Intentions Milo

In the Eye of the Beholder
In the Eye of the

Beholder
Keren Yarhi-Milo
How Leaders and Intelligence

Communities Assess the
Intentions of Adversaries
ow do policymakers
infer the long-term political intentions of their states adversaries? This question has important theoretical, historical, and political signicance. If British
decisionmakers had understood the scope of Nazi Germanys intentions for
Europe during the 1930s, the twentieth century might have looked very different. More recently, a Brookings report observes that [t]he issue of mutual distrust of long-term intentions . . . has become a central concern in U.S.-China
relations.1 Statements by U.S. and Chinese ofcials conrm this suspicion.
U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke noted a concern, a question mark,
by people all around the world and governments all around the world as
to what Chinas intentions are.2 Chinese ofcials, similarly, have indicated
that Beijing regards recent U.S. policies as a sophisticated ploy to frustrate
Chinas growth.3
Current assessments of the threat posed by a rising Chinaor for that matter, a possibly nuclear-armed Iran, or a resurgent Russiadepend on which indicators observers use to derive predictions about a potential adversarys
intentions. Surprisingly, however, little scholarship exists to identify which indicators leaders and the states intelligence apparatus tasked with estimating
threats use to assess intentions. For example, disputes among American analysts
over the military capabilities of the Soviet Union dominated debates on the
Soviet threat throughout the Cold War, yet there has been little examination of
the extent to which such calculations shaped or reected U.S. political decisionKeren Yarhi-Milo is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs in the Department of Politics
and the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
The author would like to thank the following individuals for their insightful comments on earlier
drafts: Richard Betts, Jonathan Caverley, Thomas Christensen, Christina Davis, Aaron Friedberg,
Charles Glaser, Michael Glosny, Avery Goldstein, Joanne Gowa, Michael Horowitz, Robert Jervis,
Robert Keohane, Jack Levy, Jonathan Mercer, Robert Pape, Kristan Seibel, Paul Staniland, Caitlin
Talmadge, Alex Weisiger, and the anonymous reviewers. Omar Bashir and Alex Lanoszka provided excellent research assistance. She is especially grateful to the Smith Richardson Foundation
and the Morris Abrams Foundation for their nancial support of her research.
1. Kenneth Lieberthal and Wang Jisi, Addressing U.S.-China Strategic Distrust (Washington,
D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2012), p. vi.
2. Gary Locke, China Is a Country of Great Contrasts, National Public Radio, January 18, 2012,
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/18/145384412/ambassador-locke-shares-his-impressions-of-china.
3. Jeffrey A. Bader, Obama and Chinas Rise: An Insiders Account of Americas Asia Strategy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2012). See also Calum McLeod, Some Cast Obama Trip as
Effort to Contain Chinas Inuence, USA Today, November 20, 2011, http://www.usatoday.com/
news/world/story/2011-11-21/China-US-relations-Obama/51321096/1.
International Security, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Summer 2013), pp. 751, doi:10.1162/ISEC_a_00128
2013 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
International Security 38:1 8
makers assessments of Soviet intentions. Analyzing how signals are ltered and
interpreted by the states decisionmakers and its intelligence apparatus can lead
to better understanding of the types of signals that tend to prompt changes in
relations with adversaries, as well as help to develop useful advice for policymakers on how to deter or reassure an adversary more effectively.
In this article, I compare two prominent rationalist approaches in international relations theory about how observers can be expected to infer adversaries political intentions, with a third approach that I develop and term the
selective attention thesis. First, the behavior thesis asserts that observers refer to certain noncapability-based actionssuch as the adversarys decision to
withdraw from a foreign military intervention or join binding international
organizationsto draw conclusions regarding that adversarys intentions.
This approach focuses on the role of costly information in inuencing state
behavior. Actions are considered costly if they require the state to expend
signicant, unrecoverable resources or if they severely constrain its future
decisionmaking. The basic intuition behind this approach is that an action that
costs nothing could equally be taken by actors with benign or with malign intentions, and thus it provides no credible information about the actors likely
plans.4 Observers should therefore ignore cheap talk.5 Second, the capabilities thesis, drawing on insights from realism as well as costly signaling, asserts
that states should consider an adversarys military capabilities in assessing its
intentions. Of particular importance would be signicant changes in armament policies, such as a unilateral reduction in military capabilities. Such
changes reveal credible information about an adversarys ability to engage in
warfare and thus its intention to do so.6
4. In the context of foreign policy intentions, see James D. Fearon, Signaling Foreign Policy Interests: Tying Hands versus Sinking Costs, Journal of Conict Resolution, Vol. 41, No. 1 (February
1997), pp. 6890; Andrew Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005); and Robert F. Trager, Diplomatic Calculus in Anarchy: How Communication Matters, American Political Science Review, Vol. 104, No. 2 (May 2010), pp. 347368. I
exclude from the analysis public statements that can generate audience costs, because they are
typically seen as relevant in crisis situations. James D. Fearon, Domestic Political Audiences and
the Escalation of International Disputes, American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 577592. For an empirical analysis of audience costs, see Jack Snyder and Erica D.
Borghard, The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound, American Political Science Review,
Vol. 105, No. 3 (November 2011), pp. 437456; and Marc Trachtenberg, Audience Costs: An Historical Analysis, Security Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1 (2012), pp. 342.
5. Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1980); and Fearon, Signaling Foreign Policy Interests. On when and how cheap talk could
matter, see Trager, Diplomatic Calculus in Anarchy; Vincent P. Crawford and Joel Sobel, Strategic Information Transmission, Econometrica, Vol. 50, No. 6 (November 1982), pp. 14311451;
Joseph Farrell and Robert Gibbons, Cheap Talk Can Matter in Bargaining, Journal of Economic
Theory, Vol. 48, No. 1 (June 1989), pp. 221237; and Anne E. Sartori, Deterrence by Diplomacy
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005).
6. Charles L. Glaser, Rational Theory of International Politics: The Logic of Competition and Cooperation
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010).
In the Eye of the Beholder 9
Drawing on insights from psychology, neuroscience, and organizational theory, I develop a third approach, the selective attention thesis. This thesis posits
that individual perceptual biases and organizational interests and practices
inuence which types of indicators observers regard as credible signals of the
adversarys intentions. Thus, the thesis predicts differences between a states
political leaders and its intelligence community in their selection of which signals to focus on and how to interpret those signals. In particular, decisionmakers often base their interpretations on their own theories, expectations,
and needs, sometimes ignoring costly signals and paying more attention to information that, though less costly, is more vivid (i.e., personalized and emotionally involving). The thesis also posits that organizational afliations and
roles matter: intelligence organizations predictably rely on different indicators
than civilian decisionmakers do to determine an adversarys intentions. In intelligence organizations, the collection and analysis of data on the adversarys
military inventory typically receive priority. Over time, intelligence organizations develop substantial knowledge of these material indicators that they
then use to make predictions about an adversarys intentions.
To test the competing theses, I examined three cases: U.S. assessments of
Soviet intentions under the administration of President Jimmy Carter (a period when dtente collapsed); U.S. assessments of Soviet intentions in the
years leading to the end of the Cold War during the second administration
of President Ronald Reagan; and British assessments of the intentions of
Nazi Germany in the period leading up to World War II. My ndings are
based on review of more than 30,000 archival documents and intelligence reports, as well as interviews with former decisionmakers and intelligence
ofcials. The cases yield ndings more consistent with the selective attention thesis than with either the behavior or capabilities thesis, as I explain in
the conclusion.
Before proceeding, it is important to note what lies outside the scope of this
study. First, I am concerned primarily with the perceptions of an adversarys
long-term political intentions because these are most likely to affect a states
foreign policy and strategic choices. Second, I do not address whether observers correctly identied the intentions of their adversaries. Addressing this question would require that we rst establish what the leaders of Nazi Germany and
the Soviet Union during the periods examined here genuinely believed their
own intentions to be at the time. Third, elsewhere I address the effects of perceived intentions on the collective policies of the states.7 Rather, the focus of this
7. For the effects of perceived intentions on policies, see Keren Yarhi-Milo, Knowing Thy Adversary:
Leaders, Intelligence, and Assessments of Intentions in International Relations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, forthcoming).
article is on the indicators that leaders and intelligence organizations tend to

privilege or ignore in their assessments of an adversarys political intentions.
The next section of this article describes the dependent variableperceived
political intentionsand lays out the three theses. The following section outlines the research design. Then, three cases offer empirical tests of the theoretical explanations. The last section discusses the implications of my ndings for
international relations theory and practice.
Theories of Intentions and the Problem of Attention

