Please remember that you are choosing to read my opinions.

The Theory of Escalation of Commitment is defined as sticking to a decision when it is no longer advisable to do so. This could easily be thought of as the bane of political thought. Whenever a decision is made, whether in politics or not, there is usually something that must be sacrificed or placed on the table. This something could be as little as the sacrifice of the other choices or as much as your entire career. Sometimes reputation is placed on the line when making a choice. Whatever the case, you commit your resources to the decision because you have something riding on your choices. You could face shame and humiliation, or lose resources and respect. Thus a person is willing to place more and more resources, and take more and more risks, in order to make the original decision work and reach the desired goal.

The Vietnam War is an example that comes to mind, but there are more subtle examples. Take a game of poker, for example. In poker, your chips are just as important, or more, than your cards. If you have a great hand, you can be reletively safe betting a lot of chips. But imagine that you are playing what you think is a good strategy. You have a fair hand, so you decide to bet a third of your chips. Then someone raises. You've now got to decide what to do. You realize that there are many ways you could lose this hand. If you keep going you could lose everything, but you've already committed a third of your chips to your hand. If you back out, you'll still have the rest of your chips. But you'll also lose some credibility because you made the first bet and backed out.

That, to me, is the theory of escalation of commitment in a nutshell. It comes into play a lot in politics. Money, time, resources, lives, credibility, etc- all of these things make up the currency of politics. That's the reason why more and more troops were committed to the Vietnam War when it was best to pull back.

It keeps us from trying new things, also. It stops us from backing down. I say us because it isn't just politics that must fall victim to this, but it is all commitments. Unfulfilling relationships often persist because people have been with each other so long, and they've committed so much time to it, that they don't want to face the alternative.

It's just like Kenny Rogers sang...

You've got to know when to hold'em
Know when to fold'em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run....

Too bad we don't follow the good advice of Kenny Rogers.