Tilting at windmills: The flawed U.S. policy toward the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war |
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Authors: | Christopher Clary |
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Affiliation: | 1. Department of Political Science, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, USAcclary@albany.edu |
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Abstract: | ABSTRACTThis article examines decision-making mistakes made by U.S. President Nixon and national security advisor Kissinger during the 1971 India-Pakistan crisis and war. It shows that Nixon and Kissinger routinely demonstrated psychological biases that led them to overestimate the likelihood of West Pakistani victory against Bengali rebels as well as the importance of the crisis to broader U.S. policy. The evidence fails to support Nixon and Kissinger’s own framing of the 1971 crisis as a contest between cool-headed realpolitik and idealistic humanitarianism, and instead shows that Kissinger and Nixon’s policy decisions harmed their stated goals because of repeated decision-making errors. |
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Keywords: | Nixon Kissinger Bangladesh India Pakistan Sino-U.S. relations 1971 India-Pakistan War Biafra motivated biases availability heuristic |
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