The first edition of Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy is one of the most successful Brookings titles of all time. This thoroughly revised version updates that classic analysis of the role played by the federal bureaucracy --civilian career officials, political appointees, and military officers --and Congress in formulating U.S. national security policy, illustrating how policy decisions are actually made. Government agencies, departments, and individuals all have certain interests to preserve and promote. Those priorities, and the conflicts they sometimes spark, heavily influence the formulation and implementation of foreign policy. A decision that looks like an orchestrated attempt to influence another country may in fact represent a shaky compromise between rival elements within the U.S. government. The authors provide numerous examples of bureaucratic maneuvering and reveal how they have influenced our international relations. The revised edition includes new examples of bureaucratic politics from the past three decades, from Jimmy Carter's view of the State Department to conflicts between George W. Bush and the bureaucracy regarding Iraq. The second edition also includes a new analysis of Congress's role in the politics of foreign policymaking.

The Air Force plans for peace, 1943-1945

Bureaucratic politics and foreign policy

Strategy is the essential ingredient for making war either politically effective or morally tenable It is the link between military means and political ends, the scheme for how to make one produce the other Without strategy, there is no rationale for how force will achieve purposes worth the price in blood and treasure Without strategy, power is a loose cannon and war is mindless Mindless killing can only be criminal Politicians and soldiers may debate which strategic choice is best, but only paciasts can doubt that strategy is necessary Because strategy is necessary, however, does not mean that it is possible Those who experience or study many wars and strong reasons to doubt that strategists can know enough about causes, effects, and intervening variables to make the operations planned produce the outcomes desired To skeptics, effective strategy is often an illusion because what happens in the gap between policy objectives and war outcomes is too complex and unpredictable to be manipulated to a speciaed end When this is true, war cannot be a legitimate instrument of policy This article surveys ten critiques that throw the practicability of strategy into question It pulls together many arguments that emerge in bits and pieces from a variety of sources Some are my own formulation of skepticism implicit but unformed in others’ observations; few analysts have yet attacked the general viability of strategy head-on The notion that effective strategy must be an illusion emerges cumulatively from arguments that: strategies cannot be evaluated because there are no agreed criteria for which are good or bad; there is little demonstrable relationship between strategies and outcomes in war; good strategies can seldom be formulated because of policymakers’ biases; if good strategies are formulated, they cannot be executed because of organizations’ limitations; and other points explored below Unifying themes include the bar-

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Is Strategy an Illusion

Political science attends to causes and consequences of war but only fitfully welcomes study of its conduct, because few grasp how much the dynamics of combat shape politics. Bernard Brodie called for development of strategic studies on the model of the discipline of economics, because neither the military nor academia treated the subject rigorously. His call was answered in the early cold war, with mixed results. Theories about nuclear deterrence burgeoned while empirical studies of war lagged. The late—cold war impasse in nuclear strategy, rooted in NATO doctrine, shifted attention to conventional military operations and empirically grounded theory. Since the cold war, research on general theoretical questions about war and peace has been prospering, but education in military matters has been eroding. Interdisciplinary strategic studies integrate political and military elements of international conflict, but there is no recognized discipline of military science; military analysis is smuggled into political science and history departments, where it is resisted by calls to conceptualize security broadly or focus on purely theoretical work. If serious military studies are squeezed out of universities, there will be no qualified civilian analysts to provide independent expertise in policy and budget debates, and decisions on war and peace will be made irresponsibly by uninformed civilians or by the professional military alone.

Should Strategic Studies Survive

Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy.

State-centered theories stress the potential for states to be proactive as well as reactive. But the analytic tools developed in this literature have not been employed to examine the most impressive episode of state building in the postwar United States-the rise of the Pentagon. This article examines the bureaucratic resources at the disposal of the Pentagon and concludes that high-ranking military officers have operated as "relatively autonomous bureaucrats." Case studies of the aeronautics and microelectronics industries provide evidence that the Pentagon has implemented a de facto industrial policy in the name of national defense. The substantive conclusion-that the autarkic Pentagon has implemented a massive industrial policy-contradicts the view that the hegemonic U.S. state is strong in the international arena but too weak and fragmented to plan the domestic political economy.

The Air Force plans for peace, 1943-1945

Citations

Bureaucratic politics and foreign policy

Is Strategy an Illusion

Should Strategic Studies Survive

Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy.

The Rise of the Pentagon and U.S. State Building: The Defense Program as Industrial Policy

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