ABSTRACT
Source: Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton University Press, Princeton 1976), pp. 63-76.
Jervis argues that the attempts of one state to achieve security precipitate a feeling of insecurity in other states. All states tend to assume the worst of others and respond accordingly. Their collective actions unintentionally generate a spiral of insecurity and, in a situation of anarchy, there can be no solution to this security dilemma. The dilemma is further exacerbated, according to Jervis, by the inflexible images that it generates in the minds of decision makers both of their own intentions and of those of their opposite numbers.
