Heisenberg’s Uncertainty and Strategic Defence Analysis

Professor Beatrice Heuser

27 March 2025Long Read

Courtesy of Freepik

Our assumptions about our own rationality and the adversary’s illogically affect our ability to conduct sound analysis and thus undermine effective policymaking.

In security policy- and strategy-making, as in all decision-making, decisions can be tainted by false assumptions about an adversary’s (ir)rationality or (il)logic, and equally false delusions about our own rationality and logic. Beatrice Heuser reflects on the biases and pitfalls of public policymaking, and offers some considerations for positive change.

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