1.
Captain Will Rogers had scarce little time to respond. Already taking fire from Iranian Bog Hammers, the crew of the USS Vincennes turned its attention to an approaching aircraft. The unidentified aircraft had not responded to repeated warnings from the Vincennes, and appeared to be descending toward the battleship as it passed within 10 kilometers. After repeated entreaties from air-radar operator Scott Lustig, Captain Rogers gave the order to fire.
The military commission that investigated the shootdown of Iran Air flight 655--an Airbus 300 carrying 290 civilians from Bandar Abbas to Dubai--ruled the crew of the Vincennes had acted reasonably given the information at their disposal. A combination of inexperience with the technologies on the ship, multiple "threats" seeming to engage at once and something called "scenario fulfillment"--whereby a crew under mental pressure reverts to behavior learned in training scenarios and ignores sensory information contradicting the conclusion of the practiced scenario--conspired to hamper the crew's decision-making capacity.
To begin with, Iran Air flight 655 had departed half-an-hour late. Moreover, when communications officer Anderson cheked his log of plausible commercial flights out of Bandar Abbas, he did not account for the time difference of a half hour between Bandar Abbas time and Bahrain time-the zone the ship observed, resulting in an hour's cumulative lag between his records and the actual departure time of the flight. Mr. Anderson then made another critical error-he "painted" the Iran Air Airbus 300 with a radar signature while it sat on the tarmac before takeoff--adjacent to an F-14--and did not "refresh" its radar signature. Hence his system was recognizing the F-14's transponder code even while it appeared to track the inbound aircraft.
Seven of the ten warnings the Vincennes issued to flight 655 were broadcast over a military distress channel-a channel the A300's radios could not pick up. The final three went out over the civilian distress channel, but the Vincennes officer read flight 655's groundspeed, not its airspeed, the only velocity that commercial traffic pays attention to. It is unlikely the captain of flight 655 even knew the American voice on his radio was speaking to him.
Finally, most puzzling, Mr.Anderson had relayed to Mr. Lustig that the airplane on his radar screen was beginning to descend as it drew nearer to the Vincennes. A fast-closing, descending aircraft certainly appears threatening, especially to a gunship already engaged in battle. The news sealed Captain Rogers' decision to fire, and flight 655's fate. There was just one problem: the Vincennes instruments never indicated flight 655 was descending. Indeed, technology akin to the "black box" found on airplanes reproduced the VIncennes' instrument readings in the moments before missiles were fired, and those readings indicated, quite accurately, that flight 655 continued to climb through 11,000 feet. It was to exlain this implausible scenario that the commission envoced the "scenario fulfillment" hypothesis. What else, save perjury, could explain the discrepancy?
The crew of the Vincennes returned to SanDiego to a hero's welcome. Several members of the crew, including officer Lustig, received commendations. Throughout the election of 1988 then vice president George HW Bush insisted the U.S. owed Iran no apology.
2.
As Russian troops remain within Georgia in violation of the terms of Nicholas Sarkozy's cease-fire agreement, evidence of attrocities mounts. In the now-lawless capital of Tiblisi, Georgian citizens describe brazen murders committed by Ossetians for the sole purpose of intimidation. Meanwhile reports indicate that the Russian army is beginning to fortify its position by digging trenches and establishing check points.
You might think from watching CNN that Russia's invasion of Georgia is a simple matter of a spurned superpower flexing its newly minted muscle. Russia, mostly destitute during the Yeltsin era in the 1990s, is now brimming with oil money, teeming with anti-Western nationalism, and yearning to return to its cold-war borders. If such were your understanding, you might advocate drawing a line in the sand: promising sanctions, loudly proclaiming solidarity with the Georgian government, and fast-tracking a missle-deffense site in Poland.
If Russia, fed by nought other than naked ambition to empire-build, is testing the resoluteness of Western powers, as John McCain seems to suggest, we'd do well to send an unequivocal affirmation of that resoluteness.
