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Jeg har brugt lidt tid på Herman Kahn’s bog On Thermonuclear War, som handler om atomkrigsstrategier.
I bogens første kapitel kommer Kahn ind på spørgsmålet om, hvorledes stater kan investerer i foranstaltninger der sikrer, at staten kan komme sig så hurtigt som muligt efter en atomkrig. Ganske naturligt er udgangspunktet her dét, at de foranstaltninger der begrænser tabet af menneskeliv mest muligt også er de mest fordelagtige for staten; jo lavere tabstal desto bedre mulighed for at komme på fode igen.
Men, som det bemærkes af Kahn, så er det ikke altid helt nemt at kommunikere en investeringsargumentation ud, hvis den også indeholder forestillinger om tabstal:
[…] I have tried to make the point that if we have a posture which might result in 40 million dead in a general war, and as a result of poor planning, apathy, or other causes, our posture deteriorates and a war occurs with 80 million dead, we have suffered an additional disaster, an unnecessary addition disaster that is almost as bad as the original disaster. If on the contrary, by spending a few billion dollars more, or by being more competent or lucky, we can cut the number of dead from 40 to 20 million, we have done something vastly worth doing! The survivors will not dance in the streets or congratulate each other if there have been 20 million men, women, and children killed; yet it would have been a worthwhile achievement to limit casualties to this number. It is very difficult to get this point across to laymen or experts with enough intensity to move them to action. The average citizen has a dour attitude toward planners who say that if we do thus and so it will not be 40 million dead – it will be 20 million dead. Somehow the impression is left that the planner said that there will be only 20 million dead. To him is often attributed the idea that this will be a tolerable or even, astonishingly enough, a desirable state!
