There Will Be War Volume VIII, page 29
On the evening of Saturday, 30 July 1983, the Systems Assessment Group drafted a set of recommendations that was read in plenary session. The other committees, already provided with “leaks” as to the general nature of those recommendations, were also ready with portions of a letter to the White House stating the findings of the Council. Inevitably, the plenary session unearthed minor disagreements which required resolution. It was the intent of the Chairman to extract, somehow, a letter draft that was unanimously acceptable to attending members. Perfect unanimity still escaped us at the end of the Saturday session, but by then we were all satisfied with the content of the letter. The only remaining problems lay with the phrasing. One engineer, easing into the Niven Jacuzzi that night, wryly voiced a consensus opinion: “We don’t have many writers,” he grinned, “but every s.o.b. with a pencil thinks he’s an editor…”
On Sunday, 31 July 1983, another plenary session yielded phrasing that was acceptable to every member present. Since the letter emanated from the Systems Assessment Group, it was quite brief, addressing only the imperative of specific defenses against ballistic missiles. MAD was not even mentioned; it was simply superseded by implication. Other Council recommendations were collated for inclusion in a 135-page summary report, which was submitted to the White House later. They range from the industrial exploitation of space to the strategic question of stability and our belief that the Soviets and others should be invited to develop space-based ballistic missile defenses of their own. Also, the findings provided a data base for subsequent meetings of the Council. They gave us reason for optimism, not only for citizens under the shadow of nuclear weapons, but for generations yet unborn in every nation on Earth and, we believe, beyond Earth. They gave us, in brief, a glimpse of Mutually Assured Survival.
To deprive our more tendentious critics of a straw man to knock over, we emphasize once again, what Assured Survival does not and cannot mean. While it does, once implemented, assure the continued existence of all peoples, and increase the chance of that existence being a peaceful one, it does not—no strategy can—provide perfect assurance of the survival of everyone, or of any one person. Terrorists might one day detonate a nuclear weapon inside a city; it is also conceivable that a missile, or several missiles, might be fired through error or insanity on the part of some local commander; nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles might still be unleashed in general warfare—but with Assured Survival in place, most of these dreadful weapons, perhaps almost all, would be intercepted. The casualties of such a war would probably be unequalled in human history—but at the very least, scores of millions of people would survive who, without a defensive umbrella, would have died. What is the dollar value of fifty million lives?
It is absurd to demand that a system save 100% of the people in its care; to demand that no defensive umbrella be developed unless it be guaranteed to intercept every hostile weapon. No rational physician would claim 100% certainty that an operation would be successful for every patient; no rational designer of automobile restraint systems would claim that his system assures the survival of every user. The operation and the restraint system should, however, assure the survival of many, and better the chances of all.
Strategists ignore the defensive aspects of war at their peril. From Sun Tzu to Clausewitz, the best strategy analysts have always regarded the defense as “the stronger form of war.” Hannibal was a master at combining defense with offense. The French won at the Marne through counter-offensive strategy.
Stalin regarded the counter-offensive as the most significant form of war, and to this day the Strategic Defense Forces are a separate branch of service in the Soviet Union, taking precedence over the Soviet Air Force and the Soviet Navy. The Defense Forces are a separate and unified combat organization, reporting directly to the Supreme Commander. They are always commanded by a Marshal of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Army (Land Forces) is five times the size of the Strategic Defense Force, but is headed only by a General of the Army.
It is high time that U.S. strategists, including academic theoreticians, rediscover strategic defense; to reject defensive systems on the grounds that they are imperfect is absurd. Assured Survival cannot assure the survival of any particular individual, but it can provide assurance that many more individuals, and society itself, will survive. To demand absolute perfection from fallible humanity is to demand the unattainable, and those who demand the unattainable are not to be taken seriously.
Once it was popular to characterize an impossible demand as “asking for the Moon.” Now, Americans have landed on the Moon, and we stand ready to return. With clearer vision we could have gone from our lunar demonstrations to more practical developments.
Through Road No Whither, by Greg Bear
Editor’s Introduction
Greg Bear is married to Astrid Anderson, whom I literally watched grow up. Sometimes that makes me feel old.
Greg needs no help from his father-in-law; if he collects any more awards they’ll have to retire the trophies. He’s also currently the President of Science Fiction Writers of America, a post I held more years ago than I care to remember.
We are told that all tyrannies mellow. Perhaps.
Through Road No Whither
Greg Bear
The long black Mercedes rumbled out of the fog on the road south from Dijon, moisture running in cold trickles across its windshield. Horst von Ranke carefully read the maps spread on his lap, eyeglasses perched low on his nose, while Waffen Schutzstaffel Oberleutnant Albert Fischer drove. “Thirty-five kilometers,” von Ranke said under his breath. “No more.”
“We are lost,” Fischer said. “We’ve already come thirty-six.”
