
- 167. Improving R&D Recommendations: Suggestions from former
National Security advisers and others with academic/social science backgrounds.
- 168. Kosovo and Other Cases - Successes and Lessons? Third
Party Diplomacy for Intelligence, Prevention, and Follow-Through?
- 169. Forecasting and Intelligence: An Urgent Case for
G-20 (Systemic) Capability?. October 13, 2010.
- 170. The Reinventing Statistics Chapter: Optimal
Sampling Rates in Changing/Accelerating Systems? Develops the meta-analysis [# 139, above] of
several alarming government forecasting failures, in different fields, and the hypothesis that a
National Academy recommendation to Reinvent Statistics (along several dimensions) would get
better future results, and more valid measures of current uncertainty. October 13, 2010.
- 171. Woodward on Dr. Petraeus's "forehead-smacking
moment." The National Academy of Sciences & interpreting the 500 categories of
information collected in Afghanistan.
- 172. Moving Faster than Governments: A Lagging
G-20 System in an Accelerating World? Information Overload Issues.
- 173. DNI Databases and Two Theories of Truth: The
Correctness/Analytic Theory v. the Unconcealment/Enlightenment Theory. Implications for National
Intelligence?
- 174. The Expanding Economics Chapter: Moving
Faster Than the Academic World. Rapid (US + international) learning about stimulus/recovery
packages and conflicting theories. October 17, 2010.
- 175. Forecasting Global Competition: DNI Upgrades
and US Policies. Another (Alleged) Gathering Storm (Category 5).
- 176. Recommendations: Advisory Panel on
Comparative Politics and Public Data.
- 177. The Evaluating US Public Diplomacy Chapter:
Wider Problems; http://publicdiplomacy.wikia.com (wikia with an "a").
- 178. Upgrading Economic Models: War-Gaming Global
Finance Counter-Moves by Smart Opponents. Building Momentum for the Fischhoff Report. October
26, 2010.
- 179. Rapid Learning + IT is the New Paradigm! The Obama
Administration's Global Cancer (Rapid Learning + IT) Initiative.
- 180. New Cloud Computing/Rapid Learning Applications for
Scholars and Analysts: Comparative Post-Victory Forecasts/Planning: WWII (Japan, Germany, Italy),
Iraq, Afghanistan, Philippine-American War, the Panama Invasion, etc. The CASCON Model.
- 181. Rebalancing the $80.1 Billion/Year:
Endowing Behavioral Science and National Intelligence Capabilities. Recapitalizing and the
News Media. Includes a copy of Walter Pincus, "Intelligence Spending at Recotd $80.1 Billion
in First Disclosure of Overall Figure" from the Washington Post 10/29/2010.
- 182. Blowing a Sufficiently Loud Whistle: Failures of
President Obama's Appointees to Connect the Dots. Fwd: Friedman, "Long Live Lady Luck" (11/6/2010).
November 10, 2010.
- 183. Update: New Data re Asymmetrical Wealth.
Implications for Global Forecasting and Economic Models; Fwd: Kristof on Banana Republic Models.
November 20, 2010.
- 184. WikiLeaks Interpretations: Are Islamic
Politicians "Playing" the US Government? November 29, 2010.
- 185. Update: Dallek's New Analysis and Lessons re
System-Level Intelligence. December, 2010.
- 186. Urgent "Red Team" Projects: 1.
Implications of "Are Islamic Politicians 'Playing' the US Government?" [See # 184 above].
December 4, 2010.
- 187. High Priority "Red Team" Projects: Do
Jervis-type Misperceptions Govern World Politics?. December 5, 2010.
- 188. Red Team Priorities: Challenging the Conventional
Wisdom of Economics.
- 189. Fwd: Declassified British Report - The Failure to Predict
the Fall of the Shah. Includes a discussion of cross-national comparisons
with the Israeli success and the possible advantages of
journalists, discussed by Sir Nicholas Browne. December 15, 2010.
- 190. The USGOV Visual Display/Dashboard 1.0 Launch:
http://www.foreignassistance.gov/InitiativeLanding.aspx. In the long run, the possibility is to create
a working tool for senior executives, collaboration, and accelerated progress, including tracking
metrics, not just a PR display. A well designed research program, based on behavioral science
expertise, will help to create directions and new resources for the design teams that are bulding
this new generation of tools. December 21, 2010.
- 191. Red Team Analysis: A Weak, Underdeveloped, Offense
Strategy in the War on Terror. Testing Strategies from Competitive Election Campaigns. Wilileaks,
Youth Audiences, and Smart Power.
