US Decision Makers’ Perceptions of Soviet Intentions

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keren Yarhi-Milo
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
National Security ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the indicators used by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and two key decision makers in his administration, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, to assess the intentions of the Soviet Union during the period 1977–1980. Using evidence from U.S. archives and interviews with former U.S. decision makers, it compares the predictions of the selective attention thesis, capabilities thesis, strategic military doctrine thesis, and behavior thesis. After discussing the U.S. decision makers’ stated beliefs about Soviet intentions, the chapter considers the reasoning they employed to justify their intentions assessments. It then describes the policies that individual decision makers advocated and those that the administration collectively adopted. It also explores whether decision makers advocated policies that were congruent with their stated beliefs about intentions and evaluate sthe impact of beliefs about intentions on U.S. foreign policy at the time.

US Decision Makers’ Perceptions of Soviet Intentions

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keren Yarhi-Milo
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
National Security ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the indicators used by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and two key decision makers in his administration, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, to assess the intentions of the Soviet Union during the period 1977–1980. Using evidence from U.S. archives and interviews with former U.S. decision makers, it compares the predictions of the selective attention thesis, capabilities thesis, strategic military doctrine thesis, and behavior thesis. After discussing the U.S. decision makers' stated beliefs about Soviet intentions, the chapter considers the reasoning they employed to justify their intentions assessments. It then describes the policies that individual decision makers advocated and those that the administration collectively adopted. It also explores whether decision makers advocated policies that were congruent with their stated beliefs about intentions and evaluate sthe impact of beliefs about intentions on U.S. foreign policy at the time.

The Carter Era and the Collapse of Détente, 1977–80

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keren Yarhi-Milo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
The United States ◽  
Carter Administration ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The U.S

This chapter discusses the relevant predictions of the alternative theses about how states should assess intentions by analyzing the case of the Carter administration during the period 1977–1980. Jimmy Carter began his time as president of the United States with great optimism about the USSR and was committed to improving the U.S.–Soviet relations. By the end of his tenure, however, Carter’s perceptions of the Soviet Union had changed and his policies emphasized competition over cooperation. The détente had collapsed. The chapter examines the Carter administration’s assessment of Soviet intentions, and more specifically the dramatic changes in U.S. perceptions of the Soviet Union, using the selective attention thesis, capabilities thesis, strategic military doctrine thesis, and behavior thesis. It considers whether key decision makers in the Carter administration engaged in intentions assessment attend to different indicators than the U.S. intelligence organizations.

The US Intelligence Community’s Assessments of Soviet Intentions

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keren Yarhi-Milo
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Military Doctrine ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the indicators used by U.S. intelligence organizations to assess the intentions of the Soviet Union. Drawing on National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) produced on the Soviet Union between 1977 and 1980, the chapter considers the degree to which history confirms the predictions of the selective attention thesis's organizational expertise hypothesis. It also tests the capabilities, strategic military doctrine, and behavior theses. After providing a brief overview of the U.S. intelligence community's estimates of Soviet intentions earlier in the 1970s, the chapter discusses the intelligence organizations' views about Soviet intentions during Jimmy Carter's presidency. It shows that an effort to understand the adversary's political intentions did not play a significant role in the U.S. intelligence community's intentions assessments, and particularly in the NIEs' judgments of the threat posed by the USSR. Instead, most of the NIEs were dedicated to estimating current and projected Soviet strategic forces as well as military intentions.

The US Intelligence Community’s Assessments of Soviet Intentions

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keren Yarhi-Milo
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Military Doctrine ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the indicators used by U.S. intelligence organizations to assess the intentions of the Soviet Union. Drawing on National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) produced on the Soviet Union between 1977 and 1980, the chapter considers the degree to which history confirms the predictions of the selective attention thesis’s organizational expertise hypothesis. It also tests the capabilities, strategic military doctrine, and behavior theses. After providing a brief overview of the U.S. intelligence community’s estimates of Soviet intentions earlier in the 1970s, the chapter discusses the intelligence organizations’ views about Soviet intentions during Jimmy Carter’s presidency. It shows that an effort to understand the adversary’s political intentions did not play a significant role in the U.S. intelligence community’s intentions assessments, and particularly in the NIEs’ judgments of the threat posed by the USSR. Instead, most of the NIEs were dedicated to estimating current and projected Soviet strategic forces as well as military intentions.

The Soviet Union and the Renner Government of Austria, April–November 1945

1987 ◽  
Vol 20 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 246-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Piotrowski
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Joseph Stalin ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
Red Army

When the Red Army moved through Eastern Europe in 1945, it faced the problem of creating what the men in the Kremlin called “friendly” governments. In several countries, Joseph Stalin in short order resolved the dilemma by putting into power Communists who had arrived in the van of his army. In the Western mind, Stalin represented a force inexorably driven by a logic inherent in all totalitarian systems. Stalin became the reincarnation of Hitler, a dictator who sought to impose his system on all territories under his sway—and whose appetite could not be sated. Such a view left little ambiguity in interpreting Stalin's foreign policy. It offered no room for an assessment that Soviet foreign policy was driven by a mix of motives, not only by aggression steeped in Communist ideology, but also by considerations of national security, opportunism, and compromise.

