Conversations with History: Robert Jervis

welcome to a conversation with history I'm Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies our guest today is Robert Jervis who is the Adlai e Stevenson professor of international politics at Columbia University he is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of science and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences he is a past president of the American Political Science Association professor Gervais publications include perception and misperception in international politics system effects complexity and political life and social life the illogic of American nuclear strategy and most recently American foreign policy in a new era Bob welcome back to Berkeley thank you where were you born and raised I grew up in New York City and looking back and did you will you raise there also okay and looking back how do you think your parents shaped your thinking about the world well I think my parents Manhattan the school I went to all worried important I mean they've amilia of that time the 40s and 50s in New York heavily Jewish left-liberal are not really red diaper baby that is not Communists but you know left liberal that was the dominant view and involved in politics if not running for office but certainly campaigning talking about it reading two newspapers a day arguing that that was the whole media and and you mentioned a school was this in high school or all their school people in these for the ethical culture schools ethical culture ISM is Jewish Unitarianism and the school was not heavily influenced by that but you know it was leftist I remember Pete Seeger coming in singing the banks are made of marble and I can now you know I sort of sign a law and later it occurred to me hmm there's a political message there I see and so do we around the family table would you talk politics or was he just everywhere no well it was both I mean we certainly talk politics and whether i quantify parents or the other way I was always interested my almost first political memory is a false VJ Day about a week before the war in Japan ended and I remember shortly the next couple of years quizzing my parents about what we should do for cold war things when an American plane was shot down over the Adriatic saying well what should we do should we retaliate all this my parents probably thought this was odd but they did encourage it mm-hmm and it sounds like you got interested in international politics early yes yeah very early from what was happening in well whether I actually read the newspaper at age seven I don't know but yes I mean the world was so fascinating and in fourth or fifth grade a couple of friends and I would put out a mini a graft people don't know what that is anyway Roxy newspaper commenting on I remember the slansky trials in Czechoslovakia and that is as the Soviets got their holes I mean for me you know you couldn't escape the world if you wanted to the world wouldn't let you escape I mean friends of my parents were called before McCarthy's hearings that was Amelia enveloping mm-hmm and where did you do your undergrad work then I went to Oberlin College that was I entered in 58 and I thought having grown up in a big city that I really should try a small town no mistake I'm very good at quite an experience yeah yeah and then on to graduate school at Berkeley I said welcome back yes it's always nice people yeah and what what brought you you you came to Berkeley in the early 60s arrived in 62 and partly I mean I had choice of graduate schools and are like students today I didn't know a lot about the places but I was attracted to Berkeley Park because it was 3,000 miles away from my parents so I was close to but still it was a way and my college roommate Andy mcFarland and on again English Korean political science had decided to go to Berkeley and the fact that the San Francisco demonstrations and what was at 60 against you AK right yeah or late 50s late fifties yeah in 59 or 60 you know I thought that would be an interesting place to be yeah and and when you were here you you you focused on international relations and and who were your academic mentors who who really influenced you whether they were an IR no I was really fortunate because I hadn't done a lot of research in fact the IR faculty at Berkeley distinguished in their ways were not doing stuff that interested me or Ernie Haase was of course the big figure and towering importance in the field and great integrity but with all due respect I just don't didn't find then and don't find out what he did terribly interested as a subject matter yeah the subject matter yeah well also attention he was a reformer Ernie was driven by the deep desire to change world politics to be honest I've done a little consulting which talked about I hope but I'm driven to understand it if I can understand international politics in the 19th century I'd be happy as a clam you know it I don't care what it means now Ernie wanted to change it and did it in odd ways but Glenn Schneider was here for a visitor and I took lens classes and and he was my mentor and I dedicated one of my nuclear strategy books to him and several others and in many ways I owe a tremendous amount of my intellectual development to to Glenn in the two years that we spent together when he was here let's talk a little about international relations theory and doing it what what does it take to do that work well terms of skills in terms of temperament that's interesting for now skills is one of the right words that tremendous amount of the field is either formal using game theory and I use informal game theory but a lot of people do it formally and a lot a large in that statistical analyses so any young person has to learn that I read the stuff I'm you know I shake tell from my expression I'm ambivalent its produced self real value I think they're real dangers taking away I think for there are a lot of different ways to study so there's no one method no one approach but I think it takes a fascination with international politics I mean every day I either pick up the newspaper or a history book and say I can't explain that why did that happen you know what rules does that violate and it takes