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The New Psychology of War and PeacePsychology and Deterrence. by Robert Jervis; Richard Ned Lebow; Janice Gross Stein;Patrick M. Morgan; Jack L. SnyderReview by: James G. BlightInternational Security, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Winter, 1986-1987), pp. 175-186Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2538890.

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2/13


3/13

International

ecurity

176

The authors of Psychologynd

Deterrencettempt o provide both a suitable

framework or, nd historical xamples of,foreign olicymakers

who let their

hopes and fearsrun away with their ational udgment,

many of whom

were,

like the Melians, ruined as a result.

The

impetus for writing his book may

be

put

in two propositions: first,

the psychological principles, which

were well known to Thucydides, redis-

covered by Freud, appropriated by contemporary ognitive science, and

accepted by most educated people everywhere,

eem to

have almost

totally

eluded the grasp of the architects f political and military eterrence.Theo-

ristsof deterrence re regarded by

the

authors

of this volume as psycholog-

ically nnocent n the extreme. Second, as RichardNed Lebow says, deter-

rence remains the principle [sic] intellectual

and policy bulwark against

nuclear holocaust (p. 204). Thus, Lebow and his co-authors

believe

that

attempts

to

deter nuclear

war-to avoid the

ultimatecatastrophe-are very

deeply

misinformed

sychologically,

o much

so,

in

fact,

hat

presentpolicies

of deterrencemay help toproduce thenuclear war they re designed tohelp

avoid.

Their

sworn

enemy,therefore,

s

not

deterrence,

ut

deterrence

heory,

which they

believe

is based on

a

specious, pre-Freudian

and, by implication,

pre-Thucydidean)rational-actor sychologythat

simplydoes not conform o

the

thinking

and

behavior

of actual

foreign policymakers.

Psychology

nd

Deterrences at its core an argument

that

holds that the classical theory of

deterrence ughtto

be

regarded

as

psychologically

efuted nd thatwe must

look

in

new, more psychologically

nformeddirectionsfora safer approach

to

deterrence, specially

nuclear

deterrence.

Beforeconfrontinghe argumentsof the revolutionaries,however, let us

remind

ourselves briefly

f two of

the

central enets

of

the

old

regime,both

of which are denied

categorically y

the

authors

of

this

volume.

According

to

Thomas Schelling whom

the authors of

this volume

regard

as

by

far the

most

mportant xpositor

of deterrence

heory),

deterrence is

not concerned

withthe

efficientpplication f force

but

with the

exploitationfpotentialorce.

2

This is uncontroversial

but

important:

deterrence s

alleged

to

be

mainly

about

preventing

war.

Second, according

to

Schelling,

the

theory

of deter-

renceholds

thathuman behavior s

interdependent,

he actions of adversaries

being both cause and effect f one another's behavior. As Schelling says,

Deterrence .. involves

confronting

. .

[an

adversary]

with

evidence that

2.

Thomas C.

Schelling,

The

Strategy f ConflictCambridge,

Mass.:

Harvard

University ress,

1960), p. 5.


4/13

New

Psychologyf

Warand

Peace

177

our behavior will be

determinedby his behavior. 3These and related

prop-

ositions, which together

have

exertedenormous influence n the

continuing

debates about U.S. foreign olicy, re put forward y Schelling n the

manner

of

general aws, according to which

it s

considered egitimate nd

instructive

to deduce completelyhypothetical onflicts etween disembodied,

adversar-

ial, international actors, who signal their ommitments redibly nd audi-

bly to one another and who are deterred from ttackingonly because the

net gain calculated to be derived

fromnot attacking s greater.

One of the

defining haracteristics

f

genius

is

the

capacity

to

shape

not

merely

the content

of debate,

but

to

determine the

terms,

parameters,

or

contourswithin

which debate takes

place.

This

is

certainly

rue of

Schelling,

who

in

1960 admitted, for

example,

that the

psychological study

of

conflict

is a legitimateenterprisebut

then promptlydeclared

it

out of

bounds for

serious

students of

international

onflict.

