Foxes And Hedgehogs In Human-Machine Nuclear Decision-Making: Cognitive Styles And The Socio-Technical Dynamics Of Nuclear Deterrence

In a piece for Defence Studies, James Johnson makes the case for how a leader thinks matters as much as how the AI system works when it comes to nuclear crisis decisions. Borrowing Tetlock's fox-hedgehog distinction, it suggests flexible, probability-minded decision-makers and inflexible, doctrine-bound ones will handle the same machine-generated advice very differently - trusting it, questioning it, or overriding it in distinct ways. From there, it considers what that variation could mean for deterrence, the risk of escalation, and signaling between rival states during a crisis.