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Some under-caffeinated thoughts on the news that Trump approved a strike on Iran and then pulled back (which he’s now confirmed). Thanks to @dov_levin for this tweet about my @IntOrgJournal piece on why experienced leadership matters. 1/n
[Caveat: we’ve had a lot of good @monkeycageblog analysis on Iran this week but these thoughts/errors are just me and I don’t mean to put words in anyone’s mouths.] 2/n
I’m not sure how Iran fits setup of my article, because Trump doesn’t seem to want war. But the (wonky) reason I started writing it, long before Trump, is relevant given Trump administration divisions: we still don’t know much about how psychological bias works in groups. 3/n
We know a LOT about how individual bias affects foreign policy, as the rest of the special issue in which that paper appeared shows. But still not much research on how bias adds up in groups. 4/n bit.ly/2FiAstx
[Pet peeve alert: the one thing everyone knows, “groupthink,” is often misused and is a highly specific argument about desire for maintaining group camaraderie—clearly not the issue here!] 5/n
Anyway, in a team, does bias add up, cancel out, etc? Most work doesn't address a key issue: group politics. When there’s a leader with bias and advisers with different biases, there are power dynamics. Some new-ish work in behavioral econ on bias in principal-agent problems. 6/n
So I treated this as a principal-agent problem w/ biased principal & agents. Important: “bias” is often pejorative but can mean, “I view the world through my beliefs and knowledge/experience.” Which is…mostly a good thing! See Jervis, chapter 4. 7/n amazon.com/Perception-Mis…
You want a leader who can take in info quickly, use experience to process it. You might not like decision but better that than someone who can’t put things into context, doesn’t ask probing Q's of war plans (sooner than 10 minutes before a strike), who changes mind quickly. 8/n
Trump seems to have belief that interventions are bad, but likes limited strikes that show toughness (Syria 2017/2018). So @mchorowitz & I wrote odds of war are lower than you think but main worry is advisers presenting what seems like limited option. 9/n wapo.st/2RrSUEV
Also per my book on leaders and military interventions, a leader who sees threats from other states’ actions (and not their institutions) is more likely to choose seemingly “surgical” intervention option, & thus more likely to say “yes” to fighting. 10/n cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=801…
In the Trump/Iran case, the confrontation itself seems to have arisen more from Trump’s desire to undo the Iran deal rather than any particular threat perception (see @Nick_L_Miller) but point is, Trump isn’t crusading for regime change. 11/n washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…
Of course, “surgical” interventions are often anything but, because states then get sucked into larger operations, as @DenisonBe wrote here in @monkeycageblog about a potential Venezuela intervention. 12/n washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…
But I’d emphasize that we just don’t know that much about how a leader with a belief that is (still) not anchored in experience will make decisions in a group that has strong and competing views. Worth reading this good @RitaKonaev thread: 13/n
Studying leaders is hard. Leaders matter but in war, so do structural factors. That’s why @mchorowitz & I (who both wrote books on how leaders matter!) focused on structural factors in our @monkeycageblog piece—to find where Trump might matter. 14/n amazon.com/Why-Leaders-Fi…
One way to think about it might be, war is low probability, but w/ Trump & this team, much higher variance. So you can take some comfort from this analysis from @mchorowitz @sekreps @mcfuhrmann…but not total comfort. In the end, presidents matter. 15/n washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/…
Ok, off to make some more coffee and try to write the academic jargon that was on the to-do list today. END
