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

[Jonathan Lighter]

I doubt that the distinction between "one's own aircraft" and "the aircraft
of another nation" is any more than an artifact of defining.

JL

On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 12:28 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "deconfliction" -- WOTY?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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