The three theses I outline below provide different explanations as to how observers reach their assessments about the adversarys political intentions. The
term political intentions refers to beliefs about the foreign policy plans of
the adversary with regard to the status quo.8 I divide assessments of political
intentions into three simple categories: expansionist, opportunistic, or status
quo.9 Expansionist adversaries exhibit strong determination to expand their
power and inuence beyond their territorial boundaries. Opportunistic states
desire a favorable change in the distribution of power with either a limited or
an unlimited geographical scope, but do not actively seek change. They may
have contingent plans to seize opportunities to achieve this objective, but they
will not pursue their revisionist goals when the cost of doing so appears
high.10 Status quo powers want only to maintain their relative power position.
the selective attention thesis
Information about intentions can be complex, ambiguous, and potentially deceptive, and thus requires much interpretive work. Cognitive, affective, and
organizational practices impede individuals ability to process this information. To distinguish between signals and noise, individuals use a variety of
heuristic inference strategies.11 These simplied models of reality, however,
8. Intention should be distinguished from states motives for keeping or changing the status quo.
On motives, see Glaser, Rational Theory of International Politics, pp. 3839.
9. The scope of the revisionist intentions in expansionist and opportunistic states can be limited or
unlimited. For a similar typology, see Keith L. Shimko, Images and Arms Control: Perceptions of the
Soviet Union in the Reagan Administration (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991).
10. Douglas Seay, What Are the Soviets Objectives in Their Foreign, Military, and Arms Control
Policies? in Lynn Eden and Steven E. Miller, eds., Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic
Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 47108;
and Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1976).
11. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and
Probability, Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 5, No. 2 (September 1973), pp. 207232; and Thomas
Gilovich, Dale Grifn, and Daniel Kahneman, eds., Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive
Judgment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
can have the unintended effect of focusing excessive attention on certain pieces
of information and away from others. The selective attention thesis recognizes
that individual decisionmakers and bureaucratic organizations, such as an intelligence community, process information differently. The thesis yields two
hypotheses: the subjective credibility hypothesis explains the inference process
of decisionmakers, and the organizational expertise hypothesis describes that
of intelligence organizations.
the subjective credibility hypothesis. The subjective credibility hypothesis predicts that decisionmakers will not necessarily detect or interpret costly
actions as informative signals.12 This psychology-based theory posits that both
the degree of credence given to evidence and the interpretation of evidence
deemed credible will depend on a decisionmakers expectations about the
links between the adversarys behavior and its underlying characteristics; his
or her own theories about which signals are indicative of the adversarys type;
and the vividness of the information.13
First, the attention paid to costly actions hinges on observers expectations
about the adversary.14 Observers are likely to vary in their prior degree of distrust toward an adversary and the extent to which they believe its intentions
are hostile. This variation in decisionmakers beliefs and expectations affects
their selection and reading of signals in predictable ways. Given cognitive assimilation mechanisms and the human tendency to try to maintain cognitive
consistency, decisionmakers who already hold relatively more hawkish views
about the adversarys intentions when they assume power are less likely to
perceive and categorize even costly reassuring actions as credible signals of benign intent. They are likely to reason, for example, that the adversarys actions
are intended to deceive observers into believing that it harbors no malign intentions. Or they may believe that the adversarys reassuring signals merely
reect its economic or domestic political interests, and thus should not be seen
as signaling more benign foreign policy goals. In contrast, those with relatively
less hawkish views of an adversarys intentions are more likely to interpret reassuring signals as conforming with their current beliefs and, therefore, are
12. Robert Jervis, Signaling and Perception: Drawing Inferences and Projecting Images, in
Kristen Monroe, ed., Political Psychology (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002); and Jonathan
Mercer, Emotional Beliefs, International Organization, Vol. 64, No. 1 (January 2010), pp. 131.
13. The literature on such biases is vast. For important works and good summaries, see Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics; Ole Holsti, The Belief System and National Images: A Case Study, Journal of Conict Resolution, Vol. 6, No. 3 (September 1962), pp. 244252; and
Philip E. Tetlock, Social Psychology and World Politics, in Susan T. Fiske, Daniel T. Gilbert, and
Gardner Lindzey, eds., Handbook of Social Psychology, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998), pp.
868914.
14. Robert Jervis, Understanding Beliefs, Political Psychology, Vol. 27, No. 5 (October 2006), pp.
641663.
more likely to see such signals as benign. Hawks are likely to focus on costly
actions that indicate malign intentions, because such actions are consistent
with their existing beliefs about the adversarys intentions.15
Second, decisionmakers interpretations are also guided by their theories
about the relationship between an adversarys behavior and its underlying characteristics. As Robert Jervis points out, different observers will interpret even
costly behavior differently, because some of them saw a certain correlation
while others either saw none or believed that the correlation was quite different.16 If, for instance, a decisionmaker believes in the logic of diversionary
war, he or she is likely to pay attention to indicators of an adversary states domestic social unrest and see them as evidence that its leadership is about to embark on a revisionist foreign policy. Thus, social unrest serves as an index of
intention, one that the adversary is unlikely to manipulate to project a false image. Those within the administration who do not share this theory of diversionary war will view social unrest as an unreliable indicator of future intentions.
Third, the subjective credibility hypothesis expects decisionmakers to focus
on information that, even if perhaps costless, is vivid. Vividness refers to the
emotional interest of information, the concreteness and imaginability of information, and the sensory, spatial, and temporal proximity of information.17
One vivid indicator that is particularly salient to the issues studied in this article consists of a decisionmakers impressions from personal interactions with
members of the adversarys leadership.18 Recent work in psychology and political science has shown that our emotional responses in face-to-face meetings
shape the certainty of our beliefs and preferences for certain choices.19 As
15. This hypothesis cannot indicate a priori when observers will change their assessments about
intentions, but it can predict the possibility of change in perceived intentions relative to those of
other observers on the basis of their initial beliefs about the intentions of the adversary.
16. Peer Schouten, Theory Talk #12: Robert Jervis on Nuclear Weapons, Explaining the NonRealist Politics of the Bush Administration and U.S. Military Presence in Europe, Theory Talks,
January 24, 2008, http://www.theory-talks.org/2008/07/theory-talk-12.html.
17. Richard E. Nisbett and Lee Ross, Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1980), p. 62. See also Eugene Borgida and Richard E. Nisbett, The Differential Impact of Abstract vs. Concrete Information on Decisions, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 7, No. 3 (September 1977), pp. 258271; Chaim D. Kaufmann, Out of
the Lab and into the Archives: A Method for Testing Psychological Explanations of Political Decision Making, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 4 (December 1994), pp. 557586; and
Tversky and Kahneman, Availability.
18. On the importance of personal meetings in inferring leaders sincerity, see Todd Hall and
Keren Yarhi-Milo, The Personal Touch: Leaders Impressions, Costly Signaling, and Assessments
of Sincerity in International Affairs, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 3 (September
2012), pp. 560573.
19. See, for example, Mercer, Emotional Beliefs; and Rose McDermott, The Feeling of Rationality: The Meaning of Neuroscientic Advances for Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 2,
No. 4 (December 2004), pp. 691706.
Eugene Borgida and Richard Nisbett argued, [T]here may be a kind of eyewitness principle of the weighing of evidence, such that rsthand, senseimpression data is assigned greater validity.20 Accordingly, information about
intentions that is vivid, personalized, and emotionally involving is more
likely to be remembered, and hence to be disproportionately available for
inuencing inferences. Conversely, decisionmakers will be reluctant to rely
onevidence that is abstract, colorless, objective, or less tangiblesuch as measurements of the adversarys weapon inventory or the contents of its doctrinal manualseven if such evidence could be regarded as extremely reliable.
This kind of information is not nearly as engaging as the vivid, salient, and
often emotionally laden personal responses that leaders take away from meeting with their opponents.21
A few clarications about the selective attention thesis are in order. First, the
importance of prior beliefs in assimilating new information is central to both
psychological and some rationalist approaches.22 In Bayesian learning models,
observers evaluating new evidence are not presumed to possess identical
prior beliefs. The prediction that distinguishes Bayesian models from biasedlearning models concerns whether observers with identical prior beliefs and
levels of uncertainty will be similarly affected by new information revealed by
costly signals.23 In contrast, the subjective credibility hypothesis claims that a
process of updating might not occur even in the face of costly signals, and that
vivid, noncostly actions can also be seen as informative. Further, the concept of
Bayesian updating suggests that disconrming data will always lead to some
belief change, or at least to lowered condence. The subjective credibility hypothesis, however, recognizes that some decisionmakers will not revise their
beliefs even when confronted with valuable and costly information for reasons
described above, such as a strong conrmation bias, the colorless nature of the
information, or incongruity with the decisionmakers theories. This study also
20. Borgida and Nisbett, Differential Impact of Abstract vs. Concrete Information, p. 269.
21. Nisbett and Ross, Human Inference, pp. 188191; Fiske and Taylor, Social Cognition, pp. 278279;
Tversky and Kahneman, Availability; Kaufmann, Out of the Lab and into the Archives; and
Rose McDermott, Jonathan Cowden, and Stephen Rosen, The Role of Hostile Communications in
a Simulated Crisis Game, Peace and Conict: Journal of Peace Psychology, Vol. 14, No. 2 (2008),
p. 156.
22. For a debate on the role of common prior beliefs in bargaining models, see Alastair Smith
and Allan Stam, Bargaining and the Nature of War, Journal of Conict Resolution, Vol. 50, No. 6
(December 2004), pp. 783813; and Mark Fey and Kristopher W. Ramsay, The Common Priors Assumption: A Comment on Bargaining and the Nature of War, Journal of Conict Resolution, Vol.
50, No. 4 (2006), pp. 607613.
23. Alan Gerber and Donald P. Green, Rational Learning and Partisan Attitudes, American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 42, No. 3 (July 1998), pp. 189210; and Charles S. Taber and Milton
Lodge, Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs, American Journal of Political
Science, Vol. 50, No. 3 (July 2006), pp. 755769.
asks a set of questions about the importance of costly actions that Bayesian
models tend to ignore: that is, do different observers select different kinds of
external indicators to update their beliefs?
the organizational expertise hypothesis. The bureaucratic-organizational
context in which intelligence analysts operate has specic effects that do not
apply to political decisionmakers. As a collective, intelligence organizations
tend to analyze their adversarys intentions through the prism of their relative
expertise. Intelligence organizations tend to devote most of their resources to
the collection, production, and analysis of information about the military inventory of the adversary, which can be known and tracked over time. As Mark
Lowenthal writes, [T]he regularity and precision that govern each nations
military make it susceptible to intelligence collection.24 Quantied inventories can also be presented in a quasi-scientic way to decisionmakers.
Over time, the extensive monitoring of the adversarys military inventory
creates a kind of narrow-mindedness that inuences the inference process. To
use Isaiah Berlins metaphor, extensive monitoring creates hedgehogs: [T]he
intellectually aggressive hedgehogs knew one big thing and sought, under
the banner of parsimony, to expand the explanatory power of that big thing to
cover new cases.25 This is not to argue that intelligence organizations know
only how to count an adversarys missiles and military divisions. Rather, the
organizational expertise hypothesis posits that, because analyzing intentions
is one central issue with which intelligence organizations are explicitly tasked,
and because there is no straightforward or easy way to predict the adversarys
intentions, a states intelligence apparatus has strong incentives to use the relative expertise that it has, which emphasizes careful empirical analysis of military capabilities. Unlike the capabilities thesis, the organizational expertise
hypothesis sees the logic of relying on capabilities as arising from bureaucratic
and practical reasons specic to intelligence organizations.26
24. As Mark M. Lowenthal writes, Deployed conventional and strategic forces . . . are difcult to
conceal, as they tend to exist in identiable garrisons and must exercise from time to time. They
also tend to be garrisoned or deployed in large numbers, which makes hiding them or masking
them impractical at best. Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (Washington, D.C.: CQ
Press, 2009), pp. 234235.
25. Philip E. Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 2005), pp. 2021.
26. For analyses of how organizations inuence information processes, see Martha S. Feldman
and James G. March, Information in Organizations as Signal and Symbol, Administrative Science
Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 2 (June 1981), pp. 171186; Yaacov Y.I. Vertzberger, The World in Their Minds:
Information Processing, Cognition, and Perception in Foreign Policy Decisionmaking (Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press, 1990); and Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoys
View of History (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1953). The organizational expertise hypothesis
does not predict the kinds of conclusions that individual intelligence agencies or analysts will
reach about the adversarys intentions.
the capabilities thesis

The capabilities thesis posits that observers should infer an adversarys intentions based on indexes of its military power. This thesis draws on several
realist theories that suggest that a states intentions reveal, or are at least constrained by, its military capabilities. Two pathways link military power and
perceived intentions.27 First, according to John Mearsheimers theory of offensive realism, decisionmakers in an anarchic international system must assume the worst about adversaries intentions.28 How aggressive a state can
(or will) be is essentially a function of its power. A second pathway relies on
the logic of costly actions, according to which the size of an incremental increase or decrease in an adversarys military capabilities, in combination with
how powerful the observing country sees it to be, can serve as a credible signal
of aggressive or benign intentions.29
Drawing on these insights, the capabilities hypothesis predicts that observers in a state will infer an adversarys intentions from perceived trends in the
level of the adversarys military capabilities compared with its own military
capabilities. Under conditions of uncertainty about states intentions, a perception that an adversary is devoting more resources to building up its military
capabilities is likely to be seen as a costly signal of hostile intentions. As
Charles Glaser puts it, [A] states military buildup can change the adversarys
beliefs about the states motives, convincing the adversary that the state is inherently more dangerous than it had previously believed. More specically,
the states buildup could increase the adversarys assessment of the extent to
which it is motivated by the desire to expand for reasons other than security.30
Conversely, a perception of a freeze or a decrease in the adversarys military capabilities or its investment in them is likely to be seen as a costly and reassuring
signal of more benign intentions. At the same time, realists have long emphasized that a states perception of security or threat depends on how its military
power compares with the power of the adversary, that is, on the balance of military power. Thus, in the process of discerning intentions, assessments of the balance of military capabilities are also likely to affect interpretations of benign or
hostile intent. For example, if the adversary already enjoys military superiority
27. A third pathway concerns the offensive or defensive nature of the military capabilities as a signal of intentions. On the little impact that such indicators had on the inference processes of
decisionmakers during these periods, see Yarhi-Milo, Knowing Thy Adversary.
28. John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), p. 31.
29. Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations; and Glaser, Rational Theory of International
Politics.
30. Charles L. Glaser, The Security Dilemma Revisited, World Politics, Vol. 50, No. 1 (October
1997), p. 178.
over the observer, then observers will perceive an increase in the adversarys
military capabilities as clear evidence of hostile intentions.
the behavior thesis
The behavior thesis posits that certain kinds of noncapability-based actions are
also useful in revealing information about political intentions, because undertaking them requires the adversary either to sink costs or to commit itself credibly by tying its own hands. I evaluate the potential causal role of three types
of such costly actions. The rst is a states decision to join or withdraw from
binding international institutions.31 Some institutions can impose signicant
costs on states, and they are thus instrumental in allowing other states to discern whether a state has benign or malign intentions.32 The structural version
of the democratic peace, for instance, posits that the creation of democratic domestic institutionsbecause of their constraining effects, transparency, and
ability to generate audience costsshould make it easier for others to recognize a democratic states benign intentions.33
The second costly signal involves foreign interventions in the affairs of
weaker states, or withdrawals from such interventions. A states decision to
spill blood and treasure in an effort to change the status quo, for example, is
likely to be viewed as a costly, hence credible, signal of hostile intentions.
A third type of behavioral signal involves arms control agreements. Scholars
have pointed out that, when offensive and defensive weapons are distinguishable, arms control agreementsespecially those that limit offensive deployment and impose effective vericationprovide an important and reassuring
31. On the role of institutions in signaling intentions, see Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1984); G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001); Seth Weinberger, Institutional
Signaling and the Origins of the Cold War, Security Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Summer 2003), pp. 80
115; Songying Fang, The Informational Role of International Institutions and Domestic Politics,
American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 52, No. 2 (April 2008), pp. 304321; and Terence L. Chapman, International Security Institutions, Domestic Politics, and Institutional Legitimacy, Journal
of Conict Resolution, Vol. 51, No. 1 (February 2007), pp. 134166. See also Stephen D. Krasner, International Regimes (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983); and Andrew Kydd, Sheep in
Sheeps Clothing: Why Security Seekers Do Not Fight Each Other, Security Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1
(Fall 1997), pp. 114155.
32. The usefulness of international institutions in revealing information about intentions depends
on institutional characteristics such as the nature of enforcement, the effects of veto points on state
decisionmaking, and the institutions effects on member states domestic political institutions.
33. For a summary of how domestic institutions can be a signal of intentions, see Mark L. Haas,
The United States and the End of the Cold War: Reactions to Shifts in Soviet Power, Policies, or
Domestic Politics? International Organization, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Winter 2007), p. 152; and James D.
Fearon, Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes, American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 577592.
signal of benign intentions.34 Cheating or reneging on arms control agreements

would lead others to question the intentions of that state. It is important to differentiate indicators such as the signing of arms control agreements as a behavioral signal of intentions from indicators associated with the capabilities
thesis. Although both theses ultimately deal with the relationship between a
states military policy and others assessments of its intentions, they have different predictions. If the capabilities thesis is correct, a change in perceived intentions should occur only when the implementation of the agreement results
in an actual decrease in the adversarys capabilities. Policymakers should refer
to the actual change in capabilities as the reason for a change in their perceptions of the adversarys intentions. If the behavior thesis is correct, perceptions
of intentions should shift when the arms control agreement is signed, and
policymakers should refer to the action of signing the agreement as a critical
factor. Evidence indicating that changes in assessments of intentions occurring
at the time of the signing of a treaty in response to expectations of future shifts
in capabilities, or reasoning pointing to both the symbolic and the actual value
of a treaty, conrms both theses.
summary of predictions
Table 1 highlights the most signicant differences in the observable implications of the selective attention, capabilities, and behavior theses. Each of the
four questions in the table addresses how to test the predictions of the three
theories against the empirical evidence.
research design
To evaluate the selective attention, capabilities, and behavior theses, I examine,
rst, the perceptions of key decisionmakers and their closest senior advisers
on the foreign policy of a particular adversary and, second, the coordinated assessments of the intelligence community.35 In addition to variation on the dependent variableperceptions of political intentionsthe cases also provide
useful variation on the explanatory variables.
34. Glaser, The Security Dilemma Revisited; and Charles L. Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear
Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991).
35. For the U.S. cases, I use the declassied National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) on the Soviet
Union. NIEs, which are produced by the National Intelligence Council, are the most authoritative
product of the intelligence community. The community regularly assessed Soviet intentions in the
11-4 and 11-8 series of NIEs, supplemented by occasional Special NIEs (SNIEs). In all NIEs, I analyze only those sections that deal with the question of intentions. In the British case, the main focus
of the analysis is the coordinated Chiefs of Staff reports and memoranda, because these represent
the integrated analysis of all three military service intelligence agencies. As such, they provide a
useful guide to the evolution of perceptions of the German threat at the level of the British intelligence community as a whole.
Decisionmakers will focus

on vivid information that
addresses what they
subjectively judge as
informative.
Decisionmakers will
update in response to
vivid information and
subjective reading of
credible indicators.
Decisionmakers reason
with reference to
information that they
perceive as vivid or
subjectively perceive as
credible.
What is the key set of variables

guiding observers assessments
of political intentions?
When do assessments about

political intentions change?
How do observers explain

their assessments of
political intentions?
Intelligence community
reasons with reference to
information on which it has
the most expertise, usually
about the adversarys military
capabilities.
Intelligence community will

update in response to
changes in relative expertise;
in most cases, in response to
the perceived military
capabilities of the adversary.
Intelligence community will

prioritize information in which
it has the most expertise,
which in most cases will
pertain to the adversarys
military capabilities.
Yes, decisionmakers and the intelligence community will

rely on different indicators.
Selective Attention Thesis
Do observers vary in how

they assess the adversarys
political intentions?
Table 1. Summary of Predictions
Observers reason with

