For more than two decades, John J. Mearsheimer has been regarded as one of the foremost realist thinkers on foreign policy. Clear and incisive as well as a fearlessly honest analyst, his coauthored 2007 New York Times bestseller, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, aroused a firestorm with its unflinching look at the making of America's Middle East policy. Now he takes a look at another controversial but understudied aspect of international relations: lying.
In Why Leaders Lie, Mearsheimer provides the first systematic analysis of lying as a tool of statecraft, identifying the varieties, the reasons, and the potential costs and benefits. Drawing on a wealth of examples, he argues that leaders often lie for good strategic reasons, so a blanket condemnation is unrealistic and unwise. Yet there are other kinds of deception besides lying, including concealment and spinning. Perhaps no distinction is more important than that between lying to another state and lying to one's own people. Mearsheimer was amazed to discover how unusual interstate lying has been; given the atmosphere of distrust among the great powers, he found that outright deceit is difficult to pull off and thus rarely worth the effort. Moreover, it sometimes backfires when it does occur. Khrushchev lied about the size of the Soviet missile force, sparking an American build-up. Eisenhower was caught lying about U-2 spy flights in 1960, which scuttled an upcoming summit with Krushchev. Leaders are more likely to mislead their own publics than other states, sometimes with damaging consequences. Though the reasons may be noble--Franklin Roosevelt, for example, lied to the American people about German U-boats attacking the destroyer USS Greer in 1940, to build a case for war against Hitler-they can easily lead to disaster, as with the Bush administration's falsehoods about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
There has never been a sharp analysis of international lying. Now a leading expert provides a richly informed and powerfully argued work that will change our understanding of why leaders lie.
0 有用 NW 2024-08-29 16:39:40 美国
前半本读得比较认真,后半本囫囵吞枣。经常在油管听米教授的讲座和节目。读这本书时,脑子里自然而然按米教授的腔调读出来,跟AI配音一样。书里的精华内容在讲座中其实都有提过,本以为读全书会发现更多有趣的细节,但说实话并没有很多。对我这样的普通读者来说,这本书理论太多而实例太少,比较枯燥。还是听讲座有趣。
0 有用 像少年啦飞驰 2022-02-25 19:50:28
很薄的小册子,内容和观点其实大抵有点类似于“如何辨别宣传”,“如何体味政治人物公开讲话背后的意思”。但是把lying做了许多具体和细致的分类还是挺有趣的。中国人应该读起来很通畅,毕竟我们从来不缺少“政治的欺骗”和“欺骗性的政治”
0 有用 小豚豚 2022-02-25 20:56:48
本书得出一个有趣的结论,即国家使用谎言主要是为说服自己的人民,而非欺骗其他国家。换句话说,一个国家对内公众的谎言要远多于对外国际中的谎言。作者开篇用“选择之战”和“必要之战”的困境讨论了🇮🇶战争,指出这场战争中官方使用的谎言使美舆论认为战争是不可避免的,联系到这几天网络流传的言论就变得更有意思了。
0 有用 😺 2018-06-28 15:22:36
问题很有意思,可惜分析不行,比较有用的是对lying,spinning,concealment的区分。这类研究可以作为对不完全信息的补充。
0 有用 DiaGenesis 2021-12-02 21:59:32
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