The Pentagon Papers statistics and graphs of the war: Volume IV-c(10) “Statistical Survey of the War, North and South: 1965 – 1967” provides 23 pages of statistics and graphs on the war in the following areas:
Clearly the splash of today’s information graphics are failed in comparison. I wonder what Edward Tufte would say about these graphs.
Tag: knowledge
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Pentagon Papers Part IV-C6c
I feel that the opening pages of Volume III: 1965–1967 US Ground Strategy and Force Deployments is a telling example of why we lost Vietnam. One cannot help notice that we were way off the mark regarding the enemy in this volume.
We relied upon technology to fight when behind the scenes we knew the political structure of the South Vietnamese government would never succeed, their desertion rate was rising and constant turnover of leaders weakened their moral. Yet we continued to support the South because of the risk (at the time) attributed to the domino effect regarding communism in Asia and the Cold War relationship with the Soviet Union:
The friendly picture gives rise to optimism for increased successes in 1968. In 1967, our logistics base and force structure permitted us to assume a fully offensive posture…A greatly improved intelligence system frequently enabled us to concentrate our superior military assets in preempting enemy military initiatives leading us to decisive accomplishments in conventional engagements. Materiel and tactical innovations have been further developed and employed: Long range reconnaissance patrols, aerial reconnaissance sensors, new observation aircraft, air-mobile operations and the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), to name a few.
The MRF has been significantly successful in depriving the enemy of freedom and initiative in the population and resources rich Delta areas. The helicopter has established itself as perhaps the single most important tool in our arsenal — and we will welcome more.
While the helicopter may have won the day in the Ia Drang Valley at LZ X-Ray bad command decisions to not to use helicopters led to an ambush for those remaining troops walking from LZ X-Ray to LZ Albany, about 4 kilometers to the north-northeast. I’m no longer convinced about the accuracy of the report are concerning Tet:
The enemy’s TET offensive, which began with the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon on 31 January 1968, although it had been predicted, took the U.S. command and the U.S. public by surprise, and its strength, length, and intensity prolonged this shock.
Predicted? The Pentagon Paper’s acknowledge the Tet offensive had been predicted.
Really?
Its safe to assume IV-C6c will reveal more problems with Clark Clifford as the newly installed Secretary of Defense.
My 2011 Book of the Year: Pentagon Papers. I’m actually still reading the study known as “United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense” or as history refers has always called it — The Pentagon Papers.
The study is a 47 volume, 7,000+ page report regarding the US involvement in Vietnam’s long civil war. This is a long deeply engaging read of organizational failure at the highest levels of the military and government. So many American lives were lost for a policy that was doomed from the beginning. This book will painfully show that the brightest and smartest RAND analysts knew it, senior military and policy advisors knew it and so did the White House.
The study was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. And for “newly released” material (in 2011) it provides the most horrific, fascinating and astounding read of our policy and warfare strategy under a total of four Presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. However the war continued through both Johnson and Nixon administrations finally ending under President Gerald Ford in 1975.
The Vietnam War was the longest 20th century war in American history. The study covers a 25-year military engagement in Vietnam while US political interests and efforts actually developed before the end of World War II and continued until the fall of Saigon in 1975. Take a step back and realize it was a 30 year losing commitment.
Even today in 2012 its amazing to learn multiple volumes of this 1967 study remained classified for exactly 40 years until released (fully redacted) by the National Archives in June 2011.
As important as this study is for understanding our role in the world over a generation, it will regrettably open old wounds. We finally have full access to read the carelessness of our decision makers (both military and Presidential) that cost the lives of over 53,000 American soldiers. How horrific would these numbers be viewed today?
So why isn’t this “book” listed with any 2011 best sellers? It was sure greeted with much fanfare and press coverage the day the US National Archives released the study.
IMHO today’s twitter-focused society cannot read a 7,000+ page study. Sorry to be so blunt. American culture today — we are a nation of ‘skimmers’ due to the vast amounts of data available and our busy lifestyle, we simply do not have the time to read such lengthly books. We only seek to quickly skim headlines in print, online and while mobile.
And regarding war, I’m afraid here (yet again) is where the lessons of history are lost.
40 years also makes another amazing difference — my ability to hold all 47 volumes on an iPad. As of January I’m just past page 3,500.
This is not a book about Dan Brown’s character, Robert Langdon and his fight against the Illuminati in Angels & Demons. This is The Numerati, a slight spin on very advanced mathematics and high performance computing, the future of shopping, medicine, safety, sex, voting and yes …. even work.
The Numerati is a great read regarding the impact of advanced analytics across the board. I was impressed with mathematicians Baker interviews and the surprising number who eventually work for IBM or the NSA. Baker has written a book about how the best mathematicians are changing the way we live by processing amazingly vast amounts of data and simply detecting patterns. The data comes via mouse-clicks, cell phone calls and credit card purchases just to name a few.
It sounds simple. On the surface with today’s high performance computing and powerful consumer technologies. But Baker shows how mathematicians are working to draw upon extremely high levels of computational power to deliver products and solutions that will dramatically impact our lives.
At the same time some of the projects mentioned seems more ‘wonderland’ in design. Yet consider the amount of data created by the Large Hadron Collider for example, the emerging world of Big Science is just starting to take off.
Chapters tackle different subjects (mentioned above) and as others. Many have indicated the shopping chapter is the best of the book. It was very enjoyable to read. Some of the ideas and inventions about health were interesting, some ideas a bit hard to wrap around your brain – like the ability of a floor tile to detect if your elderly father has a change in an existing medical condition. Another example, how a computer can analyze a sequence of video (over time) and determine in your are prone to suffering Parkinson’s disease.
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State of the Internet
A fun, visual-rich view of the overwhelming numbers being produced on the internet today: