Interview with Robert Jervis Robert Jervis is a professor of international politics at Columbia University. He studies the intersection of psychology and international relations. His work challenges popular notions about nuclear deterrence by noting the complexities that perception and misperception introduce to deterrence and foreign relations as a whole.
by Shilpa Sajja ’23 illustration by Nicholas Edwards ’23 Shilpa Sajja: For readers who may not know about your work with decision making, could you give a brief summary of how something like deterrence can be impacted by decision making heuristics? Robert Jervis: The basic problem [with deterrence] is that standard deterrence theory assumes that the two countries—let’s just make it two for simplicity—see the world the same way, that they are playing the same game. But when you start looking at the psychology involved and looking at cases, you find that they are often not playing the same game. There are very different perceptual worlds. I sum it up by saying that people studying international relations know that the game of chess is a bad analogy [for international politics] because all the players are out in the open. However, bluffing and deception are an important part of [international relations]. [In the Cold War, for example, leaders] saw the moves differently, they thought the game started at different places, they interpreted each other’s behavior very differently. In some ways that doesn’t take a lot of fancy psychology [to see], but it’s an important lesson that you must not assume that the other side is understanding the world the way you understand it.
How would you recommend policy makers and our politicians be more cognizant of different cultures and their own perceptions of different nations? Some presidents have done quite well. To be bipartisan, I think Obama and President Eisenhower both lived outside the country for significant periods. That helped them realize that perceptions of worldviews tend to be parochial, and that they had to learn that others might see the world differently. Whereas, for Trump, who is of course very self-centered, this multiplies the effect [of misperception]. It becomes very hard for him to see how others might really see differently, and so that’s partly why when he meets Kim Jong Un, he thinks, “Oh, Kim is going to do what I want him to do.” He interprets Kim’s remarks in ways very favorable to him and then when he gets rebuffed, as he did in Hanoi, he’s just totally flummoxed. So, having had a wide variety of experience certainly helps. No guarantee, but it certainly helps. And others who haven’t, if they are just intellectually sophisticated, will know that they need to talk to people with quite different views and to escape
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from the bubble and the echo chamber. It’s hard to do that because the bubble is very comfortable, but good people will do it.
To go back to your work with deterrence during the Cold War, how does the multipolar world system now complicate the Cold War theories of deterrence and misperception? [In the Cold War], deterrence was essentially a two actor system. What do we do with multiple adversaries and also multiple audiences, including allies that can be very important? The audiences may interpret your behavior differently and sometimes that can work in your favor, but often it does not work in your favor and you have to try to take into account how you think each audience will see your behavior. Today, with multiple adversaries that are sort of similar you have that problem even more, where what we do with North Korea is presumably being watched by Iran and maybe by Venezuela. And again, what we do or don’t do in Venezuela may have some impact on what North Korea says. The North Koreans have public statements which show no reason to doubt that when they saw us overthrow Qaddafi in Libya and also invade Iraq, the obvious lesson was that the US will overthrow or push around countries that don’t have nuclear weapons and that, they’ll say, increased their incentives to get nuclear weapons. It’s quite plausible that Iran reasoned the same way.
How have you seen perception play into domestic politics, particularly with the upcoming election? American politics and mass opinion has become much more like an echo chamber than it was. I’m not an expert in American public opinion, but there is data showing that people used to have many more friends in opposite parties, and people’s views of the opposite political parties have grown much, much more negative over the past 20 years. That’s related to the fact that people with one party affiliation are likely not to know or talk to many people in the other party. So, you’ve got this greater self-reinforcing cycle domestically. From the standpoint of leaders, this is good and bad. It’s bad for the country, but it can increase a leader’s hold over his base. I mean, we’ve seen this with Trump—perfect case of playing to the base and doing well. More broadly, what political
leaders do [is] try to appeal to audiences, and that does require knowing quite a bit about what others like, how they’re thinking, and how they’ll see the world.
Could you touch on how the increasing domestic polarization we’ve seen has the potential to impact our international policies? The main thing is the parties have polarized more on foreign policy and on a wide range of foreign policy issues which makes continuity much harder. When Bush came into the office his policy was ABC—“anything but Clinton.” When Trump came in, we saw the policy become “anything but Obama.” Why did Trump renounce the nuclear deal with Iran? Well, because it was Obama’s deal. And if Trump loses in November, the next Democratic president will reject Trump’s policies wholesale. I personally think there are a lot of things there that should be rejected, but you really do want to look with some care at these. So, the domestic polarization means just a blank renunciation, so you may not get as careful consideration of what was good or bad and what the international constraints are.
What are some tactics that future politicians could use to go between the aisle more? Well, it’s really hard. I fear that Paul Krugman, who I think is very good generally, is right that it is not a symmetrical problem. Yes, the Democrats, of course, are hostile. But most of the Democratic politicians, senators, congressmen, will listen to reasonable proposals, even if they come from Republicans. But really, even before Trump, Republicans have been unwilling to compromise. And, of course, now it’s even worse. I think things have to get worse before they get better. I think the Republicans have to not only lose the presidency but suffer quite a major defeat in Congress. I think that’s necessary before we get a decent degree of bipartisanship. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
