"Prudence or Peril is an insightful and sophisticated analysis of an important dimension of United States foreign policy during the cold war: the willingness of presidents to risk entrapment in the periphery and possibly even escalation to major war to contain Communist expansion and to preserve U.S. credibility. William Boettcher's risk explanation framework (REF) advances our understanding of foreign policy decision-making by incorporating three psychological theories of risk behavior -prospect theory, personality predispositions, and uncertainty/information accuracy-into a single deductive framework. Boettcher's analysis offers new insights into the decisions of Presidents Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy during pivotal cold war crises over Iran, Greece, Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and Congo."
- Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, Tufts University
"Prudence or Peril constitutes the very best research integrating cognitive decision making and foreign policy. Boettcher's analysis is carefully crafted theoretically, and empirically compelling. With a clear and compelling argument, Boettcher develops a framework increasing our understanding of how foreign policy executives make decisions involving risk. As one of the few books integrating research on personality with contemporary findings from cognitive psychology into a coherent argument about foreign policy, it is on the cutting edge of research into foreign policy decision making." - Jeffrey Berejikian, University of Georgia