Human beings do not always act in conformance with the expectations of rational decision making. They frequently overestimate the extent to which others understand the motives for their actions. They are more likely to blame their own negative behaviors on situational factors, but view those of others as stemming from character or disposition. They may overly focus on particular values or aspects of situations while neglecting others. They may fit new information to existing beliefs, rendering the latter unfalsifiable. They see patterns where none exist. They can become overconfident. And they can engage in short-term thinking.

This is but a small list of the many deviations that cognitive psychologists and others working in similar areas have observed in experimental settings. Steve A. Yetiv tells us that these are also behind some of the most important choices and outcomes within international relations over the past 50 years. Leaders of the Soviet Union thought that outside actors would view their invasion of Afghanistan as a limited, defensive move, but others—United States decision makers in particular—saw it as offensive and expansionist. The reason? The biases at work in how we view our own versus others’ behaviors. President Ronald Reagan permitted the Iran-Contra Affair to occur, putting weapons in the hands of the Iranian government in the hope that it would help free U.S. hostages held in Lebanon. Here, too, a cognitive bias was at work: a tunnel-vision-like focus on the hostages that overrode the consideration of other values. In these cases, as well as others involving Al Qaeda’s perceptions of the United States, U.S. planning for the Iraq War, and U.S. energy policy, Yetiv presents a bias (or set of biases) he views as key to explaining the decisions and actions of the parties involved.

The author is writing in a tradition that includes, among others, Robert Jervis’s Perception and Misperception in International Politics (1976) and Richard Ned Lebow’s Between Peace and War (1981) in that he examines the ways in which humans—and policymakers in particular—may deviate from the expectations of rationalist models due to cognitive biases. The arguments and findings of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel-prize-winning author of Thinking: Fast and Slow (2011) play a particularly large role in his account. Indeed, those familiar with Thinking will likely recognize many of the biases Yetiv outlines. His contribution is not that he has identified new phenomena, but that he has used existing research into cognitive biases to shed light on a range of decisions and behaviors by actors on the international stage. What is more, he also offers suggestions concerning how we can “debias” our decision making.

National Security Through a Cockeyed Lens is not a piece of technical, scholarly work, however. As Yetiv himself writes, the book is “written for a broad audience. … It may well be of interest to academics, but it is designed to appeal to students and educated general readers” (p. 6). This choice of target audience means that the book is quite accessible and easily read in one or two sittings, but it also means that its arguments and methodology may raise some questions for an academic reader.

For one, as Yetiv again himself notes, the cases in the book are “handpicked” and not intended as “tests of the importance of cognitive biases” (p. 6). And although each case highlights a specific bias or set thereof, they demonstrate quite a range of levels of analysis, policy areas, and actors that for a scholarly audience would require a greater level of theorization. The case studies would appear strongest where the focus is on individual actors (i.e., top decision makers during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran-Contra crisis, or the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War), cases where there is ample evidence available and it is easier to pinpoint and argue for possible biases on the part of the individuals involved. The analyses become more tricky, however, when the book looks at state-level policies—such as energy policy—and outlines “irrational behavior” from the perspective of a general notion of national interest. For instance, in explaining why the United States remains dependent on oil, Yetiv points to biases toward short-term thinking and the status quo, as well as an aversion to action when not in a domain of loss (pp. 72, 89–92). Yet he also recognizes the problem of egotistical behavior on the part of individuals and organizations (pp. 89–90), behavior that may be quite rational when we shift levels of analysis. Egoism may not be desirable, but it is something quite different from a cognitive bias, at least as the latter is traditionally understood, and one might argue that such egoism—combined with existing incentives and institutions—is the real problem.

Building on this last point, there also exists the potential danger that when highlighting potential cognitive biases, we as analysts may simply be pointing to policies with which we disagree. The rational/irrational and biased/unbiased dichotomies have quite normative overtones, and there are many reasons other than cognitive bias that individuals may differ in their interpretations of ambiguous evidence or views concerning the most desirable policies. From an academic perspective, Yetiv could have done more to outline the criteria by which we can objectively classify a belief, decision, or behavior as irrational or biased, given the preexisting beliefs and desires of the actors involved, as well as the information and choices available to them. In fact, without such clarification, he opens himself up to the criticism that his use of the labels “irrational” or “biased” may conveniently coincide with his policy preferences.

All the same, National Security Through a Cockeyed Lens is a good read and quite thought provoking. It does an excellent job of making findings concerning cognitive biases accessible to a broad audience and offering illustrations of where they might be relevant for understanding international relations, especially in cases focused on elite policymakers. This book would work well as a text for introductory courses on international relations and foreign policy, and specific chapters could be of use in more focused courses on U.S. foreign policy, the Cold War, or terrorism. It also is a good book to recommend to lay people interested in psychology and international relations.