[3/3] How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy (How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy) (Politics column)

The last part of the book review (1 and 2) We will talk about the applicability of the approaches of authors on the ground, or rather in the work of an ordinary technical director.

1. Demand a “credible theory” before a big decision. In architectural terms: clear assumptions, cause-and-effect logic, references to empirical data/operational history. This is not the “maximization of KPI” according to a beautiful formula, but the validity of the model. 2. Don’t confuse risk and uncertainty.. If you don’t have a good base frequency (For example, for rare SRE incidents or the impact of geopolitics on supply)Expected value is a confidence trap. Better scenarios, stress tests, pre-mortem, “what if things go the worst way?” 3. Open discussion as a standard. Mandatory design review, red team, “unsanctioned critic”, protocol where it is forbidden to hide bad news. Formally fix what theory "under the hood" of the solution. 4. Evaluate the process, not just the result. Failure is stupid if the theory is good and the discussion honest. Conversely, success is an excuse if the process is flawed.

The rationality of states is not to “always win” or “always count EVs.” This is about relying on a valid model of the world and not breaking the discussion process. In IT teams, this means model-before-metrics and review-before-decision.

P.S. Separately, it should be noted that this is all about expensive one-way door decision, when the mince is not turned back:) But a two-way door decision would be good to learn to accept without much thought and escalation. You can read about it. letter Jeff Bezos to shareholders where he's still in 1997 This year I described this framework for decision-making.

#Economics #Leadership #Management #Data