Week 2 Lecture-Leadership and Decision-Making in US Foreign Policy and National Security

Flashcards covering leadership, decision-making models, rationality, and constraints in US foreign policy based on lecture notes.

Traditional Analysis of Foreign Policy

The standard way of analyzing foreign policy often discounts leadership, focusing instead on constraints like resources, geography, and climate.

Current debates on Leadership: Stress Test (Margaret MacMillian)

• First article in current issue is by Margaret MacMillian who is best known in her writing on origins of WW1

• Themes here is that if leaders are important (which she argues hey clearly are) is that a disruptive or creative influence

• Can influence beyond their own borders (bad examples with Hitler, Stalin- who’s view as a disruptive led to global catastrophe)

• Leaders can shape global forces but not always for the good as a disruptive leader cna inject significant trouble into the system

• Leaders matter but leaders mattering is not always a positive thing

  • Not in article but teachers comment: Trump is a self-declared disruptor and strives to have influence well beyond potentially the office he holds

Trump- What president does is real test not what they say

• Trump went straight from his inauguration and carried out 36 orders and signed one that rescinded all 78 during the Biden administration 

• US by executive order has removed itself from WHO and PAris Accords and suspended for 90 days humanitarian assistance (not clear what that means in practice btu reports of vaccines and humanitarian aid to Africa and Ukraine being suspended but Israel and Egypt excluded from this)

What a President does is the real test (action and effect is real judge of leadership) not what they say

Leadership in Context: Levels of Analysis and US foreign policy (Waltz)

Waltz argued you could explain origins of war by looking at three levels of analysis which can also apply to how foreign policy occurs: 

• International 

• Domestic 

• Individual- No leader is a robot and the character of the individual will matter (flaws and virtue)

Waltz and Approaches to the study of Foreign Policy

Waltz believed in the realism and anarchy

• This is different from structural analysis and is looking at various elements that endure in international system and impact freedom of manoeuvre of states

Constraints: John J. Mearsheimer, 2001 ‘The Tragedy of Great Power Politics’

‘great powers have the largest impact on what happens in international politics [...] great powers are determined largely on the basis of their relative military capability’ John J. Mearsheimer from The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

• This book looks at the manner of which great power interacts in the international system

• Mearsheimer is an offensive realists- in a world that is anarchic, greta power are ambitious but also suspicious 

  • Not a drive that comes domestically but a draw that happens in a vacuum of power in the system

  • Their ability to do that is driven by material capabilities

• Military power is build up from social and political cohesion and economic and technological prowess

Constraints: ’ Foreign Affairs, ‘What Makes a Power Great: The Real Drivers of Rise and Fall’ by Michael J. Mazarr, July/August 2022

‘In the struggle for advantage among world powers, it is not military or economic might thatmakes the crucial difference but the fundamental qualities of society: the characteristics of a nation that generate economic productivity, technological innovation, social cohesion, and national will.’

Power Indicators: Military Power Indicators

• Here we can see Us and China in most cases are 1 and 2 and Russia is often 3

• Shows Great powers as China and US with Russia often referred to as a residual power

  • Shows even in a world of constraint US has great potential

• Scale of which America is ascending is number 1 by a long way- especially if we look at their defence spending (US estimated 35% of global defence spending whilst China is 19%)

• This table also doesn’t show US is also way ahead with technology of defence

• China is catching up- China’s navy is growing at a huge rate

Power Indicators: Non- Military Power Indicators

• Similar story of US and China are essentially 1 and 2

• However there are also other states like India coming into play with India overtaking China as most populous state

• UK is also quite high in terms of soft power and size of diplomatic core

• Whilst there are constraints on US it also has considerable resources

  • US is not a latent power as it deploys these resources 

  • Up until 2014 US was quite a active interventionist power which it was able to do due to these resources

Societal and governmental factors in defending national preferences -(D. Beach and R.B. Pedersen, 2019, ‘Analyzing Foreign Policy’, 2019)

Idea that Public Opinion, Interest Groups and Media impact the Legislature, which impacts the Executive, which impacts National preferences (aka what states want)

Societal and governmental factors in defending national preferences (2)- Jeffrey S. Lantis, 2013 ‘US Foreign Policy in Action: An Innovative Teaching Text’ , p.73.

