Richard K Betts

• Good Man Makes Bad War? A Review Article

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•2025

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  Robert McNamara was acknowledged by all to be brilliant and hyper-rational and secretly revealed to be emotional and altruistic, yet he recommended massive US military action in Vietnam. Then he quickly decided the war could not be won, yet he continued to support it in policy decisions. The Taubman book explores this contradiction and offers a psychological biography as well. Such a personality study is fascinating, but it is not clear that it i…

• Nervous Allies and Trump

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•The Washington Quarterly•2025

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• Conflict after the Cold War

  Richard K Betts•BOOK•Conflict after the Cold War•2022

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• Is Grand Strategy an Illusion?

  Richard K Betts•CHAPTER•Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy•2021

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  The significance of the concept of grand strategy as distinct from foreign policy has been exaggerated. Grand strategy is promoted more by analysts than practitioners and rationalized in hindsight more than it has functioned as a plan. Divergence of practice from theory has been explained away by redefinitions that are wrong. Grand strategy is constrained by the complexity of great powers’ interests and the logic of democracy. It has been impleme…

• The Grandiosity of Grand Strategy

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•The Washington Quarterly•2019•Citada por: 1

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  Grand strategy is in vogue. Its importance as a guidepost for success in foreign affairs is celebrated, and practitioners’ mistakes in the practice of it have been criticized in a bunch of books an

• Conflict After the Cold War

  Richard K Betts, Richard Betts•BOOK•Conflict after the Cold War•2017

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• Conflict after the Cold War

  Richard K Betts•BOOK•Conflict after the Cold War•2017

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• The Soft Underbelly of American Primacy

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•2016•Citada por: 9

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  In given conditions, action and reaction can be ridiculously out of proportion.... One can obtain results monstrously in excess of the effort.... Let’s consider this auto smash-up.... The driver lost control at high speed while swiping at a wasp which had flown in through a window and was buzzing around his face.... The weight of a wasp is under half an ounce. Compared with a human being, the wasp’s size is minute, its strength negligible. Its so…

• Conflict After the Cold War

  Richard K Betts•BOOK•Conflict after the Cold War•2015

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• Civilians, Soldiers, and the Iraq Surge Decision

  Richard K Betts, Michael C Desch et al.•ARTICLE•International Security•2012•Citada por: 1•Referências: 5

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  January 01 2012 Civilians, Soldiers, and the Iraq Surge Decision Richard K. Betts, Richard K. Betts Richard K. Betts is Director of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, and Director of the International Security Policy Program in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Michael C. Desch, Michael C. Desch Michael C. Desch is Profe…

• From Cold War to Hot Peace

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•2012•Citada por: 1

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• Strong Arguments, Weak Evidence

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Security Studies•2012•Citada por: 1

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• Freedom, License, and Responsibility

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Studies Perspectives•2007•Citada por: 1

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  Contrary to the hand-wringing of some radicals, academic freedom in the United States is in very good shape. The test of this is not whether professors are vilified for their views by polemicists like David Horowitz, but whether professors are prevented from expressing those views or suffer material harm—such as losing their jobs—as a result of doing so. That has not happened on any significant scale in recent times, despite claims to the contrar…

• Two Faces of Intelligence Failure

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•2007•Citada por: 1

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  Journal Article Two Faces of Intelligence Failure: September 11 and Iraq's Missing WMD Get access Richard K. Betts Richard K. Betts RICHARD K. BETTS is Director of Columbia University's Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, and a former member of the Military Advisory Panel of the Director of Central Intelligence and of the National Commission on Terrorism, and staffer of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. This article …

• Maybe I'll Stop Driving

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Terrorism and Political Violence•2005

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• The political support system for American primacy

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Affairs•2005•Citada por: 3•Referências: 1

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  Journal Article The political support system for American primacy Get access RICHARD K. BETTS RICHARD K. BETTS Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 81, Issue 1, January 2005, Pages 1–14, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2005.00435.x Published: 21 January 2005

• Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence

  Richard K Betts, Thomas G Mahnken et al.•BOOK•Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence•2004

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• The New Politics of Intelligence

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•2004•Citada por: 1

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  The failure to prevent the attacks of September ll, 2001, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, and the proliferation of official investigations trying to figure out what went wrong in both cases have combined to put intelligence issues in a very unusual position this year: at the center of a closely contested presidential campaign. All the attention creates both an op portunity and a danger. The opportunity stems from th…

