Foreign Policy and National Security

As we approach the end of the course, think back on two familiar quotations:

• “Frequent war and constant apprehension, which require a state of as constant preparation, will infallibly produce [standing armies]. It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.” -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 8.
• "If the Union’s existence were constantly menaced, and if its great interests were continually interwoven with those of other powerful nations, one would see the prestige of the executive growing, because of what was expected from it and of what it did."-- Tocqueville, Democracy in America

JFK taped meetings on the Cuban Missile Crisis. On October 18, he and his advisers discussed the real possibility of nuclear war. (Text of this clip starts here at the bottom of p. 538). In October 1962, JFK discussed the Cuban Missile Crisis on national TV. As you reflect on JFK's decisionmaking, think about Peter Drucker's dictum: “The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision without disagreement.”

A couple of years later, LBJ dealt with the Gulf of Tonkin.

Bad intelligence contributed to the US reaction in the Gulf of Tonkin. It also led to other problems in future decades. One "remedy" has been the reorganization of the intelligence community.