Home | Browse | Search | Credits | About
Register | User Area | DL-Harvest | Help
DLIST

The Two Faces of American Power: Military and Political Communication during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kybernetes 35 (3/4) (2006) 547-566.

Deinema, Michaël and Leydesdorff, Loet (2006) The Two Faces of American Power: Military and Political Communication during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kybernetes 35 (3/4) (2006) 547-566..

Full text available as:
HTM
PDF - Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader or other PDF viewer.

Abstract

• Purpose: The mismatches between political discourse and military momentum in the American handling of the Cuban missile crisis are explained by using the model of the potential autopoiesis of subsystems. Under wartime conditions, the codes of political and military communications can increasingly be differentiated. • Design/methodology/approach: The model of a further differentiation between political and military power is developed on the basis of a detailed description of the Cuban missile crisis. We introduce the concept of a “semi-dormant autopoiesis” for the difference in the dynamics between peacetime and wartime conditions. • Findings: Several dangerous incidents during the crisis can be explained by a sociocybernetic model focusing on communication and control, but not by using an organization-theoretical approach. The further differentiation of the military as a subsystem became possible in the course of the twentieth century because of ongoing learning processes about previous wars. • Practical implications: Politicians should not underestimate autonomous military processes or the significance of standing orders. In order to continually produce communications within the military, communication partners are needed that stand outside of the hierarchy, and this role can be fulfilled by an enemy. A reflexively imagined enemy can thus reinforce the autopoiesis of the military subsystem. • Originality/value: The paper shows that civilian control over military affairs has become structurally problematic and offers a sociocybernetic explanation of the missile crisis. The potential alternation in the dynamics under peacetime and wartime conditions brings historical specificity back on the agenda of social systems theory.

EPrint Type:Preprint
Keywords:functional differentiation, missile crisis, Cold War, military, sociocybernetics, autopoiesis
Subjects:Science Technology Studies
ID Code:1502
Deposited On:23 September 2006
Alternative Locations:http://ww.leydesdorff.net/cuba/index.htm
Eprint Statistics:View statistics for this eprint
Tell A Colleague:Tell a colleague about it.

Allison, G. T. (1969), “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis”, in: Viotti, P. R. and Kauppi, M. V. (Eds.) (1993), International Relations Theory: Realism, Pluralism, Globalism, Second Edition, Macmillan, New York, pp. 342-74.

Allison, G. T. (1971), The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, Little Brown, Boston.

Blight, J. G., Allyn, B. J. and Welch, D. A. (Eds.) (1993), Cuba on the Brink: Castro, The Missile Crisis and The Soviet Collapse, Pantheon Books, New York.

Bracken, P. (1983), The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces, Yale University Press, New Haven.

Brugioni, D. A. (1990), Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Random House, New York.

Kennedy, R. F. (1969), Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Norton, New York.

Khrushchev, N. (edited and translated by J.L. Schecter and V.V. Luchkov) (1990), Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes, Little Brown, Boston.

Leydesdorff, L. (2001), A Sociological Theory of Communication: The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society, Universal Publishers, Parkland, FL. Available http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff.htm

Luhmann, N. (1984), Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. [Social Systems. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995].

Luhmann, N. (1986), “The Autopoiesis of Social Systems”, in Geyer, F. and Van der Zouwen, J. (Eds.), Sociocybernetic Paradoxes, Sage, London, pp.172-92.

Luhmann, N. (1990a), “The ‘State’ of the Political System”, in Luhmann, N. (Ed.), Essays on Self-Reference, Columbia University Press, New York and Oxford, pp. 165-74.

Luhmann, N. (1990b), Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M.

Luhmann, N. (1990c), “Society, Meaning, Religion- Based on Self-Reference”, in N. Luhmann (Ed.), Essays on Self-Reference, Columbia University Press, New York and Oxford, pp. 144-64.

Luhmann, N. (1997) “Globalization or World Society: How to Conceive of Modern Society?”, International Revue of Sociology, Vol 7 No 1, 67-79.

Luhmann, N. (2000), Die Politik der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M.

Lukes, S. (1974), Power: A Radical View, Macmillan, London.

May, E. R. and Zelikow, P. D. (Eds.) (2002), The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Concise Edition, Norton, New York.

Parsons, T. S. (1963a) “On the Concept of Political Power”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol 107 No 3, pp. 232-62.

Parsons, T. S. (1963b), “On the Concept of Influence”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol 27 (Spring), pp. 37-62.

Rhodes, R. (1995), Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, Simon and Schuster, New York.

Scott, J. C. (1998), Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, Yale University Press, New Haven.

Tuchman, B. W. (1963), The Guns of August: The First Days of World War I, Dell, New York.

Von Clausewitz, C. P. G. (1832), Vom Kriege, Dümmler’s Verlag, Berlin.

White, M. J. (Ed.) (2001), The Kennedys and Cuba: The Declassified Documentary History, Revised Edition, Ivan R. Dee, Chicago.

York, H. F. (1970), Race to Oblivion: A Participant’s View of the Arms Race, Simon and Schuster, New York.

EPrints dLIST, an open access archive for the Information Sciences, is supported by the School of Information Resources and Library Science and Learning Technologies Center, University of Arizona. Established in 2002, dLIST has a global Advisory Board and is a part of the Information Technology & Society Research Lab. Open Archives
Contact: Admin | Donate