- 192. Red Team Projects: Can WikiLeaks be Used to Stabilize
Global Financial Markets? A New Dimension for the National Academy of Sciences/ Behavioral Science
Advice to the DNI.
- 193. Red Team: The Rosen-Brooks Hypothesis: Does the U. S. Misinterpret
Corruption in Afghanistan? Suggests that a deeper moral/ethical analysis (e.g., of the
origin of the Taliban, # 52 above) also might discover new possibilities for a political settlement.
One implication of the Rosen-Brooks Hypothesis could be that there is much less good reason for
the Taliban, American soldiers, and even the current
Karzai government to continue killing people than it appears. Includes an excerpt from Lawrence
Rosen's, "Understanding Corruption" from the March-April issue of The American Interest.
- 194. Red Team: Is a Better Future [That
Defies the Predictable] Possible Quickly?. Gives six examples of new opportunities
to create a future that defies the predictable. The Obama Administration is
being held back, in a changing world, by too many conventional assumptions.
The new variables involve public goods - creative applications of digital communications
technologies on a global scale and a light touch of high level leadership that engages the organizing
capabilities of a networked international system.
Brief (early draft) overviews of the combinatorial (and analytic) thinking for several of the projects
also are discussed in "A Cultural Affairs Cooperative and Website"
and Letter to Michael Kaiser et al.; a free global science
service to accelerate energy research and for other breakthrough needs outlined for Dr. Huang;
and information needs and opportunities to bring the G-20
system, as envisioned by Secretary Clinton, online.
- 195. Red Team: Opportunity Costs and National Security in
a Changing Historical Epoch; Global Enrollment Theories. The New World Politics and
http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?file=15228. Suggests that some
of the classic motivations for war (i.e., from the agricultural age and the industrial age) are -
with the vital exception of control of oil resources - abating. Rebalancing an input mix in the
national security equations could achieve added benefits along a new dimension by applying new
communications
technology and enrolling people in better futures than are possible through violence. Suggests
initial hypotheses/experiments concerning the possibility of the New world politics via global
Breast Cancer patient
registries (and for other cancers and other diseases and conditions, using new electronic health
record systems) for rapid
global learning; and other rapid learning projects to benefit the lives of people in all countries.
January 5, 2011.
- 196. Scientific Advice - a Red Team Meta-Analysis: Dallek's
"Three Myths" Theory of 20th Century US Foreign Policy Mistakes. Includes a copy of Dallek's
article from the November 2010 issue of Foreign Policy. Includes recommendations for
cross-case tests of Kennedy's
imperial overreach prediction, hubris ideas, and other hypotheses about follies/areas where
something seems to be missing from current capacities for rational analysis. January 6, 2011.
- 197. A Red Team Field Experiment: Rapid Learning
and the Possibility of an Afghanistan Breakthrough in Two Years. January 9, 2011. A new
cost-effective approach that could reduce terrorist recruitment in Afghanistan and Yemen and tip
the balance. With an annual GDP/capita of about $900 in 2010, it would be easy to use the CCC
model to create 1 million jobs for unemployed youth and steeply reduce Taliban recruitment.
This also would provide basic literacy and marketable skills for economic development, and
support worthwhile projects involving manual labor. The experiment could be scaled upward and also
might work quickly and effectively in Yemen and elsewhere. See also # 40
(above).
- 198. Red Team: Human Relationships - Applying Long & Brecke to
Iraq and Afghanistan? Constitutive Processes (Lasswell) in Different Cultures. Drawing
a slightly different set of lessons from Iraq.
- 199. Red Team: Urgent Policy Implications of Lawrence
Summers: "The wholesale abdication of public responsibility that will unfold across
Europe . . . "? An agenda that I beg you to move forward. Includes, as an attachment, a
reference copy of Robert Reischauer's 2002 overview of inherited upgrade issues.
- 200. Red Team: Vividness: Is the Middle East Peace Process Too
Rational?. A better Grand Strategy could be possible if planners can bring the visual
cortex and its emotional linkages into alignment with the neocortex and analytic processes.
- 201. Followup: "Afghans Look at Americans like
Americans are from Mars." Advice from National Academy of Science Members? Submitted with
a copy of AAA Commission on the Engagement of
Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Community (CEAUSSIC), Final Report on the
Army's Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program (October 14, 2009). January 13, 2011.
