/lit/ - Literature

>>22801569
Mearsheimer has a new book. I think you can get some things out of it, but I noticed this critique in Foreign Affairs:

>Their new book is sweeping. In How States Think, Mearsheimer and Rosato examine policymakers’ collective choices from World War I to the present. They revisit major choices from the past that have often been considered nonsensical and argue that they were, in fact, quite rational. Even Germany’s disastrous 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor that same year are cited as rational decisions.

>Some of Mearsheimer and Rosato’s criticisms are valid. The authors correctly point out that “rationality” is a foggy term, and they are rightfully dismissive of commentators who decide whether an action was a success “and then reason backward” to determine whether it was rational. The authors also effectively pick apart overly narrow definitions of rationality that make almost every leader come off as a cartoonish madman.

>But when Mearsheimer and Rosato begin to spell out their own theory of rationality, the book’s claims unravel. They write that rationality is “making sense of the world for the purpose of navigating it in the pursuit of desired goals” and that rational decisions are those based on theories supported by “realistic assumptions,” “compelling causal logic,” and “evidentiary support.” It is a formulation that is just as squishy as the definitions they take down. All leaders, after all, think their theories, ideas, and choices are consistent, logical, and well supported—and there is rarely an objective test that can prove otherwise or that does not rely on post hoc reasoning.

>The authors unintentionally illustrate this problem when they explain which theories they consider credible and which ones they do not. They dismiss as unconvincing the domino theory, which holds that if one country becomes a democracy or a communist dictatorship, then its neighbors would quickly make the same switch. Yet they argue that Putin’s belief that Russia and Ukraine are part of one country is credible because, historically, Ukraine has been Moscow’s strategic buffer against the rest of Europe. There is no objective reason why decisions guided by domino theory are irrational and Putin’s attack on Ukraine is not. But there is a subjective one. Mearsheimer and Rosato are both realists, and according to their version of realism, Putin’s decision was the natural response to NATO expansion. A theory’s credibility, in other words, is in the eye of the beholder.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/why-smart-leaders-do-stupid-things