Levels of Analysis and Foreign Policy PDF

rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/12/07 12:50 Page 64 C H A P T E R 3 INDIVIDUAL-LEVEL ANALYSIS Levels of Analysis Humans as a Species...

rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/12/07 12:50 Page 64 C H A P T E R 3 INDIVIDUAL-LEVEL ANALYSIS Levels of Analysis Humans as a Species Cognitive Factors Emotional Factors and Foreign Policy Psychological Factors Biological Factors Perceptions Organizational Behavior Role Behavior Search, seek, find out; I’ll warrant we’ll unkennel the fox. Decision-Making Behavior within —William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor Organizations Leaders and Their Individual Traits Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns? Personality —William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part 3 Physical and Mental Health Ego and Ambition Political History and Personal Experiences Perceptions and Operational Reality Policy as a Mix of Rational and Irrational Factors STATE-LEVEL ANALYSIS Making Foreign Policy: Type of Government, Situation, and Policy Type of Government and the Foreign Policy Process Type of Situation and the Foreign Policy Process Type of Policy and the Foreign Policy Process Making Foreign Policy: Political Culture Foreign Policy–Making Actors Heads of Government and Other Political Executives Bureaucracies Legislatures Interest Groups The People Women are playing a greater role in the politics of their countries and the SYSTEM-LEVEL ANALYSIS world. This woman is at a first anniversary celebration of the January 2006 Structural Characteristics inauguration of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as president of Liberia, the first The Organization of Authority woman to be elected to head an African country. President Sirleaf, who Scope, Level, and Intensity of Interactions holds a master of public administration degree from Harvard, has helped Power Relationships stabilize the country. Indicative of her benign appearance and firm The Number of Powerful Actors approach, she is widely called “Ma Ellen” and “the Iron Lady.” The Context of Power Economic Realities Norms CHAPTER SUMMARY rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 65 Confirming Pages Individual-Level Analysis 65 in chapter 1 and reviewed its history in H AVING INTRODUCED THE GLOBAL DRAMA chapter 2, it is time to turn our attention to what drives the action on the world stage. Much like the plot of a play, the course of world politics is the story of the motivations and calculations of the actors and how they put those into action. Be- cause states have long been and remain the most powerful actors on the world stage, our focus here will be on how they make and carry out foreign policy. Therefore, most of what occurs in world politics is a dynamic story of states taking actions and other states reacting to them, either directly or indirectly through international orga- nizations. States are certainly not the only global actors, though, and the roles and decision-making processes of individuals such as Osama bin Laden, international governmental organizations (IGOs) such as the UN, and international nongovern- mental organizations (NGOs/transnational groups) such as Greenpeace are taken up in other chapters. As the following pages will detail, the foreign policy process is very complex. Analysts untangle the intricacies by studying foreign policy making from three per- spectives termed levels of analysis. These include (1) individual-level analysis—the impact of people as individuals or as a species on policy; (2) state-level analysis—how the organization and operation of a government affect policy; and (3) system-level analysis—the external realities and pressures that influence a country’s policy. INDIVIDUAL-LEVEL ANALYSIS Individual-level analysis begins with the view that at the root it is people who make policy. Therefore, individual-level analysis involves understanding how the human decision-making process—people making decisions (as a species, in groups, and idiosyncratically)—leads to policy making. Humans as a Species The central question is this: How do basic human traits influence policy? To an- swer that, a first step is understanding that humans seldom if ever make a purely rational decision. For example, think about how you decided which college to at- tend. Surely you did not just flip a coin. But neither did you make a fully rational decision by considering all colleges worldwide and analyzing each according to cost, location, social atmosphere, class size, faculty qualifications, program re- quirements, job placement record, and other core considerations. Furthermore, and making your choice even less rational, it was almost certainly influenced by a range of emotions, such as how far away from home the school was and whether you wanted to be near, or perhaps far away from, your family, friends, or romantic partner. To make things even less rational, you probably had to make a decision without knowing some key factors of your college experience, such as who your dorm roommate would be. It may be comforting to imagine that foreign policy decision making is fully ra- tional, but the truth is that in many ways it does not