I think the combination of thinking about particular but saying trying to think about the generalizations it fits with or can lead to or can contradict and that playing back and forth between the particular and the general is what I think is certainly most productive for me and I think it's a constant grounding in saying oh wait a minute my keeping your theory anchored in something now I'm familiar with your work and we'll talk about some of it amid but I'm curious given this background that you've just described there must be a fascinating interplay between the theorizing you do and and what's happening in the world and yes just have give it you talk a little about that and maybe give us an example to that because I know you for example you've done a lot on nuclear weapons let me give you two of my favorite I mean one is I mean what I've written about in the misperception book in other article about the security dilemma on essentially the extent to which a conflict can be seen as an irreconcilable conflict of interest in which a defender of the status quo to be crude about it has to use threats and threaten force deterrence it's Goldman versus what I call they are drawing on others I am NOT original innocent in the spiral models okay well basically this one I grew up with when I asked my parents in 1947 the Russians have shot down this plane over the Baltic claiming it was a spy plane how ridiculous that we would spy of course not I believe that aside you know what I was asking then was the same question so that I'm still driven by those questions mm-hmm and then can I get the other way let me tell you the story I've written two books on nuclear strategy I always interested in my first book on the logic of images very heavily influenced by shelling and his long haul so I'm always interested in nuclear strategy if you and I are and you were in that era you couldn't help it but I started consulting for CIA in the late 70s and partly on stuff on Soviet Union but I had a friend better not use his name because he could get in trouble anyway but I'll tell you later it was in the Pentagon or not foreign former student and I went over to see him and said now this is not in my area but I know that you've been pushing the new missile the MX I can't figure it out give me the justification pulls a paper out of the drawer I read it I say are you censored I said this is a bunch of crap this is ridiculous so he puts it back - all right think digs down deeper and so I back home said okay you know this is better it's still no good he doesn't answer the fundamental questions and he said Bob you have just read the most sophisticated paper in the government on this this is so sophisticated it won't leave program analysis in the Pentagon and you know here I was 37 years old you know I'd studied this I was shocked and I really thought maybe they were wrong but they knew what they were doing and on the plane going back to LA I was teaching UCLA at the time I sketched out the article that was why nuclear superiority doesn't matter that led to those two books who Isis and I think realizing that the government really didn't have a good rationale led me to think about arguments about nuclear superiority nuclear strategy in a way that I'd never thought of it before now in principle I could have gotten there without this silly paper but you know it really for me and many the constant engagement with what are the issues what are they mean at the and then taking it to a level if you got deeper higher and you get from the even intelligent discourse so it sounds like there's a real continuity in your life yeah because you were doing this when you were seven events in the Cold War and so on and it's really the keeping that momentum in and and of course the subject matter will change so tell us all I can't have all of you here but let me show one interception and misperception in international politics what what got you interested initially in this whole question of the way we see the world obviously it's pivotal for understanding international politics yes and I got into it backwards because again my interest was the central Cold War arguments and at this point 64 when I'm starting this I'm pretty much of a hawk not it but David the argument on the other side we call the spiral model were done by social psychologists built partly on this security dilemma heavily on this perception so to get into that I had to I was going to rebut them but I had but it struck me that I thought they were wrong on the Cold War now I'm not sure but that that was an interesting topic that IR hadn't covered and so then I know I was led into it in that sort of odd way mm-hmm and and you know we we have a limited time but but in other words this I'm curious as to at Berkeley you were getting a very good comparative politics education I know because I know many of the people who were here with you at that time and so on and so what what tends to be your focus in misperception because behind all of this often is ideology and basically and you were well grounded in that because I know you were reading everything from Lois hearts to probably Richard Hofstadter and the paranoid self so so so how do you find what is really important and zeroing on that which is clearly what you're doing well that's interesting we didn't do a lot on ideology but I was struck by the Lois Hart's book that Mike Rogan and marvelous Berkeley professor song and I still think hearts as analysis of America and why it can't see the world right because of its unusual social structure has a lot to be said and the great thing about Berkeley then I hope now is it left us alone the graduate students it didn't tell us what to do it said here a lot of things to read and think and talk about and we'll help you but you go out and explore mm-hmm sort of in that respect looks a little risque and I was looking at the perception of misperception book in your concluding section and and and there you say well it's hard to really write a conclusion here but you say empathy for the other side that is how do we understand why we're miss perceiving or our adversary as mr. perceiving we need empathy for the other side make assumptions and predictions explicit