- 202. Red Team: Fwd: "As Opium Prices Soar. . . "Is the Afghan
War now partly a Mexican drug war? Implications for Better Strategy? January 15, 2011.
Initially, the Taliban opposed poppy cultivation and opium production on moral grounds. As an
adaptation to the war with America, they now appear to have created an alliance with the Afghan drug
mafia that supplies 85% of the world's market, with a current street value of $58 billion/year.
Because of the US and NATO opposition to the drug trade, it would be helpful for a Red Team to
analyze if the new financing of the Taliban war is, in part, changing it into a proxy war. If so,
are there implications for field experiments and a better strategy?
- 203. Red Team (+ National Academy) Economics: Fwd:
The Economist, "The Great Unknown . . ." re the new , outsmartable data systems;
the CIA's
Office of Political Psychology & profiling hedge fund managers.
- 204. A Triple Interpretation Method for
Foreign Policy Breakdowns? Fwd: Ricks on Bergen on 9/11 Re-Analysis. Discusses Saudi Arabia's
role as an example of the new, equation-based, method.
- 205. Red Team: Do National Security Planners Understand
the World's Youth Cultures? A (Proposed) New Realpolitik. Includes a copy of
a 12/9/2010 letter and proposal for US/Kennedy Center leadership to create a global cultural
affairs cooperative with support from 1% of the $107+ billion annual advertising budgets
by the world's leading global advertisers. ["Global advertiser" is defined as advertising on
three or more continents.] See also # 11 (above). A New Realpolitik political dimension
is possible
because the answer to the question "Who will rule the world?" is not simply one or more
nation-states but "Today's young people." And,
while this always has been true, the confluence of the global IT revolution - with easy and direct
global links to young people - and the historically
unique "youth bulge" demographics in much of the world, create a practical and usable opportunity to
rethink, "outside the nine dots" of conventional Realpolitik. Abundant cultural and education ties,
health links, placement
of
America as an idealistic leader, etc. can transform and upgrade the future of international
relations. (Also, rapid IT investments for Internet linkups at K-12 schools in UDCs.)
This could a unique and exciting "upside" opportunity in world history, that comes to life with
a twenty-year time horizon (and, possibly, sooner) if a Red Team
challenges traditional thinking. January 19, 2011.
- 206. An Urgent Red Team: Oil Oligopoly Effects on
Prices, G-20 Recovery, Exploration, Politics. Fresh Thinking = ?. President Obama should
see the numbers. January 19, 2011.
- 207. Red Team: Rethinking Political Change - The
Daily Show model. Fwd: Parazit and "VOA program enthralls Iranians, irks their
government." January 20, 2011.
- 208. Red Team: Bolder IT Upgrades for US Grand Strategy
+ Rational Management? Rethinking the causal equations. January 21, 2011.
- 209. Red Team: Jervis-theory Distortions in the
Causal Maps for President Obama?. January 22, 2011.
- 210. Red Team: Sentinel (N=60 million) is working!
Upgrading Grand Strategy = Science Statesmanship + IT? Fwd: NEJM
(1/12/2011), "Developing the Sentinel System . . . ". Exploring potential benefits of the
Sentinel rapid learning idea for science and math education, animal and plant health, and
bio-nutrient development. Traditionally, much of the time
of research scientists is spent collecting data. The new capabilities create opportunities for
rapid learning in which hypotheses can be developed and tested, 24 x 7, by researchers and
students worldwide, and almost at the speed of thought. January 23, 2011.
- 211. Red Team: Rethinking Invisibility - The Obama
Administration's Human Rights Strategy and Faster Progress. January 24, 2011.
- 212. Red Team: Calibrating the Domino Theory & the
"Reverse" Domino Theory. Scheuer's Prediction; 21st century Media Effects. January 24, 2011.
- 213. Red Team: Can the State Department Outsmart
al-Qaeda? The "Living in Imaginationland" Education Strategy. The three successful
arguments identified by Scheuer (Oxford UP, 2010) suggest this strategy could work. January 27, 2011.
- 214. Red Team: Challenging + Upgrading Grand
Strategy for US Competitiveness: Data Systems, War Room Displays, Better Theories. Suggests
follow-up implications of President Obama's State of the Union Address and priorities. January 31,
2011.
- 215. Red Team (timely): Testing Brooks-Lasswell:
"The United States Usually Gets Everything Wrong." Fifty years of cases
(like the current Egyptian case) across different regions and many cultures: A challenging, useful
hypothesis. February 1, 2011.
