bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2021), p. 43
MATTHEW S. WISEMAN, ED.
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
PRESS, 2019.
ISBN 978-1-4875-0353-6, 275 pp
WHO IS DR GEORGE LINDSEY? Why is he of interest?
Postdoctoral scholar Matthew S. Wiseman presents Dr George Lindsey, defence scientist and senior DND advisor, using his subject’s own words to take us on roughly a 40-year “journey” through a representative group of (15+2) papers to suggest answers to those questions, while also providing his own perceptive introduction and afterword. Wiseman has narrowed the focus to the Cold War. However, some, including this reviewer, might stretch the timeline and go even further in suggesting that Dr Lindsey’s thoughts on defence matters and, more importantly, his analytical process regarding strategic issues continue to have relevance in today’s world.
After a warm personal four d’horizon of Dr Lindsey’s life of achievement, Wiseman’s introduction divides his selected papers into three sections. First come the “nuts and bolts” of defence via Operational Research, in which Lindsey outlines the role OR and systems analysis have played and can continue to play in the selection of military equipment and in determining how such equipment can most effectively be employed. Section Two takes us to the other end of the spectrum, focusing on Strategic Studies, principally considerations of how technological change can affect offence/ defence relationships with implications for strategic nuclear deterrence stability. Section Three, entitled Canadian Defence, brings a mix of the two, discussing what Canada has brought to the table. It offers a Canadian perspective on national defence from the 1960s through to the late-1980s, turbulent years for DND and for defence research in support of DND. Canadian geography and the Arctic feature in this section, as does the rationale for supporting and contributing to strategic deterrence.
Wiseman’s bibliography of Lindsey’s papers points to further material that, but for space, could also have enriched this voyage of discovery.
In his afterword, Wiseman briefly explains why “Lindsey was against the complete elimination of nuclear armaments”, also clearly announced in his 1999 paper entitled “Strategic Nuclear Weapons: Fewer Would Be Better but Zero Would Be Imprudent”. This discussion alone would warrant careful attention to this book in light of views under wide debate today.
Wiseman also includes Lindsey’s views on the contributions that arms control could make to security, in section Two, as well as in the bibliography of works at the end of the book. Lindsey was well aware that weapons agreements considered in the 1970s and 1980s (and later in the 1990s) would not solve all strategic imbalances or issues. But early on he concluded that an interim or incomplete agreement could “preserve the opportunity to negotiate agreements in the future that could reduce the probability that either side will simply try to solve its problems by extensive uncontrolled armament” (p. 81).
Of particular interest to Global Affairs personnel is that, after his retirement from DND in 1987, Dr Lindsey coauthored a number of studies under the auspices of the now-defunct Verification Research Program embedded in the (Non-Proliferation,) Arms Control and Disarmament Division. These are noted in the bibliography of works (pp. 247-8).
In his astute selection of Dr Lindsey’s papers and in his opening and closing remarks, Wiseman has given us the opportunity to partake in an informative multi-decade journey with Dr Lindsey via papers covering a broad range of defence issues. In Michelin 3-star terminology: “Vaut le voyage.”
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2021), p. 43. Read the rest of this issue →