But if that was your only context you'd be ignoring a large part of the story.
Mikheil Saakashvili, who came to be president of Georgia during the Rose Revolution of 20003, had naked ambitions of his own. Charismatic as he is, and popular on the beltway cocktail party circuit, he became fast friends with President Bush. The two spoke about Georgia's democratic ambitions, and Bush eventually gave Saakashwili military equipment and training, and advocated enthusiastically for Georgia's membership in NATO. Convinced he would have the U.S.'s backing should any conflict arise, Saakashvili turned his attention to two territories--Abkhazia and South Ossetia--that had since 1992 insisted on their independence from Georgian rule. On August 7, Saakashvili declared war on the seperatist territories, and began shelling the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.
The U.S. had no intention of supporting Georgia militarily. It was embroiled in its own battles over the appropriate level of support for Georgia's NATO membership, with "hawks" like Dick Cheney advocating strenuously and "doves" like Condoleza Rice (in private, in this limited case) urging caution. In the end President Bush's need for additional troops in Iraq won out-Georgia agree to double its force in Iraq--to 2000--in early 2007. In exchange for Georgia's ongoing support, the U.S. gave it military equipment and helped to train its special forces. Against the will of Germany and other European nations, George Bush lent his support to Saakashvili's campaign this April to fast-track Georgia's NATO membership.
Russia, on the other hand, perceived Georgia's attempts to join NATO as a direct challenge to its sphere of influence. To make matters worse, the Bush administration was pushing for a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe at practically the same time. Bush insisted the system was intended to defend against a missile strike from Iran, but Putin and his allies saw it as an attempt to shift the balance of power in Eastern Europe. When Georgia--whose claim to South Ossetia Russia disputes--began shelling Tskhinvali, tensions boiled over. Russian troops intervened, in their view, to protect the citizens of South Ossetia and, ostensibly, to "keep the peace."
Understanding the rationale for Russia's continued occupation of Georgia might change your idea of the best options. Atop your list would be seeking to assure Russia the West respects its sovereignty and values it as a partner, all-the-while denouncing its incursion into Georgia and calling for its hasty and complete withdrawl. But, recognizing the U.S.'s culpability in the strained relations, you might do so from a standpoint of international law--or indeed of preserving international stability that could be to Russia's benefit--rather than from a strictly pro-Georgia standpoint.
3.
Casual reflection might lead you to the conclusion that with the luxury of time one would want to learn as much as possible about a problem before positing a solution. Say you're already making 55,000 a year but are planning to attend classes at a local university to get an additional degree. You'd want to know every possible cost, down to the penny. Being forced to make a decision without a key piece of information--say the fact that the school is full-time and you would forfeit two years of your salary in addition to tuition--could be disasterous.
Sometimes, as appeared to occur in the case of the USS Vincennes, a "perfect storm" of arrogance, bad timing and inexperience can conspire ro create misunderstandings that can ultimately start wars. (World War I, which began officially with the assasination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo but for which the key players would have taken any excuse, is a great example.) But what happens when key pieces of information are not innocently overlooked but deliberately obfuscated? The list of unnecessary wars perpetuated not by misunderstandings but by intentional witholding of information is too long to recite , but includes such classics as the Mexican/American War (really a war of anexation, for which the government cooked up a fake assasination story), the Spanish American War, and Iraq.
In this latest conflagration, many media outlets have covered only the most recent history-since the Russian invasion. (The New York Times, Salon, and Wikipedia have done an admirable job at filling in the gaps.) This may be because the "Russian Bully" narrative plays better on newsstands, allowing the event to be framed in terms of good and evil; east and west. But watch out for overly simplistic prognostications or deliberate omissions from those who should know better-those like John McCain. While it's true few American politicians want open war (or even renewed Cold War) with Russia, don't assume their sabre rattling will stop short of inflaming the situation still further. Just yesterday Secretary Rice traveled to Poland to renew the administration's push for missile defense.
4.
