How States Think
The Rationality of Foreign Policy
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Narrated by:
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Mack Sanderson
About this listen
A groundbreaking examination of a central question in international relations: Do states act rationally?
To understand world politics, you need to understand how states think. Are states rational? Much of international relations theory assumes that they are. But many scholars believe that political leaders rarely act rationally. The issue is crucial for both the study and practice of international politics, for only if states are rational can scholars and policymakers understand and predict their behavior.
John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato argue that rational decisions in international politics rest on credible theories about how the world works and emerge from deliberative decision‑making processes. Using these criteria, they conclude that most states are rational most of the time, even if they are not always successful. Mearsheimer and Rosato make the case for their position, examining whether past and present world leaders, including George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, have acted rationally in the context of momentous historical events, including both world wars, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War era.
By examining this fundamental concept in a novel and comprehensive manner, Mearsheimer and Rosato show how leaders think, and how to make policy for dealing with other states.
©2023 John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato (P)2023 Yale Press AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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For the last half century, as administrations have come and gone, the fundamental assumptions about America's military policy have remained unchanged: American security requires the United States (and us alone) to maintain a permanent armed presence around the globe, to prepare our forces for military operations in far-flung regions, and to be ready to intervene anywhere at any time. In the Obama era, just as in the Bush years, these beliefs remain unquestioned gospel.
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Permanent war and insolvency...thanks Washington
- By Jonnie on 10-13-10
By: Andrew Bacevich
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The Great Delusion
- Liberal Dreams and International Realities
- By: John J. Mearsheimer
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony, the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended, is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad.
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Dense, fact filled, sober analysis and prescription
- By John Brynjolfsson on 12-15-18
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How the West Brought War to Ukraine
- Understanding How U.S. and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe
- By: Benjamin Abelow
- Narrated by: Larry Wayne
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According to the mainstream Western narrative, Vladimir Putin is an insatiable, Hitler-like expansionist who invaded Ukraine in an unprovoked land grab. That story is incorrect. In reality, the United States and NATO bear much of the responsibility for the Ukraine crisis.
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Russian (Soviet) Propaganda
- By John Williams on 12-11-22
By: Benjamin Abelow
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Why Intelligence Fails
- Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs Series)
- By: Robert L. Jervis
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
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The U.S. government spends enormous resources each year on the gathering and analysis of intelligence, yet the history of American foreign policy is littered with missteps and misunderstandings that have resulted from intelligence failures. In Why Intelligence Fails, Robert Jervis examines the politics and psychology of two of the more spectacular intelligence failures in recent memory: the belief that the Shah in Iran was secure and stable in 1978, and the claim that Iraq had active WMD programs in 2002.
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It’s complicated
- By "btomaz" on 12-15-22
By: Robert L. Jervis
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Tomorrow, the World
- The Birth of US Global Supremacy
- By: Stephen Wertheim
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- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
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For most of its history, the US avoided making political and military commitments that would entangle it in European-style power politics. Then, suddenly, it conceived a new role for itself as the world’s armed superpower and never looked back. In Tomorrow, the World, Wertheim traces America’s transformation to the crucible of World War II, especially in the months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. As the Nazis conquered France, the architects of the nation’s new foreign policy came to believe that the US ought to achieve primacy in international affairs forevermore.
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Powerful punch to American dogma.
- By JLK on 06-30-21
By: Stephen Wertheim
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The Last Warrior
- Andrew Marshall and the Shaping of Modern American Defense Strategy
- By: Andrew Krepinevich, Barry Watts
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
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Andrew Marshall is a Pentagon legend. For more than four decades he has served as Director of the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon's internal think tank, under 12 defense secretaries and eight administrations. Yet Marshall has been on the cutting edge of strategic thinking even longer than that. Covering some of the most pivotal episodes of the last half century and peopled with some of the era's most influential figures, The Last Warrior tells Marshall's story for the first time, in the process providing an unparalleled history of the evolution of the American defense establishment.