Powers over foreign/national security policy

Shows the powers of Congress and the president in making national and foreign security policy and also where they overlap

• The constraints and opportunities by the domestic circumstance that the President faces

• The table show the formal powers the president may have which is juxtaposed by article 1 of Congress

  • President has encroached power of congress and has usurped powers where constitution is silent on 

  • President also used clauses from Constitution to act with significant margins, e.g. diplomacy

Powers over foreign/national security policy: US Congress Powers over Foreign Policy (Beach and Pedersen, 2019)

Beach and R.B. Pedersen, 2019

Three Models of Decision Making (Graham Allison)

1. Rational-actor

2. Organisational process

3. Bureaucratic or governmental politics

Three Models of Decision Making (Graham Allison)- 1) Rational-actor

• Type of Theory: Realism and Neorealism

• Key Thinkers: Morgenthau, Schelling, Kennan, Waltz and Kissinger

• Core Argument: unitary states as key actors who act rationally, calculating costs and benefits of policy choices to maximise utility

Three Models of Decision Making (Graham Allison)- 2) Organisational process

• Type of Theory: Liberalism and Neorealism

• Key Thinkers: Keohane and Doyle

• Core Argument: Not “act” or “choices” but OUTPUTS of organisational SOPs

Three Models of Decision Making (Graham Allison)- 3) Bureaucratic or Governmental Politics

• For example: President Obama vs Republicans in Both Houses of Congress

• Core Argument: Competition among decision making units

  • No single strategic master plan

  • Diverse conceptions of national, organisational and personal goals

Benefit of Governmental Politics Model

This analysis allows us to think abut leadership more generally- it applies to almost decision you can think of and can pick and choose how well and or badly they fit  

The governmental politics model: further explained

A decision when it materialises is from a lot of things unseen and the attempt to wield influence that goes behind closed doors

• In US politics lots of this comes out in leaks and memoirs so we have a good insight into this thinking

• Starting assumption: Decisions of any administrations are not the executive decision of the president- President is influenced by those he access to around him 

  • Then it comes forward with certain assumptions (may sound right but maybe not fully right)- Miles Law= where you stand depends where you sit

    • Where you stand on the issue is dependent on your position- e.g. military may think force is need in foreign policy (but this doesn’t stand up up as US military tends to be quite cautious)

  • What position you are in (what department) will impact how you view the issue

Questions involved in The governmental politics model

• Who plays? Whose views and values count in shaping the voice and action

• What factors shape: 

  • (a) each player’s perceptions, 

  • (b) the players preferred course of action, and thus 

  • (c) the player’ stand on the issue?

• What factors account for each player's impact on the choice and action?

• What is the ‘action channel’, i.e. the established process for aggregating competing perceptions, preferences and stands of players in making decisions and taking action?

• Which players have the greatest stake in the outcome of the decisions that are made and the actions that are taken?

The Governmental Politics Model: The Players in US Foreign Policy

These represent the Departments of State and Defence as well as the armed forces. Other important agencies in the conduct of foreign policy include:

• The US Treasury

• The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

• Department of Commerce

• Environmental Protection Agency

• Officials attached to the office of the President (e.g. Vice-President (above), National Security Advisor, White House Chief of Staff

The Governmental Politics Model: The Players in US Foreign Policy Divided up by Influence and Access (Allison and Zelikow, 1999, p.296)

Chiefs:

• The President

• The Secretaries of State, Defence and Treasury

• The Director of the CIA

• The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

• The President’s National Security Advisor

• The Ambassador to the UN

Staffers:

• The immediate staff of each chief especially deputies

Indians:

• The political appointees and permanent government officials within each of the departments and agencies

Ad hoc players tanks: 

