T he most alarming thing about Russia’s recent actions in Crimea
and the crisis atmosphere surrounding the whole ordeal is the sheer lack of accurate
information available concerning the most basic facts on the ground. “Hard
news” about the crisis is hard to come by. This has me thinking a lot of Robert
Jervis’ classic work Perception and
Misperception in International Politics.
Jervis examines how decision-makers with imperfect information
form perceptions of events and other actors (leaders, states, etc.) that often significantly
diverge from reality. Misperception covers an array of commonplace cognitive
biases that affect the way people see the world and make decisions. In
international politics, the dangers of misperception are high because
decision-makers, who have armed forces and ballistic missiles at their
disposal, are required to assess uncertain situations and make judgments about
the hostile intentions of other states. Misperception can cause a leader to
escalate a crisis or start a war he otherwise might not have if he had an
accurate perception of the situation. Accordingly, misperception has been found
by many scholars to have caused numerous conflicts.
Nearly all of the media reporting and commentary on the Ukraine
crisis I can find seem to be operating off of hysterical one-sided assumptions and unfounded speculation. I can’t help but see the sources of misperception at work. For
instance, we don’t even know for sure if the armed men in unmarked uniforms
surrounding Ukrainian military bases in Crimea are actually even Russian soldiers.
There were early reports
that they were pro-Russia militiamen or security contractors. Almost a week
later, their true identities remain ambiguous
and unconfirmed. Nevertheless, most reporters and analysts have simply
ignored this information and identified them as Russian troops. Even if they
are Russian soldiers, the unmarked uniforms aspect raises a lot of questions about
Russia’s intentions that no one even seems interested in asking (or answering).
In any case, how can we expect decision-makers to clearly perceive
the situation in Ukraine and make sound policy choices with such incomplete information?
We may hope that behind the scenes there are various intelligence agencies busy filling
in the blanks. This assumes, however, that decision-makers are actually
listening and using intelligence to craft policy. Historians tell us that this rarely,
if
ever, occurs. Moreover, misperception is not directly linked to the quality
of information available but how a decision-maker uses their values, beliefs
and expectations to process and interpret incoming information. While awareness and better
information about the intentions of others can help reduce misperception, the cognitive sources of misperception can never be entirely eliminated.
Regrettably, building a decent study on how a decision-maker
perceived a situation requires rigorous historical evidence. We won’t really
know what is running through the thoughts and across the desks of Barack Obama,
John Kerry, or even Vladimir Putin until many years from now. In the meantime,
I thought it might be fun to see if Jervis can help identify any potential misperceptions by some of the
most widely read foreign policy pundits, commentators, and reporters in their
takes on the Ukraine crisis.
Jervis does not systematically identify all the types of
misperceptions in his book and some may
seem to fit several different categories because umbrella misperceptions like cognitive
consistency encompass more specific misperceptions. I’ve plucked some of the more common misperceptions
from the text, labeled them if need be, and placed the potential cases of misperception
beneath them.
Cognitive Consistency
“…the strong tendency for people to see what they expect to see and to assimilate incoming information into pre-existing images."
“…the strong tendency for people to see what they expect to see and to assimilate incoming information into pre-existing images."
Sadly, this case provides another vivid reminder of why
tough-minded realism is a better guide to foreign policy than feckless liberal
idealism or neoconservative bluster. [R]ealism tells you major powers care a
lot about security and are often ruthless in defending vital interests,
especially close to home. It recognizes that great powers ignore international
law when it gets in their way, and it sees relations between major powers as a
ceaseless struggle for position, even when that struggle is waged for
essentially defensive reasons.
—— Steve Walt, Realist, Harvard
University
Foreign
Policy
Belief That The Other Understands You Are Not A Threat
"…actors injure others more than they mean to because they do not see the degree to which their policies conflict with the other’s interests…when the actor believes he is not a threat to another, he usually assumes that the other knows he is not hostile."
"…actors injure others more than they mean to because they do not see the degree to which their policies conflict with the other’s interests…when the actor believes he is not a threat to another, he usually assumes that the other knows he is not hostile."
Some ideas [NATO should] consider would include: …Providing
advice to Ukrainian armed forces to prepare and position themselves in the
event of further conflict. …Bringing the NATO Response Force, a 25,000-man sea,
air, land, and special forces capability, to a higher state of alert. …Sailing
NATO maritime forces into the Black Sea and setting up contingency plans for
their use. Many will consider any
level of NATO involvement provocative and potentially inflammatory.
