A review by simonmee
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg
2.0
Sometime I read a book that isn't wrong on its main points, but kinda keeps niggling you on the details. The Doomsday Machine is one of those books.
Nuclear War is bad, ok
The Doomsday Machine is about the precipice of nuclear annihilation that we have stood upon since the Cold War. While Russia and other countries are mentioned, the main focus is the American command and control system, which Ellsberg had consulted on since about the 1950s.
There are some interesting anecdotes that carry wider points. Ellsberg watched scramble drills in Japan for nuclear bombers, but they would never actually launch (due to the risk of crashing and accidentally exploding their weapons), nor practice the abort and return to home drills that were fail-safes against unauthorised bombings (if a pilot had not received a positive in-flight order to engage the target after launching, they were to return to base). As Ellsberg points out, if there was an emergency launch with atomic bombs on board:
They would believe the war was on, or was imminent, because the commanders who had launched them without precedent would appear to have thought so.
...which could colour those pilots' decision-making while waiting for a positive inflight “engage” order.
There are further layers of detail on this point, things that are intuitive but not apparently obvious. Ellsberg’s experiences are the best parts of the book, such as learning how speeches can conveying different meaning to their intended parties (and the timing of those speeches can have an impact).
The problem is that book as a whole suffers from being a little on the late side. Eric Schlosser’s [b:Command and Control|6452798|Command and Control Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety|Eric Schlosser|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1366560404l/6452798._SY75_.jpg|6643004] (which Ellsberg cites) was earlier and, on the balance, better. Doomsday Machine is interesting but most of the “confessions” were already out there. We kind of know nuclear systems rest on dangerous (“doomsday”) machinery.
The severe limitations of sheer intellect
Ellsberg splits his book between his own experiences, and the mental framework that led to targeting urban cities with nuclear weapons as part of "total war", running right through to World War 2 and the early Cold War.
I don’t want to argue that the strategic bombing of German and Japanese cities were a good thing. I'm probably in general agreement with Ellsberg. The problem is that he is loose about the history of “total war”. For him, an early example of the blurring of distinctions between combatant and non-combatant is the burning of Atlanta in 1864:
And the innovation that he introduced - which was observed from Europe as an act of barbarism and is so remembered in the South to this day - was to allow his troops to attack the city of Atlanta as a whole, destroying most of its stores and burning the city.
I’ve got a couple of problems with this:
- I get that Ellsberg is writing for an American audience and “memories” of Atlanta are a cultural touchstone, but the notably brutal Indian Mutiny ran from 1857, the burning of the Summer Palace in China was in 1860 and… …well look up any reputable text on Imperialism or even “Manifest Destiny”. It’s embarrassing for Ellsberg to treat Atlanta as a notable escalation.
- Even allowing for an American audience, the stripping of events from their context flirts dangerously with “Lost Cause” mythology. He’s writing sympathetically about an insurrection that enslaved during the Gettysburg campaign African Americans living in the Union. The Confederate States both before, during and after the Civil War, committed “barbarism” on non-combatant African Americans. Atlanta was not an “innovation” even in an American context.
Ellsberg then writes that the strategy of large-scale military attack on the economy and social order of an opponent didn’t really occur in World War 1. Ellsberg’s argument appears to be that the military stalemate made attractive the theories of total war via bombing undefended cities. I don’t believe Ellsberg’s totally off on the motivators, but he removes context in such a way that makes acts of bombing a city more of an escalation that it was in practice. The British imposed a punishing naval blockade in World War 1 and the Germans committed (fitfully) to unrestricted submarine warfare.
As for World War 2, the German bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam are explicable to Ellsberg as being cities under siege (not sure how Atlanta isn’t covered by that exception) whereas the Blitz was a reaction to mistakes on both sides. There’s no mention of the German Palm Sunday bombing of Belgrade in April 1941 or the bombings of refugee columns, neither of which fall under either of those qualifiers.
Ellsberg might be strictly correct with:
But deliberate bombing of urban populations as the principal way of fighting a war by a major industrial power can be said to have started on February 14, 1942, with a specific British directive.
…but he makes a lot (and I do mean a lot) of “strictly correct” statements in his book where the qualifiers can substantially change the impact. Ellsberg essentially ignores the atrocities of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. My comments may read as “whatabouterism” but my main point is this – Ellsberg creates a pattern of escalation that isn’t as clear as he makes out in the narrative and leans abit heavily on Anglo-Americans being the agents of change.
There’s also a section about high level figures in the US military opposing the atomic bombing of Japan. It’s the old “seven of the eight five star generals/admirals opposed it” canard that doesn’t really mean much. Kinda crazy none of those seven five star generals stopped it at the time.
An alternative interpretation to bombing cities is this: Faced with an existential threat and a limited toolbox of responses, Britain and the United States were willing to bomb cities, whether conventionally or by nuclear weapons. Other than that, the general trend post World War 2 has been towards minimising collateral damage, even against non-Western powers. You can fill up several volumes of exceptions but it is still a very different story that Ellsberg makes out, that being of an American force desperate to pull the trigger on total war.
