U.S. Air Force Strategic Deterrence Analytic Capabilities An Assessment of Tools, Methods, and Approaches for the 21st Century Security Environment (2014) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix E: Tailored Deterrence and Strategic Intentions: Actor-Specific Knowledge for Deterrence and Assurance Strategies
Appendix E: Tailored Deterrence and Strategic Intentions: Actor-Specific Knowledge for Deterrence and Assurance Strategies
Pages 138-156
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capabilities? This chapter discusses how actor-specific knowledge and the tools that can inform it -- for example, leader personality profiling and both automated and expert-intensive content analysis, are useful for doing so, particularly in helping tailor communications with both adversaries and allies.
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. It is often argued that the value of the rational choice model lies in its value as a normative standard against which to assess what is actually occurring in strategic
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To put it differently, trying to open the black box and understand the intermedi ate causal mechanisms leading to a decision inside a predominant leader, within a single group, or among a coalition of autonomous actors may not be feasible by outside observers, especially if they lack the tools for decoding their interactions and organizational context (t'Hart et al., 1997; Schafer and Crichlow, 2010; Allison and Zelikow, 1999)
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These two approaches characterize the leadership profiling literature in po litical psychology and are illustrated in this chapter with their application to the personality of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the decision-making situations that he faced in the 1990-91 Persian Gulf conflict with the United States and its allies. The example of the Persian Gulf conflict includes efforts by the U.S.
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The method employed in this study is the use of available historical and psycho biographical sources to construct a political personality profile of a leader's basic personality type, such as one of the three examples in Table E-1. TABLE E-1 Examples of Types of Basic Personality Structure and Leadership Styles Example of Political Personality Types Mechanism Narcissistic Obsessive-Compulsive Paranoid Ego defenses Grandiose self, sense of Abhorrence of emotionality Suspiciousness and mistrust superiority, and denial.
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Further, why was he not responsive to coercive diplomacy by the United States in the form of a massive military buildup and threatened air campaign as the January deadline approached for him to withdraw Iraqi forces from Kuwait? Why did he not reverse himself as he had in the past and withdraw from Kuwait?
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Personality Processes and IV. Immediate Situation as Iraq suffers from foreign rule, Dispositions Occasion for Action succession of revolutionary regimes, Ego Defense Saddam's advisors reluctant to and Iran-Iraq War.
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. The second type of analysis is a bottom-up approach that focuses on the proxi mate causal mechanisms of ego defense, externalization, mediation of self–other relations, and object appraisal under Personality Processes and Dispositions in Figure E-1 that connect a leader's personality traits, motivations, and cognitions 5 This condition was not met when U.S.
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In Figure E-2, his mean scores on seven personality traits dif ferentiated him from the average Middle East leader and the average world leader: "Saddam Hussein is different from the two samples of leaders on over half of the traits -- nationalism, need for power, distrust of others, and self-confidence. He is like other leaders with regard to his belief that he can control events, conceptual complexity, and his focus on accomplishing something versus focusing on the people involved… " (Hermann, 2003b, p.
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. Saddam Hussein's motivational profile regarding the needs for power, affilia tion, and achievement over a 17-year period between 1974 and 1991 showed that he had a "quite high power motivation, above average affiliation motivation, and very low achievement motivation" in comparison with the average world leader in a sample of 22 world leaders from a variety of geographical regions occupying different political roles (Winter, 2003b, p.
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. The same patterns of and volatility and stability that characterize the exter nalization of personality traits and the mediation of self–other relations regarding motivations are evident in the object appraisal patterns displayed in the cognitive complexity patterns of Saddam Hussein in Figure E-4.
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Saddam's cognitive complexity scored lower during the Gulf crisis (not shown in Figure E-4) leaders of other less-involved nations.
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Overall, the cognitive complexity results in Figure E-4 express his cognitive style and reflect variations in Saddam Hussein's level of cognitive effort during the Persian Gulf conflict, as he attempted to reconcile stimuli from the environment with the cognitive dispositions in his belief system (Suedfeld, 2003)
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Threaten −3.00 Extremely low f. Punish +0.60 Somewhat high Saddam's Subjective Game US Deter/Assure Game Intersection of Two Games Other US US CO CF CO CF CO CF CO 3,2 2,4 CO 3,4 2,3 CO 2|0 1|0 Self Iraq Iraq CF 4,1 1,3 CF 4,1 1,2 CF 2|0 2|2 Self Bluff; Other: Bully Iraq Bluff, US: Deter Exp|Act Row Outcomesb a VICS indices are expressed as standard deviations above and below the mean for the 20 world leaders.
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. The examples of Saddam Hussein's personality traits, motivations, cognitive complexity, operational code beliefs, and subjective game illustrate how content analysis and leadership profiling can provide insights into the psychology of a peer/ near-peer, regional, or non-state actor, which reflect a decision unit's definition of the situation, strategic orientation, and risk-taking propensity in a general, immedi ate, or extended deterrence situation.
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It is possible with content analysis and leadership profiling tools to retrieve and model cultural drives and beliefs from real-world decision units as well as from the participants in laboratory gaming simulations and from the idealized decision units assumed by modeling efforts with game theory. This step is necessary to assess the external validity of results from the hybrid application of abstract modeling and inductive gaming exercises.
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An alliance of content analysis, leadership profiling, abstract modeling, gaming, and simulations as a suite of meth ods and tools is possible in order to solve the complex problems associated with studying the decision-making dynamics of single groups and multiple autonomous actors as decision units. REFERENCES Allison, G., and P
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1994a Domestic political audiences and the escalation of international disputes. American Political Science Review 88:577-592.
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2003b. Saddam Hussein: Operational code beliefs and object appraisal.
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