reference to the quantity
of the adversarys military
capabilities.
Assessments change in
response to costly
changes in the perceived
quantity of the adversarys
Inuential variables are

costly changes in the
quantity of the adversarys
Not necessarily
Capabilities Thesis
Observers reason with

reference to the costly
behavior of the adversary.
Assessments change
when the adversary
undertakes particular
costly actions.
Inuential variables are

costly noncapabilitiesbased actions by the
adversary.
Not necessarily
Behavior Thesis
To test the propositions offered by the selective attention thesis, I examine

how the primary decisionmakersPresident Jimmy Carter, President Ronald
Reagan, and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and their senior advisers
varied in their initial assessments of the enemy. Also, all three key decisionmakers were engaged in personal meetings with the adversarys leadership,
albeit to various degrees.36
The cases also allow testing of the capabilities thesis, because both the initial
balance of capabilities and the magnitude of change in the adversarys capabilities during the period of interaction vary across the cases. Both Cold War cases
assume relative equality in military capabilities between the superpowers with a
moderate increase (the collapse of dtente case) or decrease (the end of the Cold
War case) in Soviet capabilities during the interaction period. In contrast, the
German military was vastly inferior to the British military, but an unprecedented increase in German military capabilities during the mid-to-late 1930s
shifted the balance of power in Germanys favor. Thus, the interwar case
should be an easy test case for the capabilities thesis, as the dramatic increase
in German military capabilities and the shift in the balance of power during
the period should have led observers to focus on this indicator as a signal
of intentions.
The cases are also useful in testing the predictions of the behavior thesis. In
particular, the end of the Cold War case is an easy test for the behavior thesis,
given that the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, took a series of extremely
costly actions. This should have had a signicant reassuring inuence on observers perceptions.
In each case, I subject the evidence to two probes. First, I look for covariance
between changes in the independent variables cited in each thesis and changes
in the dependent variable of perceptions of intentions. A nding of no correlation between the predictions of a thesis and the time or direction in which perceptions of intentions change is evidence against that thesis. Second, through
process tracing, I examine whether decisionmakers or collective intelligence
reports explicitly cited the adversarys capabilities or its behavior, for example,
as relevant evidence in their assessments of the adversarys intentions. This
step provides a further check against mistaking correlation for causation.
36. One potential criticism is that all cases involve Western democracies assessments about the intentions of their nondemocratic adversaries. This is primarily because the data available from
nondemocracies are not adequate to permit a reasonable understanding of what decisionmakers
and intelligence analysts in these countries discussed and thought when they inferred the intentions of their adversaries. Moreover, although I show in the cases that the adversarys ideology did
not play a direct role in the assessments of intentions, I do not systematically test the role of ideology in this project.
Third, in each case I test the predictions of the selective attention framework
by comparing decisionmakers assessments with those of the intelligence communities, as well as by tracing the process by which the selective attention criteria account for the variation among decisionmakers in how they categorized
credible signals, and the timing of changes in their perceived intentions.
The Collapse of Dtente, 197780

Jimmy Carter began his presidency with great optimism about relations with
the Soviet Union. But by his last year in ofce, the U.S.-Soviet dtente had collapsed: Carter did not meet with Soviet leaders; he increased the defense budget; he withdrew the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) II Treaty from
Senate consideration; and he announced the Carter Doctrine, which warned
against interference with U.S. interests in the Middle East. In this case, I briey
outline trends in Soviet military capabilities and costly actions during that period that inform the capabilities and behavior theses, respectively. Then I show
how the main decisionmakers in the Carter administrationPresident Jimmy
Carter, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Secretary of State
Cyrus Vance37assessed Soviet intentions in a manner that is most consistent
with the subjective credibility hypothesis of the selective attention thesis. This
is followed by a discussion of the U.S. intelligence communitys assessments
which, I argue, are in line with both the capabilities thesis and the selective
attention thesiss organizational expertise hypothesis.
The U.S. consensus during this period was that the Soviet Union was building up and modernizing its military capabilities and that the correlation of military forces was shifting in its favor.38 The Soviets were expanding their
already large conventional ground and theater air forces and introducing modern systems that were equal or superior to those of NATO.39 The deployment
of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Europe produced a growing
concern over the potential threat of Soviet continental strategic superiority.40
While the United States maintained what it called asymmetric equivalence
37. On the relationship between the three decisionmakers, see Jerel A. Rosati, The Carter Administrations Quest for Global Community: Beliefs and Their Impact on Behavior (Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press, 1987); and Betty Glad, An Outsider in the White House: Jimmy Carter, His Advisors, and the Making of American Foreign Policy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2009).
38. Zbigniew Brzezinski, memo, Comprehensive Net Assessment, 1978, p. 8; and Harold
Brown, Report of Secretary of Defense Harold Brown to the Congress on the FY 1979 Budget, FY
Authorization Request, and FY 19791983 Defense Programs, January 23, 1978, pp. 6566.
39. Ofce of Strategic Research, The Development of Soviet Military Power: Trends since 1965
and Prospects for the 1980s, SR 81-10035X (Washington, D.C.: National Foreign Research Center,
April 1981), pp. xiiixv.
40. NIE 11-6-78, pp. 23.
with the Soviet Union,41 the U.S. defense establishment was especially worried
about increases in Soviet nuclear counterforce capability. The Soviets were
steadily improving the survivability and exibility of their strategic forces,
which had reached the potential to destroy about four-fths of the U.S.
Minuteman silos by 1980 or 1981.42 In mid-1979, the National Security Council
(NSC) cautioned that the strategic nuclear balance was deteriorating faster
than the United States had expected two years earlier, and would get worse
into the early 1980s.
The Soviets took two kinds of costly actions that t the criteria of the behavior thesis. The rst was signing the SALT II Treaty in June 1979, which called
for reductions in U.S. and Soviet strategic forces to 2,250 in all categories of delivery vehicles.43 The second was Soviet interventions in crises around the
world. The Soviets intervened in twenty-six conicts during 197580.44 Unlike
previous interventions during that period, however, the 1978 Soviet intervention in Ethiopia was direct, not simply through Cuban proxies, and the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979 was a full-scale application of Soviet military power. The United States feared that the pattern of Soviet actions would
expand beyond the arc of crisis to include additional regions and countries
more important to U.S. interests. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in particular, signicantly intensied this fear, because it was the rst direct use of
Soviet force beyond the Warsaw Pact nations to restore a pro-Soviet regime. In
addition to these two interventions, reports in 1979 that the Soviets had placed
a combat brigade in Cuba created a sense of panic in Washington that subsided only when American decisionmakers realized that the brigade had been
in Cuba since 1962.45
41. National Security Council (NSC) meeting, June 4, 1979, quoted in Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power
and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Advisor, 19771981 (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 1983), pp. 334336. The conventional military balance in Europe was perceived as favoring
the Warsaw Pact forces. See National Foreign Assessment Center, The Balance of Nuclear Forces
in Central Europe, SR 78-10004 (Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, January 1978);
and Comprehensive Net Assessment, 1978.
42. NIE 11-3/8-79, pp. 2, 4. Soviet damage-limitation capabilities were, however, still judged to be
poor despite a large, ongoing Soviet investment. NIE 11-3/8-78, pp. 56, 11. See also Harold
Brown, Report of Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, on the FY 1979 Budget, pp. 6566; and
Harold Brown, Department of Defense Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1980, January 25, 1979, p. 70.
43. As a result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter decided to table SALT II. NSC Weekly
Report 123, December 28, 1979.
44. The Soviet Union had low-level involvement in eleven crises and conducted covert or semimilitary activities in thirteen crises, in addition to using direct military force in Ethiopia and Afghanistan. See International Conict Behavior Project dataset, http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/icb/.
45. On the episode of the Soviet brigade in Cuba, see Cyrus R. Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in
Americas Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), pp. 360361; Brzezinski, Power and
Principle, p. 347; and NSC Weekly Report 98, May 25, 1979; NSC Weekly Report 103, July 20, 1979;
NSC Weekly Report 104, July 27, 1979; and NSC Weekly Report 109, September 13, 1979.
carter administration assessments of soviet intentions

In what follows I show that, consistent with the subjective credibility hypothesis
derived from the selective attention thesis, Carter and his advisers did not agree
on the informative value of Soviet costly actions. Rather, they debated the importance of various indicators in inferring intentions, and interpreted costly
Soviet behavior markedly differently from one another. Specically, their initial
beliefs and theories about the Soviet Union affected the degree of credibility that
each of the three decisionmakers attached to various Soviet actions.
Prior to becoming national security adviser, Brzezinski had held a more negative impression of the Soviet Union than either Carter or Vance.46 During their
rst year in ofce, Carter and Vance perceived Soviet intentions as, at worst, opportunistic.47 Brzezinskis private weekly memoranda to Carter reveal that, even
though he was more skeptical than the president about Soviet intentions, he,
too, was hopeful that the Soviets would remain relatively cooperative.48 As
conicts in the third world grew in scope, intensity, and importance throughout
1978, however, Brzezinski concluded that the Soviet involvement in Africa was
expansionist, not merely opportunistic. In January 1978, he maintained that either by design or simply as a response to an apparent opportunity, the Soviets
have stepped up their efforts to exploit African turbulence to their own advantage.49 Soon after, he cautioned Carter that the Soviet leaders may be acting
merely in response to an apparent opportunity, or the Soviet actions may be part
of a wider strategic design.50 On February 17, Brzezinski provided Carter with
a rare, explicit account of his impressions of Soviet intentions, including a table
that divided Soviet behavior into three categories: benign, neutral, and malignant.51 Brzezinski described Soviet objectives as seeking selective dtente,52
and explained that his revised assessments about Soviet intentions emerge
from Soviet behavior and statements since the election.53 The table is particularly illuminating because it provides no mention of Soviet military capabilities,
only of Soviet behavior, although the latter was not conned to Soviet interven-
46. Rosati, The Carter Administrations Quest for Global Community; Melchiore Laucella, A Cognitive-Psychodynamic Perspective to Understanding Secretary of State Cyrus Vances Worldview,
Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 2 (June 2004), pp. 227271; and Steven Jay Campbell,
Brzezinskis Image of the USSR: Inferring Foreign Policy Beliefs from Multiple Sources Over
Time, Ph.D. dissertation, University of South Carolina, 2003, pp. 7475.
47. See, for example, Public Papers of the President of the United States [hereafter PPP] (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Ofce, June 30, 1977), p. 1198; and PPP, December 15, 1977, p. 2119.
48. NSC Weekly Report 18, June 24, 1977.
49. NSC Weekly Report 42, January 13, 1978.
50. Quoted in Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 181.
51. NSC Weekly Report 47, February 17, 1978.
52. Ibid.
53. NSC Weekly Report 2, February 26, 1977.
tionism or costly actions alone. During February and March, Cuban and Soviet
forces backed the government of Ethiopia in its effort to expel the defeated
Somali army; Brzezinski believed that the Soviet Union was in Ethiopia because it has a larger design in mind.54 He reiterated these conclusions in subsequent reports to the president.55
In contrast, Secretary of State Vance believed that the Soviet Unions actions
in Africa were not part of a grand Soviet plan, but rather attempts to exploit
targets of opportunity,56 and that they were within the bounds of acceptable
competition.57 Alarmed by Carters growing skepticism about Soviet motivations and objectives, Vance requested a formal review of U.S.-Soviet relations
in May 1978. Many are asking whether this Administration has decided to
make a sharp shift in its foreign policy priorities, Vance noted, expressing
alarm about the more hawkish Brzezinskis inuence on the presidents view
of the Soviet Union.58 Indeed, Carters growing distrust of Soviet intentions,
ignited by the Soviet involvement in the Horn of Africa, had become apparent
in a series of public statements depicting the Soviets as less trustworthy and
calling for the adoption of a harsher U.S. stance.59 Yet Carter continued to see
the Soviet Unions actions in the Horn as opportunistic.60
By mid-1978, Brzezinski and Vance found themselves in opposing camps
while Carter vacillated. Brzezinski summarized the differences:
One view . . . was that the Soviets have stomped all over the code of dtente.
They continue to pursue a selective dtente. Their action reects growing assertiveness in Soviet foreign policy generally. Brezhnevs diminished control
permits the natural, historical, dominating impulse of the regime to assert itself with less restraint.
Another view . . . was that the record of Soviet action is much more mixed and
has to be considered case-by-case. The Soviets are acting on traditional lines
and essentially reacting to U.S. steps.61
Convinced by early 1979 that the Soviets were pursuing an expansionist
grand design, Brzezinski continued to press Carter to act more assertively.
54. Zbigniew Brzezinski, memo for the president, The Soviet Union and Ethiopia: Implications
for U.S. Soviet Relations, March 3, 1978.
55. NSC Weekly Report 55, April 21, 1978; and NSC Weekly Report 57, May 5, 1978.
56. Vance, Hard Choices, p. 84.
57. Ibid., p. 101.
58. Vance, memo to President Jimmy Carter, May 29, 1978. Document released to author under the
Freedom of Information Act, July 2007.
59. PPP, May 20, 1978, pp. 872, 940; and PPP, May 25, 1978, p. 977. See also Brzezinski, Power and
Principle, pp. 188189; and Richard C. Thornton, The Carter Years: Toward a New Global Order (New
York: Paragon House, 1991), p. 185.
60. PPP, November 13, 1978, p. 2017.
61. NSC Weekly Report 65, June 30, 1978.
He wrote to Carter that the recent pattern in Soviet interventions revealed revisionist intentions.62 Although alarmed, the president continued to reject
Brzezinskis calls to deliberately toughen both the tone and the substance of
our foreign policy.63 The issue of Soviet intentions resurfaced in the fall of
1979 during the uproar over the Soviet brigade in Cuba. Brzezinski saw this as
another credible indicator of Soviet expansionist intentions, but Carter and
Vance were unpersuaded.64
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 caused Carter to reevaluate his perceptions of Soviet intentions. On January 20, 1980, he declared
that it had made a more dramatic change in my opinion of what the Soviets
ultimate goals are than anything theyve done in the previous time that Ive
been in ofce.65 Carter now viewed the Soviet Union as expansionist, not necessarily because of the nancial or political costs incurred by the Soviets, but because the invasion represented a qualitative shift in Soviet behavior. Explaining
this shift, Carter adopted Brzezinskis line of reasoning, saying, [I]t is obvious
that the Soviets actual invasion of a previously nonaligned country, an independent, freedom-loving country, a deeply religious country, with their own
massive troops is a radical departure from the policy or actions that the Soviets
have pursued since the Second World War.66 Consequently, he warned that the
invasion of Afghanistan was an extremely serious threat to peace because of
the threat of further Soviet expansion into neighboring countries.67
The invasion was seen as an informative indicator of intention not solely because it was a costly action, but also because of the emotional response it invoked in Carter. Indeed, the reason he saw the invasion as indicative of Soviet
intentions can also be explained, as Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Stein
point out, by the egocentric bias that led Carter to exaggerate the extent to
which he, personally, was the target of Soviet actions.68 In particular, the invasion contradicted the frank rapport and the understanding that he felt he had
achieved with Brezhnev during their meeting in June 1979 in Vienna.69 Indeed,
62. NSC Weekly Report 84, January 12, 1979.
63. NSC Weekly Report 109, September 13, 1979.
64. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, pp. 347351.
65. Jimmy Carter, interview, Meet the Press, January 20, 1980. See also Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith:
Memoirs of a President (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1995), p. 480; Message for
Brezhnev from Carter Regarding Afghanistan, December 28, 1979; and Brzezinski, Power and
Principle, p. 429.
66. PPP, January 20, 1980, p. 11. For a similar line of reasoning, see also pp. 308, 329.
67. U.S. Department of State Bulletin (DSB), Vol. 80, No. 2034 (January 1980).
68. Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, Afghanistan, Carter, and Foreign Policy Change:
The Limits of Cognitive Models, in Dan Caldwell and Timothy J. McKeown, eds., Diplomacy,
Force, and Leadership: Essays in Honor of Alexander L. George (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1993), p. 112.
69. Raymond L. Garthoff, Dtente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan,
rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1994), p. 1059.
during that summit meeting, Carter spoke of continuing cooperation and

