<nettime> Command and Control

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net>]

ISBN-13 9781594202278

Schlosser, E., 2013. Command and control: nuclear weapons, the Damascus 
Accident, and the illusion of safety, New York, NY: The Penguin Press.

I found this 2013 book a well-researched and readable insight into the 
techno-social system that is intimately intertwined with the rise of computing, 
simulation, and the internet. Although there is not much specific history in 
that regard, among other subjects, it explores the development and 
tactical/strategic deployment of nuclear weapons and the management of the 
communications systems that were/are so crucial to their potential use via 
first-hand accounts of events during the entire Cold War.

In the light of recent C&C failures in the US nuclear weapons systems, 
reflecting on Charles Perrow's NAT (Normal Accident Theory) this account is a 
disturbing reminder of the reliable fallibility (!) of complex techno-social 
systems...

JH


--
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Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
The Kickstarter Campaign Succeeds!
http://tinyurl.com/neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
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