Essence of Decision - Implications

Implications

When the book was first published, Allison's primary message was that the concept of mutually assured destruction as a barrier to nuclear war was unfounded. By looking at organizational and political models, such an outcome was quite possible - nations, against what was predicted by the rational viewpoint, could indeed "commit suicide."

He pointed to several incidents in history that seemed to back this assertion. His most salient point: prior to the attack at Pearl Harbor, Japanese military and civilian leaders, including those responsible for making the decision, were fully aware that they lacked the industrial capacity and military might to win a war against the U.S. They went ahead and attacked anyway.

He also believed that the organizational model explained otherwise inexplicable gaffes in military history. To return to 1941, he noted that the U.S. intercepted enough evidence to indicate that Japan was about to attack Pearl Harbor, yet the commander did not prepare. The answer, Allison revealed, was not some conspiracy, but that what the intelligence community viewed as a "threat of attack," the commander interpreted as a "threat of sabotage." This miscommunication, due to different viewpoints, allowed the attack to be pulled off successfully - as Allison sarcastically noted, having U.S. planes lined up wing-to-wing and surrounded by armed guards was a good plan for preventing sabotage, but not for surviving an aerial attack.

Likewise, the political process model explained otherwise confusing affairs. Allison pointed to the decision by General Douglas MacArthur to defy his orders during the Korean War and march too far north. The reason was not a "rational" change in U.S. intentions, but rather, MacArthur's disagreements with Harry Truman and other policymakers, and how officials allowed MacArthur to make what they considered unwise moves because of concerns over political backlash due to the general's public popularity.

Above all, he described using rational actor models as dangerous. By using such models (and modes of thinking), people made unreliable assumptions about reality, which could have disastrous consequences. Part of what allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor to be pulled off was the assumption that, since Japan would lose such a war, they would never dare attack. The assumption under MAD is that nobody will ever start a nuclear war because of its consequences. However, humans are not inextricably bound to act in a rational manner, which history has proven time and time again.

While Allison did not claim that any of his additional two models could fully explain anything, he noted that policymakers and analysts alike would benefit from stepping away from the traditional model and exploring alternate viewpoints (although this last remark could be viewed as facetious on Allison's part).