He

decreed

a

main

dividing

ine

... between those that treatconflict s a pathological state and seek its

causes

and

treatment,

nd those that

take

conflict

or

granted

and

study

the

behavior

associated

with

it. 4 n

other

words, according

to

Schelling,

there

ought

to

be a

great

divide between

clinical

and

academic

psychology,

n the

one

hand,

and

the

strategy

f international onflict-of deterrence-on the

other. That this

great

divide

has

been

respected,

even revered

by

students

of international

elations,

no one can

doubt. But the

authors of

Psychology

and

Deterrencery,

n

effect, o

ignore Schelling's

canonical

dichotomy lto-

gether

and

to

begin

to

carve

out

a third

way:

a

psychologically

nformed

approach to thepreventionof international onflict, hybridization hathas

heretofore eemed all but impossible

due

to the hegemony of

Schelling's

great

divide.

Psychology

s to be

brought

out of its closet and into

contact

with

cases of successful

and failed

deterrence,

ases

that the

old

paradigm

is

held to

be

incapable ofexplaining. By openly acknowledging nd

allowing

forwhat

theyregard

as

the

ubiquitous irrationality

f

foreign olicy

decision-

making,

the

revolutionaries

eek to

construct more

rational nd

empirically

robust theoryof

deterrence.

Robert

Jervis

eads off

with

two

chapterscontaining

wide

array

of

briefly

described

cases, which

he

interprets

n the

light

of some

selected findings

from ognitive psychology.

His

subject

is

bias

in

the

perception

of

threats,

and he

divides

the

psychological

domain of

interest nto

two

types:

unmo-

3.

Ibid., p. 13.

4.

Ibid., p.

18.


5/13

Internationalecurity 178

tivated

bias, which occurs as

a

function f predispositions, timulus

overload,

and

selective attention;

nd

motivated

bias,

in

which inference

s used as

a

defense mechanism, that is, as protectionagainst knowledge of risk

and

danger. As

an

example of unmotivatedbias

or

a shortcut to

rationality p.

23), Jervis ites nattention o

base rates an

idea derived

from sychologists

Amos Tversky nd Dan Kahneman).5Thatis, policymakers ften

mistakenly

estimate probabilitiesbecause they pay insufficientttention o

the

overall

frequency f events, attending

nstead only

to the

vividness

of

some

referent

case.

For instance,

the overreliance on the Munich

Analogy

and the re-

sulting overestimationof

threat s a

function,Jervisbelieves,

of

failing

to

come

to

grips

with the extreme

rarity

f leaders

who

are

as

deceitful,

pow-

erful,

and

aggressive as Hitler

(p. 24). As

an

example

of

motivatedbias,

Jervis ites the specious Japanese reasoning that ed to thebombingof Pearl

Harbor. They believed, rather

ncredibly ccording to Jervis,

hat afterthe

bombing,

the United

States would simply

withdraw

from

he Pacific

p. 26),

a conclusion Jervisbelieves was motivated by a powerfulneed to avoid

confronting

he

objectively

more

likely event,

which

was

all-out

war

with

the United

States.

The

antidote

to both

sorts

of bias

and thus to erroneous

threat

perception and

increased risk

of

the failure f deterrence s said to be

the

acquisition of

a

finer-grained

nderstanding

of one another's

beliefs,

perceptions,and values, a task that

Jervis ully cknowledges

is easier

said

than

done

(p. 33).

If

the value of

this book resides very argely

n

itsargument

for

psycho-

logically more empirical approach to deterrence,then the two case

study

chapters by JaniceGross Stein (on the October War of 1973) and one by

Richard

Ned Lebow (on

the

Falklands

War

of1982)must

be

regarded

as,

in

important espects, the heart and

soul of

the

volume. For

it

is

in

the

thick

texture f

such

extended case

analyses

that one

must try o

determine

the

nature, significance, nd extent

of psychological bias, and theirrelation to

the

failure

or maintenance of deterrence.