- 216. Red Team (KGB Archives): Are there Russian spies that
we did not catch? And why not?. February 3, 2011.
- 217. Tunisia + Egypt + ? : Intelligence Failure or Brilliant
Success?. Includes a copy of Mark Mazzetti, "Obama Said to Fault Spy Agencies' Mideast
Forecasting," New York Times, 2/4/2011. February 5, 2011.
- 218. Red Team: Maximum Velocity Elimination of War. A Red Team
should be convened to evaluate institutional and scientific capacities to eliminate war -
as a goal to be achieved, at President Obama's direction, with maximum velocity. A 15-year follow
up to the Carnegie (Hamburg) Commission's visionary Report on the Prevention of Violent
Conflict in 1997. February 5, 2011.
- 219. Red Team: Maximum Velocity Elimination of
Nuclear Weapons. Nuclear weapons will not be eliminated without a good strategic plan and a
managed process. Recommends a Red Team challenge to conventional political assumptions and
the pace of events and a response to George Shultz et al.,
Reykjavik Revisited: Steps Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons. February 6, 2011.
- 220. Red Team: G-20 Strategy & Needs-Blind Foreign
Admissions to APSIA Graduate Programs. Suggests "thinking long," 20-30 years into the
future.
The world is moving quickly from the locus of international relationships in inter-governmental relations
(conducted via diplomats and the court protocols of absolute monarchs at the time of the Congress
of Vienna) to globalization across sectors, to acceleration, and to a new era of building
networks and to complex, adaptive, and changing systems. The Obama Administration, via slowed
budget reductions in the DNI's $80 billion/year budget, could thoughtfully transfer endowment
funds, as investments, to a range of projects. February 6, 2011.
- 221. Red Team: General Clapper v. Henry Kissinger v. David
Brooks v. standards of behavioral scientists.. Testing Brooks' "The United States usually gets
everything wrong" analysis and the quality of data, analysis, and brainpower that the American
people are getting from a new $80 billion/year system. February 7, 2011.
- 222. Red Team (urgent): Predator-Prey Models,
World Food Price Index up 17% in 3 months? Friedman on Prices, Political Outrage and Middle
East Instability. A new connect-the-dots/forecasting failure? There are complex,
adaptive systems that inter-penetrate. Try overlaying the conventional market economics models
(Y = C + I + G) with
a Lotka-Volterra equation. February 7, 2011.
- 223. Red Team: Friedman on Mideast instability and
cautions re US pressure for Chinese currency devaluation. If Friedman is right, this could
be the wrong time for another series of mistakes by the US government. Secretary Geithner,
Dr. Summers, and the Peterson Institute may have run models that were too limited a basis to brief
the President. February 7, 2011.
- 224. Notes on Egypt, Google, Secretary Clinton's support
for new ideas, and Henry Kissinger's question. Remarkable! February 8, 2011.
- 225. Red Team: Challenging resignation and the write-off
of the youth generation in UDCs; TED-IR? A Post-Egypt Spirit - , February 10, 2011.
- 226. Red Team/NAS: Blowing the Whistle on the
Financial Crisis Inquiry Report (2011). Huge failures of analysis, from the viewpoint
of the behavioral sciences. Since it is an official Report, there may be a danger that General
Clapper and the CIA Director could believe its causal diagnosis and ideas. February 10, 2011.
- 227. Red Team: a 20% drop in world sugar future prices in
two days? Hedge funds and alpha-predator computer programs. Includes a copy of
J. Blas, "High-speed trading blamed for sugar rises," Financial Times, (2/8/2011). Notes
that the World Bank appears to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars for emergency relief,
which may not be necessary. Spycraft would help to nail-down the causal mechanisms. February 11, 2011.
- 228. Red Team: Rebalancing the Federal Science
Portfolio. Fwd: G. King,"Ensuring the Data-Rich Future of the Social Sciences," Science
(2/11/2011). Includes a copy of Dr. King's article. Also: Requesting General Clapper's full support
for the rebalancing process and developing the new NSF Five Year Infrastructure
Plan for public/scientific data systems. Also, rebalancing the NSF/NSB system. February 11, 2011.
- 229. Red Team: Post-Mubarak - Rapid Deployment Data
Systems.