Unfortunately, the stakes are high and the Russians are moving. Sitting idle,
without at least looking at options, is a mistake for NATO and would itself
constitute a signal to Putin -- one that he would welcome.
—— U.S. Adm. James Stavridis (ret.), Fmr. Supreme Allied Commander Europe
Foreign Policy
We have to make absolutely clear that Russian military
intervention in other regions of Ukraine is a red line that will mean war with
Ukrainian and NATO military forces if it is crossed. U.S. and NATO naval forces
need to be deployed to the Black Sea in close proximity to the Ukrainian Coast.
Military forces of neighboring NATO member countries, meanwhile, should be
deployed closer to the Ukrainian border…Directly confronting Putin would not be
as risky as many fear – Putin is, after all, a calculating opportunist who will
take advantage of weakness where he sees it. He is extremely unlikely,
therefore, to risk war if he clearly understands the "cost" of
crossing a real red line. The question is whether he has any belief that the
United States and its allies will step up.
—— Andrew Kuchins, Director, Russia and
Eurasia Program
Center for Strategic and
International Studies
Overestimating Your Importance as Influence or Target
“Actors exaggerate the degree to which they play a central role in other’s policies.”
“Actors exaggerate the degree to which they play a central role in other’s policies.”
…We
can be relatively certain that one of the reasons that Putin has taken the
action he has -- why he has felt free to order troops into Crimea and indeed
why he has felt so free to meddle in the affairs of Ukraine since the beginning
of the current crisis -- is because he has felt there would be no consequences
-- at least none serious enough to dissuade him. This is the message that
America's recent foreign-policy actions -- or rather its relative inaction and
fecklessness -- from Syria to the Central Africa Republic, from Egypt to Anbar
province, from the East China Sea to the Black Sea, have helped to send.
—— David Rothkopf, Editor at Large
Foreign
Policy
[Putin’s] calculus was not only a judgment on Obama’s foreign policy skill set, but it
plainly included such
a judgment, and it’s strange to think that recent U.S.-Russian entanglements
played no role in shaping it.
—— Russ Douthat, Columnist
The New
York Times
Disregarding the Internal Divisions of Others
“Decision-makers tend to overestimate the centralization of the other’s policies even if they are familiar with the other’s domestic politics and elite divisions.”
“Decision-makers tend to overestimate the centralization of the other’s policies even if they are familiar with the other’s domestic politics and elite divisions.”
Secure at home, Putin also fears little backlash from
abroad. He believes the United States and Europe will publicly condemn Russia
but implement few economic sanctions because Europe remains dependent on
Russian natural gas.
—— David Rohde, Reporter
The Atlantic
The
legislators in the Russian parliament today parroted those features of modern
Putinism. In order to justify the invasion of the Crimean peninsula, they
repeatedly cited the threat of Ukrainian “fascists” in Kiev helping Russia’s
enemies. They repeatedly echoed the need to protect ethnic Russians in
Ukraine—a theme consonant with the Kremlin’s rhetoric about Russians
everywhere, including the Baltic States…If this is the logic of the Russian
invasion, the military incursion is unlikely to stop in Crimea: nearly all of
eastern Ukraine is Russian-speaking. Russia defines its interests far beyond
its Black Sea fleet and the Crimean peninsula.
—— David Remnick, Editor
The New Yorker
Over Determining Personality
“…Observers see others as autonomous causes of their own behavior…the tendency to perceive persons as origins and to ascribe changes in [state] behavior entirely to persons, ignoring external influences.”
“…Observers see others as autonomous causes of their own behavior…the tendency to perceive persons as origins and to ascribe changes in [state] behavior entirely to persons, ignoring external influences.”
Why is Putin doing this?
Because he can. That's it, that's all you need to know…As soon as the
revolution in Kiev happened, there was an unhappy rumbling in the Crimea, which
has a large Russian population and is home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. It
was a small rumbling, but just big enough for Russia to exploit. And when such
an opportunity presents itself, one would be foolish not to take it, especially
if one's name is Vladimir Putin.
—— Julia Ioffe, Senior Editor
New
Republic
Irrational Consistency
“When a person believes that a policy contributes to one value, he is likely to believe that it also contributes to several other values, even though there is no reason why the world should be constructed in such a neat and helpful manner…belief systems thus often display overkill.”
“When a person believes that a policy contributes to one value, he is likely to believe that it also contributes to several other values, even though there is no reason why the world should be constructed in such a neat and helpful manner…belief systems thus often display overkill.”
