A Cognitive Bias That May Set off Nuclear Warfare

Intelligence officers, significantly analysts who put together studies and assessments, are taught that one of many biggest hazards they face comes not from exterior actors, such because the “dangerous guys” that they aim, however from themselves.

Within the “bible” of intelligence evaluation, The Psychology of Intelligence Evaluation by Richards Heurer, analysts-in-training find out how judgment errors that all of us make in on a regular basis life can lead them— unconsciously— to make grave errors in assessing the capabilities and intentions of adversaries, such because the Russians.

One such judgment error known as Mirror Picture Bias, the place we assess motives underlying the habits of one other particular person based mostly on our personal experiences, beliefs, motivations, and values.

An instance of “mirroring” within the present Ukraine disaster could be for us to imagine that Putin is simply bluffing when he threatens nuclear warfare over any Western interference with Russia’s warfare effort.

Absolutely, we are saying to ourselves, Putin is aware of that attacking the West with a nuclear first strike will result in complete, or near-total annihilation of his personal nation, Due to this fact, we motive, his latest risk is simply that, an empty risk.

Let’s put apart, for the second, the truth that Russia, with a much more sturdy civil protection system than ours, along with nuclear survivable communications and electronics techniques, is much better ready for an all-out nuclear warfare than we’re.

And let’s additionally put apart the notion that Russia believes it enjoys the benefit of single-minded goal, whereas its enemy, NATO, is an alliance made up of 30 completely different international locations, every of which should seek the advice of one another earlier than doing something, probably delaying an efficient response to a Russian nuclear first strike.

As an alternative let’s boil all of it all the way down to the private survival motivations of 1 particular person, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Up to now, Putin even advised then-Vice President Biden that it is fallacious to imagine the 2 males assume the identical approach.¹

Whereas the worst that may occur to an American president who loses or will get slowed down in a expensive warfare is that they are going to lose political workplace, the worst that might occur to Putin if Russia falters is that he might lose his life. Witness the ten or so Kremlin political opponents who’ve been murdered or, like Putin opponent Alexei Navalny, poisoned with nerve gasoline.

Thus, if Putin confronted a selection of backing down in Ukraine or launching a first-strike nuclear assault in opposition to NATO, his odds of personally surviving would possibly truly be increased, hunkering down in a nuclear-proof bunker within the Ural mountains or deep beneath the Kremlin, than they’d be if his actions humiliated Russia and enraged the Russian Siloviki (robust males) who hold Putin in energy.

Don’t assume, simply because we imagine an all-out nuclear warfare is un-winnable, that the Kremlin agrees. Sure, nuclear warfare would sacrifice an infinite portion of the Russian inhabitants, however Russia misplaced about 15 % of its inhabitants in World Warfare II and emerged victorious and in a far stronger place (by controlling all of Jap Europe) than earlier than the warfare.

In different phrases, Putin would possibly imagine, with some justification, {that a} nuclear warfare would possibly severely wound Russia however would completely destroy the West.

Just a few days in the past, George Beebe, a former head of Russia evaluation and my boss at CIA, answered my query about Putin’s world-view, observing, “I imagine that Putin thinks this battle is existential for each Russia and him, personally.”

In a Nationwide Curiosity article titled “Raging In direction of the Abyss With Russia,”² Beebe argues that, if we wish to stop a nuclear warfare, we have to discover a inventive approach out of the present disaster that enables Putin to save lots of face if the warfare in Ukraine goes badly for him. Such a face-saving concept pulled us again from the brink of nuclear warfare in 1962, when the U.S. pledged to take away nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy and to by no means assault Cuba, in return for Russia eradicating their nuclear-armed missiles from Cuba.

Beebe goes on to say that our present technique of thwarting Russian goals in Ukraine whereas “asphyxiating” their financial system could reach humiliating Russia, however that, backed right into a nook, Putin’s danger calculus could lead on him to conclude that nuclear first strike is his solely choice.

Sure, Russian aggression in Ukraine is reprehensible, and sure, World Warfare II taught us the futility of attempting to appease amoral dictators, however the survival of the world, actually, might rely on us rapidly discovering, then navigating the slim path between appeasement and catastrophic confrontation.