encourage the formulation of alternative images don't let interested parties to find perceptions and no the common errors of perception a short list they're very powerful and it seems like a lot of our policymakers still haven't learned those lessons it is funny I have not gone back yeah yeah but as you know what I'm talking about later today and work I've done on intelligence failures that list is it'll be on the view graphs today it was on the conclusions when I did post-mortem for Iraq for CIA and why they were slow to see the fall cha would fall over 25 years ago people in CIA how you know I've read the book and the analysts and really liked it very hard lessons to internalize but you're right I could put them right back on the on the view graphs for the Iraq WMD yes and we're going to talk about that in a minute now you you are in the in the field of international relations you are I think it's fair to say a realist yes so help us understand what what realism is about in the way it sees the world yeah well I think it really is very important for understanding current American foreign policy almost everyone whether they like American foreign policy don't like it see it in terms of internal sources you know America we're doing good for the world because we're good internal or the people who think that we're doing evil in various ways trace it back to a tradition of American imperialism use hard until genocide of the in the end you know we can go through you've had Chomsky honor you know we can go through the lemming Rapids pretty straightforward what almost no one does is say wait a minute the United States work ethic is a state it is a country in international politics there is tremendous continuity u.s. is behaving like a normal superpower which the world has rarely seen the tab they will the core belief in realism is both from the international system and from human nature unless people or larger entities are checked externally by the world you know they will gratify their whims and impulses that's what the US is doing it's what any realist from hands Morgenthau lucidity z-- through can alternative our perspective would lead us to expect and can in a way predicted this article in 91 it it leads you to believe no not true that that this this here much as I like hearts and as you American uniqueness the u.s. is neither uniquely good Norden uniquely evil it's what Britain did when they have the ability to do it what country great powers will do this so so how let's bring it up to date now because I mean 9/11 and that attack by the al Qaeda Network really changed us now in but then another question is did it change the world so so let me hear you spec yeah bring your your your realist lenses here and help us understand that yeah well the first things yet it changed George Bush enormous Lee I know people who are the other side if we want we can go into it but I think it did he says it changed him enormous Lee here I believe him those people like me and many others who would studied international politics for years it didn't change us we were shocked but not surprised did not predict the day the time the method we all predicted a large terrorist attack on the US so but it did change Bush and American foreign policy I don't think terrorism is a world changing it changes the world because it's changed American foreign policy and the way I see it changing American foreign policy is it being one of a number of possible events that triggered the u.s. to do what I would expect a great power to do at one time or another that is decide to run wild and there was nothing out there to check it I think this is foolish because I think the terrorist threat is just much less than Bush claims and that the popular press has it I think you know we're being almost paranoid or we've lost a sense of proportion on terrorism and then I begin well oh and we will talk about this but I want to I want to unravel you know the pieces of this of this bowl of yarn and I guess one of the things that that you point out in your newest book which I recommend very much and I'm going to use it in my class is called American foreign policy in a new error they'll put down the pen and hold it like that and and one of the things that that you are emphasizing because we are the hegemon in the world the sole superpower that we because of our military our economic other powers are always able to act alone even if we've previously acted otherwise you you recently you just just a moment ago said that it was about balancing the power and the the reality is no one can do that now I think that is right and I know you had you're talking to Steve Wald a week or two ago and and I agree with Steve normatively that is we would like to see the u.s. cooperate more with others I think Steve sees more of the so-called soft balance against the US as occurring I think a little of it is but I don't expect enormous because Europe isn't going to unite and I wish it would because I would like them to be able to check us but I don't think they're going to and then the others all face a big public goods problem and I don't think anyone I'm not the US can do everything but we're not going to face the same external checks that other countries have and that's very dangerous and I think 9/11 it was almost like as I say in the book an accident waiting to happen that is we were in a situation where there were fewer external restraints than ever been true in the world and I think 10 to 9/11 sometime in the next generation something would have triggered a sort of expansion of American active deployed power in the world as we've seen and that's exactly what realism would lead you to expect even if realism thinks this is foolish bad for the world and bad for the United States and the important point here we should emphasize because there may be people in the audience who don't know that you as a realist look at the see the world as it is which is Antarctica so so the relative power you have to everybody else makes a very great difference about what you can choose what you can choose to do and and one of the the ideas that that has clearly emerged during the Bush administration was implicit before namely that we can act