Daniel Kahneman (the psychologist who won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 2002) and Jonathan Renshon try to explain why those who are more willing to favor military action and coercive force succeed in tipping the scales in international affairs:
As the hawks and doves thrust and parry, one hopes that the decision makers will hear their arguments on the merits and weigh them judiciously before choosing a course of action. Don’t count on it. Modern psychology suggests that policymakers come to the debate predisposed to believe their hawkish advisors more than the doves. There are numerous reasons for the burden of persuasion that doves carry, and some of them have nothing to do with politics or strategy. In fact, a bias in favor of hawkish beliefs and preferences is built into the fabric of the human mind.
Social and cognitive psychologists have identified a number of predictable errors (psychologists call them biases) in the ways that humans judge situations and evaluate risks. Biases have been documented both in the laboratory and in the real world, mostly in situations that have no connection to international politics. For example, people are prone to exaggerating their strengths: About 80 percent of us believe that our driving skills are better than average. In situations of potential conflict, the same optimistic bias makes politicians and generals receptive to advisors who offer highly favorable estimates of the outcomes of war. Such a predisposition, often shared by leaders on both sides of a conflict, is likely to produce a disaster. And this is not an isolated example.
In fact, when we constructed a list of the biases uncovered in 40 years of psychological research, we were startled by what we found: All the biases in our list favor hawks. These psychological impulses—only a few of which we discuss here—incline national leaders to exaggerate the evil intentions of adversaries, to misjudge how adversaries perceive them, to be overly sanguine when hostilities start, and overly reluctant to make necessary concessions in negotiations. In short, these biases have the effect of making wars more likely to begin and more difficult to end.
Here is an article detailing the work of the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) that has its sights set on Tehran and Damascus.
And, then there is the increase of troops in Iraq soon to be proposed by President Bush. “Instead of a surge, it is a bump,” said a State Department official. He spoke on condition of anonymity, because Bush hasn’t yet unveiled details of what the White House is calling a “new way forward” in Iraq.
“In short, these biases have the effect of making wars more likely to begin and more difficult to end.”
Indeed.