- 230. Red Team: Barack Obama is a Community
Organizer! A Better Paradigm in World Politics? Egypt and Data Implications. President Obama
is ahead of the textbooks and, probably, parts of the inherited DNI system. The new paradigm
layers on top of traditional paradigms and also co-exists with new paradigms of other actors
- e.g., the Davos managerial paradigm (according to which Mubarak has been replaced as an under-
performing manager). Probably, President Obama's new paradigm is a better paradigm for world
politics/American foreign policy in the 21st century. It also, if reality continues to change, is
a better paradigm for 21st century IR theory textbooks. Predicts a forthcoming second activation
of the new paradigm re global health (e.g., 147, 179, above). See also # 32 (above): "From the Minuet to the Basketball Court."
- 231. Red Team - Post Egypt: Deploying Hierarchical
Psychodrama Models. A Theory of Non-Violent Liberationist Revolution. Includes "Addendum:
An Exciting New and Integrating Paradigm in the Social Sciences." Hierarchical psychodrama
models will be helpful, as a new class of (neuroscience-based) models in the behavioral sciences,
across a wide range. They are especially
appropriate for these new concerns and political behavior in cultures/political systems that have
not gone through the Protestant Reformation or the Enlightenment.
- 232. Red Team: Watson, "Jeopardy" and China. Suggests
a Red Team/National Academy of Sciences design (including a draft list of prioritized
questions) for Mencius.
- 233. Red Team: "Stability has Left the Building."
Catching up with the President's secret 8/2010 directive; Neuroscience and Dr. Sharp's theory of
non-violent revolutions. Includes copies of Mark Landler, "Secret Report Ordered by Obama
Identified Potential Uprisings" and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Shy U. S. Intellectual Created Playbook
Used in a Revolution," from the New York Times of 2/17/2011. Note that Obama's paradigm
of community organizing adds further independent elements (e.g., prior discussions with the
Egyptian military and Israel) to the Sharp theory/experiment.
- 234. Red Team: Appiah and the Theory of Moral Upgrades.
Includes a copy of Binyamin Appelbaum, "As U. S. Agencies Put More Value on a Life, Businesses
Fret," New York Times, 2/17/2011. Suggests a Red Team/National Academy of Sciences
project to identify experiments in moral upgrades for world politics
and the international system - e.g., drawn from Appiah's The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions
Happen. Rapid learning and a better causal theory about how to improve ethics and morality in
world politics would be an extraordinary discovery. February 17, 2011
- 235. Red Team: Online Data Systems for Fast Discovery
Social Science; Emerging Islamic Democracy. February 18, 2011.
- 236. Red Team - A Teachable Moment? Hubris/Dignity
Theory
and 50 years of "Usually Getting Everything Wrong." The Egyptian reversal of American
foreign policy - and David Brooks' public conclusion that for fifty years "the U.S.
Usually got Everything Wrong" (by favoring its loyal autocratic ally) - is a teachable moment.
The DNI and the DNI's National Academy of Science advisers need to think deeply about the
implications of America's changing sides. And, given the new lessons drawn by President Obama
and Secretary Clinton, about why the CIA/intelligence community was complicit (if it was) in
fifty years of mistaken US judgments. February 19, 2011.
- 237. Red Team: Philanthropy & Cognitive Maps for
the Islamic World.
- 238. Red Team: "They don't listen to most of what we
say . . . : A teachable moment?. Possibly, major advances along two dimensions.
February 22, 2011.
- 239. Red Team: The 'Who Listens to American Leaders?"
Inquiry - Three Possible Policy Lessons. The Red Team/National Academy should take a fresh
look because, through this process, we probably will recognize that there also is far more
opportunity for power and
rapid progress than we currently imagine. February 24, 2011.
- 240. Red Team: NSF/NSB Confusion and Partnership Issues
. A Red Team should challenge outdated assumptions that the National Science Foundation and
National Science Board are trustworthy about maintaining - at their own initiative - contact
with, or understanding of, changing economic, political, social, or cultural reality beyond the
water's edge. Specific requests from the DNI and its constituent members are required for
best results. Includes a copy of NSF, Empowering the Nation through
Discovery and Innovation. NSF Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years (FY) 2011-2016. February 27, 2011.
- 241. Red Team: Egypt, Rapid Deployment, NSF & Others.
Discusses hypotheses by Scheuer (forecasting a failure of Egyptian secular democracy and dangers
to Israeli
security) and several alternative hypotheses for rapid testing. February 27, 2011.
- 242. Red Team: New Measurements & Better NSF
Performance. NSF upgrades, long overdue. Examples in three areas that would provide
benefits to the DNI system. March 2, 2011.