• Deterrence

  Richard K Betts, Lawrence Freedman•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•2004

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• Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence

  Lawrence D Freedman, Lawrence Freedman et al.•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•2004•Citada por: 5

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  Intelligence and the problem of strategic surprise, Michael I. Handel politicization of intelligence - costs and benefits, Richard K. Betts intelligence failures - forecasting and the lessons of epistemology, Woodrow J. Kuhns theory of surprise, James J. Wirtz FORTITUDE in context - the evolution of British military deception in two world wars, 1914-1945, John Ferris intelligence failure and the need for cognitive closure - the case of Yom Kippur…

• Striking First

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Ethics & International Affairs•2003•Citada por: 8•Referências: 2

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  It is unlikely that George W. Bush feels constrained by international law when deciding whether to use military force abroad. Nevertheless, many of the United States' allies are reluctant to cooperate with and participate in military actions that cannot reasonably be justified under international law. And supportive allies, while perhaps not strictly necessary to the United States in its recent and foreseeable military campaigns, do make the mili…

• Suicide from Fear of Death

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•2003•Citada por: 3

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  WITH WAR in the Middle East imminent, it is clear that the United States has painted itself-as well as Iraq-into a corner. The Bush administration's success in engineering international support for a preventive war in the Persian Gulf is impressive, both politically and diplomatically. But Washington's case rests on two crucial errors. It understates the very real risk that an assault on Iraq will trigger a counterattack on American civilians. An…

• The First-Year Foreign Policy of Bush the Younger

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•The Forum•2002

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  The author assesses President Bush s foreign policy, suggesting that there are surprisingly few differences beneath the surface between the policies of the current administration and the Clinton presidency. He gives high marks to the Bush administration for its conduct of the war in Afghanistan, but cites several ambiguous, and hence more difficult, obstacles that confront the Bush foreign policy team. In particular, he warns that the United Stat…

• Fixing Intelligence

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•2002•Citada por: 8

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• Is Strategy an Illusion

  Philip Zelikow, Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•2001

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• Analysis, War, and Decision

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•World Politics•1978•Citada por: 71•Referências: 13

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  Strategic intelligence failures cannot be prevented by organizational solutions to problems of analysis and communication. Analytic certainty is precluded by ambiguity of evidence, ambivalence of judgment, and atrophy of institutional reforms designed to avert failures. Many sources of error are unresolvable paradoxes and dilemmas rather than curable pathologies. Major failures in attack warning, operational evaluation, and intelligence for strat…

• Should Strategic Studies Survive

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•World Politics•1997•Citada por: 44•Referências: 53

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  Political science attends to causes and consequences of war but only fitfully welcomes study of its conduct, because few grasp how much the dynamics of combat shape politics. Bernard Brodie called for development of strategic studies on the model of the discipline of economics, because neither the military nor academia treated the subject rigorously. His call was answered in the early cold war, with mixed results. Theories about nuclear deterrenc…

• Wealth, Power, and Instability

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Security•1993•Citada por: 34

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• The Delusion of Impartial Intervention

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•1994•Citada por: 31

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  Physicians have a motto that peacemakers would do well to adopt: First, do no harm. Neither the United States nor the United Nations have quite grasped this. Since the end of the Cold War unleashed them to intervene in civil conflicts around the world, they have done reasonably well in some cases, but in others they have un wittingly prolonged suffering where they meant to relieve it. How does this happen? By following a principle that sounds lik…

• Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance

  Gregory F Treverton, Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•1987•Citada por: 30

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  In numerous crises after World War II--Berlin, Korea, the Taiwan Straits, and the Middle East--the United States resorted to vague threats to use nuclear weapons in order to deter Soviet or Chinese military action. On a few occasions the Soviet Union also engaged in nuclear saber-ratling. Using declassified documents and other sources, this volume examines those crises and compares the decisionmaking processes of leaders who considered nuclear th…

• The Irony of Vietnam

  Gaddis Smith, Leslie H Gelb et al.•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•1979•Citada por: 25

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• Systems for Peace or Causes of War? Collective Security, Arms Control, and the New Europe

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Security•1992•Citada por: 21

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• Is Strategy an Illusion

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Security•2000•Citada por: 20•Referências: 10