Stein's chapters

are

marvelous

evocations of the

attitudes

n both the

Egyptian

nd

Israeli

High Commands

during

the

period

1967-1973.

The dual narratives

re

so

thoroughly

ompel-

ling that one may actually feel as well

as acknowledge

intellectually

he

striking sychologicalparadox, which, Steinbelieves, provided the prereq-

5. Daniel

Kahneman, Paul

Slovic,

and Amos

Tversky,Judgment

nder

Uncertainty:

euristics nd

Biases New

York: CambridgeUniversity ress,

1982).


6/13

New

Psychologyf

Warand Peace 179

uisite to the October War of 1973. In assessing one's abilityto carryout a

successful attack upon the other, according

to

Stein, Egypt could but

thought t couldn't, while Israel thoughtEgypt

could

but wouldn't because

Egypt thought t couldn't (p. 48). Because

of

Stein's

deft

weaving together

of

her

sources, one sees

in

thisparadox

not

mere

word play,

but a

formula

fortragedy.

n

the end the Israelis paid

too close

attention

o

the

military

balance and were lulled by

numerous false

alarms

caused by Egyptian

mo-

bilizations

between

1967

and

1973. They failed,

n

Stein's

view,

to

appreciate

how deeply intolerable he post-1967

status

quo was to Sadat and to Egypt.

Most significantly, ccording

to

Stein,

neither

leadership can

be

said,

as

deterrence heorypredicts,

to

have

responded

to deterrent

hreats, s they

were

understood by each

deterrer.

t

was a

dialogue of the deaf and the

deafness,

in

her view, has

a

psychological explanation.

Lebow's chapter on the

Falklands

War,

while

similar o Stein's

in

its osten-

sible

intent, s much harsher

n

tone

and

much

more thoroughly piece of

self-consciously sychological analysis. Lebow,

so it

seems,

means to accuse

as

much as to analyze.

There

are

no heroes

in

his account, nor scarcely ny

ordinarily

fallible

people;

there are

only

buffoons. Both

the

Thatcher

and

Galtieri

governments, ccording

to

Lebow,

must be deemed

guilty

f

massive

self-deception.

n

an

extended

passage

of

psychohistory,

e

accuses

the

Americans of paranoia (p. 114),

the

Argentinesof lack of sophistication

(p. 116), and everyone concernedof selective attention p. 119) and per-

ceptual

distortion

p. 119),

the

latter

of

which he believes was the real

cause of

the

war

(p. 119).

In

approaching

the

participants

n

this

particular

failure fdeterrence o harshly

nd

reductively, ebow appears to push the

psychologizing

of deterrence somewhat

further han the other

authors.

In

Lebow's causal

account,

the ssue

perceived by

the

participants s

that

which

led

to

the

failureof deterrence-control of

the

Falklands/Malvinas slands-

seems to fade

into

the

background,

while

psychological

breakdown is

put

forth s central.The

logic

of

Lebow's

argument

would

seem to ead

ultimately

to

the view

that,

at least

in the

case of

the Falklands War

(but probably

n

other

failures f

deterrence s

well),

the relationof the

student of deterrence

to

the

participants

n

case studies is much

like that

of

psychiatrist

o

patient,

at

least

in the

diagnostic phase. Lebow,

it

seems, would push

the Freudian

revolution

ll the

way so

that the

study of foreignpolicy decision-making

becomes, eventually, something

ike a branch of

depth psychology.

f

this

were ever

to

occur,

the revolt

against fully

ational

deterrence

heory

would


7/13

Internationalecurity 180

have

become total. Irrationalactors would replace

rational actors in the

analyses of international

elations specialists, who would

by then have bid

goodbye to deterrence nd hello to

psychology.