honesty in our discussions, and upon his return he had proudly reported to
Congress that President Brezhnev and I developed a better sense of each
other as leaders and as men.70 Brezhnevs justication for the invasion
which asserted that the Soviet troops were sent in response to requests by the
Afghan governmentinfuriated Carter, as he interpreted it as an insult to his
intelligence.71 Finally, Brezhnevs betrayal also suggested that the Soviet
leader could not be trusted to be a partner for dtente. As Carter explained,
[T]his is a deliberate aggression that calls into question dtente and the way
we have been doing business with the Soviets for the past decade. It raises
grave questions about Soviet intentions and destroys any chance of getting the
SALT Treaty through the Senate. And that makes the prospects for nuclear war
even greater.72 Carter wrote in his diary, [T]he Soviet invasion sent a clear
indication that they were not to be trusted.73
Vances reactions to and interpretation of the Soviet invasion differed dramatically from Carters. He did not see the invasion as signicant and costly,
and thus informative of Soviet intentions. Rather, he considered it an aberration from past behavior, and largely as an expedient reaction to opportunities rather than as a manifestation of a more sustained trend.74 Vance
understood why others might view the invasion as a signicant signal of expansionist intentions, but he believed that the primary motive for the Soviet
actions was defensive, [and] that the Soviets do not have long-term regional
ambitions beyond Afghanistan.75 Indeed, Vance continued to view Soviet intentions as opportunistic long after the invasion of Afghanistan.76
In sum, the evidence presented provides strong support for the selective attention thesis. The support for the capabilities thesis is weak: the signicant
Soviet military buildup did not lead all U.S. observers to see Soviet intentions
as becoming more hostile throughout this period. More important, none of the
decisionmakers referred to the Soviet military buildup in explaining his assessment of Soviet political intentions. Brzezinskis writings rarely discussed
the recent Soviet military buildup, even though it would have bolstered the
70. Quoted in ibid.

71. Ibid.
72. Hamilton Jordan, Crisis: The Last Year of the Carter Presidency (New York: G.P. Putnams Sons,
1982), p. 99.
73. Jimmy Carter, White House Diary (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), p. 383.
74. Ibid. For a similar logic, see Marshall Shulman, memorandum for Warren Christopher, Notes
on SU/Afghanistan, January 22, 1980; and Vance, Hard Choices, p. 388.
75. NSC Weekly Report 134, March 28, 1980.
76. See interviews with Vance and Shulman in Melchiore Laucella, Cyrus Vances Worldview:
The Relevance of the Motivated Perspective, Ph.D. dissertation, Union Institute, 1996.
hawkish case.77 The evidence for the behavior thesis is moderate. Both Carter
and Brzezinski used Soviet military interventions to infer political intentions.
Yet the behavior thesis does not explain why, unlike Brzezinski, Carter and
Vance did not infer hostile or expansionist motives from Soviet involvement in
the Horn of Africa; it also does not explain why the invasion of Afghanistan
triggered such a dramatic change in Carters beliefs about Soviet intentions
but had no such effect on Vance. Finally, the behavior thesis fails to account
for the differences between the decisionmakers inference processeswhich
largely relied on assessments of Soviet actions, albeit not necessarily costly
onesand the U.S. intelligence communitys inference process, which, as described in the next section, largely relied on assessments of Soviet capabilities.
u.s. intelligence community assessments of soviet intentions
The bulk of the integrated national intelligence estimates (NIEs) on the Soviet
Union throughout the Cold War focused on aspects of the Soviet military arsenal. As Raymond Garthoff stated, Estimates of Soviet capabilities were
the predominant focus of attention and received virtually all of the intelligence collection, analysis, and estimative effort.78 Former Director of Central
Intelligence George Tenet noted that from the mid-1960s on to the Soviet collapse, we knew roughly how many combat aircraft or warheads the Soviets had,
and where. But why did they need that many or that kind? What did they plan
to do with them? To this day, Intelligence is always much better at counting
heads than divining what is going on inside them. That is, we are very good at
gauging the size and location of militaries and weaponry. But for obvious reasons, we can never be as good at guring out what leaders will do with them.79
77. In only a few statements did the decisionmakers link Soviet intentions to the buildup. For example, in a report to Carter, Brzezinski wrote: Soviet defense programs are going beyond the
needs of legitimate deterrence and are increasingly pointing towards the acquisition of something
which might approximate a war-ghting capability. While we do not know why the Soviets are
doing this (intentions?), we do know that their increased capabilities have consequences for our
national security. This statement does not, however, lend support to the capabilities thesis, as
Brzezinski explicitly says that he cannot infer Soviet intentions from these indicators. Brzezinski
also addressed capabilities in other reports, but he did not link themimplicitly or explicitlyto
an assessment of Soviet political intentions. NSC Weekly Report 33, October 21, 1977; and NSC
Weekly Report 108, September 6, 1979.
78. In this section, I rely in part on interviews I conducted with William Odom, head of the National Security Agency at the time, and Fritz Ermarth, Raymond Garthoff, Melvin Goodman,
and Douglas MacEachin, all former CIA analysts of the Soviet Union. Raymond L. Garthoff,
Estimating Soviet Intentions and Capabilities, in Gerald K. Haines and Robert E. Leggett,
eds., Watching the Bear: Essays on CIAs Analysis of the Soviet Union (Washington, D.C.: Center
for the Study of Intelligence Publications, 2003), chap. 5, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-forthe-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/watching-the-bear-essays-oncias-analysis-of-the-soviet-union.
79. Speeches Delivered at the Conference, in ibid., chap. 8.
During the mid-to-late 1970s, various agencies within the U.S. intelligence
community held differing views about Soviet intentions. For example, the State
Departments Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) saw the Soviets as opportunistic. The military intelligence agencies and the Defense Intelligence Agency (part of the Department of Defense)
viewed Soviet intentions as expansionist. The reasoning described in the integrated NIEs shows that all U.S. intelligence agencies viewed measures of
Soviet current and projected strategic power as the most important indicator
of Soviet political intentions. For example, NIE 11-4-78 estimated that more
assertive Soviet international behavior was likely to persist as long as the
USSR perceives that Western strength is declining and its own strength is
steadily increasing. It judged that if the new [Soviet] leaders believe the correlation of forces to be favorable, especially if they are less impressed than
Brezhnev with U.S. military might and more impressed with their own, they
might employ military power even more assertively in pursuit of their global
ambitions.80 The centrality of Soviet capabilities and the balance of capabilities as indicators of intentions also dominated NIE 11-3/8-79, in which Director of Central Intelligence Stanseld Turner asserted that as they [the Soviets]
see this [military] superiority increase during the next three to ve years, they
will probably attempt to secure maximum political advantage from their military arsenal in anticipation of U.S. force modernization programs.81 Competing and minority views were also routinely registered in the NIEs. One
such view in this NIE claimed that Soviet perceptions of the global correlation
of forces were providing them with the latitude to safely confront the U.S. or
its vital interests, and that in places where the Soviets enjoyed the advantage
of proximity or a preponderance of conventional forces, the regional correlation of forces made these areas more vulnerable to aggressive Soviet
behavior.82 Similarly, NIE 11-3/8-80 repeated the intelligence communitys assessment that the Soviet leadership is now condent that the strategic military balance is shifting in the Kremlins favor and that the aggressiveness of its
foreign policy will continue to increase as the Soviet advantage grows.83
Interagency disagreements about Soviet military strength and the evolving correlation of forces shaped readings of Soviet intentions. Agencies that
perceived the Soviet Union as highly condent in its power also predicted
that Soviet foreign policy would become more aggressive. Agencies that per-
80.
81.
82.
83.
NIE 11-4-78, p. 6.
NIE 11-3/8-79, p. 4.
Ibid.
NIE 11-3/8-80, pp. B17B18.
ceived Soviet capabilities as weaker also saw Soviet intentions as less aggressive
and Soviet objectives as more moderate.84 Bureaucratic interests did sometimes
inuence interpretations of Soviet capabilities and intentions, but whatever the
parochial motives of analysts from different agencies and in spite of their disagreements about Soviet intentions, all of the intelligence agencies grounded
their estimates of intentions in Soviet capabilities. Furthermore, in stark contrast
to the Carter administrations decisionmakers, the intelligence community made
almost no references to presumably costly noncapabilities-based actions to support the inferences they were drawing about their political intentions.85
In sum, the review of the NIEs on the Soviet Union reveals that unlike
Carter, Brzezinski, and Vance, the U.S. intelligence community did not assess
Soviet political intentions on the basis of behavioral or vivid indicators, but
rather on their reading of Soviet military capabilities. This nding is consistent
with both the capabilities thesis and the selective attention thesiss organizational expertise hypothesis. The marked differences between evaluations
by the civilian decisionmakers and those of the intelligence community, as well
as the substantial number of NIEs dedicated to assessing Soviet military capabilities, provide further support for the selective attention thesis.
The End of the Cold War, 198588

During his rst term, President Ronald Reagan perceived Soviet intentions as
expansionist. His views changed dramatically, however, during his second administration. Following the Moscow summit in May 1988, Reagan asserted
that his characterization of the Soviet Union ve years earlier as an evil empire belonged to another time, another era.86 When asked if he could declare the Cold War over, the president responded, I think right now, of
course.87 This section explores the indicators that President Reagan, Secretary
of State George Shultz, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger used to
assess Soviet political intentions during Reagans second term, and how the
U.S. intelligence community analyzed similar indicators to infer Gorbachevs
intentions during the same period. The discussion that follows begins with
some background information about trends in Soviet capabilities and costly
action. This is followed by an analysis of how Reagan and his advisers per-
84. See, for example, NIE 11-4-77; NIE 11-3/8-79; and NIE 11-3/8-80.
85. NIE 11-4-78 made some references to current Soviet actions with respect to SALT and dtente.
This line of reasoning, however, was rarely invoked. NIE 4-1-78, pp. ix, x, 17.
86. Quoted in Raymond L. Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of
the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1994), p. 352.
87. Presidents news conference, Spaso House, Moscow, DSB, June 1988, p. 32.
ceived Soviet intentions. The nal section evaluates the inference process that
the coordinated assessments of the U.S. intelligence community used to judge
Soviet intentions during the same period.
Realist accounts of the end of the Cold War point to the decline in Soviet
power relative to that of the United States during the late 1980s.88 Yet archival
documents show that at this time, the U.S. defense establishment estimated
that the Soviet Unions military power was growing; that the Soviets were
modernizing their strategic force comprehensively;89 and that the Warsaw Pact
had a strong advantage over NATO in almost all categories of forces as a result
of its continuing weapons production.90 In addition, prior to the signing of the
Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the United States perceived the theater nuclear balance of power as extremely threatening, given the Soviet
Unions vigorous modernization and initial deployment of intermediate-range
ballistic missiles in Europe. Although the INF Treaty, which took effect in June
1988, substantially limited Soviet medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missile forces, the U.S. intelligence community believed that it did not diminish the Soviets ability to wage a nuclear war.91 Then, in December 1988,
Soviet Head of State Mikhail Gorbachev announced a unilateral and substantial reduction in Soviet conventional forces in Eastern Europe. Even so, U.S.
perceptions of the balance of capabilities did not change until late 1989, following initial implementation of the Soviet force reductions. The announcement
itself did not result in U.S. recognition of any signicant diminution of Soviet
capabilities in either size or quality.92
As for Soviet behavioral signals, Gorbachevs proposals during 1985 and
1986 were not sufciently costly.93 During 1987 and 1988, however, the
Soviet Union offered additional and signicant reassurances to the United
States. Especially costly were the Soviet acceptance of asymmetric reductions in the INF in 1987, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan
88. William C. Wohlforth, Realism and the End of the Cold War, International Security, Vol. 19,
No. 3 (Winter 1994/95), pp. 91129.
89. See, for example, NIE 11-3/8-86; NIE 11-3/8-87; and NIE 11-3/8-88.
90. Frank Carlucci, Annual Report to the President and Congress, 1989 (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Ofce, February 18, 1988), p. 29.
91. NIE 11-3/8-88, p. 5. The Department of Defense reached a similar conclusion. U.S. Department
of Defense, Ofce of the Secretary of Defense, Soviet Military Power (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, 1989), p. 7; and U.S. Department of Defense, Ofce of the Secretary of Defense,
Soviet Military Power (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Ofce, 1990), pp. 5455.
92. National Intelligence Council (NIC), Status of Soviet Unilateral Withdrawal, M 89-10003
(Washington, D.C.: NIC, October 1989).
93. Jack F. Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended (New York: Random House,
2004), pp. 275276; and Garthoff, The Great Transition, p. 334. For an analysis of Gorbachevs costly
actions and their effects on perceived intentions, see Haas, The United States and the End of the
Cold War; and Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations.
announced publicly in February 1988,94 and a series of other actions that

