In the face of a dangerous and profoundly uncertain world, policymakers routinely rely on expert analysts to provide insights into complex and high-stakes issues. This is generally regarded as a positive thing (and not without reason). However, the use of experts may also have an unexamined dark side. Research in psychology and neuroscience makes clear that highly uncertain threats impose particularly destabilizing cognitive pressure. I argue that policymakers have long managed this pressure through the use of experts. While experts do provide real insight and analysis, they can also be used to “banish” otherwise irreducible uncertainty: To make decisions appear neater and tidier, and to falsely remove doubt.
Historically, this dynamic was overt and thus less dangerous: A Greek general consulting a haruspex’s interpretation of goose entrails understood they were not receiving literal intelligence, but rather engaging in a ritualized game to impose divine certainty on the ever-unpredictable “fog of war.” This human need still exists—but strategists no longer realize experts are still fulfilling it, creating profound risks for miscalculation in the face of unprecedented threats. To illustrate the theory, I explore the CIA’s “Enhanced Interrogation Program,” created in the wake of 9/11. Arguing that the circumstances around the program are deeply puzzling without a framework of anxiety management, I explain how the pressure to rely on experts as “sorcerers” can shape potentially disastrous national security outcomes.
Christopher W. Ray 