by different standards as to the world yes and it's interesting that one that they have made this yet explicit and in a way this is intellectually honest and I think it's fair to say the Clinton administration the extent did had a foreign policy which no it was really very slight don't they wouldn't want to say that in a Madeleine Albright occasion only came close but who considered bad taste in some ways John Bolton is typical of this administration in believe not only being forthright but believing that that's good believing that you should speak the truth as you see it very unlike normal diplomacy but that's exactly right we've said in effect preventive war yes we can do it no one else can do it not a matter of fairness we are as the major power that's our role we take care of everyone's problems we and they're not going to do be able to do this hmm and and and we we when you we should explain to our audience preventive war yes means that although they the administration and its documents have called it yeah right it's really prevented so we can choose the time and the place to prevent something that happened that we perceive as a long-term threat preemption is short term you attack now cuz you expect you'll be attacked in the next few days and that has a great legitimacy to it is very close to self defense preventive is there are a lot of bad things that could happen four or five ten years from now we are going to maintain the World Order that's good for us and good for everyone so we're trying to rewrite the non-proliferation treaty rules in a way that would make some sense if we could do it but there's very different from what's written the sort of equality that's written down in the in the treaty it's a very different world they have in mind you you are your book is one of the few books in my view and I've heard a lot of them that it really lays out the elements of this hegemonic position so thoroughly and and you you say this and I think it's very important you say that as power expands and you just explain you know what that that power is unparalleled and unmatched in the history of the world in a temporary situation then the statement of interest also does so when the bigger more powerful you are the more you think you have to do yes I think that I think and it's a phrase that I'm not sure who first came but I remember Bob Tucker marvelous realist very crude years of American foreign policy or you know there's I again the heart of realism partly for structural reasons no world government partly I believe for human nature sheer power exam they're more things you're involved in you know there isn't a corner of the globe that something can happen doesn't touch on it the revolution Kazakhstan whoops American faces there or implication for it remember Kissinger in the Cold War when a nd was first elected and he joked Chile is a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica and later he said whoops yeah you know and I think me I didn't mean that that was being too what's happening in Chile affects the US so everywhere and it's in a way even more true now without the Soviet Union because we didn't care about Kazakhstan in the Cold War as part of the Soviet Union you know where's a part of the world we don't care about it doesn't exist and the other element that you add to this equation in your book is that this is also true of fear that's that in other words you can I guess you can be more fearfulness you can use fear as a way of policy but then you can spread that fear widely fear I think is an enormous driver of international politics can I go back to the lucidity zwi cause of the Peloponnesian War is the you know the growth of Athenian power and the fear it created in others what we call the security dilemma which is the way in which one country increases its power and makes others less secure I think this isn't the root cause but it's one of the two or three root causes of international politics and you really living in New York especially but you saw a fear and what it did and what it does I think you saw the Bush administration both feel it in their gut partly because there were all the stories about nuclear weapons planted in Washington none of us knew this but I've heard enough now I don't know the sources but they really did believe it so you really they felt the fear in their gut and then I think they did manipulate it for their own purposes no it's it's international politics is a create home of you know of year you you may want to pick up briefed on this fear because it must also be important that actually the Pentagon itself and what was what was was it was under attack and they did not know if the next target yes was the White House yes they thought so so there's a personal element here read on everything that they had prepared for by all the different roles they have played in national security so so I guess before we go on to talk about the their response and whether real at how a realist would would grade that respond oh I want to ask you because I want to go back to this business I want to draw on your education in Berkeley and asked you to what extent are there is there are there elements in our political tradition that make us more susceptible you know as an additive to this yes Ross that we're cooking here yeah III think they're they're absolutely are at least three one separation probably least important but not true of separation of powers present always has to persuade Congress and Ted LOI a famous political science written very well on that it leads to what Ted called overselling problems in overselling solutions this the second tradition is or previous Geographic goes so geographic isolation very different we didn't live in world politics until 1945 I think it tends to make us lose perspective more and there's I think more American nationalism and unilateralism so I think those magnify yeah now now I guess you know in looking at your the misperception book that we were just talking about some of this is about pulling out to consciousness that we do that that are latent and that are not there what what is the problem in this that that is it the hegemon or is it the American hegemon that has such difficulty in