Gorbachev undertook throughout 1988 aimed at restructuring the political
system in the Soviet Union.95
second reagan administrations assessments of soviet intentions
A review of the historical record shows that Reagan, Shultz, and Weinberger
disagreed on which Soviet actions they categorized as costly. Their interpretation of signals was shaped by their expectations, theories, and vivid, costless information.
To be sure, all three decisionmakers shared similar hawkish views of the
Soviet Union, but they exhibited important differences in outlook. Weinberger
held much more hawkish views than Reagan and Shultz at the start of
Reagans second administration.96 Shultz was far less hawkish and did not believe, prior to 1985, that the Soviet Union desired global domination. Reagans
views were closer to those of Weinberger than Shultz. During his rst term,
Reagan had repeatedly referred to the Soviet Union as an ideologically motivated power bent on global hegemony.97 Until mid-1987, Reagan continued to
view Soviet intentions as expansionist. In December 1985, Reagan stated both
in public and in private his belief that Gorbachev was still dedicated to traditional Soviet goals and that he had yet to see a break from past Soviet behavior.98 In 1986, although Reagan had begun to view Gorbachevs policies as
signaling a positive change in attitude, he still asserted that he had no illusions about the Soviets or their ultimate intentions.99
Reagan and Shultz began to gradually reevaluate their perceptions of
94. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze informed Shultz of the decision to withdraw
from Afghanistan in September 1987. Gorbachev publicly conrmed this decision in February
1988.
95. Some decisionmakers in the United States did recognize the signicance of Gorbachevs efforts
to institute glasnost (openness, or transparency) within the Soviet Union during 1987. It was only
from mid-1988, however, that his actions seemed aimed at fundamental institutional change. Both
Shultz and Matlock argue that Gorbachevs actions had not, as of the end of 1987, signied fundamental reforms. George Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York:
Charles Scribners Sons, 1993), p. 1081; and Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev, pp. 295296. By mid1988, however, Reagan had begun to praise Gorbachev for initiating true democratic reform. He
said that Gorbachevs efforts were cause for shaking the head in wonder, leading him to view
Gorbachev as a serious man seeking serious reform. DSB, Vol. 2137 (1988), pp. 3738.
96. In his comprehensive study on perceptions of the Soviet Union during the Reagan administration, Keith Shimko noted that Weinbergers views of the Soviet Union were about as hard-line as
one could get. Shimko, Images and Arms Control, p. 233.
97. Ibid., pp. 235237. According to Shimko, however, Reagan exhibited a rather supercial understanding of the Soviet Union, and his beliefs about the Soviet Union may not have formed a coherent image.
98. See, for example, DSB, November 1985, p. 11; and PPP, 1985, p. 415.
99. PPP, 1986, p. 1369.
Gorbachevs intentions during 1987. The Soviet leaders acceptance of the U.S.
proposal on INF was a major contributing factor. In 1987 Reagan reected on
his evolving characterization of the Soviet Union: With regard to the evil empire. I meant it when I said it [in 1983], because under previous leaders they
have made it evident that . . . their program was based on expansionism.100
Still, neither Reagan nor Shultz expected Gorbachev to signal a genuine
change in Soviet foreign policy objectives. Reagan wrote, [I]n the spring of
1987 we were still facing a lot of uncertainty regarding the Soviets. . . . It was
evident something was up in the Soviet Union, but we still didnt know what
it was.101
Two events in the spring of 1988 persuaded Reagan and Shultz of a change in
Soviet intentions. First, the initial Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in April
symbolized to both that the Brezhnev Doctrine was dead.102 Shultz explained
that the dominant perception in the administration was that if the Soviets
left Afghanistan, the Brezhnev Doctrine would be breached, and the principle
of never letting go would be violated.103 In a private conversation with
Gorbachev, Reagan acknowledged that the withdrawal was a tangible step in
the right direction, and took note of Gorbachevs statement that the settlement
could serve as a model for ending other regional conict.104 The second event
occurred during the 19th Communist Party Conference, at which Gorbachev
proposed major domestic reforms such as the establishment of competitive
elections with secret ballots; term limits for elected ofcials; separation of powers with an independent judiciary; and provisions for freedom of speech, assembly, conscience, and the press. The proposals signaled to many in the
Reagan administration that Gorbachevs domestic reforms were meant to
make revolutionary and irreversible changes. Ambassador Jack Matlock described these proposals as nothing short of revolutionary in the Soviet
context, adding that they provided evidence that Gorbachev was nally prepared to cross the Rubicon and discard the Marxist ideology that had dened
and justied the Communist Party dictatorship in the Soviet Union.105
Reagan also paid signicant attention to some costless actions and viewed
100. PPP, 1987, pp. 15081509.

101. Ronald Reagan, An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), p. 683.
102. The Brezhnev Doctrine, announced in 1968, asserted the Soviet Unions right to use Warsaw
Pact forces to intervene in any Eastern bloc nation that was seen as compromising communist rule
and Soviet domination, either by trying to leave the Soviet sphere of inuence or even by attempting to moderate Moscows policies.
103. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, p. 1086.
104. Transcripts of the Washington Summit, June 1, 1988, 10:05 a.m.11:20 a.m.; and PPP, 1988,
pp. 632, 726.
105. Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev, pp. 295296.
them as credible signals of changed intentions given their vividness. Reagan

repeatedly cited his positive impressions of Gorbachev from their private interactions in four summit meetings as persuading him that Gorbachev was
genuinely seeking to reduce U.S.-Soviet tensions.106 Emphasizing his growing
conviction of Gorbachevs trustworthiness,107 Reagan began increasingly to
refer to Gorbachev as a friend who was very sincere about the progressive
ideas that he is introducing there [in the Soviet Union] and the changes that he
thinks should be made.108 He had come to respect and admire the Soviet premier, and in private writings and public statements, Reagan was explicit in
attributing his assessments of Soviet intentions to these feelings.109 The president wrote, Its clear that there was a chemistry between Gorbachev and me
that produced something very close to a friendship. He was a tough, hard bargainer. . . . I liked Gorbachev even though he was a dedicated Communist.110
Toward the end of his second term, Reagan was asked whether he considered
Gorbachev a real friend. The president responded, Well, I cant help but say
yes to that.111
Other members of Reagans administration noticed the importance of vivid
information in shaping his views. Matlock thus notes, Once he [Reagan] and
Shultz started meeting with Gorbachev they relied on their personal impressions and personal instincts. This should not come as a surprise, Matlock
adds, If a person reaches a top political system in a country they know
how decisions are made even in a foreign country. Reagans personality
specically his openness to contradictory information, his belief in his power
of persuasion, and his emotional intelligence112allowed him to rely heavily
on his personal impressions of Gorbachev. As Barbara Farnham puts it, for
Reagan, [p]ersonal experience counted for everything.113 Reagans con-
106. Reagan and Gorbachev interacted during four summit meetings: the Geneva Summit (November 1985), the Reykjavik Summit (October 1986), the Washington Summit (December 1987),
and the Moscow Summit (May 1988). During these summits, the two held long, private meetings,
as a result of which Reagan gained a positive impression of the Soviet leader. Yarhi-Milo, Knowing
Thy Adversary.
107. PPP, June 1, 1987, pp. 594595; PPP, June 11, 1987, p. 624; PPP, June 12, 1987, pp. 635636; PPP,
August 29, 1987, p. 988; and PPP, September 16, 1987, p. 1038.
108. PPP, May 24, 1988, p. 649 .
109. For a fuller account of the role that vividness played in Reagans case, see Hall and YarhiMilo, The Personal Touch.
110. Reagan, An American Life, p. 707.
111. PPP, 1988, pp. 708709.
112. For an excellent analysis of Reagans personality traits that allowed him to revise his beliefs
about the Soviet threat, see Barbara Farnham, Reagan and the Gorbachev Revolution: Perceiving
the End of Threat, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 116, No. 2 (Summer 2001), pp. 225252; and Fred
I. Greenstein, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War: What Difference
Did They Make? in William C. Wolforth, ed., Witnesses to the End of the Cold War (Baltimore, Md.:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
113. Farnham, Reagan and the Gorbachev Revolution, p. 248.
dants have pointed to his tendency to reduce issues to personalities: If he

liked and trusted someone, he was more prone to give credence to the policies
they espoused.114
Trust also came to characterize Shultzs relationship with the Soviet minister of foreign affairs, Eduard Shevardnadze. For instance, Shultz trusted
Shevardnadzes private advance assurances in September 1987 that the Soviets
would withdraw from Afghanistan within a year.115 Secretary of Defense
Frank Carlucci similarly observed that the personal bonds that began to develop between the president and Gorbachev, between George [Shultz] and
Shevardnadze, led to the gradual building of trust.116 Shultz said of Reagan
and Gorbachev, One reason they respected each other was that they both
could see that the other guy was saying what he thought. Maybe you did not
agree with him and maybe you did. But there it was. It wasnt maneuvering
and manipulating and trying to make some obscure point. It was right there. It
was real. What you saw was what you got.117
Another example of vivid and credible, though costless, signaling was
Gorbachevs responsiveness to some of Reagans requests, both public and private. Beginning in 1987, Reagan announced certain actions that he asked
Gorbachev to take to signal a change in Soviet intentions. Interestingly, instead
of demanding a reduction in Soviet military capabilities, Reagan called for
changes in Soviet behavior, including a withdrawal of Soviet troops from
Afghanistan, changes in Soviet policies on immigration and freedom of religion, release of certain dissidents, and greater transparency in Soviet security
policy.118 Although some of these actions meet the denition of a costly signal, others do not. Regardless, Reagan interpreted Gorbachevs actions that
appeared to be responsive to his personal requests as signicant signals of
reassurance.119 For example, Reagan wrote that by late 1987, [t]here were tentative indications that quiet diplomacy was working with Gorbachev: Although neither he nor I discussed it publicly, some of the people whose names
were on the lists Id given him of people who we knew wanted to leave the
Soviet Union began receiving exit permits. Impressed by this gesture, Reagan
114. Leadership and the End of the Cold War, in Richard K. Herrmann and Richard Ned Lebow,
eds., Ending the Cold War: Interpretations, Causation, and the Study of International Relations (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 183.
115. Reagan, An American Life, p. 691.
116. Quoted in Wohlforth, Witnesses to the End of the Cold War, p. 46.
117. Quoted in ibid., p. 105.
118. See Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev, pp. 295296; and PPP, June 1, 1987, pp. 594595; PPP,
June 11, 1987, p. 624; PPP, June 12, 1987, pp. 635636; PPP, August 29, 1987, p. 988; and PPP, September 16, 1987, p. 1038.
119. During the Washington Summit, Reagan was satised by Gorbachevs (private) promise that
he would end the shipment of Soviet military weapons to Nicaragua. Reagan, An American Life,
p. 701.
says, Although Soviet troops were still ghting in Afghanistan and the Soviets
were still supporting guerillas in Central America and elsewhere, we were at
least seeing real deeds from Moscow.120 As a result, Reagan concluded his second term with far warmer views about the Soviet Union and its intentions.
Unlike Reagan and Shultz, Secretary of Defense Weinberger did not regard
any of Gorbachevs actionscostly or cheapas credibly signaling reassurance.121 As he put it in 1990, Not only did Gorbachev give up all of the Soviet
non-negotiable demands [regarding the INF Treaty], but he gave us precisely
the kind of treaty that the President had sought for seven years. That act of
course does not meanany more than does the Soviet withdrawal from
Afghanistanthat the USSR has given up its long-term aggressive designs.122
There are several potential explanations why Weinbergers beliefs about Soviet
intentions did not change. My argument here, however, is that the actions that
scholars would consider to be especially costly actions of reassurance were regarded by Weinberger as irrelevant to his assessment of Soviet intentions.123
As for the role of Soviet capabilities, both Reagan and Shultz saw a connection between the Soviet Unions capabilities, its actions, and its political intentions. In their eyes, Soviet expansionist conduct during the 1970s occurred at
a time when the United States had lost its superiority over the Soviet Union in
strategic nuclear weapons.124 They made it clear, however, that it was Soviet
behavior during that period, rather than the Soviet military buildup, that was
the decisive evidence of Soviet aggressive intentions. In fact, one of Reagans
favorite quotations was that nations do not mistrust each other because they
are armed; they are armed because they mistrust each other.125 Reagan simi-
120. Ibid., pp. 686687.