- 243. Red Team: Friedman's new hypotheses (Islamic
youth) and rapid deployment political psychology.. March 2, 2011.
- 244. Red Team: The Middle East - from impasse to the
basketball court. US data systems and Scheuer's new hypotheses. March 8, 2011.
- 245. Red Team: Brooks's New Meta-Analysis of Neuroscience,
Policy Failure, and Humanism. March 8, 2011.
- 246. Red Team: Recapitalizing Social Science and Upgrading
NSF Merit Review/Performance Measures by 3/31/2011. Includes a copy of a letter of March 6, 2011
to Dr. Suresh, NSF Director, concerning NSF's quiet accommodations that damaged the social,
behavioral, and economic sciences during the era of Republican mindlessness. Also includes Prof.
Gary King's article from Science of 2/11/2011 about the "severe challenges . . . holding
back progress" in data systems for the SBE sciences: For our scientific Establishment to allow -
after fifteen years, as King discusses - an honest article in Science to mention "severe"
SBE problems in print also is a breakthrough. And a copy of Dr. Robert Reischauer's letter of
December 23, 2002 re the long history of fundamental and ignored criticism before the
catastrophic failure of the NSF economics program in the Bush era. March 8, 2011.
- 247. Red Team: An Intelligence Disclosure & New Estimates for
Afghanistan Counter-Insurgency Equations; Testing F. J. West's Early Exit Hypothesis.
Includes a reference copy of Steven Goode's paper, "A Historical Basis for Force Requirements in
Counterinsurgency," Parameters (Winter 2009/2010), pp. 45-57. March 9, 2011.
- 248. Red Team: The Afghanistan Disclosure [# 247, above]:
Urgent Forecasting of Behavioral and Technology Counter-Learning; Thinking Ahead and
Aegis Implications.
- 249. Red Team: An Urgent Economics Question that Only
the DNI's System Can Answer: "One Billion Threatened by Hunger," Recommending an
All-Competing-Theories, Multi-Method, Rapid Learning Project.
- 250. Red Team: The Republican "Strangle in the Cradle"
Strategy and its Inherited Legacy. Includes a letter of 3/17/2011 to NSF Director Suresh re NSF
Merit Review and rapid learning problems and an
early warning to the NSF Inspector General: "A
Breakdown Crafted by Silences: Scientific Mismanagement and National Policy Error," (September
10, 2002)
- 251. Red Team: DNI Responsibilities v. NSF's Unwritten
Rules and Merit Review Integrity Breakdowns.
- 252. Red Team: The Pakistan War: Expected Value [Danger]
v. Hollywood Danger. Riedel and a Scientific Upgrade for World Politics.
- 253. Red Team: The new Libyan War: a Cost/Benefit Analysis
of Bribery, and Dr. Petraeus's Lesson.
- 254. Red Team: Auditing Academic Capabilities for
Behavioral Science + International Security [R&D + Education] here and abroad. The Design of a
Rapid Learning System. March 22, 2011.
- 255. Red Team: The Next Attack on Governments - Auditing
CIA's Forecasting Model for International Finance Actors. March 23, 2011.
- 256. Red Team: The Virtual Pakistan Project.
March 23, 2011. See also # 252, above.
- 257. Red Team: Reversing the Process - DNI Suggestions to
Academic Social Science. March 23, 2011.
- 258. Foreign Intelligence Services: Advice,
Disgreements, and Lessons. New strategies for learning.
- 259. Planning Career Pathways & Funding DNI-Academic
Links. New ideas and mutually beneficial packages.
- 260. The Kissinger & Associates Model - New Methods
to Obtain Insider Information Abroad.
- 261. Red Team: America v. Smarter, Adaptive Opponents.
Fwd: "Drug Wars Push Deeper into Central America". The article by Randal C. Archibold and Damien
Cave, is from The New York Times of March 23, 2011.
- 262. Red Team: Update - Outsmarting Governments in World
Politics. Includes David Kocieniewski, "G.E.'s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether,"
The New York Times, March 24, 2011. A new and growing dimension in world politics, and a
shift in the balance of power, not
yet reflected in DNI forecasting and models or in textbooks. March 25, 2011.
- 263. Red Team: Methods That Can Identify U.S. Misperceptions
Quickly: Applying Gawande to Libya. March 26, 2011.
- 266. Red Team Followup: Detecting Emergent Systems;
Fwd: Brooks on Emergent Systems. Congratulations!