understanding a lot of what we were just been talking about I can't fully answer I mean my book I started when I was working on till these I remember a conversation with Steve crasner who at that point some policy planning stands now in policy Plano yeah and now he's that's right he wasn't the insanity now his head of policy planning Gary yeah those two condi rice Steve's a marvelous political science professor at Stanford yes yes unfortunately anyway but I was talking to him in the fall of 2002 when it was clear to me that we were going to invade Iraq and I said this is crazy and Steve got upset I mean right and he said no you can say we're wrong but not crazy and I thought about it quite a bit and I think there's a lot to that I mean when I say it's crazy it means it's uniquely to either Bush and we go back to that or the US and what I'd interpret just Steve's one-word thing about being wrong is more what I've talked about so far that no no it's what countries do in these situations and I do go back and and forth I started on the uniquely American but the more I thought the more I thought of realism I came to stress the usual general and the agreeing with Steve yes I am I am I think the uniquely and that the American things and Bush himself personality certainly magnifies it you know I'm giving you an explanation I don't like I've got too many factors explaining the same outcome I think they're I think they are both involved and I do see those you will the structural as the foundational but I think there are unique things about the United States that make it even worse but some of the behavior of the European countries in a very mini way a microwave parallel the United States so I and the reason I stress the realism that I think so many people see this explain what we're doing in American terms and I just think that not that's wrong or an important but it's a wrong way to start now you you've worked a lot on nuclear weapon and when you know when you we're going to talk a minute about the Bush Doctrine and the failure and intelligence but but but one of the things that I think there seems to be universal consensus about is that the fear is of terrorists with weapons of mass destruction now that that that link between these two phenomena to what extent is is that also driving the sphere and if so is that legitimate is that a concern yeah I think it is very important because what you've got to start with is implicit in what you said but I want to say it which is terrorists without WMD I don't I say a nuisance you know seems like it's debasing the memory of the 3,000 who died but it's an it is a nuisance the number of people who died on 9/11 is a number of people who died in less than a month of auto accidents it's a terrible thing something you work on but you know it's not a driver of American foreign policy it's a cost of doing business the only way you can what you said about w the link w ND is right but isn't all WMD you really can't do it with chemicals it anthrax you can really stop that if you get detectors it's only communicable biological agents and nuclear weapons and it isn't even a dirty bomb because the dirty bomb won't kill many people dirty bomb in New York would be terrible for me because it would ruin when I'm passing on to my children which is the value of my apartment which is on this Avenue I'm not the fashionable part of Fifth Avenue but does overlook the park nevertheless and it won't be worth anything if there's a dirty bomb but dirty bomb won't kill many people it panics people the real fear for deaths obviously are terrorists with real nuclear weapons and one of the many shames of this administration is it hasn't worked that problem right the main source of nuclear weapons are loose nukes in the in Russia and this is one of the things the Clinton administration did pretty well and the Bush administration did not put the priority on that not put it on that is the linchpin it is a horrible scenario but we should remember that even this horrible is nothing like what you and I grew up with that isn't the Cold War there world war at the end of civilization even a terrorist nuclear bomb is you know a horrible thing but it is not anything like the end of civilization it's probably less than the tsunami maybe kills fewer people than the earthquake and the subcontinent I don't in any means what it did say we shouldn't worry about it but I'm not sure even that should be the driver of American foreign policy but it sure as hell is that one of the top things you worry about now the the let's look at the responses of the Bush administration to these events and in particular what became known as the Bush Doctrine so so as a as a but let's put on our yes realist I or caps and and help us understand what you see as the the assumptions of that doctrine and and whether it merits an A or C or what great well there I think several elements and I want to save one of the most important for last because three it's several of them fit with realism and preventive war I think they've carried to an extreme but sort of it's a traditional realest thing act now well you can it'll be harder to act later the unilateralism has roots in America but is again understandable given the structure of the system the attempt to spread one's form of a sort of form of order and discourage peer competitors by which mean we mean not only China but a united Europe standard realism I think those are good things that this administration has carried to an extreme I don't think they were needed I think a more cooperative approach would have done the trick but the other element is the one that boggles the mind of any realist but it's very American and that is spreading democracy around the world this is anathema to realists that is not the real don't like democracy but they believe the international system is very important and that countries react to the system the external environment might less to their domestic environment so realists believe by and large that democracies aren't going to be that behave that differently from non democracies and also tend to believe you can't spread democracy by force and also worry if you make Egypt a democracy you know be careful of what you