National Security Through a Cockeyed Lens

National Security Through a Cockeyed Lens PDF Author: Steve A. Yetiv
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421411253
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
"What are key mental errors that can undermine good decision making? Drawing on four decades of psychological, historical, and political science research on cognitive biases, this book illuminates key pitfalls in how we and our leaders make decisions. It shows in five case studies of American foreign and energy policy that such errors--a dozen different cognitive biases--have been more important in shaping and impacting U.S. national interests than we currently understand. In so doing, it also sheds light on U.S. foreign policy toward and interests in the Middle East. That story prominently features non-psychological explanations, but cognitive biases exercised by American and foreign actors also represent a slice of the story that is worth revealing. As examples, the book shows how the distorted cognitive lens of Al-Qaeda leaders contributed to the September 11 attacks and the ongoing conflict with America and the West; how overconfidence impacted America's decision to invade Iraq in 2003; and how short term thinking--a prominent cognitive bias--hurts America's ability to develop a comprehensive energy policy, making the Middle East more important to the United States and enhancing its proclivity to be involved in the region. The book is aimed chiefly at students and the lay public, though academics may benefit from it"--

National Security Through a Cockeyed Lens

National Security Through a Cockeyed Lens PDF Author: Steve A. Yetiv
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421411253
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 167

Get Book Here

Book Description
"What are key mental errors that can undermine good decision making? Drawing on four decades of psychological, historical, and political science research on cognitive biases, this book illuminates key pitfalls in how we and our leaders make decisions. It shows in five case studies of American foreign and energy policy that such errors--a dozen different cognitive biases--have been more important in shaping and impacting U.S. national interests than we currently understand. In so doing, it also sheds light on U.S. foreign policy toward and interests in the Middle East. That story prominently features non-psychological explanations, but cognitive biases exercised by American and foreign actors also represent a slice of the story that is worth revealing. As examples, the book shows how the distorted cognitive lens of Al-Qaeda leaders contributed to the September 11 attacks and the ongoing conflict with America and the West; how overconfidence impacted America's decision to invade Iraq in 2003; and how short term thinking--a prominent cognitive bias--hurts America's ability to develop a comprehensive energy policy, making the Middle East more important to the United States and enhancing its proclivity to be involved in the region. The book is aimed chiefly at students and the lay public, though academics may benefit from it"--

Isolation and Engagement

Isolation and Engagement PDF Author: William Waltman Newmann
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047213308X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
Presidents and their advisors consistently seek to improve the management of their foreign policy decision processes. This book analyzes the successes and failures of administrations from Kennedy to Nixon as they sought to strike a balance between the personal style of the president and the need for a strong interagency structure that could systematically evaluate policy options. The narrative focuses on US decision making on China and Taiwan during the crucial era when the United States was considering moving from a policy of isolating China to a policy of engagement, culminating in Nixon’s historic 1972 trip to China. William Waltman Newmann has created an evolution-balance model, tested with case studies focusing on China policy by Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, showing how the relationships between a president and his advisors change based on the weaknesses or pathologies of the president’s management style. The author’s research is based on declassified archival material from the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford presidential libraries.

Ethics, Security, and The War-Machine

Ethics, Security, and The War-Machine PDF Author: Ned Dobos
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192604228
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
If pacifists are correct in thinking that war is always unjust, then it follows that we ought to eliminate the possibility and temptation of ever engaging in it; we should not build war-making capacity, and if we already have, then demilitarization—or military abolition—would seem to be the appropriate course to take. On the other hand, if war is sometimes justified, as many believe, then it must be permissible to prepare for it by creating and maintaining a military establishment. Yet this view that the justifiability of war-making is also sufficient to justify war-building is mistaken. This book addresses questions of jus ante bellum, or justice before war. Under what circumstances is it justifiable for a polity to prepare for war by militarizing? When (if ever) and why (if at all) is it morally permissible to create and maintain the potential to wage war? In doing so it highlights the ways in which a civilian population compromises its own security in maintaining a permanent military establishment, explores the moral and social costs of militarization, and evaluates whether or not these costs are worth bearing.

Toppling Foreign Governments

Toppling Foreign Governments PDF Author: Melissa Willard-Foster
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812251040
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
In 2011, the United States launched its third regime-change attempt in a decade. Like earlier targets, Libya's Muammar Qaddafi had little hope of defeating the forces stacked against him. He seemed to recognize this when calling for a cease-fire just after the intervention began. But by then, the United States had determined it was better to oust him than negotiate and thus backed his opposition. The history of foreign-imposed regime change is replete with leaders like Qaddafi, overthrown after wars they seemed unlikely to win. From the British ouster of Afghanistan's Sher Ali in 1878 to the Soviet overthrow of Hungary's Imre Nagy in 1956, regime change has been imposed on the weak and the friendless. In Toppling Foreign Governments, Melissa Willard-Foster explores the question of why stronger nations overthrow governments when they could attain their aims at the bargaining table. She identifies a central cause—the targeted leader's domestic political vulnerability—that not only gives the leader motive to resist a stronger nation's demands, making a bargain more difficult to attain, but also gives the stronger nation reason to believe that regime change will be comparatively cheap. As long as the targeted leader's domestic opposition is willing to collaborate with the foreign power, the latter is likely to conclude that ousting the leader is more cost effective than negotiating. Willard-Foster analyzes 133 instances of regime change, ranging from covert operations to major military invasions, and spanning over two hundred years. She also conducts three in-depth case studies that support her contention that domestically and militarily weak leaders appear more costly to coerce than overthrow and, as long as they remain ubiquitous, foreign-imposed regime change is likely to endure.

Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations

Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations PDF Author: Frank Costigliola
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107054184
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
This volume presents substantially revised and new essays on methodology and approaches in foreign and international relations history.

Ethnic Minorities in Democratizing Muslim Countries

Ethnic Minorities in Democratizing Muslim Countries PDF Author: Maurizio Geri
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319755749
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This book explores the ways in which democratizing Muslim countries treat their ethnic minorities’ requests of inclusiveness and autonomy. The author examines the results of two important cases—the securitization of Kurds in Turkey and the “autonomization” (a new concept coined by the study) of Acehnese in Indonesia—through multiple hypotheses: the elites’ power interest, the international factors, the institutions and history of the state, and the ontological security of the country. By examining states with ethnic diversity and very little religious diversity, the research controls for the effect of religious conflict on minority inclusion, and so allows expanded generalizations and comparisons. In non-Muslim majority countries, and in so called “mature democracies,” the problem of the inclusion of old or new ethnic minorities is also crucial for the sustainability of the “never-ending” democratization processes.

Cyber Denial, Deception and Counter Deception

Cyber Denial, Deception and Counter Deception PDF Author: Kristin E. Heckman
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319251333
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
This book presents the first reference exposition of the Cyber-Deception Chain: a flexible planning and execution framework for creating tactical, operational, or strategic deceptions. This methodology bridges the gap between the current uncoordinated patchwork of tactical denial and deception (D&D) techniques and their orchestration in service of an organization’s mission. Concepts for cyber- D&D planning operations and management are detailed within the larger organizational, business, and cyber defense context. It examines the necessity of a comprehensive, active cyber denial scheme. The authors explain the organizational implications of integrating D&D with a legacy cyber strategy, and discuss trade-offs, maturity models, and lifecycle management. Chapters present the primary challenges in using deception as part of a security strategy, and guides users through the steps to overcome common obstacles. Both revealing and concealing fact and fiction have a critical role in securing private information. Detailed case studies are included. Cyber Denial, Deception and Counter Deception is designed as a reference for professionals, researchers and government employees working in cybersecurity. Advanced-level students in computer science focused on security will also find this book useful as a reference or secondary text book.

Charles de Gaulle, the International System, and the Existential Difference

Charles de Gaulle, the International System, and the Existential Difference PDF Author: Graham O'Dwyer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317168305
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
This innovative account of Charles de Gaulle as a thinker and writer on nationalism and international relations offers a view of him far beyond that of a traditional nationalist. Centring on the way de Gaulle regarded nations as individuals the author frames his argument by rationalising de Gaulle’s nationalism within the existential movement that flowed as an intellectual undercurrent throughout early and mid-twentieth-century France. Graham O’Dwyer asserts that this existentialism of the nation and ‘the presence of the past’ allowed de Gaulle to separate the ‘nation’ from the ‘state’ when looking at China, Russia, Vietnam, and East European countries, enabling him to understand the idiosyncrasies of specific national characters better than most of his contemporaries. This was especially the case for Russia and China and meant that he read the Cold War world in a way that Washington and London could not, allowing him a unique insight into how they would act as individuals and in relation to other nations.

Psychology of a Superpower

Psychology of a Superpower PDF Author: Christopher Fettweis
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547412
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was left as the world’s sole superpower, which was the dawn of an international order known as unipolarity. The ramifications of imbalanced power extend around the globe—including the country at the center. What has the sudden realization that it stands alone atop the international hierarchy done to the United States? In Psychology of a Superpower, Christopher J. Fettweis examines how unipolarity affects the way U.S. leaders conceive of their role, make strategy, and perceive America’s place in the world. Combining security, strategy, and psychology, Fettweis investigates how the idea of being number one affects the decision making of America’s foreign-policy elite. He examines the role the United States plays in providing global common goods, such as peace and security; the effect of the Cold War’s end on nuclear-weapon strategy and policy; the psychological consequences of unbalanced power; and the grand strategies that have emerged in unipolarity. Drawing on psychology’s insights into the psychological and behavioral consequences of unchecked power, Fettweis brings new insight to political science’s policy-analysis toolkit. He also considers the prospect of the end of unipolarity, offering a challenge to widely held perceptions of American indispensability and asking whether the unipolar moment is worth trying to save. Psychology of a Superpower is a provocative rethinking of the risks and opportunities of the global position of the United States, with significant consequences for U.S. strategy, character, and identity.

Foreign Policy Analysis

Foreign Policy Analysis PDF Author: Valerie M. Hudson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442277920
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
This succinct yet comprehensive introduction to Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) is geared toward advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students. Cogently written, clearly organized, and filled with illuminating examples, the third edition has been thoroughly revised and updated. Beginning with an overview of this broad field of study, Hudson and Day consider theory and research at multiple levels of analysis, including personality and psychology of foreign policy decision makers, small group dynamics, the organizational process, bureaucratic politics, domestic politics, cultural and societal influences, national attributes, and system-level effects on foreign policy. The authors also examine the promise and frustration of theoretical integration in FPA and overview promising new work by non-North American scholars.