H.D.S. Greenway has a column in the Boston Globe called, "Don’t assume the worst about Iran." The title caught my attention because it's about the worst type of foreign policy advice possible. Policy makers have to look at the worst-case scenario to avoid getting caught off-guard. It's just basic commonsense. Planning for the worst and hoping for the best is a prudent policy prescription. Just hoping for the best is naive and dangerous. Greenway is openly advocating that the government approach foreign policy situations on the basis of wishful thinking.
Greenway's entire article is a list of wishful thinking about why we might not need to do anything about Iran. Maybe Iran might not actually produce any bombs. Maybe Arab countries won't want their own nuclear weapons if Iran gets them. Maybe Iran will be deterred by Israel. Maybe Iran will be rational enough not to provide any weapons to terrorists.
I've been advocating a policy of deterrence toward Iran because I think that A) Iran is going to get nuclear weapons, B) war with Iran is not in our interests at the current time, and C) even if it were we don't have the will to do what would be necessary to eliminate Iran as a potential nuclear threat. But what's Greenway's preferred solution? You guessed it: appeasement.
Only by engaging with Iran as a country, not just as a nuclear proliferation problem; by recognizing and addressing Iran’s concerns; and identifying where we can agree, as in Afghanistan, is there hope for successIt never ceases to amaze me that anyone can listen to Ahmadinejad, understand that Iran is a country ruled by mullahs, with all that entails, yet still spout this sort of nonsense.
"Policy makers have to look at the worst-case scenario to avoid getting caught off-guard. It's just basic commonsense. Planning for the worst and hoping for the best is a prudent policy prescription."
ReplyDeleteNo, it's not. It's a systemic mistake that leads to overreactions and wasteful behaviour.
Human societies are plagued by scarce resources, and these need to be allocated wisely.
Human societies are also plagued by risks, and it's just adult to accept that life is about taking risks. You cannot get a 100% risk-free world, especially not if you waste resources on most unlikely threats because you ignore a very important variable: Probability.
A rational analysis takes into account
* probability of outcomes
* effects of outcomes
* cost of countermeasures
* probability of countermeasure success
* effect of countermeasures
It's foolish to ignore the probability of disaster A happening, the cost of a countermeasure, the probability of success of a countermeasure and the extent of effect of a countermeasure.
Actual probabilities are rarely known, so they need to be guessed as well as possible.
Just going all-in on a countermeasure because a worst-case scenario make you s**t in your pants is irrational. That's extremely risk-averse while rational, efficient policy is risk-neutral.
The sum of many irrational decisions leads predictably to a disastrous outcome. I think that has been demonstrated very well for eight years.
"No, it's not. It's a systemic mistake that leads to overreactions and wasteful behaviour."
ReplyDeleteI'm not arguing that we have to act based on worst-case scenarios, but that they should be taken into account in planning, and that they should be given significantly more weight than rosy scenarios. If the government errs in its calculations, I prefer it to err on the side of protecting the U.S. and its interests.
Otherwise I don't disagree with the rest of what you wrote. Obviously probabilities have to weighed, and cost-benefit analyses have to be done before deciding on a particular policy.
Also, I forgot to mention that I don't see how advocating that we recognize that Iran is likely to obtain nuclear capability, that there is little we can realistically do to prevent that outcome, and that we should accept the reality of a nuclear Iran and prepare a policy of deterrence is some sort of overreaction or wasteful behavior.
ReplyDeleteWhat I see as wasteful and overreactive is A) entering into a useless and counterproductive policy of appeasement, or B) launching an ill-advised military attack.
"I'm not arguing that we have to act based on worst-case scenarios, but that they should be taken into account in planning, and that they should be given significantly more weight than rosy scenarios."
ReplyDeleteThis sounds to me like an intentional distortion of the probability variable. It lead to a systemic mistake in reasoning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectation_value
"This sounds to me like an intentional distortion of the probability variable. It lead to a systemic mistake in reasoning."
ReplyDeleteIt sounds to me like basic common sense. For example, if you are are planning for your financial security, prudence requires that you give greater weight to worst-case scenarios. Scenarios such as job loss or long-term illness should be given more significant consideration than winning the lottery, or receiving a huge inheritance from a long-lost relative.
In addition, we aren't talking about things that can be clearly measured and assigned definitive probabilities. As I'm sure you are aware, foreign policy rests in large part on guesswork, often based on incomplete information, complicated further by luck and completely unexpected changes in circumstances.