Debbie Herman Popular Books

Debbie Herman Biography & Facts

Herman Kahn (February 15, 1922 – July 7, 1983) was an American physicist and a founding member of the Hudson Institute, regarded as one of the preeminent futurists of the latter part of the twentieth century. He originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems theorist while employed at the RAND Corporation. He analyzed the likely consequences of nuclear war and recommended ways to improve survivability during the Cold War. Kahn posited the idea of a "winnable" nuclear exchange in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War for which he was one of the historical inspirations for the title character of Stanley Kubrick's classic black comedy film satire Dr. Strangelove. In his commentary for Fail Safe, director Sidney Lumet remarked that the Professor Groeteschele character is also based on Herman Kahn. Kahn's theories contributed to the development of the nuclear strategy of the United States. Early life and education Kahn was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Yetta (née Koslowsky) and Abraham Kahn, a tailor. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He was raised in the Bronx, then in Los Angeles following his parents' divorce. Raised Jewish, he later became an atheist. Kahn graduated from Fairfax High School in 1940 and served in the United States Army during the Burma campaign in World War II in a non-combat capacity as a telephone lineman. He received a Bachelor of Science at UCLA and briefly attended Caltech to pursue a doctorate before dropping out with a Master of Science due to financial constraints. He joined the RAND Corporation as a mathematician after being recruited by fellow physicist Samuel Cohen. Cold War theories Kahn's major contributions were the several strategies he developed during the Cold War to contemplate "the unthinkable" – namely, nuclear warfare – by using applications of game theory. Kahn is often cited (with Pierre Wack) as a father of scenario planning. Kahn argued for deterrence and believed that if the Soviet Union believed that the United States had a second strike capability then it would offer greater deterrence, which he wrote in his paper titled "The Nature and Feasibility of War and Deterrence". The bases of his work were systems theory and game theory as applied to economics and military strategy. Kahn argued that for deterrence to succeed, the Soviet Union had to be convinced that the United States had second-strike capability in order to leave the Politburo in no doubt that even a perfectly coordinated massive attack would guarantee a measure of retaliation that would leave them devastated as well: At the minimum, an adequate deterrent for the United States must provide an objective basis for a Soviet calculation that would persuade them that, no matter how skillful or ingenious they were, an attack on the United States would lead to a very high risk if not certainty of large-scale destruction to Soviet civil society and military forces. In 1962, Kahn published a 16-step escalation ladder. By 1965 he had developed this into a 44-step ladder. Ostensible Crisis Political, Economic and Diplomatic Gestures Solemn and Formal Declarations Hardening of Positions – Confrontation of Wills Show of Force Significant Mobilization "Legal" Harassment – Retortions Harassing Acts of Violence Dramatic Military Confrontations Provocative Breaking off of Diplomatic Relations Super-Ready Status Large Conventional War (or Actions) Large Compound Escalation Declaration of Limited Conventional War Barely Nuclear War Nuclear "Ultimatums" Limited Evacuations (20%) Spectacular Show or Demonstration of Force "Justifiable" Counterforce Attack "Peaceful" World-Wide Embargo or Blockade Local Nuclear War – Exemplary Declaration of Limited Nuclear War Local Nuclear War – Military Unusual, Provocative and Significant Countermeasures Evacuation (70%) Demonstration Attack on Zone of Interior Exemplary Attack on Military Exemplary Attacks Against Property Exemplary Attacks on Population Complete Evacuation (95%) Reciprocal Reprisals Formal Declaration of "General" War Slow-Motion Counter-"Property" War Slow-Motion Counterforce War Constrained Force-Reduction Salvo Constrained Disarming Attack Counterforce-with-Avoidance Attack Unmodified Counterforce Attack Slow-Motion Countercity war Countervalue Salvo Augmented Disarming Attack Civilian Devastation Attack Controlled General War Spasm/Insensate War Hudson Institute In 1961, Kahn, Max Singer and Oscar Ruebhausen founded the Hudson Institute, a think tank initially located in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, where Kahn was living at the time. He recruited sociologist Daniel Bell, political philosopher Raymond Aron and novelist Ralph Ellison (author of the 1952 classic Invisible Man). The Year 2000 In 1967, Herman Kahn and Anthony J. Wiener published The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years, which included contributions from staff members of the Hudson Institute and an introduction by Daniel Bell. Table XVIII in the document contains a list called "One Hundred Technical Innovations Very Likely in the Last Third of the Twentieth Century". The first ten predictions were: Multiple applications of lasers Extreme high-strength structural materials New or improved superperformance fabrics New or improved materials for equipment and appliances New airborne vehicles (ground-effect vehicles, giant or supersonic jets, VTOL, STOL) Extensive commercial applications of shaped-charge explosives More reliable and longer-range weather forecasting Extensive and/or intensive expansion of tropical agriculture and forestry New sources of power for fixed installations New sources of power for ground transportation Later years In Kahn's view, capitalism and technology held nearly boundless potential for progress, while the colonization of space lay in the near, not the distant, future. Kahn's 1976 book The Next 200 Years, written with William Brown and Leon Martel, presented an optimistic scenario of economic conditions in the year 2176. He also wrote a number of books extrapolating the future of the American, Japanese and Australian economies and several works on systems theory, including the well-received 1957 monograph Techniques of System Analysis. During the mid-1970s, when South Korea's GDP per capita was one of the lowest in the world, Kahn predicted that the country would become one of the top 10 most powerful countries in the world by the year 2000. In his last year, 1983, Kahn wrote approvingly of Ronald Reagan's political agenda in The Coming Boom: Economic, Political, and Social and bluntly derided Jonathan Schell's claims about the long-term effects of nuclear war. On July 7 that year, he died of a stroke, aged 61. Personal life His wife was Rosalie "Jane" Kahn. He and Jane had two children, David and Debbie. Cultural influence Along with John von Neumann, Edward Teller and Wernher von Braun, Kahn was an inspiration for the character "Dr. Strangelove.... Discover the Debbie Herman popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Debbie Herman books.