Uncertain perceptions

In Uncertain Perceptions, Robert McCalla examines the role of misperceptions in decision making by U.S. officials during five major Cold War crises. To suggest that misperceptions have played an important role in U.S.-Soviet relations will surprise no one. Most people, including scholars and decision makers, will agree that the potential for misperception and miscommunication is high, and the dangers of the nuclear age simply compound the risk. What has been missing is a consideration of the role of different types of misperception in crisis decision making and the impacts of those different types of misperceptions on the dynamics of crises. Different types of misperceptions can occur during a crisis; and the type will influence the nature and duration of the crisis. McCalla shows that the crisis dynamic is sensitive to the sources of misperception and that the most important influence on misperceptions is the flexibility of a decision maker's worldview. In contrast with previous studies, McCalla's work provides evidence that decision makers are not necessarily firmly wedded to their views. He refines the concept of misperception by identifying two types: "situational misperception," which stems from the ambiguities and uncertainties that can surround another state's actions, and "dispositional misconception," which has to do with the attitudes and images that a particular decision maker holds. Crises rooted in situational misperceptions will tend toward resolution when more information is provided to the decision maker, while crises that originate from dispositional misperceptions will be less affected by additional information. With the end of the Cold War, historians and political scientists are reexamining the history of U.S.-Soviet relations away from the glare of Cold War politics and rhetoric, and in doing so advancing new ways of understanding past conflicts. Uncertain Perceptions offers students of American policy, both generalists and specialists, a new lens for understanding American decision making during U.S.-Soviet crises and the role that perceptions and misperceptions played in those decisions.