The Bounded Rationality of Cold War Operations Research
The Bounded Rationality of Cold War Operations Research
Cold War military needs for cost-effective readiness induced a mathematical construction of rationality while simultaneously binding that rationality with computational reality. In 1947 in an effort to mechanize their planning process, the USAF constituted the Project for the Scientific Computation of Optimum Programs. George Dantzig developed mathematical models and algorithmic solutions for digital computation of an efficient allocation of resources to different USAF activities. In 1948 the Berlin Airlift served as an important prove of concept for Dantzig’s linear programming, but a lack of computational capacity forced Project SCOOP to make do with a sub-optimizing mathematical model. Herbert Simon and colleagues at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, also doing optimizations under military contract, found that their mathematical reach for best decisions exceeded their computational grasp. This chapter narrates the path from this dilemma to Simon’s conceptualizations of bounded rationality and procedural rationality.
Keywords: Berlin Airlift, bounded rationality, procedural rationality, George Dantzig, Herbert Simon, management science, operations research, optimizations, Project SCOOP, Linear programming
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