PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

9. REACHING THE CEILING EVERYWHERE
On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace
In 1967 a little book was published by Dial Press titled Report From
Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace. In the introduction,
written by Leonard C. Lewin, we are told that “John Doe,” a
professor at a large midwestern university, was drafted by a governmental
committee in August 1963 “to serve on a commission ‘of the highest
importance.’ Its objective was to determine, accurately and realistically,
the nature of the problems that would confront the United States
if and when a condition of ‘permanent peace’ should arrive, and to
draft a program for dealing with this contingency” 9
The real identities of John Doe and his collaborators are not revealed,
but we are told that this group met and worked regularly for
over two and a half years, after which it produced its report. The report
was eventually suppressed both by the government committee and by
the group itself. Doe, however, after agonizing for months, decided to
break with keeping it secret, and he approached his old friend Lewin,
asking for help with its publication.
Lewin explains in his introduction why Doe and his associates preferred
to remain anonymous and did not want to publicize their work. It
was due to the conclusions of their study:
Lasting peace, while not theoretically impossible, is probably unattainable;
even if it could be achieved, it would almost certainly not
be in the best interests of a stable society to achieve it.
That is the gist of what they say. Behind their qualified academic
language runs this general argument: War fills certain functions essential
to the stability of our society; until other ways of filling them
are developed, the war system must be maintained—and improved in
effectiveness.
In the report itself, after explaining that war serves a vital subfunction
by being responsible for major expenditures, national solidarity,
and a stable internal political structure, Doe goes on to explore the possibilities
for what may serve as a substitute for war, inasmuch as the
positive aspects of it are concerned. He writes: “Whether the substitute
is ritual in nature or functionally substantive, unless it provides a believ-
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