The commission's report on the shootdown of Iran Air 655--the same report that absolved William Rogers and his crew of wrongdoing--was published in 1988 with several redactions. But an independent investigation by Newsweek's John Barry and Roger Charles, published in 1992, uncovered several very large missing pieces of information.
When Captain Rogers had heard reports of Bog Hammers-essentially little more than Iranian speedboats piloted by men with rocket-launchers, were engaging tankers in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, two other American vessles, the Sides and the Elmer Montgomery, were closer than the Vincennes. Nevertheless, captain Rogers radioed his superior, Admiral McKenna, to ask permission to engage.
McKenna denied Rogers' request, judging the situation inappropriate for engagement (which, under the "rules of engagement", requires the American vessle to have been fired upon or believe itself in jeopardy.)
Rogers sent a helicopter, which took fire from the Iranian boats after conducting a low flyover. Even then, McKenna ordered the helicopter to retreat and the Vincennes to continue its southwest-ward course away from the Strait. Instead, Rogers turned his craft and headed into the "battle."
Most damning, Barry and Charles discovered the Vincennes was actually a few kilometers inside Iranian waters when it fired on flight 655, having turned 180 degrees after its forward gun jammed. Had the Vincennes not violated orders to engage in an unnecessary sea battle, it would have had ample time to judge the type of aircraft on its way from Bandar Abbas to Dubai. Had it not maneuvered directly beneath a busy commercial air corridor between the two cities the Airbus A300 would not have seemed to be on an "engagement" course with the Vincennes. Rogers and his men, in other words, were "asking for trouble."
In 1988, after the official report of the incident--damning enough by many standards--was published (but 4 years before Newsweek would reveal the missing piece) George HW Bush gave a speech.
"I'll never apologize for the United States of America, ever," he said. "I don't care what the facts are."
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Close
Last February, an otherwise little-noticed article called Helping People Help Themselves spent a day at the top of the New York Times' most emailed list. The article began by distilling of the science of behavioral economics. People, no matter how intelligent or well-educated, are subject to several well-documented mental catch-22s, among them "status quo bias", "averaging" and the most cocktail-party-ready: "parabolic discounting".
Status quo bias needs little explanation. (In fact none of these will-my bet is we recognize them instantly in ourselves.) All things being equal human beings will tend to choose the option that requires the least change. Averaging involves the misapplication of simple mathematical models to things like compound interest or geometric growth. It's the whole conundrum of the page folded in half again and again: the human brain is simply not equipped to conceptualize geometric phenomena very efficiently. (That's a broad statement likely to get me in trouble. It's a little like saying, "we're not very agile compared to the cheetah." Sure, Carl Lewis and Randy Moss are apt counterexamples, but...) I experience parabolic discounting every time I pull out the credit card to cover a night out-it's the human tendency to downplay long-term consequences and give too much weight to short term.
The author, Teresa Tritch, went on to argue that the public sector has only recently embraced behavioral economics, putting the science to use for things like anti-smoking campaigns and "opt out" retirement plans. Yet for all its apparent salience, behavioral economics has enjoyed astonishingly little attention this political season, even as we debate things like climate change and tax code.
Last week The Newshour ran a feature on prison reform in the southwest. Arizona, where prison crowding is rife, was experimenting with programs to provide jobs and education to inmates. The program, which offered incentives like greater freedom and the opportunity to learn marketable skills, gave inmates something to "shoot for"-a reason to behave well. It was also-to my delight-largely privately funded.
In explaining to my wife why I thought private funding was a more effective way to solve problems in America than government programs (which basically boiled down to the fact that anything that depends for its funding on voters' whims about tax policy is on shaky ground) I unwittingly sparked a much larger argument. Why, she asked, were Americans not willing to pay for things from which they undoubtedly received long-term benefit? (Low recidivism, lower rates of incarceration, more efficiency in the prison system in this case.)