• Certain diplomats and officials

• Members of the Press

• Think members of Congress

• Leaders of Interest Groups

The Players in US Foreign Policy: A situational view (D.L. Byman and K.M. Pollack, 2001, 'Let Us Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the Statesman Back In’)

• The more power is concentrated in the hands of an individual leader, the greater the influence of that leader's personality and preferences'

• 'Individuals are more important when systemic, domestic or bureaucratic orces conflict or are ambiguous'

• 'Individuals are more important when circumstances are fluid' (i.e. crisis versus routine)

The Players in US Foreign Policy: A disposition view (Joseph Nye, 2006 , ‘Transformational Leadership and US Grand Strategy’)

‘A president pursuing transformational objectives faces many obstacles. He must intuit the direction and pace of events, devise appropriate and feasible strategies, win the support of diverse audiences at home and abroad, and find the right mix of hard and soft power to implement his policies [...] although the president can undertake some initiatives on his own, major foreign policy transformations fail without congressional support [...] although a crisis is usually necessary for a transformational policy to succeed, it is never sufficient.’

• This view emphasizes the challenges a president faces in achieving transformational goals, requiring strategic insight, audience engagement, and support from Congress.

A disposition view: Requirements for Transformational Leadership (Joseph Nye, 2006 , ‘Transformational Leadership and US Grand Strategy’)

• Policy vision

• Emotional intelligence

• Communication and an ability to inspire - charisma

• Organizational capacity

• Political skill

• Contextual intelligence

Even if Leaders are assumed to be influential, one should not assume they’re wise- Joseph Nye, 2006 , ‘Transformational Leadership and US Grand Strategy

BUT: But even assuming leaders are influential and intelligent, one should not assume they are wise (or ethical)

• They make mistakes

• Delusion that US could be a good force of the world and so went on this triade in countries thinking it could make a better difference in these countries at a huge costs, loss of live and destabilising of the region (book on the right)

• Bets and the Brightest looks at how they hired lots of cleverest people that made tragic errors in bringing US into Vietnam and not being able to navigate well

  • Can have good intensions and still make big mistakes

US Executive Power

• President can get laws in Congress which can only be amended by Congress or can issue recommendation to executive agencies and give instruction of certain policies to be followed as a result of that

• Can give executive orders- instructions of executive agencies

• Intervention of the president when he issues the statement to executive agencies can get diluted by executive agencies (bureaucracy can limit the impact of the president) and now when he comes back to power he will draft it in a way that it's not interpretative hence why he brought so many executive orders

• Also performativity of Trump signing so many executive order

  • Performance often an exaggeration of competence and power of that individual 

Are leaders rational and Why is ‘rationality important’?

• ‘Our default posture is to understand events in foreign affairs as purposive acts of unified national governments acting rationally.’ (Graham Allison)

  • Default assumption is that the are rational as we associate it with purpose- if a leader set outs objectives and articulate strategy and gaols that assumes rationality as that itself is a rational act

• ‘rationality is more than a descriptive model, because it is also treated as the gold standard of decision-making’ (Robert Jervis)

  • Whilst there may be departures from rationality we should assume there is rationality beneath it as rationality is a gold-standard of decision making

Rationality and being rational is generally seen as a good thing and a noble thing in of in itself

Quote below shows 1) What is rational making, 2) What rational decision makers should do and consider, 3) People who make important foreign policy decisions should use rational decision making, 4) Who/What rational decision makers are (Janice Gross Stein, 2016)

‘rational decision making refers to the process that people should use to choose [...] rational decision makers should be good at attending to new information that comes along as they are making their choices; they need to ‘update’ their estimates in response to new reliable information that contains significant evidence [...] this picture of a rational decision maker approximates common sense. People who make important choices about foreign policy need to be logical, discriminating while open to new evidence, and ‘coherent’ and ‘consistent’ in responding to logical arguments [...] Rational decision makers are those who are open to arguments and evidence, free of serious blinkers as they weigh the evidence and think about the likely consequences of options. ‘ (Janice Gross Stein, 2016)

