the missile test that wasn't

Kim Jong-Il, North Korean Dear Leader, recently launched his newest missile, the Taepodong 2 on April 5. The launch was timed to coincide with President Barack Obama's visit and much-anticipated speech in Prague. Despite the attending drama, the launch was a marvelous example of a test that wasn't.

By 1965 Kim Il-song (the former Dear Leader) decided to establish an indigenous missile capability when the Soviets refused to provide ballistic missiles. However, the Soviet Union soon began supplying rockets and component technologies exposing DPRK engineers to basic missile technologies. (Daniel Pinkston offers a short, readable history here.)

By the 1970s they were accumulating as much rocket and missile technology as possible and soon discovered that missiles and associated technologies could be a lucrative business in a country without other commercial appeal. Pakistan and Iran, for example, have paid for technical assistance on their own long-range missile projects, which are derivatives of the Taepodong 2. For example, Iran's Shahab-5/6 is based primarily on this North Korean design. Missilethreat.com reports the missile was offered for sale to a number of Middle Eastern countries, including Iran. The longstanding willingness of Iran, Pakistan, and others to pay for unproven missile systems is a testament both to their eagerness to arm and to the degree to which North Korea has succeeded, Potemkin-like, in marketing deeply flawed systems.

Gradually, it became clear to North Korean leaders that despite proven technical limitations, missiles and other weapons could win this isolated, backward country a new lease on international relevance. This was so not because they were a nation with inherently attractive economic or cultural qualities but as a spoiler whose misbehavior was a distraction that had to be taken seriously. Later, North Korea extended this theory of statecraft to other weapons. Creating plutonium production reactors and reprocessing facilities and a uranium enrichment program led to a small inventory of fissile material, enabling North Korea to manage partial detonation of small nuclear device on October 9, 2006. But most assess that DPRK engineers have not likely succeeded in miniaturizing and mating a nuclear bomb to one of its missiles or to survive reentry.

During the April 5 launch, the Frankensteinian Taepodong 2 rocket's second and third booster stages and payload fell into the Pacific Ocean in failure to transition from one stage of boost to the next. ( North Korea previously failed in a Taepodong 2 launch on July 5, 2006, when due to airframe, propulsion, or fuel failure, the missile self-destructed some 40 seconds into flight.) Given this history, General Cartwright, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted appropriately that the April 5 the missile launch failed on two counts: proving that North Korea could build an intercontinental ballistic missile and proving it had a product it could sell.

These launches are not missile tests at all, in the engineering sense, but tantrums. That they are effective is manifestly evident in the mention by President Obama in his Prague speech:

"Just this morning, we were reminded again of why we need a new and more rigorous approach to address this threat. North Korea broke the rules once again by testing a rocket that could be used for long range missiles. This provocation underscores the need for action."

Action, broadly speaking, is the Dear Leader's fondest desire, for he craves attention, resources, and respect. To state the obvious general point, military technologies exist for their own sake to be sure, but also for the political advantages they accrue. Motivated by commercial and political gain, the North Koreans will continue to make engineering progress on the Taepodong 2.

Whether the system will become a militarily useful element of a national arsenal remains unknown. Beyond this, an interesting an ill-understood dimension this story reveals is the ambiguous relationship between political, military, and economic motives for developing advanced weapons. These motives certainly co-exist in the development of all weapons by all countries. In the case of the North Korean Taepodong 2, they are more accessible because they are more stark.

Understanding the interplay of these motives is a necessary precondition for successfully de-fanging the dangerous North Korean regime to be sure, but could also provide a useful insight into this opaque strategic culture and the military technology innovation system it has spawned.

science and stimulus

It's already clear that the Obama administration will take science seriously. Selections for senior scientific positions in his administration show that President Obama knows how to build fresh relationships with scientific institutions and scientists themselves by including serious scientists on his executive team.

He appears to be serious about investments in science, too. His election manifesto promised to "support doubling federal funding for basic research over ten years, changing the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology." In doing so, the president hopes to bring science to "the nation's most pressing problems," of which three are called out for special attention:

• Lowering health care costs
• Investing in climate-friendly energy development and deployment
• Modernizing public safety networks

The president emphasized details of the second of these in a recent speech to staff of the Department of Energy. Already President Obama has begun to reverse some Bush administration science policy, including restrictions on stem cell research (which prominent Republicans have long supported).

The president will deal with several important science policy questions during his first term. How he manages these matters early in his presidency will influence the future course of his science policy. Among the most important is encouraging congress to make responsible, effective investments in science through the forthcoming economic stimulus bill.

