Do hawkish advisors have less trouble persuading decision-makers than dovish advisors do? That's the premise of a thought-provoking piece in Foreign Policy magazine written by Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon. (Matt Yglesias has a smart response here). The general gist of Kahneman's and Renshon's argument is that there is a strong psychological bias in favor of hawkishness, the merits of the case to one side. The article is mainly a discussion of various scientific experiments which support this thesis. And the thesis is a good one. It's interesting, however, that in popular culture the good guys always seem to be doves. Take a film like Crimson Tide, in which an American nuclear submarine captain and his second-in-command face off over whether to launch nukes against a newly hostile Russia. Both men are given strong cases to present to the crew and the audience, but our sympathy clearly lies with the more reticent Denzel Washington character. Or even look at a movie (I couldn't get my fingers to type "film") like The Sum of All Fears, which is based on a Tom Clancy novel. Jack Ryan, our hero, is the most dovish of all the leading characters (this is true in many of the Clancy/Ryan books as well, despite the fact that Clancy is a symbol of, and advocate for, militaristic masculinity). So, then, what does it say about us that we like our heroes dovish? I think there's more here than liberal Hollywood playing to its own desires. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that a happy ending is more realizable if almost no one dies (even if nuking Russia is the right decision, no one wants to see a movie where millions of people perish). Or maybe we don't mind movie heroes reluctant to wage war because we know deep down they are tough guys who will do what it takes if things get bad enough (Gary Cooper in High Noon, e.g.). Anyway, I'm sure there are counter-examples out there, but I'm having trouble coming up with any. I think as a general rule the good guys tend to be awfully skeptical of resorting to war. --Isaac Chotiner