The

conclusions to the

volume, contained

in

two chapters by Lebow, are

boldly psychological.6First,

Lebow argues

that

denial,

selective attention,

and

other

psychologicalsleights

of

hand

(p. 173)

are

ubiquitous

n

situations

when

deterrence

s on

the line

and

that nternational

ggression s

far

more

a

function

f perceived need than of opportunity. ebow

thus provides

an

extended

gloss on his well-known rgument

hat

tates do not

ump through

windows

of opportunity.As

Lebow

sees it,

states

or

presumably

their

ead-

ers) are

best understood as turning

nward rather han

outward toward their

own

unresolved wishes

and fears.

They leap,

one

might

say,

into

murky

basements of felt need, rather than

through

windows

of perceived oppor-

tunity.7

nd

since the theory nd

practice of deterrencehas heretofore m-

phasized the

arrangements equired

for

preventingwindows of

opportunity

from

arising,

it

is no wonder,

according

to

Lebow,

that

history

s

littered

with

failures

of deterrence aused

by misperception

nd

misunderstanding.

In a

thoroughly reudian

argument,

Lebow

argues,

in

effect,

hat

such

win-

dows

(hence rational deterrence

tself)

are

illusions-manageable

fantasies

which are

preferred o

the

frightening eality ctually

faced

by policymakers,

especially in the

nuclear age.8

This

is,

in

fact, exactly

the form

of Freud's

argument

gainst

what he

regarded

as the illusion of

religion.9

6. Deliberately mittedfrom ritical onsideration re

the

two

chapters

hat

mmediately recede

the concluding chapters n

Psychologynd Deterrence: atrickM. Morgan, Saving Face for the

Sake of Deterrence, and JackL. Snyder, Perceptions

of

the SecurityDilemma

in

1914. This

is done not because these essays

are uninteresting r unimportant. n fact,they are

neither.

Morgan's discussion of the

peculiarlyAmerican obsession with reputation r resolve is sugges-

tive and compelling, and

Snyder's typology of securitydilemmas involves many interesting

examples of

this

central oncept ofpolitical cience.

The

problem,rather,

s that

ach is

strikingly

abstract nd

deductive

in the

extreme nd thus almost totally

t

odds

with the

entirethrust f

therestof the book, which is

self-consciously oncrete nd inductive.

n

short, onsideredapart

from hese anomalous chaptersbyMorgan and Snyder, he book advances

a

significant

rgument

for fundamental

eorientation

f

thinking

bout U.S.

foreign olicy.

But the

chapters

by Morgan

and

Snyder,for

ll

their ntrinsicnterest, nly qualify, bscure,and ultimately egatethe central

methodological rgumentof thebook, which would thus have been farmorecoherentwithout

them.

7.

Richard Ned Lebow, Windows of Opportunity:Do StatesJumpThrough

Them?,

Interna-

tional ecurity, ol. 9, No. 1 (Summer 1984), pp. 147-186.

8.

RichardNed Lebow, Between eace

and

War:TheNature

f nternationalrisis Baltimore:Johns

Hopkins University ress, 1981).

9.

Sigmund Freud, The Futureof an Illusion,

n

James Strachey,trans. and ed., The

Complete

Psychological orks fSigmund

reud,

4

vols. (London: Hogarth, 1966), Vol. 21, pp. 3-56.


8/13

New Psychologyf

War

nd Peace 181

The policy conclusions to Psychologynd Deterrence

re a

curious

mixture

of

sensible

policy suggestions

and

pessimistic handwringing

about what

Lebow and his colleagues obviously regard

as the

very

dim

prospects for

enacting such policies. The recommendationsfollowdirectly rom

he

psy-

chological analyses: adopt

a mixed

strategy,

s Lebow calls it

(p. 227),

in

which threat nd reassurance

are

balanced, according

to the best

estimateof

theneeds, fears,and goals of an adversary.Stein agrees completely, alling

in

her own conclusion fora balanced

mixture

f accommodation

and

coer-

cion

(p. 86).10

Yet in concluding Psychologynd Deterrence,ebow quite obviously recog-

nizes that he has arrived at a conceptual cul-de-sac.