We returned to a recurring theme in our recent discussions-health care and pensions. Why are Americans unwilling to pay slightly (or even greatly) more taxes for a system that relieves them of their anxiety about health care and retirement? Is the knowledge that the loss of one's job and a medical problem won't cause bankruptcy or destitution not worth a few more dollars out of the paycheck?
I've written elsewhere about my trips to Europe and Taiwan and the difference in the attitudes of the workforce I've observed between other "advanced" countries (relaxed employees who work hard because they're interested in doing the job well) and the US (chronically stressed, working only hard enough to avoid getting fired). Now, my anecdotal observations do not a scientific study make. Moreover, there are doubtless many reasons for the differences in work ethos--a company culture that promotes from within and retains workers for life, a superior work ethic fostered by stable families, an emphasis on and respect for education all but unknown in the US--all contribute. But there's another nagging fact-Taiwan and the vast majority of European Union countries all offer some kind of universal health care and social safety net.
Much has been made this election season about why, with the American economy in a downturn born of irresponsible speculation in the investment banking sector, millions of people being foreclosed from their homes, still more going bankrupt every day because of medical expenses, and large pillars of our infrastructure-bridges, air traffic control-deteriorating, things are still so close. A peek at the declining dollar relative to the Euro ought to inspire envy. A walk through a boarded-up neighborhood in Baltimore or the Southwest or a look at a new-construction home looted for all its metal components and left unsalvagable ought to inspire outrage. Every story we read about someone whose illness caused him to lose a job, which in turn caused loss of health care coverage and financial ruin, ought to scare us. And of course it does. Americans are sufficiently scared, outraged and angry to embrace just about any solution we believed would help us.
Part of the dichotomy, doubtless, is a legitimate difference of opinion on the role the government ought to play. Many who are well aware of the limitations of the free market to protect all but the strongest stakeholders nonetheless believe private citizens, and not the government, are best equipped to look after their interests. But far too little effort has been made to understand how the common traps of human nature-like parabolic discounting-are shaping our national opinions.
Take the debate over offshore drilling. The basic premise-providing short-term relief to people suffering under the pall of high gas prices-is laudable. But economists insist it will provide little long-term benefit: the US has only 3 percent of the world's petroleum reserves but consumes 25 percent of the world's oil. And remember Al Gore? Two summers ago, when gas was cheap, global warming was on the tip of everyone's tongue. Now few dare venture the environmental argument against expanded oil drilling. Put in the context of parabolic discounting, however, it's easy to understand why people would favor a short term solution of dubious merit over any solution that required short term sacrifice but would pay of in the long run. We're talking about the same species that knows smoking will eventually kill us but takes up smoking all the same.
Status quo bias and something called the "endowment effect" (our tendency to "endow" our immediate possessions, like paychecks, with importance disproportionate to their actual worth) work against any attempt to ask people to pay more taxes. If employers can't get their employees to contribute 2 percent of their monthly paycheck toward a 401K why would we expect them to part with far larger sums in order to fund national health care? And few outside the medicare system have experienced universal coverage-it's an unknown. The status quo, however flawed, can still feel "safer", especially to those of us with employer-provided insurance and few (knock on wood) ailments.
Much has been made of the irresponsibility that got Americans into the housing crisis and led us to take on unprecedented levels of personal debt. Relatively little weight, however, has been assigned to parabolic discounting and averaging, or to lenders' astute understanding of human nature. But how else to explain "teaser" interest rates and needlessly complex disclosure literature? By making getting in just a bit easier and understanding what you're getting into just a tad more difficult, credit companies capitalized on the worst of human tendencies.
Finally, why would Americans support the invasion of Iraq when its benefits were so tenuous and long-term risks to both national and economic security so tangible? Viewed through the prism of behavioral economics it's not hard to understand-the desire to do something-anything-to eliminate a perceived threat outweighed any risks down the road.