- 268. Red Team Followup: From National
Intelligence to Systemic Intelligence: Fwd: Pickering and Brahimi. A copy of Lakhdar Brahimi
and Thomas Pickering et al., Afghanistan: Negotiating Peace (New York: Century Foundation,
2011) is attached as an example of the emerging paradigm and agenda: It is not enough for ultimate
wisdom to be included in a highly classified briefing that arrives on the desk of an US President.
It also, probably, is not enough even for such a document to be circulated to allies.
March 30, 2011.
- 269. Red Team Followup: Challenging Models of Taliban
Negotiations. A copy of a letter suggesting an application of behavioral science
and a settlement
offer to the Taliban in a
cultural language that is more persuasive to them: "We have killed Osama bin Laden and we have
killed or captured 93 of the top 100 al-Qaeda leaders who were responsible for the 9/11 attack
against us. Now, we are ready to have a future of peace between us." The leaders of the Taliban,
and others in the Arab world, are more likely to believe us if they see us as acting, in
their terms, in a truly civilized and believable manner now that the demands of honor and revenge
have been met. See also # 90 (above). August 21, 2011.
- 270. Red Team Update: Kissinger on Four Wars
with Non-Learning and a Missing Theory.
- Memorandum concerning two developments in IR theory: 1.) the
addition of hubris-related models as scientific explanations of cases in American foreign policy,
esp. the Iraq War (w/ new evidence from Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside
America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (2006); and the still-undeveloped potential of
new global communications technologies for political acceleration, including both conflict
and new rapid-learning systems for science and healthcare. August 25, 2006.
- "NSA Surveillance: Secret Truths and Historic Choices", a
presentation prepared for the Political Psychology colloquium series at George Washington
University, (Draft - March 2006). Handout.
- "Nine Options to Reduce Illegitimate Surveillance of the
Internet", (Draft - January, 2006).
- "The Internet Was a Technology of Freedom", Op Ed piece
(January 2006) concerning the Bush Administration's global (domestic + foreign) surveillance system.
The reference is to the late Ithiel de Sola Pool's Technologies of Freedom.
- "Testing Two Propositions from Political Psychology" (November, 2005).
A suggested test of the Can Governments Learn? model of optional wars using the emerging
information about the Bush Administration's Iraq War decision making. [By contrast with
Realist/rational choice or simple misperception theories, this political psychology model of
optional wars is closer to the Greek theory of hubris.] Also, a suggested test of the
(June 2001, below) "Will the Bush Administration Unravel?" prediction, based on the James D.
Barber's work and the similarity of George Bush to President Warren Harding in Barber's framework.
If the Harding analogy is apt, the theory suggests that Vice President Cheney played a large role
in the initiative to extend a war from Afghanistan to Iraq and presenting this case to the
President.
- Council on Foreign Relations Report on American Non-Learning. A
final draft of a forthcoming Report by a Council on Foreign Relations taskforce on lesson-drawing
and non-learning across six American interventions since the early 1990s. [I studied three
earlier return engagements [Can Governments Learn?] in Central America, from the 1950s
(Guatemala), 1960s (Cuba)and Iran-contra and agree with several of the observations, although
with a more psychological explanation.
- Symposium: McNamara's Lessons and The Fog of War edited for APSA's
Perspectives on Politics. Includes an editor's introduction and a contribution
with my list of nine lessons. And contributions by Richard Ned Lebow, Michael Shapiro, and Karen Turner.
Draws upon the social sciences and humanities to propose three learning strategies. March 2004.
- Statement for the House Appropriations Subcommittee re
three fresh ideas for American foreign policy/public diplomacy, esp. concerning the Muslim world.
February, 2004. Outlines health, education, and linkup strategies for political leadership
and to use new & emerging
(rather than last-generation mass media) communications technology to benefit the lives of people.
- Recommendation for 12 Centers for Comparative Foreign Policy (January 24,
2003) as a
NSF infrastructure investment in new observation sites over the next decade. Builds upon the work
of political psychologists re misperception and learning, and of Paul Kennedy et al. re "pivotal
states" in the developing world
that are likely to become
major forces for good, or ill, in their regions and the international system in the 21st century:
Algeria, Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa and Turkey. Also adds
three countries with greater cultural distance from the US where, as a result, misperceptions could
be more likely to affect relations: China, Japan, Russia. As a departure from past
practice, the Centers will be established overseas (with collaborators in the countries to be
studied) rather than
in the US. Suggests about $80+ million over the next decade.