He

demonstratescon-

siderable intellectual

courage

in

facing up

to

what is

essentially

a nihilistic

conclusion. This is Lebow's paradox:

Deterrence,which, relatively peaking, is easy to implement,may neverthe-

less not be a very effective trategy f conflictmanagement,because it does

not address the most important psychological] sources of aggression. On

the

other

hand,

efforts o

alleviate the kinds of

insecurities that

actually

encourage

or even

compel

leaders to

pursue aggressive foreignpolicies do

not seem

very ikelyto succeed. (p. 192)

This is one of the most remarkablepassages in the book. For it repudiates

the

classical

theory

of

deterrence

because

it

s

psychologicallyankrupt,

while

it leads us to believe that a psychologicallynformed pproach, while theo-

retically afer, s probablypragmaticallyankrupt.

The

old view is wrongand

thus

dangerous;

the new view

is right

but

irrelevant.

In

fact,

neither

Lebow nor his coauthors nor,for

hat

matter, hisreviewer)

can

imagine

a

means for

plausibly ntervening irectly

nto

the

psychological

lives of policymakers o as to reduce the intensity f the needs which seem

to motivate

many

failures

of

deterrence.

The

psychological aboratory

nd

clinic are

presently

and

very likely

will remain terra

ncognita

for

foreign

policymakers.

At the

very

end

of

the

book,

in

partialflight

rom

he

nihilistic

terminus f

his logic,

Lebow

suggests

that

perhaps

we can learn

important

10. See Graham T. Allison, Albert Carnesale, and JosephS. Nye, Jr., ds., Hawks, Doves, and

Ozvls:An Agenda for AvoidingNuclearWar (New York: Norton, 1985), p. 215. Indeed, such

argumentswould seem to be fully onsistent

with

and to provide

the

psychologicalfoundation

for

he

canonical endorsement

of

balanced deterrence nHawks,Doves,

and

Owls. The authors

of

that

book recommendthe simultaneous avoidance

of

hawkishprovocation, neffectual ovish

appeasement, and owlish paralysis. They conclude

with a

lengthy

ist

of concrete recommen-

dations

designed

to achieve balanced deterrence nd thus to

preventdangerous crises between

thesuperpowers. See also JosephS. Nye, Jr.,NuclearEthicsNew York:Free Press, 1986), p. 119.


9/13

Internationalecurity182

psychological essons from ome astonishing

nd

peaceful reversals

n

inter-

national relations, especially that of Sadat in 1975. But this is exceedingly

cold comfort or the psychological revolutionariesfor, s Stein points out,

the key prerequisite to that initiativewas a bloodbath of proportions that

were unacceptably abhorrent o both sides. Likewise with the superpowers,

the countries whose sour relationship hovers like a cloud over this entire

book. The Kennedy-Khrushchev peace initiative f 1963is

almost unthink-

able without the terrifying uban missile crisis of October

1962. And

so

it

goes:

a

book whose authors set

out to

conduct a psychological

revolution

ends

by engaging

n

courageous

but

unequivocal conceptual

self-destruction.

What has

gone wrong? Why

have

these

psychological nalyses

led

to such

pessimism?

Let

us

first

e

clear about

what is not wrong:

the

psychological

analyses

of

deterrence

n this volume

are not uninteresting

r

implausible.

In

this thoroughly reudian era, very few people try o resist psychological

explanations per se, and many of themput forth n this volume are very

compelling.

On the

level

of

what

is

sometimes called politicalpsychology,

therefore,

he

book must

be

regarded as a brilliant uccess. There is, one

is

inclined to conclude with the authors, a huge psychologicaldeficiency n the

theory

of rational deterrence.

We

see

clearly that the theory does not put

nearly enough emphasis on nonrational determinants f human thinking

and

behavior.