121. Weinbergers collection of private papers is still classied, and most of his public statements
do not contain explicit references to Soviet intentions. Thus, I rely on his memoirs and interviews
during and after his tenure as secretary of defense.
122. Caspar W. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon (New York:
Warner, 1990), pp. 348349.
123. Still, the question remains: Why did Weinberger not change his views about Soviet intentions? One interpretation is that the principle of cognitive consistency prevented him from considering information that contradicted his beliefs about the Soviet Union to be at all informative.
Others point to Weinbergers lack of vivid information, because the secretary of defense did not
interact with Gorbachev, Shevardnadze, or Soviet Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov to the same extent as Reagan or Shultz. Finally, Weinbergers statements in the aftermath of the Cold War reveal
that he considered Gorbachevs commitment to communism the most important indicator of the
Soviet leaders intentions. Even as late as 2002, Weinberger asserted that Gorbachev to this day is
a committed Communist and still believes that what is necessary is to strengthen communism.
Ronald Reagan Oral History Project, Interview with Caspar Weinberger, November 19, 2002,
pp. 2829, http://web1.millercenter.org/poh/transcripts/ohp_2002_1119_weinberger.pdf.
124. PPP, 1985, pp. 650, 12871288.
125. See, for example, Ronald Reagan, speech given at Moscow State University, May 31, 1988;
and DSB, August 1988.
larly acknowledged that the adversarys capabilities by themselves are not

good indicators of its intentions; instead they are a by-product of how each
state perceives the others intentions.
Some scholars have pointed to ideological changes within the Soviet Union
when explaining Reagans changing perceptions. Reagan viewed LeninistMarxist ideology as the root cause of Soviet expansionist behavior: MarxistLeninist regimes tend to wage wars readily against their neighbors as they
routinely do against their own people.126 It is difcult, if not impossible, however, to disentangle changes in Soviet ideology and identity from changes in
Soviet domestic institutions during this period. These changes occurred simultaneously, and U.S. references to Soviet ideology were almost always accompanied by discussions of the observable implications of these ideological changes
on Soviet domestic institutions. In a sense, ideology played an intermediate
variable that linked changes in the Soviet Unions behavior with others
perceptions of its intentions. Mark Haas, who has examined how these two
factors shifted Reagans beliefs about Soviet intentions, reaches similar conclusions, stating, Gorbachev needed to propose major democratic institutional
changes before most U.S. leaders believed his commitment to liberalism was
genuine. Greater tolerance and respect for basic human rights were insufcient
to arrive at this conclusion.127
In conclusion, the series of Gorbachevs costly actions should make this an
easy case for the behavior thesis, yet, the empirical evidence lends only moderate support. While Reagan and Shultz relied on costly behavior signals to infer
intentions, they also focused signicantly on behavioral actions such as their
own personal impressions of Gorbachev. Further, the behavior thesis fails to
explain Weinbergers inference process: the secretary of defense stated explicitly that he did not regard any of Gorbachevs costly actions as credible
reassuring indicators of intentions. As a result, his assessments of Soviet intentions did not change at all, even after leaving ofce. These aspects in the inference processes underscore the subjective nature of credibility. The support for
the capabilities thesis is weak. Given the perceived trends in Soviet capabilities
described at the beginning of this section, one would have expected the perceived intentions of the Soviet Union to have remained hostile until mid-1988.
This thesis, therefore, cannot explain the radical change in Reagans and
Shultzs perceptions, and why the president and his secretary of state rarely focused on the Soviet military arsenal as an indicator that shaped their assessments of Soviet political intentions during the period under examination.
126. PPP, September 22, 1986, pp. 12301231; and PPP, October 4, 1986, p. 1323.
127. Haas, The United States and the End of the Cold War, p. 175. See also PPP, February 7, 1986.
u.s. intelligence communitys assessment of soviet intentions

The U.S. intelligence communitys National Intelligence Estimates focused on
markedly different indicators of Soviet intentions from 1985 to 1988 than did
Reagan, Shultz, and Weinberger.128 It gave greatest weight to the Soviet Unions
military capabilities in judging Soviet political intentions. The U.S. intelligence
community, as is now known, overestimated Soviet strategic forces and defense
spending during the 1980s; this overestimation was an important contributing
factor to the communitys tendency to overstate Soviet hostility.129
Intelligence estimates from 1985 to 1987 concluded that Gorbachev was seeking dtente with the West to reduce U.S. challenges to Soviet interests and to decrease U.S. defense efforts. His long-term goal was said to be to preserve and
advance the USSRs international inuence and its relative military power.130
Recognition by the Soviet leadership that the correlation of forces would soon
shift against the Soviet Union and a relative decline in Soviet economic power
were offered as the leading explanations for Gorbachevs cooperative initiatives.131 A 1985 NIE stated, Moscow has long believed that arms control must
rst and foremost protect the capabilities of Soviet military forces relative to
their opponents. The Soviets seek to limit U.S. force modernization through
both the arms control process and any resulting agreements.132 A Special NIE
in 1986 pointed to Soviet concerns about the Reagan administrations Strategic
Defense Initiative as the primary motive behind Gorbachevs pursuit of a
dtente-like policy vis--vis the West. The NIEs portrayed Gorbachevs arms
control initiatives as propaganda aimed at bolstering his campaign of deception.133 The intelligence communitys working assumption was that, despite
serious economic problems since the mid-1970s, Soviet objectives remained
unchanged.134
By mid-1988, Reagans and Shultzs assessments of Soviet intentions had undergone a fundamental change, but the available NIEs indicate that the U.S. intelligence community did not revise its estimates of Soviet objectives until
mid-1989.135 Throughout 1987 and 1988, the community continued to hold that
Gorbachevs foreign policy initiatives were merely tactical, and that no sig128. In addition to NIEs, I relied on the interviews that I conducted with Ermath, Garthoff, Goodman, MacEachin, and Odom.
129. The CIAs Ofce of Soviet Analysis had become increasingly concerned that estimates of projected Soviet strategic weapons systems were inated. See, for example, MacEachin, memorandum to deputy director for intelligence, Force Projections, NIE 11-3/8, April 22, 1986.
130. SNIE 11-9-86, p. 4; and NIE 11-18-87, pp. 34.
131. NIE 11-3/8-86; NIE 11-8-87; SNIE 11-16-88; and NIE 11-3/8-88.
132. NIE 11-3/8-85, p. 18. This line of reasoning is repeated in NIE 11-16-85, pp. 39.
133. See NIE 11-16-85, p. 13; and SNIE 11-8-86, pp. 1517.
134. NIE 11-3/8-86, pp. 2, 18.
135. In an estimate published ve days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the intelligence community
nicant discontinuity in Soviet traditional goals and expectations could be

anticipated.136 For instance, in describing Gorbachevs ultimate goal[s], a
late-1987 NIE repeated earlier assertions that Gorbachev was pursuing a clever
plan to pursue communism, not through the use of blunt force, but through a
deceiving posture of accommodation with the West that was intended to win
more friends in the underdeveloped world.137 Soviet modernization efforts toward greater war-ghting capabilities, coupled with calculations as to how
economic difculties would affect the strategic balance of power, were said to
provide the most reliable guides to Soviet objectives.138
In conclusion, consistent with the expectations of the selective attention
thesiss organizational expertise hypothesis, as well as with those of the capabilities thesis, the intelligence communitys NIEs inferred Soviet political intentions primarily from its military capabilities. Throughout this period, the
community did not update its assessments in response to Gorbachevs costly
actions of reassurance, and it rarely used costly Soviet behavior to draw inferences about Soviet foreign policy goals. It saw Gorbachevs policies on arms
limitations, for example, as rooted in the need to increase Soviet relative economic capabilities, a task that could be accomplished only by reducing pressure to allocate more resources to defense. Engaging NATO in arms control
agreements was merely a ploy to undercut support in the West for NATOs
weapons modernization efforts.139 Thus, the support for the behavior thesis
is weak.
still viewed Warsaw Pact intentions as hostile, and warned of the possibility of an unprovoked attack on Western Europe. NIE 11-14-89, p. iii.
136. NIE 11-18-87; SNIE, Soviet Policy during the Next Phase of Arms Control in Europe;
Robert Gates, memorandum, Gorbachevs Gameplan: The Long View, November 24, 1987; and
NIE 11-3-8-88.
137. These goals were thought to include, rst, constraining the growth of defense spending in order to rebuild Soviet economic strength so that in the long run Gorbachev could fulll Soviet military requirements; second, pursuing diplomatic efforts to restrict the U.S. military buildup,
specically the Strategic Defense Initiative; third, moving beyond former Soviet positions on arms
control to achieve domestic and foreign goals; and, nally, exploiting the new favorable image
of the Soviet Union to reduce others threat perceptions and to advance Soviet inuence abroad
through political means. The Defense Intelligence Agency disagreed, claiming that Gorbachev
would not be in a position to make an overall reduction in defense spending during the period of
the Estimate. See NIE 11-18-87, pp. 34.
138. NIE 11-3/8-88.
139. Ibid. On the INF Treaty, see ibid., p. 6. The CIA did not foresee Gorbachevs announcements
of unilateral cuts in conventional forces or the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Robert Gates,
From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insiders Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), pp. 428433; and Nomination of Robert M. Gates, Hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Vol. 2, September 24 and October 1, 2, 1991
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Ofce, 1992), pp. 520521. Some NIEs did refer to recent
Soviet behavior in analyzing specic issuesfor example, Gorbachevs behavior in the ongoing
arms control negotiationsbut they did not use these indicators to reach conclusions about his
larger foreign policy goals.
Interestingly, the intelligence communitys reluctance to revise its estimates

of Soviet intentions led to repeated clashes between Director of Central
Intelligence Robert Gates and Secretary of State Shultz, the latter saying later
that he had little condence in the communitys intelligence reports on the
Soviet Union.140 Nevertheless, intelligence assessments had only limited impact on Reagan and Shultz, who drew conclusions about Soviet intentions
largely from their personal impressions and insights from meetings with
Gorbachev. As Matlock explains, They are very experienced people and experienced politicians and it meant much more to them what they were experiencing.141 Paul Pillar contends that Reagan and his advisers, apart from Shultz,
brushed aside as irrelevant any careful analysis of Soviet intentions, just as
Carter and Brzezinski had brushed aside the question of the Soviets reason for
intervening in Afghanistan.142
The Interwar Period, 193439

The inference process identied above is not unique to the nuclear era, the
Cold War, or American observers. An analysis of how British decisionmakers
and the British intelligence community assessed the political intentions of
Germany in the years leading to World War II reveals similar patterns and
strong support in favor of the selective attention thesis. In what follows, I
describe the evolution in the assessments of Germanys intentions by several
senior members of the British government. I then discuss the British intelligences coordinated assessments during the same time period.
british decisionmakers perceptions of nazi germanys intentions
From 1933 until 1935, British observers generally viewed the military buildup
in Germany as defensive in nature and moderate in pace, and the balance
of power was expected to show comfortable margins of superiority for the
Allies in all three dimensions of all warfareair, land, and sea.143 Germanys
140. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, p. 864. See also Nomination of Robert M. Gates, p. 481.
141. Author phone interview with Jack Matlock.
142. Paul Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2011), p. 116.
143. See, for example, Joint Intelligence Subcommittee, Foreign Armament, CAB 56/2, January
22, 1937; Chiefs of Staff Committee, Comparison of the Strength of Great Britain with That of Certain Other Nations as of May 1937, CAB 24/41, February 9, 1937; Chiefs of Staff Committee,
Comparison of the Strength of Great Britain with That of Certain Other Nations as of January
1938, CAB 24/296, November 12, 1937; Ministerial Subcommittee, Report of the Ministerial Subcommittee on German Rearmament, CAB 24/268, November 23, 1934; Minutes of the 283rd
Meeting of the CID,CAB 2/6, October 29, 1936, p. 176; Estimated Scale of Air Attacks on England
in the Event of War with Germany, Committee of Imperial Defence memo; Chiefs of Staff Committee, The German ArmyIts Present Strength and Possible Rate of Expansion in Peace and
withdrawal from the League of Nations and from the Disarmament

Committee in 1933, however, led many British decisionmakers to conclude
that Germany intended to revise the status quo by seeking limited territorial
adjustments in Central-Eastern Europe and the return of some of Germanys
colonies. Most decisionmakers still believed that Germanys intentions were
opportunistic and limited. They accepted Hitlers assurances that he had no
territorial ambitions in the West apart from the Rhineland.
Sir Robert Vansittart, the permanent undersecretary at the British Foreign
Ofce, held a more hawkish view of Germany in 1933.144 He was also among
the rst to see Germanys behavior as indicating expansionist intentions,
although limited ones. Germanys past actions, Hitlers own writings and
statements, a continuous and daily stream of German oration, broadcast, literature, and teaching,145 and Hitlers efforts to militarize German society
led Vansittart to conclude by mid-1934 that Hitler was determined to revise
the status quo in Eastern Europe, and soon. In April 1934, therefore, Vansittart
urged British decisionmakers to listen to the Germans themselvesbeginning
with the ofcial ones, who, according to Vansittart, were giving us more
specic warnings than ever we had before 1914.146
By the fall of 1936, British intelligence and military establishments had begun to revise their assessments about Germanys capabilities and to regard its
military arsenal as superior to Britains. They based these changes on the accumulation of new information, including the start of military conscription, announced in March 1935. Then, in March 1936, German troops remilitarized the
Rhineland. Arguably a breach of the Treaty of Versailles, it represented Nazi
Germanys rst use of military force outside the boundaries of the Reich.
Anthony Eden, Britains foreign affairs secretary, along with Vansittart and
other Foreign Ofce ofcials, saw the remilitarization of the Rhineland as
a credible signal of a German determination to revise the status quo, and concluded that Germany could no longer be trusted to respect its international
commitments. Eden commented, Herr Hitlers action is alarming because of
the fresh conrmation which it affords of the scant respect paid by German
Governments to the sanctity of treaties.147 In contrast, other members of
War, CAB 24/276, April 28, 1938; and Chiefs of Staff Committee, Appreciation of the Situation in
the Event of War against Germany in 1939 by the Joint Planning Subcommittee, CAB 53/29, October 26, 1936.
144. Michael Lawrence Roi, Alternative to Appeasement: Sir Robert Vansittart and Alliance Diplomacy,
19341937 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997).
145. Vansittart, memo, The Future of Germany, April 7, 1934, Documents on British Foreign Policy (DBFP) II, VI, app. 2.
146. Ibid.
147. Anthony Eden, memo, Germany and the Locarno Treaty, CAB 24/261, March 8, 1936; and
Minutes by Vansittart, DBFP II, XVI, No. 121, March 17, 1936.
the Cabinet, including Neville Chamberlain, did not view these arguably
costly actions as reecting German intentions. They continued to attribute to
Germany opportunistic (and limited) intentions.
The March 1938 Anschluss with Austria did not lead Chamberlain, now
prime minister, to change his views about Germanys intentions. He stated
that the seizure of the whole of Czechoslovakia could not be in accordance
with Herr Hitlers policy, which was to include all Germans in the Reich but
not to include other nationalities.148 Both Chamberlain and his foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, viewed the Anschluss as indicating only opportunistic and
limited aims; they believed Hitler preferred not to use military force to reach
his objectives, and desired to avoid antagonizing Britain.149
Britains newly appointed ambassador to Berlin, Nevile Henderson, held
very dovish views of Germany. Henderson reassured Chamberlin throughout
this period that Germany had benign intentions toward Britain.150 In July,
Henderson declared that he was disinclined to believe in the reality of
Germanys aggressive intentions against Great Britain unless and until she
goes back on the [1935] Naval Agreement, which regulated the size of the
German Navy in relation to the British Royal Navy. If it did, Henderson continued, this would make it quite certain what her [Germanys] ultimate intentions are. Otherwise, risk though there be, it has got to be faced, and we have
got to trust her.151 Inuenced by Hendersons assessment, Chamberlain cautioned members of the Cabinet not to give too much credence to unchecked
reports from non-ofcial sources. He himself had seen His Majestys ambassador to Berlin, who gave an account of the attitude of the Nazi government that
was not discouraging.152
The Sudetenland crisis in the summer and fall of 1938 was seen as an informative signal of German intentions by some decisionmakers, including
Halifax. He could not rid his mind of the fact that Herr Hitler had given us
148. Minutes of the Committee on Foreign Policy (hereafter MCM), CAB 27/623, March 21, 1938,
app. 1.
149. MCM, CAB 27/623, March 18, 1938; Halifax believed that if Germany were to take action beyond the Sudeten territories, it would be for defensive reasons, given Germanys worries about
Czechoslovakias relationships with the Soviet Union and France. Memo by Halifax, Possibility
of Modifying Czechoslovakias Treaties of Mutual Assistance with France and Russia, CAB 27/
627, June 14, 1938.
150. Henderson had been very critical of French attempts to contain Germany after World War I.
He accepted the territorial claims the Nazis made in 1930s, partly because he believed that Britain
should take the role of independent arbitrator in European affairs. His public speeches similarly
have a pro-Nazi overtone. Aaron L. Goldman, Two Views of Germany: Nevile Henderson vs.
Vansittart and the Foreign Ofce, 19371939, British Journal of International Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3
(October 1980), pp. 247277.
151. Letter from Nevile Henderson to Anthony Eden, July 1, 1937, DBFP II, XIX, No. 10.
152. MCM, CAB 23/94, July 13, 1938.
nothing and that he was dictating terms, just as though he had won a war but
without having to ght.153 Halifaxs reaction surprised Chamberlain, who
remarked: Your complete change of view since I saw you last night is a horrible blow to me.154 Indeed, during that time, Chamberlain relied heavily
on private assurances and personal impressions to interpret Hitlers intentions, especially from three personal interactions with the German leader. This
information was far from costly, yet Chamberlain gave it credence as an indicator of Hitlers political intentions during this critical moment. He genuinely believed that he had established a rapport with Hitler, and trusted
Hitlers personal assurances that he had no intention of occupying the rest of
Czechoslovakia if an agreement could be reached over the Sudeten territories.
As he wrote in September 1938, I had established a certain condence which
was my aim and on my side and in spite of the hardness & ruthlessness I
thought I saw in his face I got the impression that here was a man who could
be relied upon when he had given his word.155
Chamberlain declared to the Cabinet that he had established some degree of
personal inuence over Herr Hitler and was satised that Herr Hitler would
not go back on his word once he had given it to Chamberlain. The crucial
question was whether Herr Hitler was speaking the truth when he said that he
regarded the Sudeten question as a racial question which must be satised
and that the object of his policy was racial unity and not the domination of
Europe.156 Chamberlains strong belief in his ability to read Hitlers intentions was received with skepticism by Cabinet members who saw Hitlers past
record of breaking promises as more credible evidence of his intentions.157
Chamberlain was not alone in relying on his personal impressions and private
assurances during that period, nor was he the only one who gave credence to
cheap talk. Eden, Halifax, and Henderson, for example, drew important inferences from their interactions with German ofcials on numerous occasions.158
From November 1938 to March 1939, however, British decisionmakers as-
153. MCM, CAB 23/95, September 25, 1938.

