History, Learning, and International Relations

Richard Ned Lebow and Feng Zhang

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International Relations scholars have documented the importance of so-called historical lessons for foreign policy decision making. They often frame the context in which those decisions are made. They help determine what constitutes a threat or a problem and how to respond. There has been less research on why certain lessons are learned and others not, and why some of these lessons become deeply embedded in a political culture. Once this happens, these lessons not only influence foreign policy but help shape the way people see the world. By doing so, they make policymakers more receptive to some kinds of lessons and less so to others. We address the first of questions: why some lessons appeal and others not. We offer seven propositions in this connection, drawn from psychology and political science. We offer reasons for our propositions and examples that illustrate them. We conclude with some thought about how historical lessons enter political life.

Historical Lessons

Margaret MacMillan (2022, p. 8) wryly observes that “Even when people think they are striking out in new directions their models often come from the past.” Political actors draw their own conclusions about the outcomes of their behavior and the reasons for its success and failure. Cognitive psychologists find that people are more likely to attribute success to their character and failure to circumstances beyond their control (Heider, 1958, p. 322; Kelley, 1967; Jones and Nisbett, 1971; Nisbett and Ross, 1980). When successful they are also motivated to downplay the role of luck and exaggerate that of skill (Frank, 2016, pp. xiv, 11). Historical learning is almost always about other people and situations they faced, sometimes at some temporal remove. Political actors can draw their own conclusions from these past events, but more often it is mediated by political commentators and historians, and almost certainly so if those events occurred at some temporal remove. International relations scholars have documented the extent to which these lessons reflect cognitive biases (Jervis, 2017 [1976]).