Research Catalog

Title

Studying first-strike stability with knowledge-based models of human decisionmaking / Paul K. Davis.

Author

Davis, Paul K., 1943-

Publication

Santa Monica, CA : Rand Corporation, [1989]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Carnegie Corporation of New York.
• Rand Corporation.

Description

xxi, 100 p. : ill.; 23 cm.

Summary

First-strike stability depends on the improbability of crises and the improbability that crises would result in first strikes. This study focuses on the latter criterion, which in turn depends on crisis decisionmaking by human beings. The report argues that efforts to understand and improve first-strike stability should be guided by a formal theory of human decisionmaking that accounts for behavioral factors such as mindset, desperation, fatalism, perceptions, and fears. The author identifies three principal mechanisms for improving first-strike stability: (1) improve force-posture stability; (2) review and adjust nuclear policies and doctrine, and the way they are discussed; and (3) improve the likely quality of crisis decisionmaking through efforts involving education, exercises, and staffing.

Subject

• First strike (Nuclear strategy)
• Nuclear crisis stability
• Nuclear warfare > Decision making

Note

• "Supported by the Carnegie Corporation."
• "Project on Avoiding Nuclear War: Managing Conflict in the Nuclear Age."
• "April 1989."
• "R-3689-CC."

Bibliography (note)

• Bibliography: p. 93-100.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

ISBN

0833009532

LCCN

^^^89004022^

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library