Beware the Hubris-Nemesis Complex: A Concept for Leadership Analysis

R RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of its research sponsors. Preface This essay was prepared for a project sponsored by the Office of Research and Development, Central Intelligence Agency, on the decisionmaking of leaders in states that may be obtaining or using weapons of mass destruction. The " hubris-nemesis complex " was first mentioned in a study on Mexico (Ronfeldt, 1984); it was later elaborated in a study on Fidel Castro (Gonzalez and Ronfeldt, 1986). This essay explicates the concept independently of concerns about specific countries or leaders. An early version co-authored with Yoav Ben-This essay is the result of a small exploratory project and is far from definitive. It aims to provide a rough sense of what the concept is about and puts a range of hypotheses and observations on the table for consideration. It is hoped that this will generate support for additional work to validate assertions with examples, to develop a theory and methodologies for using the concept to assess adversaries who have the complex, and to model their likely behavior should they become dangerous.