The problem, rather,

s

one

that

s endemic to the entirefield of political

psychology.As Stanley

Hoffmannhas

pointed out,while politics s wholly

psychological, roposed solutions to (what may be regardedas importantly

psychological) problems

of war and

peace must be wholly political. 1

nd

this

means

critically

hat

proposed

solutions must be situated

firmly

within

the

cognitive

ontext f the

policymakers,who must come

to believe

that

the

proposals

will

help

to solve

what

they egard as real problems

of

war and

peace,

of deterrence

nd

reassurance,

not

perceptual

distortion

r

para-

noia or other

psychological problems.

Lebow is

correct

to conclude

that

foreign olicymakers

re

quite unlikely

o

respond favorably,

f

theyrespond

at

all,

to

overtlypsychological proposals.12They

are

in

fact

ikely

to

regard

11. Stanley Hoffmann, On

the Political Psychology of

War

and

Peace: A

Critique

and an

Agenda, Political sychology, ol. 7, No. 1 (March 1986), pp. 1-21; quotation on p. 1.

12. See J.P. Kahan,

R.E.

Darilek, M.H. Graubard, and N.C. Brown,with assistance fromA.

Platt nd B.R.Williams, reventinguclear onflict: hat an theBehavioralciences ontribute?

(Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation,1983);

and

Carnegie Corporation, Behavioral

Sciences

and the Preventionof Nuclear War (Mimeo, 1984).


10/13

NewPsychologyf

War

ndPeace

1

83

such proposals as, in the felicitous phrasing of

William

James, so much

mythological nd poetic talk about psychology

and

of no interest r rele-

vance to them.13 o believe otherwisewould be mere wishful hinking f ust

the sort that the authors of this volume find so ubiquitous and discomfiting

in foreignpolicymakers.

What can be done about Lebow's paradox?

Is there a

psychologically

informed pproach to deterrence that is policy-relevant? here is indeed,

although it is unlikely to satisfyeither psychologists

or

political scientists

seeking to borrow disciplinary knowledge

rom one another

and

apply

it

directly o pragmaticproblems of war and peace.

As Lebow

argues, this does

not work. The findings of cognitive and clinical psychology,

n

all their

multitudinous

disciplinary orms,

re

unlikely

o

be

helpful

to

policymakers.

What

would be helpful is

a

psychological approach

that

takes

fully

nto

account the

substantial

nonrational

component

of

deterrence but

that

is

transparent, nconspicuous, and devoid of off-the-shelf

olutions from

psychology.Among psychologists,

his

pproach

is called

phenomenology,

the studyof the streamof thought s

it

appears to

the

thinking

nd

perceiving

subject.

Its chief rchitectwas William

James.14

he

goal

of such an

approach

would

be

this in

the

phrasing of

Paul

Bracken):

Instead

of

trying

o

change

people

...

[we

should

try]

o

change

the

premises

of their

decisions

through

... removal of the threats

that

compel

them

to

make irrevocable

choices.... 15 One must be

psychologically oncerned,

but

one must also

provide genuine policy

choices. This seems to be

the most

promisingway

to

avoid the

psychological

innocence of rational deterrence

heory

while also

avoiding thepolicyirrelevanceofdisciplinary sychology.

Toward the end of the Melian

dialogue, Thucydides

has the

Athenians

accuse the Melians of wishfulthinking, fretreating

o illusion and thus

to

regarding

what

is out of sight [as] more certain

than what

is

beforeyour

eyes. '16

The authors of

Psychology

nd

Deterrence

ake

an

analogous

and

13. WilliamJames,Letter o FrancisJ.Child,

August 16, 1878, cited

n

Gay Wilson Allen, William

JamesNew York: Viking, 1967), p.

211.

14. Extended arguments for a phenomenological

psychology of

war

and

peace

and its debt

to

WilliamJames re in JamesG. Blight, How Might PsychologyContribute o ReducingtheRisk

of

Nuclear

War?, PoliticalPsychology,n

press;

and

Psychology

and

Reducing

the Risk

of

Nuclear War: From Parallel Paths to Fruitfulnteraction, Journal f

Humanistic

sychology,

n

press.

15. Paul Bracken, Accidental Nuclear War, in

Allison et al., Hawks, Doves, and Owls, pp. 25-

53; quotation on p. 52.