- "Deterring Saddam Hussein: A Dangerous Fantasy" (1/3/2003). An Op Ed
piece drawing upon the contributions of political psychology to international relations theory. Suggests
three tests that deterrence advocates must meet. Points
out that the assumptions of deterrence theory do not match Saddam Hussein's personality profile.
Forecasts that messianic ambition and absolute confidence in eventual triumph will cause
deterrence policies to fail because he will overreach and miscalculate,
resulting in a self-destructive war with the US. Responds to an unrealistic display ad in the
The New York Times by Dr. John Mearsheimer and other IR theorists advocating reliance upon rational-choice deterrence.
- "Five Internet Projects That Can Change the World" (1999). Also,
from the International Scientific Networks project (above).
- "BCCI: The Real Story." Another perspective on Clark Clifford's
possible role and oversight. (September, 1992).
- "Change (and Learning) in World Politics: Case
Selection and Theory Development." Unpublished draft prepared for the Mershon Center (1991).
- "Relationship-Building as a Basis for Security." Notes for a
faculty working group on Redefining Security, Yale University.
An early, brief discussion
of lessons from the history of international relations,
relationship-building, &
telecommunications that became the
international scientific networks projects. (May, 1991).
- "Lesson-Learning in International Relations Since 1500: Are Principled Dispute
Settlements Superior?. Draft proposal to build upon/test the theories of Roger Fisher & the
Harvard Negotiation Project. (1990).
- "Managerial Responsibility and the World's Need: Perception
and Misperception in American Foreign Policy." A framework and seven
hypotheses from different bodies of literature to study
US bilateral relationships, learning and non-learning, and inform the curriculum
for new foreign
policy professionals. Builds upon Neustadt's Alliance Politics; uses Jervis
as a baseline to establish beginner's biases. (1990).
- "Promoting Democratic Values: The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Experiment." With Erik Wilenz. (1990).
- Proposal for the Goheen Report. Original proposal (October 9, 1987)
for a global CSPAN initiative to link-up APSIA schools (Association for Professional Training
in International Relations) and counterpart graduate training institutions in other countries
to support the development of professional diplomacy. In the spirit of the relationship-building
ideas (1991).
- "Is American Foreign Policy Ethnocentric? Notes
Toward a Propositional Inventory" (1988).
- "The Old Imagery of War is Outdated." Op Ed piece from
The New York Times, May 27, 1981. Nuclear deterrence and underlying simple images of
security from World War II that ought to be updated. The miniaturization and transportability
of (nuclear) weapons of mass destruction require rethinking the importance of political
relationships.
- "Hardball Politics: A Model" from Political Psychology 1:1
(1979), pp. 3 - 26.
The lead article in our first issue. A new theory based on the recent
psychoanalytic study of narcissism: for students, there is a useful review of 13
earlier approaches to personality-based explanations of this type of power-oriented behavior
and decision making in international & domestic politics. (The original formulation was
Lasswell's power-compensation
hypothesis in Power and Personality.) Later, the theory helped to analyze baseline
behaviors and learning/nonlearning in Can Governments Learn?. The model identifies a
syndrome that
includes non-rational (sometimes, self-deceptive and self-destructive) elements and
may improve our understanding of puzzling cases that are not fully explained by traditional
realpolitik models. [Including the new (post Cold War) era of "optional wars."]
Figure 2 is a useful diagram to explain what psychologists mean
by a term like "borderline," and related terms like "idealizing transferences" for
images of high offices in the psychology of ambitious, upwardly mobile, and aggressive people.
E. Other
Contact: Lloyd Etheredge (email) and
7106 Bells Mill Rd. in Bethesda, MD 20817-1204. If you reached this Web page while searching
for papers on national health policy, that's my brother, Lynn Etheredge.
To view the papers, you will need the (free) Adobe Acrobat Reader.
I have included a References page on this site, with
relevant documents, hard-to-locate
citations from earlier papers, and misc. items.
The Government Learning and International Scientific Networks projects are activities supported
through the Policy Sciences Center Inc., a public foundation created at Yale Law School in 1948 by
faculty members Harold D. Lasswell, Myres McDougal, and George Dession. The foundation may be contacted
at 127 Wall St., Room 322, P. O. Box 208215 in New Haven, CT 06520-8215, 203-432-1993 (v). Further information
about the Society of Policy Scientists is available at http://www.policysciences.org.
This page was last updated on May 12, 2016.