Covert Action and American Foreign Policy: Decision Paths for the “Quiet Option”

1989 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-76
Author(s):  
Loch Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
Decision Paths

Which Lessons Matter?: American Foreign Policy Decision Making in the Middle East, 1979–1987. By Christopher R. Hemmer. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000. 217p. $17.95 cloth, $55.50 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 686-687
Author(s):  
William B. Quandt
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
World Trade Center ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
World Trade Center Attack ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Trade Center ◽  
Policy Decision Making

At least since Ernest May's influential (1973) ‘Lessons’ of the Past, students of American foreign policy have been conscious of the powerful hold that some analogies seem to have on the minds of decision makers. All of us can think of “Munich” and “Vietnam” as shorthand for a whole series of judgments that we rely on to work through the maze of foreign policy calculus. In the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack in September 2001, we heard reference to “Pearl Harbor.” And we can now anticipate that “9-11” will take its place as a marker for a set of lessons concerning the struggle against terrorism.

scholarly journals Colonial empires and USA policy in the South-East Asia after the 1945

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 252-255
Author(s):  
Stanislav Gennadyevich Malkin ◽  
Sergey Olegovich Buranok ◽  
Dmitriy Aleksandrovich Nesterov
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Military

The following paper analyzes the characteristics of the US foreign policy decision-making process at the beginning of the Cold War, due to the active appeal of representatives of the political establishment, the military and the countrys expert community to the colonial experience of the European powers in terms of the prospects of applying their experience in ensuring colonial control in Southeast Asia before and after the end of the World War II as part of the US political course in this region. In addition, it is concluded that more attention should be paid to the role and, therefore, to the prosopographic profile of the experts (in the broad sense of the word), who collaborated with the departments responsible for the development of American foreign policy, such as the Department of State and the Pentagon, and formulated many of the conclusions, which, at least rhetorically, formed the basis of Washingtons course in Southeast Asia after 1945. Special attention is paid to interpretations of the role of colonial knowledge in the light of the unfolding Cold War in the third world, proposed by British diplomats and the military to their American colleagues in the logic of the special relations between Great Britain and the United States.

THE ROLE OF INTELLIGENCE SERVICES IN AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY. CASE STUDY: THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN (1979-1989)

2021 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-144
Author(s):  
Daniel-Mihai DUȚU
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Intelligence Services ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Soviet Invasion

This paper aims to present the role of intelligence services in the American foreign policy using as a case study the Afghan conflict from 1979-1989. Thus, this paper underlines the actions (or inactions) of the American intelligence services, highlighting their limitations from this period. It is important to describe the context that contributed to the start of the soviet invasion in Afghanistan and the two perspectives (American and Soviet) over the conflict. In this regard, we considered necessary an analysis on the Soviet point of view regarding the conflict and, most importantly, concerning the American involvement, having in mind the purpose of objectiveness while presenting the context and events. Using the relevant documents, testimonies and statements of former CIA officials from that period, the paper underlines the way foreign policy decisions were taken by the Administrations from Washington, during the Soviet-Afghan war, and how American intelligence services influenced the foreign policy decision-making process and the evolution of the conflict.

Representing All Women

2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Angevine
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Policy Domain ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
The Impact

Is sisterhood global? This study investigates if women in Congress are representing women worldwide by extending their surrogate representation of American women to women in foreign countries. Congressional research shows that race affects surrogate representation across borders via transnationalism. I test whether this also applies to gender when no shared “mother country” unites women, there are divisions over how to represent women, and American foreign policy is considered a stereotypically masculine policy domain. With an original dataset of three Congresses (2005–2010), I test if female House Representatives are more likely to introduce foreign policy legislation that targets foreign women and girls by applying regression analysis. Controlling for likely individual, electoral, and institutional incentives, I find that gender matters and that women in Congress are more likely to introduce legislation on behalf of women worldwide, acting as global surrogates. These findings offer new insights into the boundaries of surrogate representation, congressional foreign policy decision making, the influence of gender on international relations, and the impact of women in Congress.

