Politics & Power Quote by Herman Kahn

Kahn’s jab lands because it swaps the grandiose for the petty: the machinery of state, draped in flags and procedure, is revealed as something slapdash compared to a trip to the tailor. The suit is doing double duty here. It’s a consumer choice most people treat with personal anxiety and due diligence (fit, price, long-term regret), and it’s also a symbol of bureaucratic respectability. Kahn is pointing out that the aesthetic of seriousness often substitutes for seriousness itself.

The specific intent is a warning shot at institutional complacency. Committees can disperse responsibility so effectively that attention becomes optional. No single member feels the full cost of being wrong, so the group drifts toward shortcuts: skim the briefing, lean on precedent, trust the “expert,” follow the chair’s vibe. Kahn’s phrasing, “surprising number,” is slyly calibrated; it suggests he isn’t describing an exception but an uncomfortably common baseline.

The subtext is classic Cold War technocracy: Kahn, a systems thinker associated with nuclear strategy and RAND-era planning, is haunted by how civilization-level stakes get processed through meeting agendas, time limits, and consensus theater. “Fundamental matters” hints at decisions about war, deterrence, and existential risk - arenas where the margin for casualness is effectively zero. By comparing that to buying a suit, he’s not celebrating consumer scrutiny; he’s indicting governance that allows life-and-death choices to receive less care than a purchase we make mainly to look competent. The line works because it’s funny in exactly the way it’s alarming.