“Not quite that many. We should be there any minute now.” Fischer nodded and then shook his head. His high cheekbones and long, sharp nose only accentuated the black uniform with silver death’s heads on the high, tight collar. Von Ranke wore a broad-striped gray suit; he was an undersecretary in the Propaganda Ministry. They might have been brothers, yet one had grown up in Czechoslovakia, the other in the Ruhr; one was the son of a coal miner, the other of a brewer. They had met and become close friends in Paris, two years before, and were now sightseeing on a three-day pass in the countryside.
“Wait,” von Ranke said, peering through the drops on the side window. “Stop.”
Fischer braked the car and looked in the direction of von Ranke’s long finger. Near the roadside, beyond a copse of young trees, was a low thatch-roofed house with dirty gray walls, almost hidden by the fog.
“Looks empty,” von Ranke said.
“It is occupied; look at the smoke,” Fischer said. “Perhaps somebody can tell us where we are.”
They pulled the car over and got out, von Ranke leading the way across a mud path littered with wet straw. The hut looked even dirtier close-up. Smoke curled in a darker brown-gray twist from a hole in the peak of the thatch. Fischer nodded at his friend and they cautiously approached. Over the crude wooden door, letters wobbled unevenly in some alphabet neither knew, and between them they spoke nine languages. “Could that be Rom?” Fischer asked, frowning. “It does look familiar—Slavic Rom.”
“Gypsies? Romany don’t live in huts like this, and besides, I thought they were rounded up long ago.”
“That’s what it looks like,” von Ranke repeated. “Still, maybe we can share some language, if only French.”
He knocked on the door. After a long pause, he knocked again, and the door opened before his knuckles made the final rap. A woman too old to be alive stuck her long, wood-colored nose through the crack and peered at them with one good eye. The other was wrapped in a sunken caul of flesh. The hand that gripped the door edge was filthy, its nails long and black. Her toothless mouth cracked into a wrinkled, round-lipped grin. “Good evening,” she said in perfect, even elegant German. “What can I do for you?”
“We need to know if we are on the road to Dôle,” von Ranke said, controlling his repulsion.
“Then you’re asking the wrong guide,” the old woman said. Her hand withdrew and the door started to close. Fischer kicked out and pushed it back. The door swung open and began to lean on worn-out leather hinges.
“You do not regard us with the proper respect,” he said. “What do you mean, ‘the wrong guide’? What kind of guide are you?”
“So strong,” the old woman crooned, wrapping her hands in front of her withered chest and backing away into the gloom. She wore colorless, ageless grey rags. Worn knit sleeves extended to her wrists.
“Answer me!” Fischer said, advancing despite the strong odor of urine and decay in the hut.
“The maps I know are not for this land,” she sang, stopping before a cold and empty hearth.
“She’s crazy,” von Ranke said. “Let the local authorities take care of her later. Let’s be off.” But a wild look was in Fischer’s eye. So much filth, so much disarray, and impudence as well; these things made him angry.
“What maps do you know, crazy woman?” he demanded.
“Maps in time,” the old woman said. She let her hands fall to her side and lowered her head, as if, in admitting her specialty, she was suddenly humble.
“Then tell us where we are,” Fischer sneered.
“Come,” von Ranke said, but he knew it was too late. There would be an end, but it would be on his friend’s terms, and it might not be pleasant.
“On a through road no whither,” the old woman said.
“What?” Fischer towered over her. She stared up as if at some prodigal son, returned home, her gums shining spittle.
“If you wish a reading, sit,” she said, indicating a low table and three tattered cane and leather chairs. Fischer glanced at her, then at the table.
“Very well,” he said, suddenly and falsely obsequious. Another game, von Ranke realized. Cat and mouse.
Fischer pulled out a chair for his friend and sat across from the old woman. “Put your hands on the table, palms down, both of them, both of you,” she said. They did so. She lay her ear to the table as if listening, eyes going to the beams of light coming through the thatch. “Arrogance,” she said. Fischer did not react.
“A road going into fire and death,” she said. “Your cities in flame, your women and children shriveling to black dolls in the heat of their burning homes. The camps are found and you stand accused of hideous crimes. Many are tried and hung. Your nation is disgraced, your cause abhorred.” Now a peculiar light came into her eye. “And many years later, a comedian will swagger around on stage, in a movie, turning your Führer into a silly clown, singing a silly song. Only psychotics will believe in you, the lowest of the low. Your nation will be divided between your enemies. All will be lost.”
Fischer’s smile did not waver. He pulled a coin from his pocket and threw it down before the woman, then pushed the chair back and stood.
“Your maps are as crooked as your chin, hag,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“I’ve been suggesting that,” von Ranke said. Fischer made no move to leave. Von Ranke tugged on his arm but the SS Oberleutnant shrugged free of his friend’s grip.
“Gypsies are few now, hag,” he said. “Soon to be fewer by one.” Von Ranke managed to urge him just outside the door. The woman followed and shaded her eye against the misty light.
“I am no gypsy,” she said. “You do not even recognize the words?” She pointed at the letters above the door.
Fischer squinted, and the light of recognition dawned in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do, now. A dead language.”
“What are they?” von Ranke asked, uneasy.
“Hebrew, I think,” Fischer said. “She is a Jewess.”
