Policy Science

• 1. Recapitalizing Social Science and Rapid Learning Systems. Three broad rapid learning investments for the social, behavioral, and economic (SBE) sciences related to national security and intelligence, based on assessments for the Fischhoff Study (II. D. below): 1.) forward observation Centers/new linkups with 'pivotal states' for global political learning and governance; restarting and building content analysis capabilities; fast discovery global finance/ economics. (January 2010). [See also Good News! Recapitalization and President Obama's new strategic framework. from section II. D. 133. below].
• 2. Neuropsychology and Rapid Learning Systems about Social Problems. (January 2010). Includes an overview of the new hierarchical psychodrama paradigm/primate subordination syndrome connect-the-dots theory and a copy of Robert M. Sapolsky, "The Influence of Social Hierarchy on Primate Health," Science (April 29, 2005), 308, pp. 648-652.

• 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.

• 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.

• Cover letter to the National Science Board.
• Table of Contents
• National Challenges
  • 1.) Overview: Meeting Three National Challenges.
    • 2.) Weakening Economic Models and Data Systems.
    • 3.) Politics in a Changing World.
    • 4.) The Impasse of Ideological Ideas.
• New Opportunities
  • 5.) Science-Citizen Partnerships.
  • 6.) Computer-Assisted Methods to Analyze Communications.
  • 7.) Routine Cross-Cultural Research.
  • 8.) Brain-Mind Connections: Fresh Ideas for Social and Economic Problems.

• 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.

B. Modeling Non-Rational Behavior

• [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)

• 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

• "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

• "Better Options for Montgomery County: Upgrading Cable TV Business Models." Testimony, as an individual, re implementing broadband/telework options quickly along the I-270 corridor and elsewhere in Montgomery County, MD. (July 18, 2002).

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.