Further details on Rational Actor Model

• X is the action of state

• The state is a unified actor

• The state has a coherent utility function (means ends analysis of what it means to be rational- make decisions and deploy resources which will maximise your goal)

• The state acts in relation to external threats and opportunities

• The state’s action is value-maximising (or expected-value-maximising)

Questioning of Rational Actor Model

Sometimes the departures from rationality is so egregious the measuring up is so far apart the rational actor model makes no sense

• How well do these models mirror processes of choice in foreign policy? Not well at all. There is by now abundant evidence that foreign policy decision makers, and people more generally, rarely meet these standards. (Janice Gross Stein)

• IR scholars should take a pledge: rational actor models should never be applied to the Trump administration – not by us and not by the students we teach and advise. Not ever. (Robert Jervis)

Cognitive psychology

• Rational actor model is also flawed as we know that the impact of a number of different biases and prejudices infringe upon their ability to function (e.g. aging seeing mental decline)

• Cognitive psychology explains the differences by the need of simple rules of information processing and judgements that are necessary to make sense of uncertain and complex environments

  • 1) Humans have preference for simplicity

  • 2) Humans adverse to ambiguity and want consistency instead,

  • 3) This makes them intuitively poor estimators

  • 4) Humans have risk profiles that depart from models of rational choice, as a result humans are more adverse to loss than we are gain-seeking

• Together these 4 attributes comprise of the capacity for rational choice and affect decision-making abilities of leaders and officials who are responsible for foreign policy

Leaders Breaking Bad (Kaarbo, 2021)

• Was about populist leaders which shows leaders will be impacted ageing and psychological impact of having power over time as they gain a sense of importance (main character syndrome)

John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato ‘How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy’

• This was an influential take as it was different take on rationality 

• Measheimer  has a different take that leaders are rational if they employ credible theories of the word

  • A theory is that they have a well formed view of the world and have logical argument on the consequences of their actions

• Not necessarily moral but rational

• Meashiemer then explores a number decisions that Presidents have taken which show his argument

However you can pursue a rational theory but it can still go wrong- rational but reductive

• If we assume a leader is rational even when they are taking eccentric things it opens a new way of thinking

  • E.g. Trump and Greenland

Rational Great Power Decision-Making

Grand strategic decisions

• The United States decides to expand NATO after the Cold War

• The United States decides to pursue liberal hegemony after the Cold War
  

Crisis decisions

• The United States decides to settle the Cuban missile crisis (1962)

Non-Rational Great Power Decision-Making

Grand strategic decisions

• Britain decides on a no-liability strategy before World War 2.

Crisis decisions

• The United States decides to invade Cuba (1961)

• The United States decides to invade Iraq (2003)

Is acting irrationally a bad thing?

• One counter to rationality is that leaders do things that is intuitive- they do either two things but rather operate from the gut

• Not always a bad thing- examples

  • Reagan in Rathbun argues that reagan had a romantic view of the world despite his firm reputation was very convinced of the need for nuclear disarmament and had a romantic view of a nuclear free world

    • That romantic view of the world had a policy effect

  • Also seen with JFK first inaugural speech on getting Americans on the moon

Another way of looking at rationality is to look at the opposite by look at being insane:

• Appearing to be bad can be a good thing and even rational ironically

• It goes back to Nixon and irrationality

  • Nixon hinted his willingness to sue nuclear weapons against Soviet support of Viet Cong - this threat seemed mad due to world annihilation but forced Viet Cong to negotiation table 

• By appearing mad it can create anxiety in opponents which can give way to what you want

Trump and Mad Man theory

Trump has also been argued to deploy this madman approach- e.g. releasing Israeli prisoners otherwise ‘all hell would break loose’

• Outcome may seem that there was an element of rationality behind it 

• May appear it works but other say it doesn’t as we never really know as it can be completely inconsistent and backfires

• If Trump gets a reputation of madman then it no longer works- can play it once or twice 

• This matter switch China as China will be unlikely to cooperate or interact with Trump is Trump is consistently inconsistent

Great Man Theory of Foreign Policy

This theory suggests that history is shaped by powerful individuals.

