A Tufte-esque Approach to De-Mystifying the INF and Its Locus in "Mittleuropa"

Napoleon's Russia campaign, 1812-1813

The image above is, perhaps, the iconic example of the thinking of Edward Tufte. It stands for the proposition: you can use graphics to help people greatly increase their perception of what is going on with a numerically dynamic situation -- the key is to use the plane of the paper to capture the interaction of multiple dimensions simultaneously.

This image illustrates four dimensions together: the size of Napoleon's army as he marched toward (and then away from) Moscow during the War of 1812, the location of the army, the time, and the weather conditions. One can instantly get the picture: an overwhelming force, heading off to fight in Russia, full of confidence and bravado, only to find itself retreating as it is annihilated little by little by cold and hunger and disease. (More about this image on Edward Tufte's website.)

Tufte says, in essence, that we remember to make the fullest possible use of our visual and spatial intelligence. Sure, text and stories are useful; but how about drawing me a picture? (To me, the position Tufte advocates resonates strongly with Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences.)

I've been thinking about this particular image for a long time, since I first encountered it when I was in college in the late 1970s. Then, recently, several elements presented themselves to me.

The first is a chart of the pace of nuclear disarmament, showing the advance toward a peak US nuclear weapons arsenal in the 1960s and then progress -- in fits and starts -- in reducing that arsenal:

The American Nuclear Stockpile
Click to view full size on The New York Times website.

The second has been the increased attention that I have begun to give to NATO and the idea of Central Europe as the front line of nuclear confrontation. I read several books by Timothy Snyder, and realized that the bone of contention is an area of land that lies between Germany in the west and Russia and the east -- a place about which most people in the US have only the vaguest notion.

Since I first visited Berlin, Prague, Budapest, and Vienna in 1990, I have been fascinated by a sort of terra incognita that lies between the known West (France, England) and the Other in the East (Russia, China) -- a zone that is at once vaguely charming and vaguely menacing. I suppose I should get serious about understanding it; but there is also something appealing about letting it remain mysterious -- a Mittleuropa whose reality and destiny we can leave to someone else to worry about.

I had my "Tufte moment" when I read about a visit by Senator Sam Nunn in 1973 to meet with NATO commanders in Europe. Nunn was stunned to learn that the military assumed that they would use nuclear weapons if there were a fight in Europe. They had scoped out the geography (the chokepoint is a place called the Fulda Gap) and they had run the numbers (150,000 NATO troops vs. 450,000 from Warsaw Pact countries). "The invasion route would put the Warsaw Pact forces quickly within striking distance of Frankfurt and several large American military bases." (Philip Taubman, The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb, p. 198 ff.).

It seems to me that there needs to be an infographic -- analogous to the one of Napoleon's army - that conveys the state of affairs in Central Europe, and how it is controlling our destinies. Perhaps an ingredient that would be helpful would be the events of the 1980s centering on the deployment of Pershing II and SS-20 missiles (see Taubman, p. 230).

An infographic illuminating the historic nuclear confrontation in the center of Europe - this would be a timely inquiry. The US has pulled out of something called the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Most people -- including myself -- struggle to understand what's really at stake.

Maybe it's time for someone to draw us a picture.


Postscript

I was stimulated to finally post this note because I had to look up an unfamiliar word -- anabasis -- used by my son in describing the film, Apocalypto. "Anabasis" means both a military advance and a a difficult and dangerous military retreat, and the graphic that Tufte touted came to mind.

By the way, proponents of greater attention to another one of our multiple intelligences -- musical intelligence -- might note that the graphic about the War of 1812 is mightily complemented by one of the great works in our classical music canon: Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture." But that is a blog post for another day . . . .