- 6 A Researcher Takes A Random Sample Of Wars And Studies Debates Within Each Country That Preceded The Decision To Figh 1 (63.24 KiB) Viewed 33 times
6. A researcher takes a random sample of wars and studies debates within each country that preceded the decision to fight. She finds that in the majority of cases the decision makers, both civilian and military, were overoptimistic about the chances of victory. That is, they usually thought they would win and even when they allowed that they might not win they still thought they would do better than they actually did. The researcher concludes that wishful thinking (over optimism) causes wars. Explain very briefly why this is not a valid conclusion that can be drawn from this study. Note that the conclusion might actually be true but data collected are not enough to make a convincing case for this conclusion. (10 marks)