Thanks the good points and the links! I agree the arms control epistemic community is an important story here, and re-reading Adler’s article I notice he even talks about how Szilard’s ideas were influential after all:
Very few people were as influential in the intellectual development of the arms control approach as Leo Szilard, whom Norman Cousins described as “an idea factory.” Although Szilard remained an outsider to RAND and to the halls of government, his indirect influence was considerable because he affected those who had an impact on political decisions. About a decade before arms control ideas had gained prominence, Szilard anticipated the nuclear stalemate and the use of mobile ICBMs, called for intermediate steps of force reduction with different totals for different systems, considered that an overwhelming counterforce capability would cause instability, was one of the first people to oppose an ABM system, and pleaded for a no-first-use policy on nuclear weapons. Some of Szilard’s proposals were unorthodox and visionary and thus made people think hard about unorthodox solutions.
Despite this, in my reading Adler’s article doesn’t contradict the conclusions of the report: my takeaway is that “Prestige, access to decision-makers, relevant expertise, and cogent reasoning” (while not sufficient on its own) is a good foundation that can be leveraged to gain influence, if used by a community of people working strategically over a long time period, whose members gain key positions in the relevant institutions.
Thanks the good points and the links! I agree the arms control epistemic community is an important story here, and re-reading Adler’s article I notice he even talks about how Szilard’s ideas were influential after all:
Despite this, in my reading Adler’s article doesn’t contradict the conclusions of the report: my takeaway is that “Prestige, access to decision-makers, relevant expertise, and cogent reasoning” (while not sufficient on its own) is a good foundation that can be leveraged to gain influence, if used by a community of people working strategically over a long time period, whose members gain key positions in the relevant institutions.