“Bureaucratic Bargaining”: An American Foreign Policy Simulation

1988 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi H. Hobbs ◽  
Dario V. Moreno
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Complex Structure ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Beginning Students

The complexities of the governmental machinery and personal perceptions involved in the formulation of American foreign policy are difficult for students to comprehend from the confines of the classroom. Beginning students often enter the study of international relations/political science with a simplistic view of policy making. They tend to accept a priori what Graham Allison (1971) calls the “rational actor model” in which students “package the activities of various officials of a national government as action chosen by a unified actor, strongly analogous to an individual human being.” Students often believe that foreign policy is set by a cohesive group of individuals who share common goals and preferences. The additional tendency to anthropomorphize the state leads undergraduates to write papers in which nation-states are portrayed with such diverse human qualities as sympathy, cruelty, greed, and aggression.Modern scholarship on decision making has expanded beyond this traditional view to encompass differing variables. There is an ongoing debate in the discipline as to what is the most potent variable in American foreign policy. One group of scholars contends that the bureaucratic or role variable is more important. While agreeing that role is a powerful restriction, particularly at the lower levels of the bureaucracy, other scholars argue that the individual perceptions and beliefs of policy makers are more important in the decision-making process.Given the complicated nature of this debate, a creative way to expose beginning students to American foreign policy decision making is through a simulation. Simulations are useful for the study of the decision-making process because the standard lecture-discussion format, which provides a linear overview of the subject, does not adequately communicate the complex structure and multiplicity of factors in operation.

Covert Intervention as a Moral Problem

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 45-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles R. Beitz
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
International Community ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Moral Problem ◽  
Crucial Issue ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
Executive Authority ◽  
Critical Morality

Today's international community may well view covert action and democracy as mutually exclusive policies. This article examines the practice of covert action in American foreign policy in light of events of the mid-1970s and 1980s, focusing on the scandalous misuse of executive authority and lack of accountability associated with covert means. Often manipulative and sometimes anonymous, covert operations raise critical morality concerns in a democratic society. Whether “any form of accountability is likely to be sufficient to bring the unauthorized use of executive power under control” is the crucial issue to be addressed when examining the practicality of covert actions by the executive branch.

American commitments in the Third World: theory vs. practice

1987 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 667-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce W. Jentleson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Third World ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
The Third ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
The Third World

Amidst their other differences, the defeats suffered by the United States in Vietnam, Iran, and Lebanon have a common explanation. In all three cases American strategy was based on “global commitments theory.” Interests were to be defended and global credibility strengthened by the making, maintaining, reinforcing, and sustaining of American commitments to Third World allies. However, the core assumptions on which the logic of global commitments theory rests are plagued with inherent fallacies. These fallacies can be identified analytically as patterns of dysfunction along four dimensions of foreign policy: decision-making, diplomacy, military strategy, and domestic politics. They also can be shown empirically to have recurred across the Vietnam, Iran, and Lebanon cases. The central theoretical conclusion questions the fundamental validity of global commitments theory as it applies to the exercise of power and influence in the Third World. Important prescriptive implications for future American foreign policy are also discussed.

scholarly journals American foreign policy at the end of the XIX - early XX centuries and Social Darwinist ideology

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 173-178
Author(s):  
Pavel Nicolaevich Mukhataev
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Darwinism ◽  
Secondary Importance ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Society ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Intellectual Elites

This paper presents a historiographical review of American foreign policy, as well as analysis of the causes of the emergence of American expansionist paradigm in the late XIX - early XX centuries. Soviet historians give us an idea about the economic aspect of events in the U.S. during the specified period. However, foreign scientists have multidimensional view on the events. A. Schlesinger as one of the most popular authors insisted on the secondary importance of economic reasons for an active foreign policy of the United States, indicating that political reasons were of paramount importance. Social Darwinism, as a phenomenon that could shape foreign policy is considered by historians indirectly. In the Russian-Soviet historiography Social Darwinism is denoted as a factor that influences policy indirectly. American historiography considers the subject of our study more wholly, but in the context of the analysis of the liberal ideology. The author points to the role of ideological reasons for the American administrations foreign policy decision-making. The paper is an attempt to find out whether there was a connection between foreign policy and the Social-Darwinist discourse, which can be traced in political, economic and intellectual elites of American society at the turn of the century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document