16. Thucydides, PeloponnesianWar,p. 507.


11/13

International

ecurity

184

convincingpoint

about rationaldeterrence heorists

nd

practitioners.

ut

to

complete the revolution

n

thinking

bout

deterrence,

which

requires

not

merelythe demolition of the old anti-psychology ut also construction f a

new policy-relevant sychology,we must also apply the

Athenianaccusation

to Jervis, ebow, and Stein and urge them, along

with all

who study deter-

rence, to begin the psychologicalanalysis

where the

policymaker egins

and

thus to ask first nd throughout not what is

out

of sight,

supposedly

buried

in

the deeply layered cognitiveprocesses of

policymakers,

ut

rather

what

is before their

yes, seeming

to those who must

make the

decisions

to pose threats o deterrence

nd

thus

to

peace.

What

would some such

psychological approach

be like that avoids coun-

terproductive ependence

on

obscure

psychological ssumptions

and

litera-

tures and that also (like Psychologynd Deterrence)s focused

centrally

on

avoidingnuclear

war

between

the

superpowers? Obviously,

it

is

impossible

in

a

relatively rief eview

to

be explicit

bout all or

many

of the dimensions

and

emphases

of

a

research

program

that meets these

requirements.

But to

get

the

proper

orientation nd to

begin

to ask the

relevant

questions,

one

can do no

better

han to follow

up

the

psychological mplications

f

the main

thesisofa previous book by Jervis:

it

is not

an

exaggeration to speak of the nuclear revolution. Unless

a

state

has first-strikeapability, t s hard to see how having [what

Paul Nitze

calls]

the advantage at the uppermost evel of violence helps.

Indeed,

it

is even

hard

to tell what that means

. . .

[because] the side that s ahead is

no

more

protected han the side

that

s behind.17

If

Jervis s correct, hen the nuclear revolution ought to have

crystal

lear

psychologicalreality

o leaders

of the

superpowers

in

those

moments when

they believe they face the actual, imminent though still

contingent)proba-

bility

f nuclear

war.

This is

exactly

what we find

n, for example, the Cuban missile crisis of

1962: the

psychological transformation f the

nuclear

revolution,described

by Jervis,

rommere ntellectual wareness of ts

ogicalpossibility

o

intense,

preoccupying

fear of

its operational consequences.

Richard

Neustadt has

summarized this

psychological

shift

n

an

apt aphorism:

t

is

the

awareness

of

the risk of

irreversibility

ecome

rreparable. 1.8

n

moments

of

surpassing

17.

RobertJervis, he llogic fAmerican

uclear trategyIthaca,N.Y.:

CornellUniversity ress,

1984), p. 58.

18. Richard E. Neustadt,

Presidential

ower: The

Politics

f Leadership

rom

FDR to

Carter

New

York:

Wiley,1980), p. 158. (Italics n

original.)


12/13

New

Psychologyf

War ndPeace

1

85

nuclear danger, the

technological evolutionnoted by Jervis eems to produce

a psychological

revolution,namely,

that nuclear

weapons are regarded sud-

denly and

unequivocally by political

leaders

as useless

in

the pursuit of

political

and

militarygoals. During

the

crises

in

Berlin

(1961)

and Cuba

(1962)-the only

two war-threatening rises between the superpowers

n

the

age of potential,

mutual annihilation-President Kennedy

and his

closest

advisers could not indeed deriveany concretemeaningfrom he calculation

of their

very arge)

relativeadvantage

in

deliverable nuclear

weapons.19

Moreover, these instances

of

psychological

nuclear revolutionhad

conse-

quences so important

nd so well

known that

t

s remarkable hat

theyplay

no role whatever

in

Psychology

nd Deterrence. hief

among these is the

singular bsence

from

high-leveldecision-making

f

ust

the sortsof

psycho-

logical biases,

projections, paranoia,

and so forth

n

which

the decision-

making during

the Falklands

and Middle East wars seems to

the authors

literally o be saturated.20 wareness

of

gravenucleardanger seems to have

elicitednot only great fearbutalso greatcaution and enhanced psychological

maturity.

he evolution of

presidential decision-makingduring

the

missile

crisis,

for

example,

is

in

large part

the

story

of a

group

of

nuclear

pilgrims'

progress toward an understanding

of

the

predicament Khrushchev as

in.