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Interesting man
- By FoxMan on 04-28-17
By: Andrew Krepinevich, and others
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Hegemony or Survival
- America's Quest for Global Dominance
- By: Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: Brian Jones, Noam Chomsky
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
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For more than half a century, the United States has been pursuing a grand imperial strategy with the aim of staking out the globe. Our leaders have shown themselves willing, as in the Cuban missile crisis, to follow the dream of dominance no matter how high the risks. Now the Bush administration is intensifying this process, driving us toward the final frontiers of imperial control, toward a choice between the prerogatives of power and a livable Earth.
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Read and open your mind
- By Rupert on 01-15-04
By: Noam Chomsky
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Interventions
- By: Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: Peter Johnson
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Interventions, by Noam Chomsky, is getting new press after the Pentagon banned the book from Guantanamo Bay's prison library. Interventions is Noam Chomsky at his best. Not since his all-time best-selling title, 9/11, published in the Open Media series in 2001, have readers and listeners had a timely, short, affordable Chomsky. Unlike 9/11, Interventions is a writerly work - a series of more than 30 tightly argued essays aimed at various aspects of U.S. power and politics in the post-9/11 world. While critical of U.S. military interventions around the globe, each piece in the book is in itself an intellectual intervention.
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Chomsky on Fire
- By Susie on 01-09-13
By: Noam Chomsky
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This iconoclastic study was one of the most widely debated books of 2000. Finkelstein indicts with vigor and honesty those who exploit the tragedy of the Holocaust for their own personal political and financial gain. This new edition includes updated material discussing the initial reception to the book's publication. In a controversial new study, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an interrogation of the place the Holocaust has come to occupy in American culture to a disturbing examination of recent Holocaust compensation agreements.
What listeners say about How States Think
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-15-23
States think rationally !!
This is a very informative book that argues that states think rationally for survival reasons using logic and empirical records to validate their theories.
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- Sami
- 03-07-24
Sound theoretical analysis
Some topics were not covered throughly. More was required on the invasion of Iraq. There should have been more cases on the Middle East.
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- yuan zhou
- 12-17-23
Clear framework
Realism is such a refreshing theoretical framework because it manages to analyse all people and states through a common lens. It offers a way of explaining the world without resorting to categorical differences like democracy vs autocracy, or rational vs irrational behaviour. It shows that all states seek to ensure their own survival above all else, and that whether democratic or autocratic, the behaviour of most states most of the time is rational. This commonality amongst different peoples of the world is refreshing because it contrasts with most of the common ideologies we’ve all grown up with, whether political, religious, or other, that serve to divide people along their various categorical lines (democracy vs communism, Islam vs Judeo-Christian ‘values’). The book provides strong argument that in all cases the fundamental units of action, and the rationales and motivations of the actors, are a lot more similar than they’re different, The world needs more ideas that unite us at this time, and so I think this book is very timely.
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- Al from Virginia
- 02-04-24
2hours of content crammed into 8 hours of listening
I side with the authors proposition about evaluating the rationality of international states and their leadership.
I particularly valued the review of historical case studies. in fact, that was the best aspect of the book
however, the book cries for a publisher editor who's tasked to weed out repetition, remove duplication, avoid redundantcy. how many times must the authors restate the two-plank definition and criteria for rational actions and goals? I lost count at 15.
the book cries for a publisher editor who's tasked to weed out repetition, remove duplication, avoid redundantcy. how many times must the authors restate the two-plank definition and criteria for rational actions and goals? I lost count at 15.
sorry, poor humor in repeating this twice. but you get the idea. I wonder if the book was a compilation of papers, each one a chapter in the book and each one needing to state the thesis so it might stand alone?
if the book was made half the length but retained all the content, I would rate it 5 stars.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-19-24
An excellent work on rational foreign policy making in the international system
I thought this was a good basic argument compressed in this book with historical examples to support the narrative. A good defense on the rationality of foreign policy.
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- Anonymous User
- 10-10-24
Oy, the exhausting repetition of the same words and points over and over again. A promising book but a shallow read.
They could have presented their ideas in so many different and interesting ways. Great ideas either poorly edited or mismanaged. The narrators voice and delivery was awful, the writing was repetitive, the order or timeline of examples, themes and content mismanaged. A frustrating test in interests.
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