Competing Images of the Soviet Union

1987 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 579-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry R. Posen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
Political Will ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Control Community

Two American debates on foreign policy and national security. The Reagan administration and those who share its ideology see today's Soviet Union as not much different from yesterday's, and yesterday's Soviet Union as not much different from Nazi Germany. Like its progenitors in the 1930s, the modern Soviet Union is a “totalitarian” state, and therefore by nature expansionist, armed to the teeth, disposed to violence, fond of diplomatic tests of political will, and—as a consequence of all these factors —hard to deter and harder to beat. A different view prevails among most of the arms control community, the NATO allies, and some American academics. In its foreign policy, the Soviet Union is seen as a fairly typical great power whose behavior in international politics can be explained by the mixture of fear, greed, and stupidity that has characterized most great powers in the past as they have tried to secure their borders and pursue their interests in a world without law. It does not like to take great risks, it fears war, and it is, at worst, opportunistically expansionist. In sharp contrast to Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union is more conservative than reckless; if anything, nuclear weapons have reinforced this conservatism.

10. The U.S. Navy in the Twenty-First Century

2018 ◽  
pp. 110-122
Author(s):  
Craig L. Symonds
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Hot Spots ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The U.S

The dissolution of the Soviet Union did not erase the need for a global U.S. Navy, as events in the Middle East and elsewhere provoked serial crises that led to the dispatch of U.S. naval combat groups to various hot spots around the world. ‘The U.S. Navy in the twenty-first century’ explains how the U.S. Navy continues to fulfill many of its historic missions—suppressing pirates, protecting trade, and pursuing drug runners. It is also a potent instrument of American foreign policy and a barometer of American concern. In addition to its deterrent and peacekeeping roles, the U.S. Navy also acts as a first responder to natural or man-made disasters that call for humane intervention.

Introduction

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keren Yarhi-Milo
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
World War ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
And Behavior

This book explores the question of how policy makers gauge their adversaries’ intentions and the implications of such intentions assessment for international relations and world affairs. It advances a framework called the selective attention thesis and compares it to three well-known explanations of perceived intentions: the capabilities thesis, strategic military doctrine thesis, and behavior thesis. All four theses are tested using three cases: British assessments of Nazi Germany’s intentions in the period leading to World War II; U.S. assessments of Soviet intentions under the administration of Jimmy Carter; and U.S. assessments of Soviet intentions in the years leading to the end of the Cold War during the second administration of Ronald Reagan. Drawing on these historical episodes, the book considers which indicators are used or ignored by decision makers and intelligence organizations when making intentions assessments.

When Empathy Failed: Using Critical Oral History to Reassess the Collapse of U.S.-Soviet Détente in the Carter-Brezhnev Years

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G. Blight ◽  
janet Lang
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Invasion ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The U.S

Drawing on “critical oral history” conferences held after the demise of the Soviet Union, this article seeks to explain why the détente in U.S.-Soviet relations collapsed at the end of the 1970s. Both the U.S. president, Jimmy Carter, and the Soviet Communist Party leader, Leonid Brezhnev, had sought to improve bilateral ties, but instead they found that the relationship deteriorated and then broke down altogether after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The article suggests that neither side had a sufficient appreciation of how the other side perceived the relationship. The authors argue that the critical oral history helped officials on both sides to develop a sense of empathy for how the other side viewed its own interests and objectives. Empathy does not imply any sympathy; instead, it merely entails an effort to understand the other side's perceptions and goals. Presenting excerpts from an oral history conference, the authors argue that greater empathy in the policymaking process might have helped to avoid an outcome that neither side desired.

Chinese Foreign Policy in 1970: The Tilt Towards the Soviet Union

1980 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 214-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Garver
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Foreign Policy ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Table Tennis ◽  
Warsaw Pact ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Invasion ◽  
The U.S

It has become conventional wisdom that the U.S.–Chinarapprochementwas a result (from the Chinese side) of Beijing's fear of the Soviet Union. Specifically, the Warsaw Pact occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 and the border confrontation which developed rapidly in the months after the clashes at Zhen Bao island on the Ussuri River in March 1969, are seen as exacerbating Chinese fears of Soviet attack.1 These fears had emerged during the Cultural Revolution when Moscow began insinuating that it might intervene in China in support of the anti-Maoist, “healthy forces.” 2 It was in hopes of deterring possible Soviet invasion, surgical strike, or intervention – so the argument runs – that Beijing wanted to improve relations with Washington. By establishing more cordial relations between Beijing and Washington, the risks which Moscow would assume in making a decision to attack China would be increased. Soviet-American détente would, conceivably, be endangered. The possibility of a Soviet-American confrontation arising out of such a Soviet attack on China could not be ruled out. This added increment of uncertainty about the U.S. response to a Soviet attack on China would be useful in preventing such an attack. Thus, it is concluded, in November 1968 Beijing moved to reopen the talks with the U.S. at Warsaw as a first step towards substantially improving Sino-American relations. Two years after the clashes at Zhen Bao the U.S. table tennis team arrived in Beijing in April 1971. A snowballing series of events rapidly unfolded, culminating in the 15 July 1971 announcement of Henry Kissinger's visit to China and President Nixon's impending visit

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