wish you may get it that is it's like to be some sort of quote Islamic fundamentalism so that and and realists this drives realists up the wall including me let's understand this realists see the units in a way as black boxes yes fill your intelligence afraid yeah maybe a billiard balls right what that means is that the the the color of the bullet billiard also does not matter that's right in in winning the game what matters and then I guess here we'll have to move a metaphor along a little further is is that it's your your relative standing what you're able you do to them whether you're able to balance their power what sort of threat they pose that's right that doesn't matter whether you're a democracy in the Middle East or whether you're a dictatorship that's right exactly I mean yeah we obviously the schools of thought become strong men but they're useful straw man because they get an important thing realists look at the cold one said Soviet Union and the US Soviet Union's immoral deeply and the u.s. much less so but their international forms of behavior are very similar Vietnam Afghanistan the nuclear strategies the same they use covert action you know you name it their international behavior is very similar so there's a democracy I mean the other side the core Bush says we first we must abolish evil in the world and he said that in their first speech after 9/11 realists think abolish evil evil is partly because you don't have to believe our Bible but people have impulses for evil in them DNA unless we get genetic reconfiguration that's going to be there the international system encourages this and furthermore the the attempt to abolish evil is going to make the world much worse in democratic regimes do evil all the time so so so what what are the basic contradictions here in this policy i mean clearly we make clear that it doesn't fit with the way the world works i think that the doctrine does have a real contradiction and i think contra does matter it doesn't bother only us theorists and i talk to one person who probably should be nameless who had a mid-level position in the administration again in the fall Oh two and I said I understand these three elements but you know the first one in this security document definition is democracy and he said Oh Bob no one around here takes that seriously well he was wrong not and those things will come to contradict each other out in the real world now most of us were surprised that the US has pushed democracy as hard as we have in the Middle East and we haven't pushed it on Pakistan yet but you know we could easily get to a position where that does contradict the other elements and it is unclear how the next three years of the administration is going to handle that mixture now not at the core of this once you go down this road is if if and let's use a interpersonal analogy here if if if I fear that you're going to attack on smoothly and I want to put up attack you first or prevent you from doing that as all of your work in the social sciences with what we we really are very dependent at this point on information I have to know what it is you intend what your capabilities are you know what what is the history of the way you've acted toward me on and on so so as soon as you go to the public and say this is about weapons of mass destruction and we know that the administration did that according to Paul Wolfowitz he told Vanity Fair we did that because there was the greatest consensus I think of but once you do that you have to act on information and so you have to gather that information which leads us to the other big problem here yes and just as you know but the background I do I consult for the CIA I want to say that clearly because so some people think you shouldn't which is fine but I believe if you can talk about it it's legitimate and I don't want anyone saying oh he tries to keep covered what he does so I have looked at the WMD issue and the in the Iraqi case you know for the CIA and in fact most of the story is public and through the government reports that are either a whole or in part declassified and I'll have an issue coming out and our command journalists strategic studies that have thing but when you step back for the specifics on what was wrong and you the main thing that hits you time and time why the information was so bad yeah it's very very hard I mean that I think has really gotta be the starting point you know you'd think it's sort of easy to find a country of nuclear weapons well it isn't they're trying to keep it secret often or they're trying to bluff you North Koreans have said they have nuclear weapons do they well I've talked to the people who know the most about it in the US government and they smile not because they can't tell me what they know they can I got because they can't you can't be sure they've said and I mean how would you know you'd know if you had an agent who was high up in the program you'd know maybe if you had someone who was a technician who'd gone in there and patted the bomb and said oh it's warm okay there's plutonium in there it could be an elaborate bluff you know it would be it would be it's very hard to know that and in in the Iraq case it was sort of a all sorts of in earth games he was playing so now I'm saying that was very learn to penetrate so you need good information and you can't get it and decision-makers psychologically have to pretend they have it because I have to persuade people and they have to act and they can't psychologically face up to how little they know and you studied this and and it's very clear that one of the things going on here was that everybody really had the same assumptions and they were essentially sharing and was the same pieces of information so so we had no B team no team saying well let's challenge what's being said and we had no way to think out of the box is that a fair summary it is a according to Hans Blix he said they the only person he knew who doubted it was not him he thought they had not like she was saying but series programs but only person he knew we got it was Chirac he said Chirac and blixt Ron said that blix looked startled Chirac said my intelligence service tells me they have it but I don't believe him