Tritch's article explained how some agencies could use behavioral economics to make our tendencies work for our long term well being instead of against it. In 2006 congress passed the pension reform law, which changed the "opt in" rule governing pensions to an "opt out" one. By automatically enrolling people in a retirement savings plan but giving them the choice to opt out, you're not denying them freedom, but making status quo bias work in their favor. To curb smoking Tritch proposed requiring a free identification card to buy cigarettes. The card would require no special qualification to smoke besides being of legal age and willingness to apply, so it would not curtail personal liberty. It would, however, add one extra hurdle to lighting up-one familiar to anyone who's ever pondered whether getting up and trudging to the kitchen during the best part of your favorite show is really worth it for that next beer.
Could similar incentives work on larger-scale problems? We don't have "opt out" taxes, and that's probably a good thing. (I'd hate to picture congress levying a tax that I have an opportunity to vote against "whenever I get around to it." That congress wouldn't last very long either.) But an approach to regulating investment banks and the credit industry informed by behavioral economics (realizing, for instance, that the idea that citizens always act in their rational self-interest is demonstrably false)might just prevent the next big financial crisis.
But we need to start having the right conversation. We need to recognize a choice that deliberately plays against our human biases for what it is: a false choice.
Status quo bias needs little explanation. (In fact none of these will-my bet is we recognize them instantly in ourselves.) All things being equal human beings will tend to choose the option that requires the least change. Averaging involves the misapplication of simple mathematical models to things like compound interest or geometric growth. It's the whole conundrum of the page folded in half again and again: the human brain is simply not equipped to conceptualize geometric phenomena very efficiently. (That's a broad statement likely to get me in trouble. It's a little like saying, "we're not very agile compared to the cheetah." Sure, Carl Lewis and Randy Moss are apt counterexamples, but...) I experience parabolic discounting every time I pull out the credit card to cover a night out-it's the human tendency to downplay long-term consequences and give too much weight to short term.
The author, Teresa Tritch, went on to argue that the public sector has only recently embraced behavioral economics, putting the science to use for things like anti-smoking campaigns and "opt out" retirement plans. Yet for all its apparent salience, behavioral economics has enjoyed astonishingly little attention this political season, even as we debate things like climate change and tax code.
Last week The Newshour ran a feature on prison reform in the southwest. Arizona, where prison crowding is rife, was experimenting with programs to provide jobs and education to inmates. The program, which offered incentives like greater freedom and the opportunity to learn marketable skills, gave inmates something to "shoot for"-a reason to behave well. It was also-to my delight-largely privately funded.
In explaining to my wife why I thought private funding was a more effective way to solve problems in America than government programs (which basically boiled down to the fact that anything that depends for its funding on voters' whims about tax policy is on shaky ground) I unwittingly sparked a much larger argument. Why, she asked, were Americans not willing to pay for things from which they undoubtedly received long-term benefit? (Low recidivism, lower rates of incarceration, more efficiency in the prison system in this case.)
We returned to a recurring theme in our recent discussions-health care and pensions. Why are Americans unwilling to pay slightly (or even greatly) more taxes for a system that relieves them of their anxiety about health care and retirement? Is the knowledge that the loss of one's job and a medical problem won't cause bankruptcy or destitution not worth a few more dollars out of the paycheck?
I've written elsewhere about my trips to Europe and Taiwan and the difference in the attitudes of the workforce I've observed between other "advanced" countries (relaxed employees who work hard because they're interested in doing the job well) and the US (chronically stressed, working only hard enough to avoid getting fired). Now, my anecdotal observations do not a scientific study make. Moreover, there are doubtless many reasons for the differences in work ethos--a company culture that promotes from within and retains workers for life, a superior work ethic fostered by stable families, an emphasis on and respect for education all but unknown in the US--all contribute. But there's another nagging fact-Taiwan and the vast majority of European Union countries all offer some kind of universal health care and social safety net.
