Reading Them Wrong

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker are concerned that this time Kim Jong Un may really mean his threats of war. Both are experienced watchers of North Korea.

There does seem to be something different about the current threats. Kim has declared South Korea no longer a missing part of the true Korea, but rather an implacable enemy. He has cut off interactions between the two countries. He has made a number of threats, including that North Korea has tested an underwater drone that can cause a “nuclear tsunami.”

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Deck Us All With Boston Charlie

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

The cartoon and title of the post, of course, are from the Pogo comic strip. The new bomb that the Parson yearns for is the hydrogen bomb. Walt Kelly drew this one in the early 1950s, before Ed Teller’s triumph. The conventions were still being developed, and the Parson speaks candidly of what is now referred to as deterrence.

I recently read Lawrence Freedman’s The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. I recommend it. Nuclear strategy during the 1950s took some big swings because the idea of total destruction was new, and the balance between the contenders swung widely. By the 1960s, things had settled down after that nastiness in Cuba in 1962, arms control became obviously necessary in the 1970s, and the public rebelled (a little) in the 1980s. The collapse of the Soviet Union made some of us think that the competition was no more in the 1990s, but here we are.

What we have is an uneasy equilibrium with regard to the potential destruction of civilization. As long as a nation can maintain a way to wreak destruction on their attacker after an attack (second-strike capability), they are safe. Sorta. And now, as once or more before, some think that it makes sense to up the ability to use nuclear weapons for maybe little wars. It would just be a one-time thing, you see, and the other nation wouldn’t strike back. I think.

That, they believe with the Parson, would bring peace.

The 1980s movie Wargames got it right: The only way to win is not to play. Now we have to figure out how to withdraw.

Merry Christmas!

Cross-posted to Lawyers, Guns & Money

Does Putin Want A Ceasefire?

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Anton Troianovski, Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes claim today in the New York Times that Vladimir Putin is looking for a ceasefire (gift link Content warning: photos of dead Russian soldiers). The dek beneath the headline says “Despite its bravado in public, the Kremlin has indicated its interest in striking a deal to halt the war — so long as it could still declare victory,” but I don’t see much indication of the last, although one might assume that to be the case.

The rest of the article is not much better supported. The primary sources are “ two former senior Russian officials close to the Kremlin and American and international officials who have received the message from Mr. Putin’s envoys.” It’s customary for sources in these circumstances not to be identified, so that’s not unreasonable. Later in the article, other “American officials” are cited as sources. There no distinctions or numbers when “American officials” are quoted.

Let us consider the claims made. Quotes are from the article.

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A Binder Is Missing

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Still missing from what has been recovered of Donald Trump’s document grab when he left the presidency is a binder of classified documents. I would not assemble a group of classified documents into a binder, especially mixed with unclassified but likely accountable documents, although I think there are no regulations against it.

CNN has quite a long story about the missing binder. If I recall correctly, Donald Trump, a few years back, was raving about having proof, documentary proof, that the RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA investigation was fake. Back when Robert Mueller was doing his investigation? That seems to have been this binder.

CNN describes the binder as containing “raw Russian intelligence.” They tell us some of the things in the binder.

  • “raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election”
  • “The Russian intelligence was just a small part of the collection of documents in the binder, described as being 10 inches thick and containing reams of information about the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.”
  • A GOP report commissioned by Devin Nunes scrutinizing the intelligence on Russia
  • Tthe FBI’s problematic foreign intelligence surveillance warrants on Carter Page
  • Interview notes with Christopher Steele, author of the infamous dossier on Trump and Russia
  • FBI reports from a confidential human source related to the Russia investigation
  • Internal FBI and DOJ text messages and emails
  • Other stuff.
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The Best Christmas Gift

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

When I turned on the computer this morning, I could read text easily for the first time since the summer.

I have macular degeneration in my left eye. The macula is the part of the retina that processes fine detail. Degeneration means, in my case, that there was a large blister-like structure on it.

Seeing that structure was frightening. The retina should have been a smooth, concave curve, with layers. Some of the layers had come apart. The words were also frightening. One of my mentors, thirty years ago, had macular degeneration. He became blind. I helped him navigate the Lab’s bureaucracy to get what he needed to do his job.

I could not read music. I could not tell an A from an E from a C in the bass clef.

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Readings On Large Language Models

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

In a conversation on Bluesky, I commented that I have never found an explanation of the neural net part of the LLMs like ChatGPT that makes sense. “It works like your brain” is clearly not an explanation, since we know so little about how our brains work, but it’s a go-to for reporters who find all this heavy going.

