Abstract
During the Cold War, academic theorists and senior U.S. policy makers planned strategies of nuclear deterrence according to a particularly narrow application of the rational actor model. Their assumptions were that the Soviet leadership would make decisions pertinent to deterrence per an instrumental rationality, and that the parameters of that rational decision making would be bounded by a familiar and largely Western worldview with regard to perceptions, values, goals, and behavioral norms. The fundamental problem with this narrow application of the rational actor model is that it typically does not take into account a wide range of factors that can shape decision making decisively and vary widely across time, place, and opponent.
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