Much has been made this election season about why, with the American economy in a downturn born of irresponsible speculation in the investment banking sector, millions of people being foreclosed from their homes, still more going bankrupt every day because of medical expenses, and large pillars of our infrastructure-bridges, air traffic control-deteriorating, things are still so close. A peek at the declining dollar relative to the Euro ought to inspire envy. A walk through a boarded-up neighborhood in Baltimore or the Southwest or a look at a new-construction home looted for all its metal components and left unsalvagable ought to inspire outrage. Every story we read about someone whose illness caused him to lose a job, which in turn caused loss of health care coverage and financial ruin, ought to scare us. And of course it does. Americans are sufficiently scared, outraged and angry to embrace just about any solution we believed would help us.
Part of the dichotomy, doubtless, is a legitimate difference of opinion on the role the government ought to play. Many who are well aware of the limitations of the free market to protect all but the strongest stakeholders nonetheless believe private citizens, and not the government, are best equipped to look after their interests. But far too little effort has been made to understand how the common traps of human nature-like parabolic discounting-are shaping our national opinions.
Take the debate over offshore drilling. The basic premise-providing short-term relief to people suffering under the pall of high gas prices-is laudable. But economists insist it will provide little long-term benefit: the US has only 3 percent of the world's petroleum reserves but consumes 25 percent of the world's oil. And remember Al Gore? Two summers ago, when gas was cheap, global warming was on the tip of everyone's tongue. Now few dare venture the environmental argument against expanded oil drilling. Put in the context of parabolic discounting, however, it's easy to understand why people would favor a short term solution of dubious merit over any solution that required short term sacrifice but would pay of in the long run. We're talking about the same species that knows smoking will eventually kill us but takes up smoking all the same.
Status quo bias and something called the "endowment effect" (our tendency to "endow" our immediate possessions, like paychecks, with importance disproportionate to their actual worth) work against any attempt to ask people to pay more taxes. If employers can't get their employees to contribute 2 percent of their monthly paycheck toward a 401K why would we expect them to part with far larger sums in order to fund national health care? And few outside the medicare system have experienced universal coverage-it's an unknown. The status quo, however flawed, can still feel "safer", especially to those of us with employer-provided insurance and few (knock on wood) ailments.
Much has been made of the irresponsibility that got Americans into the housing crisis and led us to take on unprecedented levels of personal debt. Relatively little weight, however, has been assigned to parabolic discounting and averaging, or to lenders' astute understanding of human nature. But how else to explain "teaser" interest rates and needlessly complex disclosure literature? By making getting in just a bit easier and understanding what you're getting into just a tad more difficult, credit companies capitalized on the worst of human tendencies.
Finally, why would Americans support the invasion of Iraq when its benefits were so tenuous and long-term risks to both national and economic security so tangible? Viewed through the prism of behavioral economics it's not hard to understand-the desire to do something-anything-to eliminate a perceived threat outweighed any risks down the road.
Tritch's article explained how some agencies could use behavioral economics to make our tendencies work for our long term well being instead of against it. In 2006 congress passed the pension reform law, which changed the "opt in" rule governing pensions to an "opt out" one. By automatically enrolling people in a retirement savings plan but giving them the choice to opt out, you're not denying them freedom, but making status quo bias work in their favor. To curb smoking Tritch proposed requiring a free identification card to buy cigarettes. The card would require no special qualification to smoke besides being of legal age and willingness to apply, so it would not curtail personal liberty. It would, however, add one extra hurdle to lighting up-one familiar to anyone who's ever pondered whether getting up and trudging to the kitchen during the best part of your favorite show is really worth it for that next beer.
Could similar incentives work on larger-scale problems? We don't have "opt out" taxes, and that's probably a good thing. (I'd hate to picture congress levying a tax that I have an opportunity to vote against "whenever I get around to it." That congress wouldn't last very long either.) But an approach to regulating investment banks and the credit industry informed by behavioral economics (realizing, for instance, that the idea that citizens always act in their rational self-interest is demonstrably false)might just prevent the next big financial crisis.
But we need to start having the right conversation. We need to recognize a choice that deliberately plays against our human biases for what it is: a false choice.
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