Studying First-Strike Stability with Knowledge-Based Models of Human Decision Making

Abstract

Abstract : The RAND Corporation and the RAND/UCLA Center for the Study of Soviet International Behavior (CSSIB) have a joint project for the Carnegie Corporation entitled Avoiding Nuclear War: Managing Conflict in the Nuclear Age. This project has two broad objectives: to understand better the process of escalation from peace through general nuclear war; and to identify and assess, while protecting vital national interests, unilateral and cooperative measures that might inhibit unintended escalation or improve prospects for reversing or controlling escalation once it has begun. This report contributes to the larger project by describing efforts of the author and colleagues in the RAND Strategy Assessment center to develop and use knowledge based analytic models of national-command-level decisionmaking for better understanding and communicating issues of deterrence, escalation, and war termination. The intended audience includes researchers and government figures interested in crisis decision making, related command and control problems, and a framework for thinking about first strike stability that integrates both force-posture factors and behavioral factors.