So, there are some interesting anecdotes, mostly stale revelations, and a bit of wonky, or at least incomplete history. It’s not terrible, it’s just a bit limited.
Nuclear War is bad, ok
The Doomsday Machine is about the precipice of nuclear annihilation that we have stood upon since the Cold War. While Russia and other countries are mentioned, the main focus is the American command and control system, which Ellsberg had consulted on since about the 1950s.
There are some interesting anecdotes that carry wider points. Ellsberg watched scramble drills in Japan for nuclear bombers, but they would never actually launch (due to the risk of crashing and accidentally exploding their weapons), nor practice the abort and return to home drills that were fail-safes against unauthorised bombings (if a pilot had not received a positive in-flight order to engage the target after launching, they were to return to base). As Ellsberg points out, if there was an emergency launch with atomic bombs on board:
They would believe the war was on, or was imminent, because the commanders who had launched them without precedent would appear to have thought so.
...which could colour those pilots' decision-making while waiting for a positive inflight “engage” order.
There are further layers of detail on this point, things that are intuitive but not apparently obvious. Ellsberg’s experiences are the best parts of the book, such as learning how speeches can conveying different meaning to their intended parties (and the timing of those speeches can have an impact).
The problem is that book as a whole suffers from being a little on the late side. Eric Schlosser’s [b:Command and Control|6452798|Command and Control Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety|Eric Schlosser|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1366560404l/6452798._SY75_.jpg|6643004] (which Ellsberg cites) was earlier and, on the balance, better. Doomsday Machine is interesting but most of the “confessions” were already out there. We kind of know nuclear systems rest on dangerous (“doomsday”) machinery.
The severe limitations of sheer intellect
Ellsberg splits his book between his own experiences, and the mental framework that led to targeting urban cities with nuclear weapons as part of "total war", running right through to World War 2 and the early Cold War.
I don’t want to argue that the strategic bombing of German and Japanese cities were a good thing. I'm probably in general agreement with Ellsberg. The problem is that he is loose about the history of “total war”. For him, an early example of the blurring of distinctions between combatant and non-combatant is the burning of Atlanta in 1864:
And the innovation that he introduced - which was observed from Europe as an act of barbarism and is so remembered in the South to this day - was to allow his troops to attack the city of Atlanta as a whole, destroying most of its stores and burning the city.
I’ve got a couple of problems with this:
- I get that Ellsberg is writing for an American audience and “memories” of Atlanta are a cultural touchstone, but the notably brutal Indian Mutiny ran from 1857, the burning of the Summer Palace in China was in 1860 and… …well look up any reputable text on Imperialism or even “Manifest Destiny”. It’s embarrassing for Ellsberg to treat Atlanta as a notable escalation.
- Even allowing for an American audience, the stripping of events from their context flirts dangerously with “Lost Cause” mythology. He’s writing sympathetically about an insurrection that enslaved during the Gettysburg campaign African Americans living in the Union. The Confederate States both before, during and after the Civil War, committed “barbarism” on non-combatant African Americans. Atlanta was not an “innovation” even in an American context.
Ellsberg then writes that the strategy of large-scale military attack on the economy and social order of an opponent didn’t really occur in World War 1. Ellsberg’s argument appears to be that the military stalemate made attractive the theories of total war via bombing undefended cities. I don’t believe Ellsberg’s totally off on the motivators, but he removes context in such a way that makes acts of bombing a city more of an escalation that it was in practice. The British imposed a punishing naval blockade in World War 1 and the Germans committed (fitfully) to unrestricted submarine warfare.
As for World War 2, the German bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam are explicable to Ellsberg as being cities under siege (not sure how Atlanta isn’t covered by that exception) whereas the Blitz was a reaction to mistakes on both sides. There’s no mention of the German Palm Sunday bombing of Belgrade in April 1941 or the bombings of refugee columns, neither of which fall under either of those qualifiers.
Ellsberg might be strictly correct with:
But deliberate bombing of urban populations as the principal way of fighting a war by a major industrial power can be said to have started on February 14, 1942, with a specific British directive.
…but he makes a lot (and I do mean a lot) of “strictly correct” statements in his book where the qualifiers can substantially change the impact. Ellsberg essentially ignores the atrocities of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. My comments may read as “whatabouterism” but my main point is this – Ellsberg creates a pattern of escalation that isn’t as clear as he makes out in the narrative and leans abit heavily on Anglo-Americans being the agents of change.
There’s also a section about high level figures in the US military opposing the atomic bombing of Japan. It’s the old “seven of the eight five star generals/admirals opposed it” canard that doesn’t really mean much. Kinda crazy none of those seven five star generals stopped it at the time.
An alternative interpretation to bombing cities is this: Faced with an existential threat and a limited toolbox of responses, Britain and the United States were willing to bomb cities, whether conventionally or by nuclear weapons. Other than that, the general trend post World War 2 has been towards minimising collateral damage, even against non-Western powers. You can fill up several volumes of exceptions but it is still a very different story that Ellsberg makes out, that being of an American force desperate to pull the trigger on total war.
So, there are some interesting anecdotes, mostly stale revelations, and a bit of wonky, or at least incomplete history. It’s not terrible, it’s just a bit limited.