Editor’s Note: Arrias leads us off this week with some observations on what is rational in our world and what is not. It struck the Editorial Board as a sensible start to a week that is filled with irrationality, if not outright madness. One of my touchstones in the ongoing climate debate is the mutability of the past. 1934 stood as the warmest year in our record of temperatures for nearly a century. Curiously, that warm year in a warm decade has cooled itself in order to comport better with estimates of climate change. If time travel has become a useful proxy in scientific analysis, it is unfortunate we have not used it to change other things. Perhaps we can devise a computer model to adjust the future. Increasing crime? All this seems somehow to have happened before, and with the same results. Reduce policing in urban areas and you get more criminal conduct, just as releasing those same criminals from jail to practice their trade on the streets probably will encourage more of it. That is not conjecture. That is from memory. Join Arrias for an exploration on why our Leaders may be acting the way they do. And why it might not work the way they say it will.

– Vic

Rational Leadership

Recall the scene: in the movie Ghostbusters, in the Mayors office. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson are about be thrown in jail. Bill Murray presents a plan to the Mayor, the Mayor accepts. It’s a great scene, in a very funny movie. But, the scene is also germane to the discussion of rational decision-making; the Mayor is, despite this over-the-top comedy, acting rationally. From his perspective, he is “in a real fix,” he needs to do something “now,” he has no other options near at hand, and he can get the Ghostbusters onto the scene, showing the people of New York that he’s acting fast and that he’s willing to do anything and everything to end the chaos.

And he can always throw them in jail. It’s not perfect, but from the Mayor’s perspective it is, in fact, rational decision making.

Nor is the idea of “doing anything” just to show motion necessarily a bad idea; it will keep your people (troops, etc.) busy and focused on something rather than stewing on nothing. As a boss of mine used to say all the time: “You can’t beat something with nothing.” The Mayor is doing something; that will, at a minimum, buy him a little time; he might come up with a better idea. Meanwhile, he’s seen to be doing “something.”

For anyone who’s ever been in charge of a real organization that was in the middle of a crisis, there can be – situation dependent – real value in “doing something rather than nothing,” even when you’re fairly certain it won’t work.

So?

In the paper the other day was another editorial asking whether Emperor Xi would attack Taiwan; the author concluded that Xi would not as it would be “irrational.”

Setting aside for today the question as to whether, in fact, China will attack Taiwan in the near term, consider for just a moment what is rational or irrational. Specifically, when is a leader acting rationally and when is he acting irrationally?

Kim Jong Un is almost universally labeled as crazy. Irrational is about the nicest thing anyone ever says about him. He routinely violates all sorts of sanctions, he abuses his people, he breaks one international law or standard after another, he continues to abuse his country and starve his people.

But his Number One aim in life is to remain alive and in power; everything else is secondary to that. Having a nuclear weapon makes him harder to punish; so, he continues to build them at outrageous cost to his country. Having long range missiles also makes him more difficult to confront, so he continues to build missiles, also at outrageous cost. Keeping a huge army and enforcing universal conscription not only makes the Republic of Korea more leery of him, it also keeps young men under close watch, making an uprising more difficult. So, the huge army remains. None of this excuses Kim from his horribly immoral, evil actions. But he does have his own reasons for doing them, and they are working. From his perspective, he – like the Mayor – is a rational decision maker.

In fact, given that he has a GDP that has barely moved the needle in 25 years, and with all the money he sinks into his national security apparatus, it’s fair to say that there is no room for any mistakes, there is no slack in the system. Kim, like his father, really can’t afford to make a mistake. And he hasn’t. Kim may be evil and a cretin, but comparing his decisions – from his perspective – with those of other, current, world leaders would show that Kim is perhaps the most rational, and successful, decision-maker on the world stage in the last 10 years.

Contrast that with the US. Last year, the US decided, in just a matter of days, to spend $2 trillion trying to address the Wuhan virus. Much of that money is still unspent. And we are spending more money this year, thrown at the problem with surprisingly little thought. The United States has the luxury of being able to, routinely, make decisions with very little forethought. Does “we need to pass it to see what it says” sound rational?

We hear comments all the time that some individual is “crazy,” or “isn’t rational,” but, in fact, there have been very few leaders of nations, or cities, or movements that aren’t rational. We may not agree with their reasons, but they are rational.

This is not to say that the decisions are sound from some grand “objective” standpoint, but “objective” usually means “I don’t have a horse in this race,” and that means the observer has different goals and different assumptions than the individual being critiqued. But when you look at the goals and assumptions of those involved, you will rarely find blatantly irrational decisions. Folks throughout history have made bad decisions. It happens regularly. But few of them, very, very few of them, strictly speaking, were or are irrational. Most of them are, from the perspective of the fellow making the decision, cold, calculating and exceptionally rational. With very few exceptions they are all acting in what they perceive to be their best interests, with some clear, rational goal in mind. To them, this, whatever “this” is, makes sense.

Which leaves us where with Taiwan and Emperor Xi? Or Ukraine and Tsar Vlad?

First, remember that the decision rests with these men alone. There will be consultations, there are always consultations. And plans will be reviewed and re-reviewed and reviewed yet again. Ad infinitum. That’s what planning staffs do. In all the planning and briefings there will be talk of risk: risk to PLA forces, risk of US intervention, risk of bad weather, risk of failure of this or that element of the force, etc. The generals will have their own thresholds of acceptable risks. Xi and Vlad will also have their own. They will have already told this commanders what the acceptable levels of risk are. Whether that is in fact true only Xi or Vlad will know, and only at the time when the commanders announce that: “we have reached threshold X.” “Acceptable risk” always looks different “close to the edge.”

Xi will make the decision to go when he decides that the risks – political, military, economic, social, cultural, etc., are acceptable. Whether next year or 10 years from now, Xi will make the decision based on his own reasoning and it will be, to him, a consummate demonstration of rational decision making. He may be thoroughly wrong, he may even precipitate a major war. But if and when he makes that call, he will be doing so convinced that he is correct, that this is the best time to act, that it will be successful, and that it will benefit his and China’s interests.

The same can be said of Vlad.

If the US and its allies are to deter Xi and Vlad, they must make it crystal clear that their strategic calculus is wrong and that Chinese and Russian interests will suffer.

Copyright 2021 Arrias
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