In the Eye of the Beholder: How Leaders and Intelligence Communities Assess the Intentions of Adversaries
Keren Yarhi-Milo
Abstract
How do policymakers infer the long-term political intentions of their states' adversaries? A new approach to answering this question, the “selective attention thesis,” posits that individual perceptual biases and organizational interests and practices influence which types of indicators a state's political leaders and its intelligence community regard as credible signals of an adversary's intentions. Policymakers often base their interpretations on their own theories, expectations, and needs, sometimes ignoring costly signals and paying more attention to information that, though less costly, is more vivid (i.e., personalized and emotionally involving). In contrast, intelligence organizations typically prioritize the collection and analysis of data on the adversary's military inventory. Over time, these organizations develop substantial knowledge on these material indicators that they then use to make predictions about an adversary's intentions. An examination of three cases based on 30,000 archival documents and intelligence reports shows strong support for the selective attention thesis and mixed support for two other approaches in international relations theory aimed at understanding how observers are likely to infer adversaries' political intentions: the behavior thesis and the capabilities thesis. The three cases are assessments by President Jimmy Carter and officials in his administration of Soviet intentions during the collapse of détente; assessments by President Ronald Reagan and administration officials of Soviet intentions during the end of the Cold War; and British assessments of Nazi Germany before World War II.
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Community Reviews
Ciaran Santiago
12/22/2025
This paper is vexing to me in the best possible sort of way. On one hand, the selective attention hypothesis is fascinating, but on the other hand, some of its most interesting practical applications don't even seem to get touched on. For example, if individual leaders' epistemologies are inconsistent and not especially rigorous, how come they seem to get important decisions right as often as they do? What weakness of intelligence organizations made their recommendations during the Cuban Missile Crisis so poor, for instance? If I had unlimited time and resources, this sort of subject is what I would think about all day, so I feel compelled to acknowledge that this is one of the better papers that I have ever had the opportunity to read, if only because it keeps me up at night.