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This chapter offers an analysis of the decision code of Khaled Mashal, the former leader of the Hamas organization. Using the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) method, it examines five decisions made by Mashal in 2011–2017. The analysis suggests that Mashal tends to use mainly the poliheuristic decision rule in these decisions, and considers the political-organizational dimension of Hamas as non-compensatory. Thus, Mashal made these decisions by first eliminating any alternative which risked his organization’s political status, and only then he rationally chose the alternative with the greatest expected utility from the remaining ones.

In this chapter, I analyze the decision calculus of President Donald Trump, using the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) method (Mintz, 2005, Mintz & DeRouen, 2010). I analyze seven foreign policy decisions taken in the first six months of Trump’s presidency. I find that in his decision-making process, President Trump applies six dimensions. My analysis reveals that the imagery dimension has affected President Trump’s decisions across the board, and led to the rejection of non-compensatory alternatives. Based on my research, I conclude that President Trump demonstrated a poliheuristic decision code. Furthermore, from my analysis derives that President Trump’s decision-making process is mostly intuitive. Moreover, this chapter reveals a polythink syndrome in Trump’s decision unit, manifested in the battle between his two groups of advisors, known as the nationalists and globalists.

This chapter attempts to uncover the decision code of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, based on 12 decisions he made concerning the Middle East during his third term as president, from 2012 until October 2015.

The study was carried out to understand Putin’s line of thought and decision-making, in light of Putin’s increasing importance throughout the last decade, globally and in the Middle East, in particular. After understanding the decision calculus of Putin, it might also be possible to predict his future decisions concerning the region.

Decision rules can be inferred by analyzing a set of decisions. Analysis of such decisions is made in this chapter using the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) method that uncovers historic decisions, and aims to peer into the mind of the decision-maker.

The results show the main decision rule for each of Putin’s decisions. The work proves that when it comes to foreign issues, the decision code which leads Putin in his decisions is rational. The results also reveal Putin’s strong desire to promote Russia and himself, while using holistic, maximizing, and compensatory processing, as long as his political survival is not compromised.

Crises are moments when citizens are beckoning on the political leaders for necessary action. As a president, one is expected to change the narratives during the pandemic that split the world. This analysis aimed at investigating the American government’s response to the critical crisis of COVID-19 and its policy implementation.

The study explored a case point method using a narrative and qualitative analysis to diagnose the USA’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. An exploratory approach was further adopted to finetune the case study report.

The analysis demonstrates that Trump’s power dynamics were weak in the USA and lacked crisis control even as the President that the entire nations of the world were looking up to. The case study report also showed that Trump did not possess the audacity of resilience to manage the crisis. The analysis provides us with how presidential leadership under Trump placed the USA in a state of colossal failure enmeshed with high rates of COVID-19 cases, deaths and unending incapacity to create a fundamental consensus in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic today. This report shows Trump aged prolonged inability to drive governance mechanisms in the US and illustrated pockets of failures in decision analysis and information dissemination as a leader.

The study revealed how incompetent Trump was in responding to the crisis. This study has provided academia with an understanding of leadership dynamics and behaviour through a Nigerian scholar lens and a sociological perspective.

This conclusion summarizes theoretical and empirical contributions of the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) model to the academic discipline of decision-making in national security affairs, and outlines its policy implications. It demonstrates how the method makes it possible to offer a more informed diagnosis of the decision-making code of particular leaders and a prognosis of their prospective moves in peacetime, in crisis and in war in different ideological, cultural and structural settings. It demonstrates the method’s immediate relevance for the main endeavors of national security policy planning and execution – intelligence analysis, net-assessment and strategic planning.

This study aims to explore the effects of political information and anger on the public's cognitive processing and foreign policy preferences concerning third‐party interventions in ethnic conflict.

The study employs an experimental design, wherein the authors manipulate policy‐specific information by generating ad hoc political information related to ethnic conflict. The statistical methods of analysis are logistic regression and analysis of covariance.

The results demonstrate that both political information and anger have a significant impact on an individual's cognitive processing and policy preferences regarding ethnic conflict interventions. Specifically, political information increases one's proclivity to choose non‐military policy options, whereas anger instigates support for aggressive policies. Both factors result in faster decision making with lower amounts of information accessed. However, the interaction of political information and anger is not significant. The study also finds that policy‐specific information – rather than general political information – influences the public's policy preferences.

This study confronts and advances the debate over whether political information is significant in influencing the public's foreign policy preferences and, if so, whether such an effect is the product of general or domain‐specific information. It also addresses an under‐studied topic – the emotive repercussions of ethnic conflicts among potential third‐party interveners. In addition, it tackles the argument over whether political information immunizes people against (or sensitizes them to) the effects of anger on their cognitive processing and foreign policy preferences. The study also introduces a novel approach for examining political information through an experimental manipulation of policy‐specific information.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a gaming approach to making key theoretical ideas accessible, understandable and useful for security practitioners confronting “terrorism” in the real world.

The tool is instrumental “red-team” matrix gaming: a structured way to first build and then wargame instrumental “terrorist” attack plans. The working assumption is that “terrorist” violence is designed with purpose, and that it reflects Fromkin’s understanding that terrorism is a form of jujitsu to manipulate more powerful opponents into politically and ideologically self-destructive behaviours. By designing and gaming attack plans with political objectives as the focus, practitioners quickly gain a deeper understanding of the processes of violent influence and the role of responders and decision makers. The paper is structured to, first, provide a theoretical explanation of contemporary conflict, focussing on the public support and how violence can be differently designed to political ends. On this foundation, the methods for learning are explained. A “playing-card” technique for setting students objectives in terms of psychological levers, vulnerabilities, political purposes and influence targets is described and options for participants generating scenarios outlined. Then the matrix-gaming approach, where play progresses according to the result of a dice roll applied to a probability based on the merit of participants’ competing arguments is explained with an example.

The described method of creating and wargaming terrorist attack plans offers a new and engaging method of exploring and understanding the processes of terrorism while preparing practitioners by potentially developing both their decision making and resilience.

The method described has potential value for teaching about terrorism by generally improving student engagement, preparing practitioners to respond to terrorism and wider application (of matrix gaming) to other topics.

This is a novel application of matrix gaming in a simplified format suited for classrooms.