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  October 01 2000 Is Strategy an Illusion? Richard K. Betts Richard K. Betts Professor and Director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Richard K. Betts Professor and Director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, and Senior Fellow at the Co…

• Conventional Deterrence

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•World Politics•1985•Citada por: 17•Referências: 15

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  For over three decades the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has based its deterrent on the principle that the United States would retaliate with nuclear weapons if a Soviet conventional attack against Western Europe succeeded. This notion has long troubled most strategic analysts. It remained generally acceptable to political elites, however, when U.S. nuclear superiority appeared massive enough to make the doctrine credible (as in the 1…

• Paranoids, Pygmies, Pariahs & Nonproliferation

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Policy•1977•Citada por: 15

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• The Soft Underbelly of American Primacy

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•2016•Citada por: 9

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  In given conditions, action and reaction can be ridiculously out of proportion.... One can obtain results monstrously in excess of the effort.... Let’s consider this auto smash-up.... The driver lost control at high speed while swiping at a wasp which had flown in through a window and was buzzing around his face.... The weight of a wasp is under half an ounce. Compared with a human being, the wasp’s size is minute, its strength negligible. Its so…

• The New Threat of Mass Destruction

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•1998•Citada por: 9

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  Since the Cold War, other matters have displaced strategic concerns on the foreign policy agenda, and that agenda itself is now barely on the public's radar screen. Apart from defense policy professionals, few Americans still lose sleep over weapons of mass destruction (wmd). After all, what do normal people feel is the main relief provided by the end of the Cold War? It is that the danger of nuclear war is off their backs

• A Diplomatic Bomb for South Africa

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Security•1979•Citada por: 9

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• Striking First

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Ethics & International Affairs•2003•Citada por: 8•Referências: 2

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  It is unlikely that George W. Bush feels constrained by international law when deciding whether to use military force abroad. Nevertheless, many of the United States' allies are reluctant to cooperate with and participate in military actions that cannot reasonably be justified under international law. And supportive allies, while perhaps not strictly necessary to the United States in its recent and foreseeable military campaigns, do make the mili…

• Fixing Intelligence

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•2002•Citada por: 8

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• Doubletalk

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•1981•Citada por: 8

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• A Nuclear Golden Age? The Balance before Parity

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Security•1986•Citada por: 7

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• And what to do about it

  Richard K Betts, Andrew F Krepinevich et al.•ARTICLE•The Washington Quarterly•1996•Citada por: 6

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• Paranoids, Pygmies, Pariahs and Nonproliferation Revisited

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Security Studies•1993•Citada por: 6•Referências: 1

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  This is an updated version of an article which appeared in Foreign Policy, no. 26 (Spring 1977). The article is reprinted with the permission of Foreign Policy and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The original text is in Roman; the updates are in italics

• Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence

  Lawrence D Freedman, Lawrence Freedman et al.•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•2004•Citada por: 5

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  Intelligence and the problem of strategic surprise, Michael I. Handel politicization of intelligence - costs and benefits, Richard K. Betts intelligence failures - forecasting and the lessons of epistemology, Woodrow J. Kuhns theory of surprise, James J. Wirtz FORTITUDE in context - the evolution of British military deception in two world wars, 1914-1945, John Ferris intelligence failure and the need for cognitive closure - the case of Yom Kippur…

• Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance

  George H Quester, Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Journal Canada s…•1988•Citada por: 5

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• Conventional Strategy

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Security•1983•Citada por: 5

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• Surprise Despite Warning

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•1980•Citada por: 5

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  Journal Article Surprise Despite Warning: Why Sudden Attacks Succeed Get access Richard K. Betts Richard K. Betts RICHARD K. BETTS, research associate at The Brookings Institution, has taught at Harvard, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins Universities, has served on the staffs of the National Security Council and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and is author of Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises. Search for other works by this author on: …

• The political support system for American primacy

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Affairs•2005•Citada por: 3•Referências: 1

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  Journal Article The political support system for American primacy Get access RICHARD K. BETTS RICHARD K. BETTS Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 81, Issue 1, January 2005, Pages 1–14, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2005.00435.x Published: 21 January 2005

