For a week from Monday, Edwards, ch. 10.
Questions on the paper?
The cabinet
- Different from cabinets in parliamentary systems?
- Criteria for selection? (More after break)
FLOTUS
- HRC
- Michelle Obama
- Melania
- Dr. Jill Biden
VEEP
- Nixon and Agnew as attack dogs
- Mondale and Biden as liaisons to official Washington
- Cheney as prime minister (start at 25:00).
DECISIONS
Stereotypical Rational Decision
What is the problem in the first place?
Cognitive and epistemological issues
Before the Iraq War, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said:
Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.
Intelligence on intentions and capabilities. Beware of
- Errors and incomplete information
- Disinformation
- Groupthink (299-300)
- Faulty assumptions: Pearl Harbor
- Faulty analogies (Munich) and figures of speech (domino theory)
- Viewing adversaries as mirror images (LBJ and a TVA on the Mekong) or totally inhuman.
Decisions are seldom purely rational
Organizational Processes and SOPs:
- Getting with the team (Iraq intelligence)
- Rationalizing what the government has already done.
- In the case of the run-up to war, allies and assets take huge risks that will blow up on them if the war does not happen.
Personal politics
- Knowledge and experience of decisionmakers. Analyze background and history
- Who has infuence with whom?
- What was Netanyahu's stake?
- Why did he have influence with DJT?
- Why did his government have influence with the US intel community?
- How did complexity and uncertainty complicate scenario planning?
- What was the "intelligence coup" that triggered the attack?
As you read this article, ask yourself: how does the material in chapter 9 cast light on the president's decision to attack? What assumptions guided that decision?
How does this comment apply to the current situation in Iran?
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