This article questions the ability of strategic planners to assess adequately the kinds of
weapons development and deployment decisions they make, given that the strategic
weapons system lacks any usable definition of system failure. Lacking a coherent
understanding of system failure means that the positive feedback loops within the system
are unrestrained by effective negative feedback In such circumstances, it is not surprising that subunits of the larger system substitute definitions of success for the subunit for
definitions applicable to the total system.
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