• Suicide from Fear of Death

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•2003•Citada por: 3

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  WITH WAR in the Middle East imminent, it is clear that the United States has painted itself-as well as Iraq-into a corner. The Bush administration's success in engineering international support for a preventive war in the Persian Gulf is impressive, both politically and diplomatically. But Washington's case rests on two crucial errors. It understates the very real risk that an assault on Iraq will trigger a counterattack on American civilians. An…

• Paranoids, Pygmies, Pariahs & Nonproliferation

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Policy•1977•Citada por: 15

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• Myths and Realities of America at War

  Richard H Kohn, Richard K Betts et al.•ARTICLE•Reviews in American History•1978

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• The Weak in the World of the Strong

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•1978

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• Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises

  Richard G Head, Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•1978•Citada por: 1

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• Analysis, War, and Decision

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•World Politics•1978•Citada por: 71•Referências: 13

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  Strategic intelligence failures cannot be prevented by organizational solutions to problems of analysis and communication. Analytic certainty is precluded by ambiguity of evidence, ambivalence of judgment, and atrophy of institutional reforms designed to avert failures. Many sources of error are unresolvable paradoxes and dilemmas rather than curable pathologies. Major failures in attack warning, operational evaluation, and intelligence for strat…

• A Diplomatic Bomb for South Africa

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Security•1979•Citada por: 9

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• Nuclear peace

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Journal of Strategic Studies•1979•Referências: 1

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• Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises

  John Edward Wiltz, Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Journal of American History•1979•Citada por: 2

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  Journal Article Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises. By Richard K. Betts. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977. xi + 292 pp. Charts, tables, appendixes, notes, sources, and index. $15.00.) Get access John Edward Wiltz John Edward Wiltz Indiana University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 65, Issue 4, March 1979, Pages 1189–1190, https://doi.org/10.2307/1894655 P…

• The Irony of Vietnam

  Gaddis Smith, Leslie H Gelb et al.•ARTICLE•Foreign Affairs•1979•Citada por: 25

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• Incentives for Nuclear Weapons

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Asian Survey•1979•Referências: 2

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  Research Article| November 01 1979 Incentives for Nuclear Weapons: India, Pakistan, Iran Richard K. Betts Richard K. Betts Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Far Eastern Survey (1950) 19 (11): 1053–1072. https://doi.org/10.2307/2643954 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite…

• Comment on Mueller

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Studies Quarterly•1980

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  Journal Article Comment on Mueller: Interests, Burdens, and Persistence: Asymmetries Between Washington and Hanoi Get access Richard K. Betts Richard K. Betts The Brookings Institution Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Studies Quarterly, Volume 24, Issue 4, December 1980, Pages 520–524, https://doi.org/10.2307/2600288 Published: 01 December 1980

• Alibi Alley

  Stephen Pelz, Michael Charlton et al.•ARTICLE•Reviews in American History•1980

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• Intelligence for Policymaking

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•The Washington Quarterly•1980•Citada por: 2

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  (1980). Intelligence for Policymaking. The Washington Quarterly: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 118-129

• The Tragicomedy of Arms Trade Control

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Security•1980•Citada por: 3

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• Vietnam

  David E Kaiser, Leslie H Gelb et al.•ARTICLE•International Security•1980

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• Politics of Arms Control

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•1980

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• Surprise Despite Warning

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•1980•Citada por: 5

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  Journal Article Surprise Despite Warning: Why Sudden Attacks Succeed Get access Richard K. Betts Richard K. Betts RICHARD K. BETTS, research associate at The Brookings Institution, has taught at Harvard, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins Universities, has served on the staffs of the National Security Council and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and is author of Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises. Search for other works by this author on: …

• The Irony of Vietnam

  Blema S Steinberg, Leslie H Gelb et al.•ARTICLE•Pacific Affairs•1980

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• Cruise Missiles

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•The Washington Quarterly•1981

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  (1981). Cruise Missiles: Technology, Strategy, Politics. The Washington Quarterly: Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 66-80

• Surprise Attack

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•International Security•1981•Citada por: 3

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• Hedging against surprise attack

  Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Survival•1981•Referências: 1

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• Doubletalk

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•1981•Citada por: 8

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• Vietnam

  Gareth Porter, Janos Radvanyi et al.•ARTICLE•International Journal Canada s…•1981

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• Cruise Missiles

  Derek Leebaert, Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Journal of Policy Analysis and…•1982

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• Politics and Force Levels

  Open Access•Richard K Betts•ARTICLE•Political Science Quarterly•1982

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