We often read of the tragedy of the September 1944 Arnheim campaign. Impossible logistics, bad weather, lousy intelligence, tactical imbecility, and much more doomed the "Market Garden" operation and led to the infamous "A Bridge Too Far" catastrophe. Thousands of Anglo-American troops were needlessly killed or wounded—after the Allies had recently crushed an entire German army group in the west (though they let 100,000 Wehrmacht troops escape at Falaise). The foolery of Market Garden also ate up scarce resources, manpower, and gasoline at precisely the time the American Third Army was nearing the Rhine without much major opposition. Once Allied armies stalled for want of supplies, they would be unable to cross the border of the Reich for another half year. The Germans used the breathing space after their victory in Holland to rush defenders to the so-called Siegfried Line, which had been theretofore mostly undefended.The picture is not entirely bleak. We 'live and learn, learn and live'. At least until Vietnam, there was 'a sort of tragic acceptance of military error as inherent in war.' Mistakes are bound to occur 'in the context of human imperfection, emotion, and fear.'
Though Presidents Lincoln and Truman were both reviled, Americans still felt that ultimately the American system of transparency and self-criticism would correct wartime mistakes.And there lies the hope. Transparency about what is happening and freedom to criticise. But also the capacity to adapt to fast-changing circumstances. Mechanisms that terminate failed ventures. I'm sometimes disturbed by the every increasing level of aggregation at which decisions are made. Big business and government between them determine to an increasing extent, how we live (see here and here, for examples). This is not only a matter of the large corporates' growing dominance over the world's economic activity; it's also about governments' effects on our behaviour, through regulation and intrusion, and their tight links with big business. Big government tends to mean remote and unwieldy government. It best understands and does deals with big business, and tends to favour the big and global at the expense of the small and local.
But perhaps most dangerous is the tendency of big government - or any large monopolistic organization - to continue doing things with diminishing attention given to whether they are effective and efficient. The military blunders that Mr Hanson describes could not be allowed to run their course indefinitely. The costs of allowing failed approaches to continue were huge and obvious. Most of our social and environmental problems are slower-moving and not as immediately compelling. Nuclear proliferation, for example (the subject of my previous post), or climate change, or loss of social cohesion: decisions are made at such high levels of aggregation that there is little room for alternative approaches, and little incentive for people to try them.
Social Policy Bonds could possibly turn that disadvantage into a plus. Instead of dictating that the way we shall deal with climate change, for example, is to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, a collection of world governments could define a global climate stability target, and reward those who who successfully achieve it, however they do so. The size of the targeting body serves to define the problem, and raise revenue for its achievement; things that a large authoritative body can do very well. But such a body cannot adapt to changing events or expanding knowledge rapidly enough, and that's where the multitude of holders of Climate Stability Bonds could help: they would have powerful incentives to terminate failed ventures, and choose only the most efficient solutions to the climate change problem.
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