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The Rational Deterrence Debate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

George W. Downs
George W. Downs
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

Although there are important differences between the rational theory of deterrence and the theory of deterrence that is emerging from the psychology and case-study literatures, it is necessary for adherents of both to appreciate the ways in which they complement each other and the problems they share. For example, rational deterrence theory will not describe the way the world works until certain heuristics and biases that can only be discovered through case studies and other inferential methods are either eliminated or integrated into the theory. On the other hand, psychologists and case-study researchers will find it difficult to trace through the implications of their discoveries for strategic behavior until they adopt some relative of formal methods.

Type
The Rational Deterrence Debate: A Symposium
Information
World Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , January 1989 , pp. 225 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1989

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References

1 The author thanks David Rocke for offering this observation.

2 See Robert Powell, “Nuclear Deterrence and the Strategy of Limited Retaliation,” paper presented at the convention of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, September 1988.

3 See Achen and Snidal, “Rational Deterrence Theory and Comparative Case Studies,” World Politics 41 (January 1989), n. 51Google Scholar.

4 Kreps, David M. and Wilson, Robert, “Sequential Equilibria,” Econometrica 50 (July 1982), 863–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 See Kahneman, Daniel, Slovic, Paul, and Tversky, Amos, Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Although the commentaries focus on psychological sources of bias, there are those who argue that the non-unitary character of the nation-state can also produce systematic biases. See Putnam, Robert D., “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization 42 (Summer 1988), 427–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; George, Alexander L., Farley, Phillip, and Dallin, Alexander, eds., U.S.-Soviet Security Cooperation: Achievements, Failures, and Lessons (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; and Kenneth A. Oye, “Underprovision of Compensation: Implications of Imperfect Information and Fragmented Actors,” paper presented at the convention of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, September 1988. For a contrary position, see Christopher H. Achen, “When Is a State with Bureaucratic Politics Representable as a Unitary Rational Actor?” paper presented at the convention of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, September 1988.

7 McCloskey, Donald N., The Rhetoric of Economics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 3Google Scholar.

8 For internal reforms of institutions and decision-making processes designed to minimize biases, see George, Alexander L., “The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign Policy,” American Political Science Review 66 (September 1972), 751–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Janis, Irving L., Victims of Groupthink (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972)Google Scholar; and Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976)Google Scholar.

9 The author is developing this line of argument in a paper titled “Bias, Uncertainty, and Theories of Rational Deterrence.”