The Amateur Strategist: Intuitive Deterrence Theories and the Politics of the Nuclear Arms Race

This book explores how the everyday person reasons about nuclear strategy. James DeNardo’s data reveal surprising patterns of thinking on basic issues from SDI, arms control, and proliferation to the end of the Cold War. His discovery that the amateur’s strategic reasoning defies all conventional theories lays the groundwork for a new understanding of national security politics. His demonstration that professional strategists reason like novices–that we are all Amateur Strategists–challenges the intellectual foundations of modern deterrence theory, public opinion studies, and game theory.