This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“Contrary to what many people think, we cannot equate rationality with success and nonrationality with failure. Rationality is not about outcomes. Rational actors often fail to achieve their goals, not because of foolish thinking but because of factors they can neither anticipate nor control. There is also a powerful tendency to equate rationality with morality since both qualities are thought to be features of enlightened thinking. But that too is a mistake. Rational policies can violate widely accepted standards of conduct and may even be murderously unjust.” – John J. Mearsheimer, and Sebastian Rosato, Preface, Page 8
“Rationality is all about making sense of the world for the purpose of navigating it in the pursuit of desired goals. In the foreign policy realm, this means it has both individual and state-level dimensions. Rational decision makers are theory-driven – they employ credible theories both to understand the situation at hand and to decide the best policies for achieving their objectives. A state is rational if the views of its key decision makers are aggregated through a deliberative process and the final policy is based on a credible theory. Conversely, a state is nonrational if it does not base its strategy on a credible theory, does not deliberate, or both. A careful review of the historical record shows that judged by these criteria, states are regularly rational in their foreign policy.” – John J. Mearsheimer, and Sebastian Rosato, Chapter 1: The Rational Actor Assumption, Page 17
“Policymakers confront serious information deficits
regarding most of the elements that matter for designing grand strategies or
navigating crises. The farther they peer
into the future, the larger these deficits become. Among other things, policymakers may not have
good data about their own people’s resolve or how their weaponry and combat
forces will perform in a war. Additional
uncertainties apply when it comes to assessing other states, friends as well as
enemies. It is difficult to measure the
military assets, objectives, intentions, and strategies of other states,
especially since states often conceal or misrepresent their capabilities and
thinking. Taken together, these information
deficits mean that decision makers are bound to have limited knowledge about
how their states’ interactions with other states are likely to play out and to
what outcomes. To further compound these
problems, unforeseen factors sometimes shape events in significant ways.” – John
J. Mearsheimer, and Sebastian Rosato, Chapter 2: Strategic Rationality and
Uncertainty, Page 33
Is This An Overview?
Rationality is a thinking process
that attempts to make sense of reality for the pursuit of desired goals. Using credible theories and a deliberation
process. Those who are not rational do
not base their decisions on credible theories, do not deliberate, or both. Everyone is biased, but credible theories
depend on realistic assumptions, are logically consistent, probabilistic, and
are subject to evidentiary support. The
deliberation process is a systematic method of considering the advantages and
disadvantages of alternative options and policies without coercion, deception, or
withholding information. A deliberation
process that results in a decision being made.
Rationality is not
based on outcomes, as rational policymakers can fail to achieve goals due to
factors they could not anticipate or control.
A prerequisite for rationality, is for states to have their survival as
the highest priority. In pursuit of
desired goals, states can be rational even as they violate accepted standards
of conduct.
International
politics is an information-deficient occupation, operating within
uncertainty. Policymakers can lack
information or lack reliable information about their own state and other
states. Policymakers do not have
appropriate data on how their people will perform, do not know the
effectiveness of their weapons and combat forces. Other states can conceal their capabilities
and thinking. Internal and external
information limitations inhibit understanding the interactions and outcomes of
decisions, which can still be affected by unforeseen factors. Policymakers are rational even though they do
not know all possible outcomes.
Caveats?
This book is a defense for
rationality, that policymakers generally use credible theories and deliberate
before making a decision. Much of the
book is about various explanations for rationality, which can sometimes become
repetitive, and have some contradictions.
A variety of historic examples are used to express how perceived nonrational
decisions, were actually rational. The
examples are short, which would require the reader to do more research to
understand the state.