Margaret G. Hermann and Joe D. Hagan's View

Argues that even within constraints, leadership still significantly influences decisions.

Leadership Trait Analysis

Suggests leadership matters and can impact foreign policy based on leaders' characteristics, psychological views, education, and background.

Impact of Powerful Decision-Makers

Powerful decision-makers can successfully promote their ideas even within national and international constraints.

Margaret MacMillan's Theme on Leadership Influence

Argues that leaders can be disruptive or creative influences, with potential for both positive and negative impacts on global forces.

Potential Negative Impact of Leaders

Leaders can significantly shape global forces, but this influence isn't always positive.

Trump's Executive Orders in 2025

Trump signed 36 orders immediately after inauguration and rescinded 78 executive orders from the Biden administration.

Waltz's Belief

Focuses on realism and anarchy, examining enduring elements in the international system that constrain states' freedom.

John J. Mearsheimer's View

Suggests great powers have the largest impact on international politics, determined by their relative military capability.

Mearsheimer on Offensive Realism

In an anarchic world, great powers are ambitious and suspicious, driven by a vacuum of power in the system rather than domestic factors.

Fundamental Qualities of a Society (Mazarr)

Economic productivity, technological innovation, social cohesion, and national will.

Presidential vs. Congressional Power

Formal powers of the president are juxtaposed against Article 1 of Congress; presidents have sometimes encroached on congressional power.

Governmental Politics Model

Decisions result from bargaining games among players in the national government, influenced by individual positions and departmental perspectives.

Chiefs (Governmental Politics Model)

The President, Secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury, the Director of the CIA, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the President’s National Security Advisor.

Staffers (Governmental Politics Model)

Immediate staff of each chief, especially deputies.

Indians (Governmental Politics Model)

Political appointees and permanent government officials within each of the departments and agencies.

Ad hoc players tanks (Governmental Politics Model)

Certain diplomats and officials, members of the press, think members of Congress, and leaders of interest groups.

Requirements for Transformational Leadership

Policy vision, emotional intelligence, communication and ability to inspire, organizational capacity, political skill, and contextual intelligence.

Potential for Error

Even well-intentioned and intelligent leaders can make tragic errors.

Instructions of executive agencies

Executive orders.

Importance of Questioning Rationality

Asking this question provides an analytical way of understanding leaders.

Allison's View on Rationality and Purpose

Assumes leaders have objectives, articulate strategies, and set goals, indicating rationality.

Janice Gross Stein's Conception of a Rational Decision Maker

Logical, discriminating, open to new evidence, and coherent in responding to logical arguments.

Assumptions of the Rational Actor Model

The state is a unified actor; the state has a coherent utility function; the state acts in relation to external threats and opportunities; the state’s action is value-maximizing.

Mearsheimer's Take on Rationality

Leaders are rational if they employ credible theories of the world and have logical arguments on the consequences of their actions.

Strategic or Instrumental Rationality

Actors making decisions that maximize their expected utility in light of structural constraints.

Counter to Rationality

Leaders operate from the gut or intuition, which can sometimes be effective.

Madman Approach

Appearing irrational to create anxiety in opponents.

Summary for Week 2

• The US is the world’s most powerful state, it acts under constraints but has considerable room for manoeuver

• Constitutional and political circumstances mean the executive acts under domestic constraints but it still has considerable room for manoeuver

• Decisions on foreign policy and national security are heavily influenced by the president, but he (sic) is subject to the influence of the foreign policy bureaucracy

• Rationality is a standard of strategic decision- making. It is a rare quality. Strategic or instrumental rationality is possible.

• ‘Romantic’ decision-makers such as Ronald Reagan are not rational, but they can have a significant impact

• ‘Mad’ decision-makers such as Richard Nixon and Donald Trump can pursue rational policies.