Schneider, Barry R., and Jerrold Post, eds. Know Thy Enemy: Profiles of Adversary Leaders and Their Strategic Cultures

Naval War College Review,  Autumn, 2004  by Brenda L. Connors

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Schneider, Barry R., and Jerrold Post, eds. Know Thy Enemy: Profiles of Adversary Leaders and Their Strategic Cultures. Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: U.S. Air Force Counterproliferation Center, 2002. 325pp.

The devastating attack of 9/11 starkly revealed how the United States failed to understand its adversary and, by extension, itself. The difficult, age-old challenge for the United States to accurately assess foreign leaders has not changed, nor has its spotty track record of getting it right.

It is a tough business getting at human identity and predicting the behavior of reclusive, complex characters to whom we have no access and who possess 'weapons of mass destruction. However, with America's extraordinary resources one must ask why the United States has not brought to bear its best know-how to fill this serious vacuum of understanding.

The U.S. Air Force's Counterproliferation Center's "America's Adversary Project" has tackled this problem and produced Know Thy Enemy, which is a fine collection of studies on the personalities and cultural context of such dangerous international rivals as Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, and terrorist groups like al-Qa'ida.

Co-editors Jerrold Post, psychiatrist and former CIA profiling guru, who now heads the Political Psychology Program at George Washington University, and Barry Schneider, director of the Counterproliferation Center at Maxwell Air Force Base, assembled a formidable group of leadership assessors with regional knowledge and functional expertise ranging from history, international relations and security, and war fighting to Japanese art.

Schneider's introduction, "Deterring International Rivals from Escalation," critiques the inadequacies of classical political science deterrence theory relative to twenty-first-century enemies armed with lethal weapons. The United States must know these enemies' "hot buttons" and what contingencies could affect their decision to use weapons of mass destruction.

Both authors argue that although necessary, traditional profiling is not sufficient to understand the enemy. A deeper appreciation of individual personalities and their strategic cultures is necessary to supplement deterrence theory's shortcomings. What is now required in each case are specific U.S. deterrence policies tailored to each leader's unique profile, which directly informs our policy and public diplomacy.

Three essays bookend seven leadership profiles, offering a loose theoretical alternative and some recommendations. The seven assessments are timely, in-depth, and informative. "Kim Chong-Il's Erratic Decision Making and North Korea's Strategic Culture" by Merrily Baird is well done, synthesizing excellent research analysis into a working model for assessment.

Two other thought pieces are Alexander George's "The Need for Influence Theory and Actor Specific Behavioral Models of Adversaries" and the concluding chapter by Post and Schneider, "Precise Assessments of Rivals: Vital Asymmetric War Threat Environment." George argues that it is necessary when dealing with irrational adversaries to distinguish between abstract concepts and real-time strategy. He states that "actor specific" calls for a more differentiated behavioral model of adversaries, but he qualifies the recommendations in light of the high degree of uncertainty and context specificity within strategic cultures. Post and Schneider reiterate that to avert an adversary's use of weapons of mass destruction, models of actor-specific psychology and decision making are required.

For those seeking more than a basic education, this work provides a serious guide to today's "hottest" adversaries and their weapons of mass destruction. Through well researched history, biography, and analysis of the cultural and strategic setting, this book acquaints readers with today's enemies and invites them to ponder critically the propensity of these enemies to use their weapons.

A curious omission of this research is its lack of any systematic methodological discussion. The book's primary assumption is that deterring adversaries requires an understanding of their strategic culture. Yet nowhere do the editors formally define strategic culture or its link to the adversary. The reader comes to appreciate, however, that each study uniquely attempts to make the connection.

Between the lines, this study calls for a new paradigm, yet the book itself mostly relies on an outdated theoretical approach that ultimately handicaps what it set out to do--assess adversaries. That kind of work requires a deeper analytic template for profile analysis than presently conceived, one that cannot be wedged into political science paradigms.

Ultimately, knowing the enemy requires a better appreciation of the advanced capabilities that studies of such behavioral areas as emotion, cognition, and performance can offer. Alongside traditional political science and psychology, this brings a deeper understanding to the urgent and complex problem of knowing our adversaries in relation to deterrence, information warfare, and psychological operations.