these intelligence services they intoxicate each other and I think that is part of it and it became so deeply in routed and conventional wisdom that remember almost none of the opponents of the war challenged it mm-hmm partly because it didn't make sense if Saddam didn't have an act of nuclear weapons program why was he committing suicide why didn't he not only let the inspectors in but welcome them which he didn't really show them everything he could have shown that he didn't have nuclear weapons same way that Libya when they made the agreement pretty much convincingly showed what it had why didn't said I'm doing their Fidel fur report has some answer is not very convincing but at the time excuse me if you'd produced what we quote know now and put it on the decision-makers desk he or she would have laughed it seems wildly implausible but that was it I think this comes out of the doleful report that that he was one one element amidst all of his wrath melody was not letting his potential adversaries in the region you know what it is he didn't have it looks like he wanted among as he wanted to deter Iran but in the whole scheme of things this if I'd been his advisor I would have said boss Iran is third order on your problems and anyway Iran isn't going to attack and if it does the u.s. actually will have to protect you so the idea that he would do this to protect from Iran partly shows how cut off from reality he was so the intelligence made a lot of errors which you know I'll do for the session this afternoon and to my article but boy this was a really a harder one that than many of the others but I think the essential point is intelligence is going to be wrong a lot and making policy and sayings decision-makers have trouble understanding the limits of that because it's very scary to say I'm going to make a war and peace' decision on the basis of information that's what 60% reliable now there's a there's a any responsibility here within the political system if not solely in the Bush administration in the sense that well first of all if they had said well we're going to go in because democracy works then they wouldn't have needed the intelligence because exam was general you and you make you point yeah yes so so there was there were you would not have to have the evidence yes then if you also point out that if Bush had been honest and said well look we really don't know this you know but I because of 9/11 I'm really worried this is my job I'm going to but he didn't do that so now what they what everybody in the political system seems to be doing is looking for a whipping boy yes so that they are not accountable exact election is how is that fair I think that is now maybe because I do consult for CIA a number of things I have perhaps excess sympathy for them but the Senate report which really rips them up one side down the other over doesn't I mean there are real things wrong but the CIA is a marvelous whipping boy first it can't fight back because if they're not allowed to go in public and it's great for Bush the Democrats can dump on them everyone likes to so you had there everyone's favorite whipping boy it's not frustrating for them yeah so let's so let's get you to put on I want to draw on this picture of yourself that you've shown you know asking all these questions on in this big question of the politicization s of this decision of to go to war and and it seems that what what does a an analyst such as yourself you're looking at this what what was it about the administration and what it was doing that created or a perception of imminent threats or was that an impression that they just created or did they actually believe that happen even if you don't have the definitive answer help me understand how you would try to sort this out if you're gonna write a paper yeah well that that's very mean clearly they created the view they very consciously as maybe one linked 9/11 and Saddam in ways that were extraordinarily clever I have a whole file on this it's really brilliant the way they did this I think totally dishonest but really brilliant brilliant listens that when you you say well but when you say to them Saddam and 9/11 aren't linked they could say we never said they weren't but they use 9/11 and Saddam in the same sentence they would make paragraphs that moved from one to the other I mean all I assign this be I sign these speeches in my class it's incredibly powerful political rhetoric and we know that right after 9/11 the public opinion showed that public didn't see any connection and that as Bush and his mr. Diaz colleagues put out the line it was believed so this was an extraordinarily effective selling job we know also they pushed in intelligence hard not on WMD they didn't need to that's where a lot of the critics get things confused where they pushed very hard was on this connection and we also know connection between Saddam and al-qaeda what we also know is that CIA said no and no they mission came back said look at this and they said no and I believe CIA and now I said that the national intelligence officer in charges have left the government political science PhD named Paul Pilar would let this refuse to cave they said there is no evidence for this the things you point to are dribs and drabs they're unconvincing so they stood up to that but of course they couldn't make this public did they believe it I guess where I come down from my psychology not so much this book but later book is what we call motivated bias they may talk themselves into it in a way in which I think it will be very hard to unravel what they quote truly believed I have an article coming out in a political psychology about sort of sincerity it believes it's very hard I don't think the document trail will tell us and they won't tell us and they won't even know a year later what they believed this is going to be I think one of the abiding mysteries of this is to how they came to believe what they say because I think they pass a lie-detector test on it but how they came to believe these things and they and whether they really believe the Iraq al Qaeda connection in the face of large amount of evidence I don't know what was is there an element here that that in a way they were