ABSTRACT
Careful comparison of crises involving the Western allies over Berlin versus Yugoslavia in the previous chapter highlighted how fundamental politicalpsychological dilemmas of crisis management recur despite dramatic advances in collection and analysis of intelligence. Even with, or perhaps because of clear superiority in information assets, US leaders still face the urgent requirement to develop a personal rapport with coalition allies and the adversary in order to steer negotiations. Modern computer memory capacity and rapid micro-processing accommodate massive information flows, but these flows, rather than eliminating uncertainty, force leaders to make difficult decisions about how to filter the data and about who should respond to the cues they themselves do not have time to analyze. The persistence of filtering and delegation dilemmas presages imperfect information conditions and strategic surprise. As elaborate as the new systems are, crises still force them to operate under unanticipated circumstances and outside of standard procedures.