I specifically asked for links, because a good explanation obviously is going to be longer than six 200-character posts, but one reply guy gave it his best, which was very bad. But I did get several good links back.

This post is far from an explanation of neural nets or ChatGPT. It’s some of the things I learned and links to resources that at least look useful. My understanding of these models is a work in progress.

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SpaceX Doesn’t Do Safety

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Elon Musk is hardly a fan of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and its regulations. Reuters investigated the extent of his non-fanhood. It’s horrifying.

There is a certain strain of masculine posturing that the has no need of safety regulations. Or that the posturer’s mission is so urgent and important that details like safety can be ignored. It can be exhilirating. Until you die. I’m sure that Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin thought they were cool, the way they handled that screwdriver.

That posturing can suck in those who don’t know. Not all safety regs are obvious unless people have given that area a lot of thought. If they don’t, they die or are maimed.

Elon Musk thinks of himself as a cool guy with an urgent mission to colonize Mars. The United States government, under Republican pressure, has outsourced a big chunk of its space program to his company SpaceX.

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Russia After The War

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

At some point Russia’s war on Ukraine will end. There will be agreements to end the war. But there is a larger question of how the world deals with Russia. That’s what I’m discussing in this post – not how the war ends. How the war ends has some bearing on subsequent relations with Russia, but given Russia’s history of the last thirty years, probably not a lot. I’m also not going to speculate on black swan events in Russia, like Vladimir Putin’s demise. Again, they can have an effect, but there are too many possibilities, and it’s too easy to slide into wishful thinking.

After the war, Russia will still be there. Most likely, it will not be put in a position of complete loss, although it could be humiliated – already has been humiliated – by the Ukrainian military. It will not split the way the Soviet Union did.

It’s the largest country on earth, and it will continue to be Ukraine’s and Europe’s nextdoor neighbor. NATO will continue to come up to its borders.

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Arms Control Talks To Start With China

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Some good news for a change:

On Monday, China’s foreign ministry said the two countries would hold “consultations on arms control and non-proliferation” in the coming days, as well as separate talks on maritime affairs and other issues. It follows a visit to Washington by the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi. (Guardian)

A meeting is scheduled for Monday. Mallory Stewart, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, and Sun Xiaobo, the head of the arms control department at China’s foreign ministry, will lead the talks.

China has resisted arms control talks. It has been building up its nuclear arsenal to about 500 weapons.

The estimate of 500 nuclear weapons comes from a recent DoD report on China, required yearly by Congress. A broader report from the Congressional Commission on US Strategic Posture, a bipartisan group of experts, recommends increasing the defense budget in multiple dimensions. For nuclear weapons, they recommend “an overhaul and expansion of the capacity of the U.S. nuclear weapons defense industrial base and the DOE/NNSA nuclear security enterprise, including weapons science, design, and production infrastructure.”

Other recommendations imply an increase in the numbers of nuclear weapons, to deal with simultaneous attacks by Russia and China. This is a recipe for an arms race.

Monday’s meeting is a start. What matters in talks like this, as much as or more than any agreement they may produce, is that ability of the two sides to share views and possibly information. It’s early days, and meetings may be called off or rescheduled. The important thing is to start.

Photo: Military vehicles carry DF-5B intercontinental ballistic missiles during a parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender during World War II held in front of Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, Sept. 3, 2015. VOA News.

Cross-posted to Lawyers, Guns & Money

Revising The History Of The 1990s

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Revisionist history of the 1990s is in full swing. Here’s the latest.

New materials have surfaced that support my preferred point of view! Let me give you a selection! The article gives the impression that reams of newly declassified documents support the idea that, in this telling, the United States bent over backward to avoid offending Russia during the 1990s. I don’t think that the assembled quotes actually tell that story, especially since references are spotty. The article gives little context for the quotes.

The documents relating to diplomacy over time in an urgent situation will contain a great many statements of a great many views. It is good for those views to be discussed in the formulation of policy, but what matters is what actually was done. What matters even more is where we are today.

Along with others, the author assumes that Ukraine’s retention of Soviet nuclear weapons would be a deterrent against Russia while Ukraine developed into today’s state. Another assumption is that the US and Europe could have offered security guarantees that would deter Russia. These assumptions have been refuted before. The context of the world situation in the 1990s is ignored. I’ll repeat some of that context here.

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