Urging Congress to make real investments in science must be a top priority. The challenges he'll face in doing so are aptly illustrated by the House and Senate approaches to funding stimulus packages this month. Both houses propose investing approximately 1% of the total stimulus budget in R&D. Of this modest allocation, approximately a third of R&D money would be directed toward capital improvements of public facilities. The remainder, about $9.5 billion, would be allocated to NSF, NIST, NIH, and DOE basic research. Of the total investment in science, 1% is an inadequate investment given the important demonstrated role of science in stimulating economic growth and competitiveness.

Nor is the investment proposed likely to have much effect on stimulating long-term economic growth. This is so because, as AAAS notes, "the stimulus bills are heavily weighted toward infrastructure in an attempt to spend money as quickly as possible in ‘shovel-ready’ projects." Such investment may be less helpful in the near term because it is unclear that inadequate infrastructure is the principal limitation to scientific activity and investment.

Instead, perhaps encouraging private investment in applied research and technology development through tax credits and other incentives would be more likely to stimulate near-term economic activity and produce longer-lasting results. Such an approach would represent a bipartisan and "constituent-friendly" policy initiative that would encourage congressional support and encourage innovation, particularly in economically moribund industries such as electric power generation and transmission.

origins of science doctorates

In a recent study by its excellent statistics unit, the National Science Foundation provides useful information about science and engineering doctorates awarded in the United States:

• Research universities, though few in number (96), produce about 36% of U.S. science and engineering bachelor's degrees. Baccalaureate colleges produce just 13% of S&E bachelor's degrees, but they are important contributors to producing future S&E PhDs.

• A large proportion of individuals earning S&E doctorates from U.S. universities had undergraduate degrees from foreign institutions: 37% in 2006, up from 28% in 1997.
  

• Nine years was the median time from bachelor's-to-doctorate receipt for S&E doctorates received in 2006. Time to degree was somewhat shorter in physical sciences (7.7 years) and in engineering (8.1 years) than in life sciences (8.6 years) and social sciences (9.6 years). Explorations of the data with 8- and 10-year lags produced similar results.

You can see two my visualizations of this NSF data here.

book review: goodbye, darkness

I've written a review of William Manchester's book Goodbye, Darkness. The review is posted at Google Library and at Amazon.

The book memorializes William Manchester’s experience as young sergeant of Marines through the eyes of a middle-aged traveler visiting the locales of epic Pacific Theater battles. His description of the historical context of each battle rests upon a foundation of ample scholarly research. Manchester provides personal recollections where appropriate. (He spent time on Guadalcanal after the fighting ended there; his combat experience was on Okinawa.) And he then describes his visits to these island battlefields during a subsequent 1979 trip. He admits in the Author’s Note that he “resorted to some legerdemain in the interest of re-creating, and clarifying the spirit of, the historical past.” In any case, the writing is just what you’ve come to expect from Manchester: funny, sensitive, learned, deft, fine.

Goodbye, Darkness is the summation of Manchester's post-war cathexis, with the author enjoined a quarter century after the fact with the bloody fugue that hacked his manhood from a boy's life. As with his previous works, Manchester's voice is strong and clear, but here it's more personal. He is wrestling with ghosts, specifically his own disaffected, alienated doppelganger from a quarter century ago; the savage young sergeant of Marines who visits his middle-aged persona in the ragged, misbegotten battlefields of post-war dreams.

One of the characteristics I most appreciated was a resolute refusal to whinge, self-indulge, or to ponder the bellybutton of his generation. Indeed, some of the best writing in the book considers the unique qualities of his generation and their capacity to fight this kind of gruesome war. Manchester has no interest in the sympathy of his readers, either for himself or his generation. It's not sympathy, but respect is that I find his generation deserves, but I find my respect is rooted in Manchester's refusal to demand it.

book review: the worlds of herman kahn

I've written a review of Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi's book, The Worlds of Herman Kahn. It's posted at google books and at amazon. I liked her book for its own sake. It's a useful contribution to cold war cultural history. But, seeing her subject through my own eyes and with a different sense of the salient issues, I came away dissatisfied.

I am interested in questions about strategy and uncertainty. For example, referring to the need to formulate objectives, strategies, and plans for future circumstances that have no basis in human experience (general nuclear war), how can humans dissect its myriad scientific, social, economic, and military aspects? Absent past experience, how can we understand their elements and anticipate the associated future considerations? Given uncertainty, how can we balance cost and risk to create a desirable future? These are questions that Kahn and his colleagues recognized as essential. Ghamari-Tabrizi seems to have little sensitivity for them, less still for the predicament of strategists responsible for national survival under the most onerous of circumstances.