realists but either misguided or C+ students I want to get back to this whole question of well if you have terrorism you have to have a stay yes I did actually was a patron of that I mean so they were coming from that position right I think that's that's that's very that is very important I mean before 9/11 they paid no attention to terrorism to almost to the extent they did it was exactly that the linkages to States their foreign policy was heavily state driven and I think that predisposed them to see state to state sponsorship and and that there will though Bush abandon a lot of his pre 9/11 views that one may have may have stuck with them but really Iraq remains a mystery and my terrible fear is that the next generation is going to believe we fought Iraq for oil and Israel and I do not believe that is true I can't say I could disprove it I don't believe it but looking back people are gonna say Canada been WMD they weren't I don't believe that they believe the al Qaeda connection could they really believe that we could transform the Middle East you know by this I think what's left and I think that will produce I think it's been wrong explanation of Peru so sort of cynicism that isn't helpful but I bet in ten years that'll be the conventional wisdom well it's what extent do you I think what I'm hearing you say when we look at that your structural argument about this is the these are the like one could expect from a hedge of math to what extent was this group the the whoever they are they the nationalist conservatives are the neo cons that this this group of people that Bush gathered around him to what extent were they a major right now with the foreign policy tradition that had developed since the beginning of the Cold War yeah it's it's a very interest plane you had by President Clark not the view on and he's interesting on you know that it's a mixed picture I mean the spreading of democracy does have deep roots in the US and again wilsonian ism but certain and and Reagan it was important part of Reagan Reagan's view of the Soviet Union change not as its foreign policy change but as he saw the cracks opening domestically so in that way I do believe they pick up on this but there was I believe a deep pragmatism in the old war and always a fear that the American public would get too riled up at various stages and a realization that you moved incrementally and that you didn't try to abolish evil and in the end evil collapsed itself and in that way I think they are a break and one of the things though that's hard to understand is Cheney and Rumsfeld because they're children of that era and you know they're they're the ones that are particularly puzzling is is it though is it can we bring in your argument for you before namely that internationally there's no balancer here and then if we take the realist argument or lie it domestically which may not be appropriate well there there was no there's no balancer in terms of after especially after 9/11 no no opposition party or group saying no yes I think that is I think that is part and I think that's why I don't think Gore would have invaded Iraq but I think eventually given this of the US would have done things that were most unfortunate but to Cheney and Rumsfeld were both evil experienced in the Cold War and you know way had sort of I thought Ahmad or some forms of moderation drilled in but no I think it partly is this it's a situation of in a sense combination of fear and opportunity they'd and they did did have fear for the and even if they part half made up the al-qaeda connection they could at least say disprove it well you can never disprove it so I think there was a strong element of fear and this combination of fear and opportunity right that's very very mission yes and so I guess the question is looking down the road what where will the balancing come I mean do we wait twenty or thirty years for China to rise or is it that there will be a reaction kind of an you're balancing with an ethical system raised that is that we have to look I'm yeah someone who's it again Yogi Berra on my favorite when your predictions difficult especially about the future but yes I think the Bush Doctrine is will collapse I think it is collapsing very good article on the current issue of foreign affairs by John Mueller Roos and and if you ever get John out here you've got to do easy yes Marva listen he's among the things expert on public opinion he points to the you know the credible well I fall and support me in the articles titled the Iraq syndrome that there's going to be a pulling in of horns in a way that will be good and will simultaneously be bad I think that this is inevitable I think we probably are not going to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons we could set them back another ten years by bombing I I don't think we're going to do it but I can't be sure that I think you'll find American public isn't going to support adventures and you will get as Ken Walt would predict nuclear weapons spreading because when Iran gets some others will get it and that will increase the cost for the u.s. of intervening I think that's the way that combination of the u.s. pulling back others engaging in self protection and self aggrandizement you can argue a world would be better if the US could do a consistent Bush Doctrine consistent to Germany domestically the US cannot follow that consistent policy so whether that other world's going to be better than a real Bush world I don't know but we can't have a real Bush world the US domestic system will not support it on that note Bob I want to thank you very much for coming back to Berkeley this week and also thank you for being on our program thank you and I want to show our audience your book again American foreign policy and a new era which I read and heartily recommend so thanks a lot thank you Harry enjoy them and thank you very much for joining us for this conversation with history

Channel: University of California Television (UCTV)

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Keywords: Robert, Jervis, political, science, international, relations

Id: tmmXaSDFcSI

Length: 58min 29sec (3509 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 15 2008