“No!” the woman cackled. “I am no Jew.”
Von Ranke thought the woman looked younger now, or at least stronger, and his unease deepened.
“I do not care what you are,” Fischer said quietly. “I only wish we were in my father’s time.” He took a step toward her. She did not retreat. Her face became almost youthfully bland, and her bad eye seemed to fill in. “Then, there would be no regulations, no rules—I could take this pistol”—he tapped his holster—“and apply it to your filthy Kike head, and perhaps kill the last Jew in Europe.” He unstrapped the holster. The women straightened in the dark hut, as if drawing strength from Fischer’s abusive tongue.
Von Ranke feared for his friend. Rashness would get them in trouble.
“This is not our fathers’ time,” he reminded Fischer.
Fischer paused, the pistol half in his hand, his finger curling around the trigger. “Old woman–” Though she did not look half as old, perhaps not even old at all, and certainly not bent and crippled. “You have had a very narrow shave this afternoon.”
“You have no idea who I am,” the woman half-sang, half-moaned.
“Scheisse,” Fischer spat. “Now we will go, and report you and your hovel.”
“I am the scourge,” she breathed, and her breath smelled like burning stone even three strides away. She backed into the hut but her voice did not diminish. “I am the visible hand, the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.”
Fischer laughed. “You are right,” he said to von Ranke, “she isn’t worth our trouble.” He turned and stomped out the door. Von Ranke followed, with one last glance over his shoulder into the gloom, the decay. No one has lived in this hut for years, he thought. Her shadow was gray and indefinite before the ancient stone hearth, behind the leaning, dust-covered table.
In the car, von Ranke sighed. “You do tend toward arrogance, you know that?”
Fischer grinned and shook his head. “You drive, old friend. I’ll look at the maps.” Von Ranke ramped up the Mercedes’ turbine until its whine was high and steady and its exhaust cut a swirling hole in the fog behind. “No wonder we’re lost,” Fischer said. He shook out the Pan-Deutschland map peevishly. “This is five years old—1979.”
“We’ll find our way,” von Ranke said.
From the door of the hut, the old woman watched, head bobbing. “I am not a Jew,” she said, “but I loved them, too, oh, yes. I loved all my children.” She raised her hand as the long black car roared into the fog.
“I will bring you to justice, whatever line you live upon, and all your children, and their children’s children,” she said. She dropped a twist of smoke from her elbow to the dirt floor and waggled her finger. The smoke danced and drew black figures in the dirt. “Into the time of your fathers.” The fog grew thinner. She brought her arm down, and forty years melted away with the mist.
High above, a deeper growl descended on the road. A wide-winged shadow passed over the hut, wings flashing stars, invasion stripes and cannon fire.
“Hungry bird,” the shapeless figure said. “Time to feed.”
Logan, by Paul Edwin Zimmer
Editor’s Introduction
In these days of blank verse and random word patterns the epic poem is almost a lost art form. Yet, in times past it was the prince of poetry. Much of our knowledge of the Sumerians, the Greeks, and other ancient cultures comes from surviving epic poems, such as Gilgamesh, the Iliad, Beowulf, and the Guillaume d’Orange.
The decline of the epic in our culture may well be related to the rise of the “common man” ethos. In the Homeric epics there was a celebration of the heros, or hero; the superior man who excelled in war and adventure. The Greeks admired above all the virtues of courage and loyalty. In our culture we are told to prize the anti-hero—the man who stands aloof and above such lesser values as duty or love of community. True, the anti-hero may have a sense of personal courage or family loyalty, but it is the bravery of the outsider, one who has nothing to lose; there is no sacrifice here.
Some scholars believe that the Homeric and other early epic poems reflect the values of cultures dominated by a warrior or feudal aristocracy. The hero’s exploits were celebrated in songs and ballads by wandering bards. Thus, they exemplified the ideals of early civilizations; I doubt such could be said of much of the body of modern poetry.
Here in “Logan” we find a rare exception as Paul Edwin Zimmer, younger brother of Marion Zimmer Bradley, tells of the trials of James Logan—“The White Man’s Friend”—as he attempted to work out a lasting peace between the early American settlers and the Indians who had formed the League of Five Nations. It was a conflict doomed to end in Armageddon.
Logan
Paul Edwin Zimmer
We are met upon the gravesite
Of a million murdered children;
We are met beneath the shadow
Of slaughtered women, children.
But who can count a million,
Or can mourn a hundred thousand,
When the Earth we walk is made up
Of the bones of many millions?
A multitude is faceless, and one cannot mourn
A cipher.
All statistics of destruction are as empty
As the sorrow that is given by convention.
Yet—
Who is there to mourn for Logan?
Now listen, ye who established the Great League!
Now it has grown old.
Now it is nothing but wilderness.
Ye are in your graves,
Ye who established it.
Deganoweda and Hayenwatha
Comb the snakes from Atotarho’s hair.
The Long House reaches
From the Great Lakes to the Hudson:
Five tribes shelter
Beneath the Great Peace.
The Senecas sit at the