154. Quoted in Adam Roberts, The Holy Fox: A Biography of Lord Halifax (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1991), pp. 117118.
155. Chamberlains private letter to his sister, dated September 19, 1938, quoted in Robert Self, The
Neville Chamberlain Diary, Letters, Vol. 4: The Downing Street Years, 19341940 (London: Ashgate,
2005), p. 348.
156. Meeting of Ministers on The Situation in Czechoslovakia, CAB 27/646, September 16,
1938.
157. Letter from Secretary of the Board of Trade to Chamberlain, PREM 1/266A, October 3, 1938.
158. After meeting with a number of top German ofcials in November 1937, Halifax said that his
impressions of his three-hour meeting with Hitler led him to conclude that [t]he Germans had
no policy of immediate adventure. MCM, CAB 23/90, November 24, 1937; and Roberts, The Holy
Fox, pp. 7275.
sessments about Germanys intentions changed dramatically. The Foreign

Ofce concluded that now unmistakably . . . in the eyes of Herr Hitler and of
the majority of the Nazi Party . . . Great Britain is Enemy No. 1.159 This shift in
perceptions occurred in two stages. First, intelligence reports indicated that
Hitler was seriously contemplating an attack on the West and was no longer
interested in maintaining good relations with Britain. This war scare led most
Cabinet members to question their beliefs that Hitlers plans were limited.
There was one general tendency . . . running through all the reports, said
Halifax, that made it impossible to ignore them.160 Chamberlain, however,
questioned the validity of these reports, relying instead on Hendersons optimistic claims that Herr Hitler does not contemplate any adventures at
the moment and that all stories and rumors to the contrary are completely
without real foundation.161 His judgments were based on personal assurances
from Hitler. As late as March 9, 1939, Henderson believed that, as an individual, Hitler would be as likely to keep it [his word] as any other foreign
statesman.162 Chamberlain shared this optimism right up to the eve of the
German invasion of Czechoslovakia, relying largely on Hendersons reports.
This contributed to a growing split with Halifax, who had come to the conclusion shortly after Munich that Hitler was able and willing to use force against
Britain and its allies in the coming months.163
The German invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 debunked the notion that Germany had limited intentions. A Foreign Ofce memo dated
March 29 thus reasoned, The absorption of Czecho-Slovakia has clearly revealed Germanys intentions. Halifax saw this as an indication that the
Germans were seeking to establish a position in which they could by force
dominate Europe and if possible the world.164 It was a signicant signal because this was the rst occasion on which Germany had applied her shock
tactics to the domination of non-Germans.165 The newly appointed permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Ofce, Alexander Cadogan conceded that
the invasion had conrmed Vansittarts alarming views, saying, [I]t is turning
outat presentas Van predicted and as I never believed it would. He said
that Henderson had been completely bewitched by his German friends.166
159. Germany: Factors, Aims, Methods, etc., FO (Foreign Ofce) 1093/86, December 20, 1938.
160. Memo by Halifax to Mr. Mallet, DBFP III, IV, No. 5.
161. Memo by Henderson to Halifax, February 18, 1939, DBFP II, XV, No. 118.
162. Memo by Henderson to Halifax, March 9, 1939, DBFP III, IV, No. 195.
163. Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 141.
164. DBFP III, VII, 270272.
165. MCM, CAB 23/98, March 15, 1939.
166. David Dilks, ed., The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, O.M., 19381945 (London: Cassell,
1971), pp. 163, 151.
The informative value of the German invasion did not stem only from its being a costly signal. From the perspective of Chamberlain and Henderson, it
was both vivid and emotionally signicant because, by invading, Hitler had
explicitly reneged on his personal assurances to each of them. He had humiliated the prime minister and cast doubt on his judgment. Chamberlain wrote to
his sister, as soon as I had time to think, I saw that it was impossible to deal
with Hitler, after he had thrown all of his assurances to the wind.167 Fearing
what Hitlers next move would be, Chamberlain confessed, [I]t all sounds
fantastic and melodramatic . . . but I cannot feel safe with Hitler.168 Ofcially,
Chamberlain voiced similar views:
The Prime Minister said [to the Cabinet] that up till a week ago we had
proceeded on the assumption that we should be able to continue our policy
of getting on to better terms with the Dictator Powers, and that although
those powers had aims, those aims were limited. . . . On the previous
Wednesday, German actions in Czechoslovakia had only just taken place. He
[Chamberlain] had now come denitely to the conclusion that Herr Hitlers attitude made it impossible to continue to negotiate on the old basis with the
Nazi regime. . . . No reliance could be placed on any of the assurances given by
the Nazi leaders.169
In Cabinet discussions, both Halifax and Chamberlainwho would become
known to history as the architects of appeasementnow conceded that
Germanys actions demonstrated that its aims and methods were extremely
hostile and would require England to take steps to stop her by attacking on
two fronts.170 Halifax likewise argued that the real issue was Germanys
attempt to obtain world domination, and that it was in the interest of all
countries to resist . . . [or] we might see one country after another absorbed by
Germany.171
To summarize, certain costly German actions were judged as much more
credible signals about intentions than were German military capabilities. This
support for the behavior thesis is manifested most clearly in the inferences
that some British decisionmakers drew from Germanys withdrawal from the
League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference in 1934 and its actions in a series of crises over the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland, and
Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, the historical evidence is not entirely consistent
167. Letter to Hilda, March 19, 1939, in Self, The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters, p. 393.
168. Letter to Ida, March 26, 1939, in ibid., p. 395.
169. MCM, CAB 23/98, March 18, 1939.
170. MCM, CAB 23/98, March 20, 1939.
171. MCM, CAB 23/98, March 18, 1939. On the impact perceptions of intentions had on British
foreign policy at the time see Yarhi-Milo, Knowing Thy Adversary.
with the logic and mechanism of the behavior thesis. British decisionmakers
signicantly disagreed about how to categorize Hitlers supposedly costly
actions and drew different inferences from the same behavior. Consistent
with the expectations of the subjective credibility hypothesis of the selective attention thesis, Vansittartwho from the beginning of the period had
held the most hawkish views of Germanys intentionscategorized many of
Germanys actions from 1934 to 1939 as credibly indicating hostile intentions.
Henderson, who had held mostly dovish views of Germany, discounted many
of Germanys costly actions. Furthermore, the documentary evidence indicates that in several important instances British decisionmakers ignored the history of Germanys costly actions and relied more signicantly on personal
insights from their interactions with Hitler and his advisers, as well as Hitlers
personal verbal assurances. Such inference highlights the importance of vivid
information and also challenges the logic of the behavior thesis. Finally, the support for the capabilities thesis is weak. Germanys rearmament program played
an important role in alerting British decisionmakers to the rising threat and in
dictating the menu of policy options available. As in the Cold War cases, however, trends in Germanys military buildup were not used as the primary indicator from which British decisionmakers inferred Germanys political intentions.
british military intelligence and perceptions of german intentions
The collective assessments of the Annual and Strategic Reviews of the British
Chiefs of Staff (COS) rarely discussed the issue of German political intentions
and concentrated on collecting and analyzing information about changes in
German military production. In part, this was because the Foreign Ofce was
responsible for providing political intelligence. Yet, throughout this period,
whenever the COS did discuss Germanys intentions, it drew its conclusions
repeatedly and explicitly from calculations about the rate of its military rearmament and from the estimates about the military balance in Europe.
During 1934, British intelligence community assessments ranked Germany
as militarily weaker than Britain. While the moderate buildup of German capabilities indicated to the COS Germanys clear desire to eventually change
the status quo in Eastern Europeif possible by nonmilitary meansit estimated that Germany would not launch an attack that would risk British involvement as long as the balance of military power was not in its favor. Even
following Germanys claims that it had achieved parity in the air, the COS did
not spend much time trying to gauge Germanys intentions. Instead, it continued to see the likelihood of war through calculations of military capabilities,
which, at the time, still indicated Allied superiority. The COS estimated that,
given its slow progress in rearming, Germany would be unlikely to defeat
Britain militarily in 1939, and therefore the COS estimated that Germany was
unlikely to risk war.172
During the fall of 1936, however, assessments of Germanys capabilities and
intentions changed with the growing recognition that the German buildup was
aimed at achieving not just parity but superiority. Consequently, British intelligence saw Germanys intentions as more hostile. The COS still believed, however, that a German decision to engage in armed conict with Britain would be
based on calculations of German military readiness. Accordingly, the report concluded, As Germanys rearmament progresses and she becomes more ready for
war, the danger of conict increases.173 By May 1937, the COS had become extremely alarmed about the rate of Germanys military buildup, yet it still did not
consider war against Britain likely, because it believed Germany was not yet
ready militarily. A late 1937 COS report concluded, The German General Staff
are unlikely to consider that the strength of the German Army is sufcient to
justify the prosecution of a land offensive before 193940.174
During the Sudetenland crisis, the COS conceded that Britain was in no position to defend Czechoslovakia militarily. It still believed that Germany did
not seek greater objectives such as the total occupation of Czechoslovakia. If
war came about, however, the COS concluded that Germany would be planning eventually to win a quick offensive war, including an aerial knockout
blow, against Britain. The timing of such a war was hard to predict, in part because of changing estimates about when the German military would have
sufcient advantage over the Allies in terms of numbers and efciency, as well
as the domestic balance between Nazi moderates and extremists. In April
1938, the COS estimated that even given a steady rate of expansion, Germany
would not be prepared for war before January 1942.175 In November 1938,
however, the British military attach in Berlin reported that Germany was
likely to go to war in the autumn of 1939, because by then it would reach the
peak of its efciency.176
In early 1939, a British military intelligence report on the future strategic
balance expressed more optimism about Britains ability to ght Germany
(despite the worsening of the balance of military power), based on qualita172. CAB 53/25, COS 401 (JP), Defence Plans for the Event of War against Germany.
173. Joint Planning Subcommittee of the COSC, Strategic Review, CAB 53/28, July 3, 1936.
174. Comparison of the Strength of Great Britain with That of Certain Other Nations as of January 1938, CAB 24/296, November 12, 1937. For similar reasoning, see J.R. Ferris, Indulged in All
Too Little? Vansittart, Intelligence, and Appeasement, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1995),
pp. 122175.
175. The German Army: Its Present Strength and Possible Rate of Expansion in Peace and War,
CAB 24/276, April 22, 1938.
176. Mason-Macfarlane, memo, November 30, 1938. DBFP, III, III, No. 389.
tive factors such as population attitudes, air defense, latent economic power,
and weaknesses in German morale and economic vulnerability. Moreover,
while Germany had achieved military superiority, the pace of its rearmament
had exceeded the capacity of the German economy to sustain it.177 Nevertheless, the 1939 Strategic Appreciation still showed a strong tendency to
count numbers.178
In sum, the structure of the British intelligence community during the interwar period, which placed the Foreign Ofce as the principal provider of
political intelligence, prevents any denite conclusions about sources of the inferences made by the COS about Hitlers long-term intentions. The available
evidence suggests, however, that throughout the 1930s, the coordinated intelligence estimates by the COS carefully tracked quantitative trends in Germanys
military arsenal, repeatedly using this indicator to draw inferences about
Germanys intentions. This practice is consistent with the predictions of the capabilities thesis and the selective attentions organizational expertise hypothesis. British decisionmakers, however, did not adopt a similar inference process,
a distinction that is consistent with the predictions of the organizational expertise hypothesis alone.
Conclusion
The selective attention framework lls important gaps in scholars understanding of the effectiveness of signals. This approach sees the interaction of
signals with perceptual and organizational lters as central. In particular, several patterns emerge from the analysis. First, the subjective credibility hypothesis of the selective attention thesis receives strong support in all three cases
examined in this study. At the heart of this hypothesis lies the idea that credibility depends on how observers assess evidence and on what evidence they
decide to assess.179 Decisionmakers own explicit or implicit theories or beliefs about how the world operates and their expectations signicantly affect
this selection and interpretation of signals. Decisionmakers in the British
Cabinet, the Carter administration, and the second Reagan administration
debated what to make of different indicators of intentions. To a large extent,
177. Paul Kennedy, British Net Assessment and the Coming of the Second World War, in Williamson Murray and Allan Millett, eds., Calculations: Net Assessment and the Coming of World War II
(New York: Free Press, 1992), pp. 1959; Wesley Wark, The Ultimate Enemy: British Intelligence and
Nazi Germany, 19331939 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 211216; and F.H.
Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, abridged ver. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
178. Kennedy, British Net Assessment and the Coming of the Second World War, p. 30.
179. Mercer, Emotional Beliefs, p. 14.
their reading of signals was inuenced by what they expected to see. Those
decisionmakers with relatively hawkish views, such as Robert Vansittart and
Zbigniew Brzezinski, were quicker to read early Nazi German and Soviet actions, respectively, as evidence of malign intentions. Some clung to their original beliefs and interpreted all incoming information through the prism of
those beliefs. Thus, Caspar Weinberger did not revise his beliefs about the expansionist nature of Soviet intentions even when faced with costly reassuring
actions. Similarly, Cyrus Vance interpreted Soviet actions in the Horn and
in Afghanistan consistently with his existing belief that the Soviets were
merely opportunistic.
Second, consistent with the selective attention thesis, British and American
decisionmakers repeatedly and explicitly relied on their personal insights to
derive conclusions about their adversarys intentions. They monitored and responded not only to what the adversarys leader promised or threatened behind closed doors, but also to how he delivered the message: tone of voice,
mannerisms, and mood were critical pieces of intelligence in their eyes. Even
though this method of inference is extremely risky, Anthony Eden, Lord
Halifax, Neville Chamberlain, and Nevile Henderson relied on their personal
impressions to derive their conclusions, and used these impressions to convince other members of the Cabinet of their perspectives, thereby explicitly
risking their own reputations. Personal impressions gleaned from private meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev similarly played a critical role in transforming
President Ronald Reagans assessments of Soviet intentions. In sum, personal
diplomatic communication may leave strong emotional impressions (positive or
negative) on leaders, who then use these impressions as evidence of intentions.
This inference process is, in some sense, rational, but it may cause leaders to act
in ways that do not serve their best interests. Rather than debate the concept of
rationality in a vacuum, scholars need to understand that vividness, or an affect
heuristics, more generally, is essential for rationality.180
At times, vividness and costly signaling jointly produced a drastic change
in decisionmakers beliefs. The analysis has shown that vivid information
provided the context for understanding Gorbachevs costly signals, leading to a transformation in Reagans views. Similarly, the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, because of its magnitude, its salience, and the emotional toll it exerted on President Carter, induced a drastic change in his beliefs. One can debate what to make of Chamberlains change in beliefs, but here too one notes
180. Paul Slovic, Melissa Finucane, Ellen Peters, and Donald G. MacGregor, The Affect Heuristic, in Gilovich, Grifn, and Kahneman, Heuristics and Biases, pp. 397420; and A.R. Damasio, Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (New York: Avon, 1994).
that expectations, vividness, and certain costly actions were responsible for
nuanced changes in his beliefs during the 1930s.
A third point has to do with the second hypothesis of the selective attention
thesis pertaining to the lters that intelligence organizations use in estimating
intentions. Collective intelligence assessments in the United States and Britain
were consistent in their preference for military indicators over other types
of indicators in their analysis of intentions. During the interwar period, British
intelligence reports substantially focused on bean-counting practices regarding the military arsenal of Germany. Consequently, they derived conclusions
about Germanys intentions in large part by referring to these military indicators. NIEs on the Soviet Union also carefully tracked changes in Soviet military
inventories and future capabilities. They did not always recognize the tautological logic they were using: that is, in estimating capabilities, these coordinated intelligence reports used certain assumptions about Soviet intentions
while the resulting estimates of Soviet capabilities were used to infer future
political intentions.
These divergent uses of information point to a weakness in the relationship between decisionmakers and intelligence organizations.181 For example,
according to Brzezinski, intelligence assessments of the Soviet Union were
weak on the level of politology, and thus did not provide much help to the
President . . . in determining what the Soviets, in general, were trying to
do.182 Intelligence analysts were painfully aware of this criticism, and saw
the task of analyzing Soviet intentions as the biggest single trap.183 Director
of Intelligence Stanseld Turner explained that, sometimes they [decisionmakers] have better information than you do. I mean, whenever I briefed
President Carter, I always had to keep in the back of my mind that he
met with Brezhnev last week. Id never met with Brezhnev, so if he interpreted what Brezhnev was going to do tomorrow differently than we interpreted what Brezhnev might do tomorrow, I had to give him credit that
maybe he understood Brezhnev better than we.184 Similarly, commenting on
181. The evidence I have presented suggests that in neither of the Cold War episodes did U.S.
decisionmakers use the NIEs to derive conclusions about their adversarys intentions. During the
interwar period, British decisionmakers appear to have relied on human intelligence reports of
the Secret Intelligence Services, but much less on the COS strategic reports, to reach conclusions
about Germanys political intentions. Future studies should disaggregate the intelligence community and look beyond the coordinated reports in order to examine which and when individual intelligence agencies (or ofcials) tend to have a stronger inuence on decisionmakers assessments
of the intentions of their states adversary.
182. Quoted in Haines and Leggett, Watching the Bear, chap. 8.
183. Robert Gates, The CIA and Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Winter 1987/88),
pp. 225226.
184. Interview with Turner, Episode 21: Spies, National Security Archive, December 18, 1997,
http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-21/turner1.html.
British intelligence reports on Germany, Vansittart once remarked: Prophecy

