I once had an engaging discussion with a friend on the movie "The Rock." Although, I am sure some of the Dartmouth readership are familiar with the movie, allow me, for those who have not seen it, to outline the portion of its plot pertinent to this column.
In the movie, a U.S. general and a few faithful followers in the Marines seize Alcatraz and hold its tourists hostage in order to threaten the U.S. government. The general, named Hummel, tells the president and other government officials that he will bombard San Francisco with a couple of VX gas rockets unless they agree to his demands. Fed up with the lack of recognition given to the soldiers who died during past covert military operations, he wants the government to compensate their families.
Contrary to my positive views of the movie, the friend said that a fundamental problem plagues the movie. She remarked she did not for a single instant believe the general would ever order the launch of the rockets.
Only then did I realize that General Hummel's strategy against the U.S. government exhibited poorly exercised brinkmanship. In other words, Hummel was not able to convince his enemy that he could go to the brink of disaster rather than back down.
To put it simply, the general's "all-or-nothing" strategy is the fundamental problem. There are no intermediate stages at which the two players of this game of brinkmanship -- General Hummel and the U.S. government -- can pause to consider their next moves. If the government fails to deliver what the general desires, the game immediately reaches its final stage where the rockets are launched and thousands die.
The audience and the U.S. government cannot easily believe that a compassionate general like Hummel would allow this brutal outcome to transpire. In fact, Hummel himself knows he is incapable of it, and indeed, he folds his mission in the end.
Hummel's mistake is that he assumes the government will comply immediately with his demands and that he will never have to push the button. He should have let the risk escalate, not precipitate, so that he and the U.S. government would have an opportunity to renegotiate at different stages. He could have achieved this, for instance, by utilizing at first only small-scale conventional weapons to attack less populated cities and by increasingly resorting to more devastating weapons.
That is exactly what the Kennedy Administration did in its handling of the Cuban missile crisis -- often praised as a successful case of brinkmanship. The administration's first strategy was not to threaten with nuclear attacks, but to impose a naval blockade.
Suppose, that instead of the blockade Washington had warned Moscow that the U.S. would launch its nuclear missiles if the Cuban missile sites were not removed. Knowing how costly a nuclear war would be for the United States in the state of mutually-assured destruction, the threat would most likely not have deterred Khrushchev from continuing to construct the missile sites. He would not have believed the United States would follow through on its threat.
However, the escalation of risk would not be enough to establish the credibility of General Hummel's threat because he will still reach the point where he has to make the difficult decision. Consider his launching of the first missile, for example, which almost strikes San Francisco before he alters its course and lets it sink into the ocean. The general's action is meant as an intermediate step in the game, to force the U.S. government to reconsider its plan of action and ultimately succumb to his demands. But it doesn't work. The Air Force, undaunted, continues its mission to bomb Alcatraz at the expense of the hostages in order to ultimately save San Francisco.
Hummel, in addition, fails to understand a more human element involved in brinkmanship. He should have given the government an option that does not severely mar its reputation. Robert Kennedy describes in his "Thirteen Days" his brother's endless effort to seek out a strategy that saves Khrushchev's face with other Communist regimes. Kennedy's such consideration was essential in compelling the Soviets to withdraw. But Hummel ignores the U.S. government's difficulty in accepting his request. Consequently the government has great incentives to opt for risky actions like air strikes.
Despite these problems, however, I still think "The Rock" is quite entertaining.
