[Ads-l] "deconfliction" -- WOTY?

[Ben Zimmer]

On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 10:13 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>
> On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 9:11 PM, Joel Berson wrote:
>>
>> ... if things go well -- and if things do not go well -- between Russia and
>>  the U.S. in Syria.
>>
>> In online OED3 as "deconflict" v. from 1975 and as "deconfliction" from 1981.
>>
>> But the OED restricts conflicts to among "one's own aircraft or airborne
>> weaponry". The recent uses refer to potential conflicts between unfriendly
>> forces, U. S. and Russian, and extend beyond the air to such things as
>> use of language and radio frequencies.
>>
>> "A Semantic Downgrade for U.S.-Russian Talks About Operations in Syria"
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/world/middleeast/a-semantic-downgrade-for-us-russian-talks-about-operations-in-syria.html
>
> "Deconfliction" is also the topic of my Wall Street Journal column
> this week (online tomorrow, in print Saturday).

And here it is:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-conflict-over-russian-role-in-syria-deconfliction-draws-critics-1444403520


> In my research I came up with these antedatings:
>
> deconflict, v.
>
> "U.S. Security Issues in Europe: Burden Sharing and Offset, MBFR
> [mutual and balanced force reduction] and Nuclear Weapons," staff
> report prepared for Subcommittee on U.S. Security Agreements and
> Commitments Abroad, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Dec.
> 2, 1973
> "All PSP [Priority Strike Program] and TSP [Tactical Strike Program]
> strikes have been coordinated, or 'deconflicted,' with the U.S. SIOP
> [Single Integrated Operational Plan] target list maintained by the
> Joint Strategic Targeting Center in Omaha."
> quoted in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov. 1974, p. 11:
> https://books.google.com/books?id=dgsAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA11&dq=deconflicted
>
> deconfliction, n.
>
> Colonel Dwayne P. Wright, "The Day of the E-3A Tactical Test," Air
> University Review, Sept-Oct 1978, p. 58 ff.
> "Internal deconfliction was achieved within Red and Blue assigned
> airspace. Red Force flights were separated in time or space by
> assigning altitudes, tracks, and time-phased points. To confirm
> deconfliction, each route was manually checked using time and altitude
> graphs. Subsequently, a computer model was developed and deconfliction
> confirmed on AFTEC's computer."
> http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1978/sep-oct/wright.html
> https://books.google.com/books?id=Cz45AAAAIAAJ

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