is largely a matter of insight. I do not think the Service Departments have
enough. On the other hand they might say that I have too much. The answer is
that I know the Germans better.185
Of the alternative theses, the capabilities thesis has its greatest support
in describing the practice of a states intelligence organization. The Soviet
Unions nuclear buildup and modernization efforts served as the main indicator the U.S. intelligence community used to estimate Soviet intentions during
the 1970s, as well as the 1980s. British intelligence monitored trends in the
German military to infer Germanys plans of where and when it would seek to
expand. The capabilities thesis does a poorer job, however, at explaining how
civilian decisionmakers read and interpret intentions. To be sure, armament
efforts also had important framing effects, because they forced decisionmakers to raise questions about the adversarys long-term objectives. Nevertheless, in none of the three episodes were these indicators regarded by the
states civilian leadership as primary evidence of the adversarys long-term intentions. This inference process implies that decisionmakers do not always assume the worst about intentions, as offensive realists would say that they
should. More consistent with defensive realism, decisionmakers see estimating
intentions as a central task of statecraft, and they attempt to detect important
signals, which may reduce or exacerbate the security dilemma. What the realist logic neglects, however, is that decisionmakers beliefs about the adversarys intentions are not necessarily driven by changes in the adversarys
military forces. Thus, the policy prescription of rationalist security-dilemma
scholars who identify changes in armament policies as a way of signaling intentions may not be effective.
The behavior thesis performs better than the capabilities thesis in explaining
how decisionmakers gauge intentions. Indeed, for some British and U.S.
decisionmakers, contemporary costly actions such as the German invasion of
Czechoslovakia and observed shifts in Soviet behavior induced changes in beliefs about the adversarys intentions. Still, the empirical analysis provides many
examples that contradict the causal mechanisms and underlying logic of the behavior thesis. Signicantly, decisionmakers rarely agreed on what constituted a
truly credible signal even when it was costly. For example, British decisionmakers debated the meaning of Germanys remilitarization of the Rhineland, although the use of military force outside the Reich constituted a clear violation of
185. Quoted in Donald C. Watt, British Intelligence and the Coming of the Second World War in
Europe, in Ernest May, ed., Knowing Ones Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World
Wars (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 268.
the Treaty of Versailles. Members of the Carter administration disagreed on the

signicance of Soviet military involvement in the Horn of Africa. Some ofcials,
such as Vance, did not treat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a diagnostic
indicator of Soviet expansionist intentions, despite its considerable scale and
cost. Even at the end of the Cold War, a relatively easy test of the behavior thesis,
one nds that some Reagan ofcials, including Weinberger, did not regard
Gorbachevs costly actions as informative signals of reassurance. Indeed, neither
Weinberger nor Vance updated his beliefs during his time in ofce, even when
faced with hostile signals that would otherwise be categorized as costly.186
Moreover, the assumption that the informational value of costless (and
even private) communication will be discounted does not withstand empirical scrutiny.187 Leaders explicitly drew on their personal insights about the
sincerity and intentions of adversarial leaders. Chamberlain and other British
decisionmakers repeatedly referred to Hitlers private verbal assurances, writings, and other types of costless action to infer his future policy goals. Finally,
the behavior thesis does not explain why intelligence organizations ignored or
dismissed those costly noncapabilities-based actions that civilian decisionmakers relied upon, a practice especially pronounced in the collective NIEs
during the 1980s. These ndings appear to challenge the empirical validity of
the behavior thesis, but they do not negate the logic of costly signaling, as
there is some evidence that certain costly behavioral signals were seen as informative in the eyes of some decisionmakers.
Taken together, the logic of the costly signaling approach deserves more
scrutiny. Although certain costly actions do receive more attention than others,
decisionmakers inference processes diverge signicantly from those predicted
by that approach. Nonetheless, this study should not be seen as dismissing the
costly signaling concept entirely. Rather, it reveals signicant shortcomings
186. I also do not nd support for the proposition that these decisionmakers assessments of intentions were epiphenomenal to the interests of the bureaucracies they headed at the time. Both
Weinberger and Vance continued to defend their assessments of Soviet intentions long after leaving ofce. There is no indication in their memoirs or in later statements that their perceptions had
changed after leaving their posts. Moreover, the Foreign Ofce was taking the lead in voicing
more alarmist views of Germanys intentions, even relative to those of the COS. British foreign
ministers did not always share the views of the Foreign Ofce on Germanys intentions. Further
work is needed, however, to investigate the inuence of bureaucratic roles on the perceptions of
the individuals who run these bureaucracies. Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the
Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971). For critiques, see Stephen D. Krasner, Are Bureaucracies Important? (Or Allison Wonderland), Foreign Policy, Vol. 7 (1972), pp. 159179; Robert
J. Art, Bureaucratic Politics and American Foreign Policy: A Critique, Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 4
(1973), pp. 467490; and Jonathan Bendor and Thomas H. Hammond, Rethinking Allisons
Models, American Political Science Review, Vol. 86, No. 2 (1992), pp. 301322.
187. On the credibility of secret assurances, see Keren Yarhi-Milo, Tying Hands behind Closed
Doors: The Logic and Practice of Secret Reassurance, Security Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3 (2013).
and ambiguities in how one should translate this concept of a costly signal
from economic theory, where it originated, into a testable proposition in international politics. The literature should be clearer about the inferences that observers are expected to draw from a costly action. Finally, decisionmakers
often must interpret multiple signals, some of which may suggest that the
adversarys intentions are becoming more benign, whereas others may suggest the opposite. Rationalist accounts are silent as to which costly signals
perceivers are likely to notice and which they are likely to ignore.
In sum, the ndings imply that any study on the efcacy of signals that fails
to consider how signals are perceived and interpreted may be of little use to
policymakers seeking to deter or reassure an adversary. They also suggest that
policymakers should not assume that their costly signals will be understood
clearly by their states adversaries. They should not fear that others are necessarily making worst-case assumptions about their intentions on the basis of
their military capabilities, but they should be aware that the adversarys intelligence apparatus is likely to view such an indicator as a credible signal of intentions. Decisionmakers inclination to rely on their own judgments and
subjective reading of signals to infer political intentions is pervasive and universal, but these individuals should be wary: getting inside the mind of the
adversary is perhaps one of the most difcult tasks facing intelligence organizations, and perhaps most susceptible to bias and bureaucratic interests. As a
result, it is hard to imagine how decisionmakers might become more attuned
to intelligence assessments on these important issues of assessing the adversarys political intentions.

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In the Eye of the Beholder

In the Eye of the

How Leaders and Intelligence

International Security 38:1 8

In the Eye of the Beholder 9

International Security 38:1 10

article is on the indicators that leaders and intelligence organizations tend to

Theories of Intentions and the Problem of Attention

In the Eye of the Beholder 11

International Security 38:1 12

In the Eye of the Beholder 13

International Security 38:1 14

In the Eye of the Beholder 15

the capabilities thesis

International Security 38:1 16

In the Eye of the Beholder 17

signal of benign intentions.34 Cheating or reneging on arms control agreements

Decisionmakers will focus

What is the key set of variables

When do assessments about

How do observers explain

Intelligence community will

Intelligence community will

Yes, decisionmakers and the intelligence community will

Selective Attention Thesis

Do observers vary in how

Table 1. Summary of Predictions

Observers reason with

Inuential variables are

Observers reason with

Inuential variables are

In the Eye of the Beholder 19

To test the propositions offered by the selective attention thesis, I examine

International Security 38:1 20

The Collapse of Dtente, 197780

In the Eye of the Beholder 21

International Security 38:1 22

carter administration assessments of soviet intentions

In the Eye of the Beholder 23

International Security 38:1 24

In the Eye of the Beholder 25

during that summit meeting, Carter spoke of continuing cooperation and

70. Quoted in ibid.

International Security 38:1 26

In the Eye of the Beholder 27

International Security 38:1 28

The End of the Cold War, 198588

In the Eye of the Beholder 29

International Security 38:1 30

announced publicly in February 1988,94 and a series of other actions that

In the Eye of the Beholder 31

100. PPP, 1987, pp. 15081509.

International Security 38:1 32

them as credible signals of changed intentions given their vividness. Reagan

In the Eye of the Beholder 33

dants have pointed to his tendency to reduce issues to personalities: If he

International Security 38:1 34

120. Ibid., pp. 686687.

In the Eye of the Beholder 35

larly acknowledged that the adversarys capabilities by themselves are not