Cuban Missile Crisis: Conceptual Models

• The Cuban missile crisis is a key historical event.
• For thirteen days in October 1962, the world faced an unprecedented risk of sudden and widespread loss of life.
• A disaster could have caused 100 million American deaths, over 100 million Russian fatalities, and millions of European casualties, dwarfing previous calamities.
• Improved crisis understanding requires more information and evidence analysis.
• The missile crisis serves as a basis for broader analysis, focusing on analysts' assumptions.

Conceptual Models

• Analysts' implicit conceptual models significantly impact the content of their thinking on foreign and military policy.
• Foreign policy analysis lacks systematic rigor, but similarities emerge across explanations by different analysts.
• Predictability in explanations suggests underlying assumptions about puzzles, relevant categories, evidence types, and occurrence determinants.
• Assumption clusters form conceptual models used as frames of reference.
• Analysts engage in description, explanation, prediction, evaluation, and recommendation when dealing with foreign affairs issues.
• The study primarily focuses on explanation and prediction.

Answering Questions

• Analysts ask and answer key questions, including "What happened?", "Why did the event happen?", and "What will happen?".
• Conceptual models shape explanation and prediction by focusing on relevant determinants, summarizing determinants' impact on the event.
• Conceptual models define the scope of analysis and guide the selection of relevant information.

Rational Policy Model

• National governments' behavior is often explained and predicted using variations of the Rational Policy Model (Model I).
• Analysts understand events as acts of unified national governments with specific purposes.
• Explanation shows how a nation or government could have rationally chosen an action given its strategic problem.
• In addressing the Soviet missile installation in Cuba, analysts show how it aligned with Soviet strategic objectives.
• Alternative conceptual models, the Organizational Process Model (Model II) and the Bureaucratic Politics Model (Model III), are important for better explanation and prediction.
• Model I suggests that major events have large causes, with monoliths performing significant actions for big reasons.
• Black boxes hide gears, levers of decision-making, and large acts result from smaller actions.
• Organization theory developments form the second model's foundation.
• Organizational Process Model views actions as organizational outputs following patterns of behavior.
• In the Cuban missile context, analysts using Model II identify relevant organizations and organizational action patterns to interpret the event.
• The Bureaucratic Politics Model views occurrences as outcomes of bargaining games, not choices or outputs.
• Model III analysts focus on perceptions, motivations, positions, power, and principal players' actions.
• The three models explain actions of national governments, focusing on outcomes not states of affairs.

Models

• A central metaphor highlights the differences among the Models
• Model I assumes, like observing chess on a screen, that the chess player (nation state) is moving with a goal of winning the game.
• However, Model II recognizes the moves in terms of semi-independent organizations, moving pieces with standard operations and routines.
• According to Model III, chess moves are the resultant of bargaining, with different power structures in the game. For example sacrificing a knight piece to gain an advantage for another piece

Rational Policy Model - Illustrated

• The New York Times highlights a paradox by questioning the reasons surrounding a Soviet anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system with the policy of increasing easing tensions.
• This raises questions about the Soviet government rationally choosing to work against their increasing de-ente policy.
• Arnold Horelick and Myron Rush concluded the missiles were motivated by the Soviet leader's desire to overcome the existing U.S. strategic superiority.
• Their explanation uses aspects of the event testing against potential Soviet objectives. For example, that the sizes of the deployment are explained with Cuban defense.
• Hans Morgenthau accounted for the first World War had its origins from the fears of a disturbance of the European Power.

More on Rational Policy Model

• Stanley Hoffmann's essay, "Restraints and Choices in American Foreign Policy" concentrates what creates restraints, limits, and blinders in one's foreign choice.
• Thomas Schelling's "Strategy of Conflict" talks about the deterrence in the world. Thomas supports, the probability in the contention from two calculations.
• Strategic theory assumes a model where, conscious calculation of advantages, that in-turn is on a explicit and internally, and consistent value system..
• The explanation is to show how the government rationally chosen that certain model

Rational Poicy Paradigm

• Basic analysis is a national choice when affairs are addressed in terms of government
• Organizing concepts include the nation as a rational, unitary, and decision maker as a whole.
• Actors have one set of goals, one set of perceived options, and a estimate of the consequences that will come from each alternative.
• Action is based on the strategic market, like threats, and opportunities to move the nation to act
• Selection is static and steady-state: alternative outcomes with a reliance on "Value Maximizing Action"
• Goal Objectives: National Security - to see a range of further goals.
• Options- To see courses of the alternative relevant to a problem to find a series of consequences.
• Choice: To be rational and maximize valuer by seeing which consequences rank best.

Model II: Organizational Process

• For some instance- behavioral is summarize as action with a value maximizing action, and centrally controlled.
• Must concede government as a conglomerate of an organization and see what each contribute- government leaders sit on top
• Government perceive through organization, define alternatives, and sees is actions enacted through routines. Borrowed from the study of "organizations", but see the tendencies each have with modifiers The unit of analysis is policy and the output of that policy

Model II cont.

• The happening of international politics happens output of the output
• In terms of organization - China firing to UN, and see how actions move into the Korean war
• Organization put structure with smaller face
• The actor Is not one organization, and component works- action from existing routines

Organizing concepts continue

• Surveillance requires the problems to be cut into part between the multiple organization
• Action's activity has goals, and the performance of actions is standard procedure- must have a set of organized codes, can be a set program.
• There must have be certainty avoidance when the environment cannot be negotiated.
• When things can run in the set- course, find alternatives, and the routines

organizational

• The parameters must mostly exist- but in change- organization search, and routines come
• Intervention of what happen can be change something to be more clear.
• The patterns set things very clear: it comes with set ways- to be more in-tune with something better..

Limited Flexibility and Incremental change

• Actions from detail must pre-dominate from leaders of those of action: organization.
• There are routine that allow standard number of induvial to action with more of time
• Incremental budget changes- and where leaders may pick a choice, that's not how it actually goes.

Model III: Bureaucratic Politics

• The leader sit on top those who occupy a position, and those to participate- where the government and it action is all about bargain in those times.
• Apparation with game- politic who are in that time, can be shared.
• problems all over there- must not be this or the set issue, and they had to see it as big problem.
  • To the people at to- it was not as straight forward that happen.

Power Sharing

• power sharing was at play for most cases, with what happens determined most things what comes to be. This concludes Model 3