Dominic D. P. Johnson is Alistair Buchan Professor of International Relations at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford.
Dominic Johnson shows that international conflicts need not
escalate into long, costly wars -- if decision-makers rely on
well-vetted information and avoid wishful thinking. He provides a
lucid, convincing analysis of the disastrous consequences when
normal confidence gives way to arrogance, causing leaders to
believe their own propaganda, assume superiority, and deny
facts.
*Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School Professor and author
of Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and
End*
Overconfidence and War is a fascinating and insightful analysis.
Its skillful blend of history, psychology, and evolutionary biology
is a model for a new kind of social analysis, one that will have
increasing prominence in the years to come.
*Steven Pinker, author of How the Mind Works and The
Blank Slate*
The puzzle of why countries go to war is a puzzle only for those
who assume that humans are calculating machines. Dominic Johnson
provides a scientific foundation for understanding how humans
really make decisions about the most important questions they face.
We need more books like Overconfidence and War.
*Stephen Peter Rosen, Harvard University*
This is an important book, both timely and of enduring value. It
traces in detail the dreadful connection between self-deception and
human warfare and suggests the kinds of thinking we must guard
against if we are to avoid war. Read this book in hopes of a
better, more conscious day-a day when we will not blunder so easily
and stupidly off the first cliff inviting us to war.
*Robert Trivers*
Dominic Johnson's attack on the war puzzle is novel, convincing,
and appealing. Steeped in sound biology and a detailed account of
key well-documented conflicts, Overconfidence and War marks an
important advance in the long-anticipated integration of political
science and evolutionary theory.
*Richard Wrangham, co-author of Demonic Males*
Johnson applies the logic of evolution to international relations.
Following one of his mentors, the Harvard anthropologist Richard
Wrangham, he suggests that overconfidence might once have been
helpful in war and conflict. On the ancient African savannah, it
was actually rational to misestimate your own capacities: a
fearsome appearance and bold tactics could intimidate the enemy and
help carry the day during lightning raids on enemy camps. But
today, given modern weaponry, bureaucratic planning and mass
armies, a cocky disposition is as likely to be suicidal as it is
glorious. Military overconfidence, in other words, is a
psychological holdover--a cognitive appendix--from an earlier
period in human history. It is perhaps most dangerous when it
prompts a decision for war in the first place. And it could be the
X-factor explaining the otherwise inexplicable in recent military
history: French faith in the Maginot line, Hitler's drive into
Russia, the American failure to heed the lessons of French defeat
in Vietnam. Most humans are prone to overestimating themselves, but
leaders (who are inordinately ambitious and, by definition, have
suffered few recent professional setbacks) are especially
susceptible. Fittingly, the cover of Johnson's book features George
W. Bush in the famous flight suit, flashing an exuberant
thumbs-up.
*New York Times Magazine*
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