Among the various instruments the defense intellectuals brought to bear against these questions, Kahn’s was imagination. I admire Ghamari-Tabrizi’s effort to place Kahn’s imagination in cold war context. In the end, she has difficulty satisfying herself and her readers that, given the stakes, his application of imagination was, in fact, moral. Was it moral to imagine futures that, while horrific, could be achieved through a disciplined, deliberate effort?

Given uncertainty, how can we balance cost and risk to create a desirable future? Imagination is the most useful available instrument in thinking about the future, whether that future is thinkable or not. For my part, I propose that not only are wide-ranging forays of imagination moral for this purpose, but that neglecting this important resources would be immoral.

satisfying the imagery appetite

GovernmentExecutive.com reports this week that the Defense Department will buy one or two commercial imagery satellites and plans to build another government system to provide battlefield observations. The program, called the Broad Area Surveillance Intelligence Capability (BASIC) system, will cost at least $4 billion and will add to an existing constellation of satellites. The additional satellites will permit more frequent photo opportunities.

This initiative comes at the moment we are also building and deploying vast air-breathing sensor systems in the form of unmanned aerial vehicles and while infantry troops are snapping untold digital stills on the front lines. Moreover, we're now capable of deploying unmanned ground bots that can smartly and automatically snap images of subjects of interest according to their algorithms.

Now and forever, this imagery is useful to everyone (and to no one), depending on access. Consequently, more sensors can help, but not necessarily. In this environment, military advantage derives not from keeping the sources and methods of secret imagery but in making pools of imagery broadly and appropriately available.

Here's a modest proposal:

1. Federate all this imagery data by opening the networks.
   
2. Deploy a Photosynth-like tool to the PDA / laptop / cell phone of every service member everywhere.
   
3. Deploy advanced imagery search tools like Piclens.
   
4. Effectively or actually, declassify the imagery. Yes, all of it.

Liberate the armies of sensors. Liberate the armies of users. Stir.

The Long Tail, Redux

In 2004, Chris Anderson, the Wired editor, wrote an article then a book called The Long Tail. The thesis seemed a straightforward articulation of what most of us think we already know as consumers: it's getting easier and easier to find more and more. This is particularly true with respect to goods uniquely available online. Books, music, movies all seem ideal for this search and distribution medium, are granular with respect to our tastes as customers, and are apt subjects for social exchange.

Anderson was explicit about this apparent trend. Given networked forms of communication, it becomes easier to distribute a more goods and services in greater variety. Consequently, consumers will seek and find those things that fit their interests and producers will feel liberated from the iron strictures of the Pareto rule in satisfying consumer tastes. Here's how Anderson described his idea in his initial article:

"Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it in service after service, from DVDs at Netflix to musiIc videos on Yahoo! Launch to songs in the iTunes Music Store and Rhapsody. People are going deep into the catalog, down the long, long list of available titles, far past what's available at Blockbuster Video, Tower Records, and Barnes & Noble. And the more they find, the more they like. As they wander further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought (or as they had been led to believe by marketing, a lack of alternatives, and a hit-driven culture)."

It was a hopeful notion: we would all find more and more to stanch our percolating appetites. And hopef ul for producers as well, since anyone's exotic tastes could, in theory, find a market in the thicket of consumer wants now made plain. With new producers, new markets, and new tastemakers, the new world held both desire and capacity in abundance. As Anderson said, "almost anything is worth offering on the off chance it will find a buyer." The idea seemed to conform to most of our experience as consumers. And BusinessWeek declared that Anderson's theory was the biggest idea of the year and it became very influential, particularly in media marketing circles.

Anderson was broadminded about his sources. He offered anecdotal examples from Netflix, Amazon, Rhapsody, iTunes that showed the peculiar character of the Long Tail. The research was interesting, even provocative. Examples of successful Internet media companies seemed to confirm the thesis but the research matched the style - breezy and vaporous. Given the allure of the thesis and the peculiarity of the research, it was a bit of a surprise that it took years for a scholar to visit some research discipline upon the matter.

Now, Anita Elberse, an associated professor at the Harvard Business School, has offered a riposte. Elberse investigated sales in the music and home-video industries, specifically from Nielsen VideoScan, Nielsen SoundScan, Quickflix (the Netflix of Australia), and Rhapsody. From these sources, Elberse acquired numbers, quantitative data.