Nothing

resembling

his sort of

psychological

evolution can

be

discovered

in

the

case studies

in

Psychology

nd

Deterrence.

n

fact,psychological

devolution

in

crises s theveritable ubject

of the

inquiry.

The psychological

incommensurability

etween

the

nonnuclear

and

nu-

clear

cases

poses grave

doubts about

the

central,

f

somewhat

implicit,goal

of the book: to produce a more empirical approach to the studyof nuclear

deterrence ymeans

of a

psychological nalysis

of nonnuclear

ases,

of

which

we

may

have

many and,

at

that, many

that ran

their

course

all

the

way

to

war.

But

the

psychologies

of

these

two

sorts

of events-nuclear and

non-

nuclear-seem

almost

to be the inverse

of

one

another

as, indeed,

do

the

results.

n

each case

examined

in

this

book,

war

broke

out,

while we have

yet

to

experience

a

war between

the

superpowers.

19. See George Ball, McGeorge Bundy, Roswell Gilpatric,RobertMcNamara, Dean Rusk, and

Theodore Sorensen, The Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Time, eptember27, 1982, pp.

85-86. See

also

Marc Trachtenberg,

The

Influence

of Nuclear

Weapons

in the

Cuban Missile

Crisis, nternationalecurity, ol. 10,

No.

1

(Summer 1985), pp.

137-163.

20. Irving . Janis, roupthink:sychologicaltudiesf olicy ecisionsnd iascoesBoston: ough-

ton Mifflin, 982), pp. 123-158. See also Alexander L. George,

The

Cuban Missile

Crisis, 1962,

in AlexanderL. George, David K. Hall, and William E. Simons, The Limits fCoercive iplomacy:

Laos, Cuba, Vietnam Boston: Little,Brown, 1971), pp. 86-143.


13/13

International

ecurity

186

Thus, in addition to questions of policy, any psychological nquiry nto

nuclear deterrencemust also address these issues: first,what, if any, rele-

vance have nonnuclear cases to nuclear cases in the era of mutual, potential

annihilation? t appears that, even when viewed within the somewhat re-

ductive psychological categories favored by the authors of Psychologynd

Deterrence,he connections

do not exist.

Second,

what

should be the focus

of a psychological approach to nuclear crisis decision-making?

A

central

feature,

t

appears, ought

to be the

ways

in

which situational variables

interactwith what Jervis alls the nuclear revolution o produce heightened

awareness of ts mplications

n

crises. Consistent

with

thisorientationwould

be the avoidance of what is,

in

effect, psychology of misperceptions,

miscalculations, and other presumedly psychologically

based

mistakes of

leaders. It ought to be replaced with a psychology of the evolving fear of

such

mistakes, which is

an

entirely

different ort

of

inquiry,

one

requiring

far

ess borrowing frompsychological

iteratures

nd

nonnuclear cases and

far

more attention to the nature, structure,

nd

pace

of

the

psychological

evolutionof eaders

in

nuclear crises.

This

means, finally,

hatwe must return

to the study of Berlin n 1961

and

most

of all

to

Cuba in

1962

to

decipher

why, unlike the outcomes of

the cases discussed

in

Psychology

nd

Deterrence,

the United States and the Soviet Union did notgo to war during those deep

crises. n

short, n order

to meet the

valid

demand for more

empirical,

ess

deductive approach to nuclear deterrence,

new sort of mmersion

n

psy-

chology

s

required-not

immersion

n

psychological iteratures,

ut

rather

imaginative mmersion nto theway nucleardanger

looks and feels to those

who must

try

o

manage

it.

psychology o fwar

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