Blind Spots and Seeing Spots

David Beisel’s hindsight is sharp. That is the advantage historians have over policymakers. Historians would be more challenged if they compared cases where blind spots prevailed with ones where unwelcome realities were recognized and dealt with appropriately. They might also examine cases where critics claiming superior insight perceived threats or risks that did not materialize. For decades, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists argued that the world was only minutes away from nuclear Armageddon, while the defense establishment argued that containment would work. Who had the blind spot and who was seeing spots? Even with historical hindsight, it is difficult to know for sure because, even though we know the outcome, we can’t be certain what would have happened had the policymakers acted differently.

Neville Chamberlain’s belief that Hitler could be appeased was a famous blind spot, rooted in a quite realistic understanding of the horrible costs of world war and an optimistic view of human nature. It was shared by the vast majority of the British public, which makes it impossible to attribute to individual psychodynamics. Lyndon Johnson’s belief that the fall of South Vietnam would lead to a domino effect turned out to be wrong, but as an anti-war activist at the time I remember that many on the left also believed in the domino theory. They simply thought that the falling of the dominos would bring the benefits of socialism to the victims of the American empire. No one predicted that the United States would lose the war and win the peace in the way that we actually did. George W. Bush was wrong in predicting the costs of invading Iraq, but his critics were wrong in predicting the outcome of the “surge” that salvaged the misadventure. Both failures may be due as much to the inherent difficulty of predicting the future as to psychological motives.

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When decisions are made by a single powerful individual, it is tempting to attribute them to that individual’s psychology. But, as Philip Langer pointed out in the June 2011 issue of Clio’s Psyche, important foreign policy decisions are usually made by groups of individuals with varying psychological make-ups. Purely individual aberrations are likely to be quickly corrected. Even Adolf Hitler’s and Joseph Stalin’s blind spots, cited by David Beisel, were corrected by the German and Soviet military commands in response to military realities. More recently, Hosni Mubarak was convinced by his advisors that he was no longer the beloved father figure of his nation. Disabusing dictators of the blind spots in their thinking is an important process that deserves more study.

Blind spots that are rooted in group dynamics, rather than the aberrations of a powerful individual, may be more difficult to overcome. Ideological groups, such as the neoconservatives that crafted George Bush’s Iraq policy, enforce blind spots with social pressure and sophisticated ideation and can be highly resistant to recognizing mistakes. I doubt very much, however, that the individuals in these groups share similar personal or family histories. Better explanations can be found in group dynamics as explored by writers such as Karen Horney, Wilfred Bion, and Larry Hirschhorn. These are summarized, along with several case studies, in Chapter Five of my book, Turncoats and True Believers.

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