From her data, she poses an important question:

"Is just a small group of fanatics driving the demand for obscure products? If so, it is unlikely that a truly significant shift in media consumption will take place. Or are large numbers of consumers regularly venturing into the long tail? If so, it's important to gauge the size of their appetite for those products and the degree of their satisfaction with them."

Based in her research, Elberse concludes there are no easy conclusions. She suggests that "it would be imprudent for companies to upend traditional practice and focus on the demand for obscure products. The data show how difficult it is to profit from the tail."

Anderson recently issued a rejoinder. As he says, "My point is not to suggest that Elberse is wrong and that I'm right, it's only to point out that different definitions of what the Long Tail is, from 'head' to 'tail,' will generate wildly different results." This difference in point of departure distinguishes their outcomes, which are to early to thoroughly characterize and compare.

The outcome of this debate is important for marketers, many of whom have already shifted their strategies based on Long Tail thinking. The limited research so far, however, makes this risky. Just a few media companies have been examined and over a short period. Certainly marketers have a peculiar interest in improving our understanding of these dynamics, which is immature and the long-term outcomes are uncertain in markets.

However, another aspect of this discussion that bears watching are the evolution of preferences and the nature of social influence at the tip of the tail. What may bear true in economics -- that "extremists" can find the niche where their peculiarities are neatly matched by others of like mind -- may also bear true for social, political and religious ideas.

For example, in the realm of religious extremism, this goes beyond the use of the Internet to influence or to recruit, which, properly, have been examined. Rather, the technology-enabled social exchange may enable micro-ideologies coalescing in micro-communities which sustain, reinforce, and validate themselves well beyond the realm of other socially moderating norms. The technology, in other words, diversifies and amplifies extremism. Beyond religion, the concept may also be applicable in politics, culture (beyond media sales), and technology innovation to name just a few.

This notion, which seems intuitive and has been discussed, has not been studied in any disciplined way as far as I am aware. This is prime real estate for unanticipated consequences and unpredictable outcomes as the complexity of the environment and the possible permutations of social evolution in micro-communities are extraordinary.

The Carterfone and the opening of the net

As Matthew Lasar writes in Ars Technica, today is an auspicious anniversary. Forty years ago today the Federal Communications Commission issued an apparently modest order which would, over time, loom large in the trajectory of telecommunications-enabled information technology.

The order involved a gadget invented and sold by Thomas Carter of Texas - the Carterfone. The simple system allowed users to attach a two-way radio system to their telephone, making their land-line system usable by mobile operators working in far-flung Texas oil fields. In the 1950s and 60s, Carter sold around 3,500 of his phones.

In 1968 the Federal Communications Commission allowed the Carterfone (and other devices) to be connected directly to AT&T's network provided they did not cause damage to the system. There's a nice timeline here. Of course, AT&T, seeking to control their network and everything connected to it, opposed the rule. (They argued, among other things, that any such an anti-trust decree would disrupt their s management of Sandia National Laboratory and its crucial atomic weapons programs at the height of the Korean War.)

The ruling was intended to open the telecom market to innovators. Yet its unanticipated consequences tracked the evolution of telecommunications. In principle, "any lawful device" should be connectable to telecommnications infrastructure under this rule. A broad panoply of devices came onto the phone network, accelerating both the means for innovation and the incentives to innovate. Among others was a little development known as the cellular telephone revolution.

Now, decades later, in February 2007, Skype filed a petition with the FCC requesting they apply the Carterfone regulations more broadly to include the wireless industry. This would mean that equiment manufacturers would be able to offer wireless devices without the approval, or even the awareness, of wireless infrastructure providers. On April Fool's Day this year, the FCC chairman indicated that he would oppose Skype's request.

Can it be more clear that opening wireless networks is even more important today than opening wired networks in the 1970s?

the teleocosm

This is the first post in the re-birth of the Teleocosm, my blog. By way of a manifesto, the blog description says it all: innovation, both of artifacts and processes, creates intended and unintended consequences.

For me, the unintended consequences are more interesting. Aside from their use as indicators of the non-deterministic trajectories of technology evolution (which is plenty interesting by itself), I suggest that these unintended consequences can tell us a lot about human intellectual evolution. Confronted simultaneously by the fruits of our genius and the debts of our ineptitude in politics, war, energy, medicine, environment, culture, the study of technology's final ends seems timely and important.

I intend to post and discuss on subjects associated with this theme. I welcome thoughts, comments, and criticisms along the way.