Ironically, showing leadership now in our response to the
Russian intervention in the Crimea is likely to get the attention of our
friends in the Middle East. It cannot be a substitute for what we do in the
Middle East but it can open a new conversation with the Saudis and others…. But
launching a new conversation [in the Middle East] will be far harder if the
U.S. does not appear to come up with an effective strategy that imposes
consequences for Putin’s act of aggression against Ukraine.
——Dennis Ross, Fmr. Clinton Middle East Envoy
New
Republic
Failure to Recognize Interest Trade-offs
“…the decision-maker fails to recognize the trade-offs between advancing his interests and harming those of others. Since he does not believe that his policy is creating legitimate grievances, he underestimates the opposition that arises and sees resistance to his actions as unprovoked hostility that indicates aggressive intentions."
“…the decision-maker fails to recognize the trade-offs between advancing his interests and harming those of others. Since he does not believe that his policy is creating legitimate grievances, he underestimates the opposition that arises and sees resistance to his actions as unprovoked hostility that indicates aggressive intentions."
What Putin misunderstands most is that the center of gravity
for the former Soviet Union has shifted west…Ukraine was set to join this
movement toward the European Union last November when Yanukovych suddenly
suspended trade and financial talks with the E.U. and accepted what amounted to
a $15 billion bribe from Putin to stay in Russia’s camp. To the tens of
thousands of courageous Ukrainians who braved the cold and police brutality to
protest, Yanukovych’s submission to Moscow looked like an attempt to reverse
history.
——David Ignatius, Columnist
The Washington
Post
Categorization
“The label placed on an event or idea influence the way it is seen…this choice encourages the person to see further resemblances between the object and others in the same category.”
“The label placed on an event or idea influence the way it is seen…this choice encourages the person to see further resemblances between the object and others in the same category.”
As Russia conducts direct military intervention in Ukraine,
the US and Europe condemn it, and the Ukrainian army goes on high alert, we're
witnessing the most seismic geopolitical events since 9/11.
——Ian Bremmer, President and Founder of Eurasia
Group
Business Insider
Cognitive Dissonance
“People seek to believe that the reasons for acting or deciding as they did were overwhelming…After making a decision, a person not only will downgrade or misinterpret discrepant information but will also avoid it and seek consonant information."
“People seek to believe that the reasons for acting or deciding as they did were overwhelming…After making a decision, a person not only will downgrade or misinterpret discrepant information but will also avoid it and seek consonant information."
Putin’s quick move to a war footing suggests a
different view — one in which, particularly in Russia’s back yard, the Cold War
rivalry Putin was raised on is thriving. The Russian president has made
restoring his country’s international prestige the overarching goal of his
foreign policy, and he has embraced military force as the means to do so.
—— Scott Wilson, Chief White House Correspondent
The Washington
Post
Why has Russia chosen to gamble its trillion-dollar ties
with the West? Russia’s elites have exposed themselves in a gigantic manner –
everything they hold dear is now locked up in European properties and bank
accounts…Theoretically, this makes them vulnerable. The EU could, with a sudden
rush of money-laundering investigations and visa bans, cut them off from their
wealth. …. Russia is confident there will be no Western economic
counterattack….He knows that European bureaucrats will issue shrill statements
and then get back to business helping Russian elites buy London town houses and
French chateaux. He knows full well that the United States can no longer force
Europe to trade in a different way. He knows full well that the United States
can do nothing beyond theatrical military maneuvers at most. This is why
Vladimir Putin just invaded Crimea. He thinks he has nothing to lose.
—— Ben Judah, Author
Politico
Underestimating Coincidences
It is common for a decision-maker to see a set of events as being planned rather than coincidental. “Of special interest is that the movement of military forces are almost always seen as supporting foreign policies.”
It is common for a decision-maker to see a set of events as being planned rather than coincidental. “Of special interest is that the movement of military forces are almost always seen as supporting foreign policies.”
Russia said it test-fired an Intercontinental
Ballistic Missile on Tuesday, a planned event that timing of which was still
called into question by United States officials because of the ongoing Ukraine
crisis….The timing, the military officials agreed, appeared “suspicious but not
threatening.”…"This was a previously notified and routine test launch of
an ICBM as required under the New START Treaty, Russia provided advance
notification of this launch to the United States," National Security
Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.
—— Jim
Miklaszewski, Chief Pentagon Correspondent
Robert Windrem, Investigative Reporter
NBC News
No comments:
Post a Comment