differ greatly from your process in deciding which college to attend and many of the other important choices you make in life. They, like foreign policy decisions, are influenced by cognitive, emo- tional, psychological, and sometimes even biological factors, as well as by rational calculations. rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 66 Confirming Pages 66 CHAPTER 3 Levels of Analysis and Foreign Policy Cognitive Factors What you did in choosing your college and what national leaders do when deciding foreign policy is to engage in cognitive decision making. This means making deci- sions within the constraints of “bounded rationality.” External boundaries include missing, erroneous, or unknowable information. To cite an example, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair had to decide whether to invade Iraq in March 2003 with- out knowing whether Saddam Hussein would respond with chemical or biological attacks on U.S. and British forces. Internal boundaries on rational decision making are the result of our human frailties—the limited physical stamina and intellectual capacity to study exceptionally complex issues. Whatever the “realities” were during the crisis leading up to the Iraq War in 2003, the universe of information available was far more than President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, President Saddam Hussein, or any human could absorb. Needless to say, none of us likes to think that we are not fully rational, so we are apt to adopt one of a range of mental strategies for coping with our cognitive limits. As illustrations, three such strategies are seeking cognitive consistency, wishful thinking, and using heuristic devices. Seeking Cognitive Consistency Decision makers tend to seek cognitive consistency by discounting ideas and information that contradict their existing views. The controversy about the snarl of information and misinformation about Iraq’s abilities and intentions will continue for years, but it is informative to ask why top decision makers in London and Washington were willing to accept British intelligence that Baghdad was attempting to buy uranium from Africa and to ignore the substantial doubts expressed by the CIA. One reason is that the British finding “fit” with the existing negative images of Saddam Hussein and his intentions, whereas believing information that there was no nuclear program would have created uncomfortable cognitive inconsistency. Wishful Thinking To self-justify our decisions, we humans often convince our- selves that our choice will succeed (Johnson, 2004). Given the overwhelming forces he faced, it is hard to understand why Saddam Hussein chose to fight rather than go safely into exile. The reason, according to some of his former aides, is that he believed he would survive in power. In the Iraqi dictator’s mind, his military defeat in 1991 was only a tactical retreat. This wishful thinking was evident just before the 2003 war when a reporter pointed out that the forces facing him were even more powerful than those that had routed Iraq’s army in the Persian Gulf War and asked, “Why would you think that you could prevail this time on the battlefield?” The Iraqi leader replied, “In 1991 Iraq was not defeated. In fact, our army withdrew from Kuwait according to a decision taken by us.... We withdrew our forces inside Iraq in order that we may be able to continue fighting inside our country.” Extending his Web Link wishful thinking, Saddam Hussein assured the reporter, “If war is forced upon us, then Iraq will continue to be here.... [We] will not finish just like that, even though Excerpts from captured Iraqis about Saddam Hussein and a huge power may want it to be like that.”1 Iraqi thinking before the Iraq War are included in a CIA report, Using Heuristic Devices A third way humans deal with their cognitive limitations is Comprehensive Report of the by using heuristic devices. These are mental shortcuts that help us make decisions Special Advisor to the DCI on more easily by allowing us to skip the effort of gathering considerable information Iraq’s WMD, 30 September 2004, located at https://www.cia.gov/ and analyzing it thoroughly. library/reports/general-reports-1/ Stereotypes are one type of heuristic device. For example, the willingness of iraq_wmd_2004/index.html. the U.S. Department of Justice to countenance at least the limited torture of Muslim rou03881_ch03.qxd 10/24/07 10:15 AM Page 67 Confirming Pages Individual-Level Analysis 67 Wishful thinking is common in human decision making. Saddam Hussein seemed to believe that he would politically survive a war with the United States in 2003 just as he had in 1991. This may have increased his willingness to risk war. Wishful thinking cannot change reality. Saddam appears to have realized this by the time this photograph was taken of him during his trial for war crimes against his own people in the 1980s. Seven months after this photo was taken, Saddam was hanged by the Iraqi government for his crimes. prisoners suspected of terrorism was arguably voiced in Attorney General John Ashcroft’s stereotypic comment that “Islam is a religion in which God requires you to www send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends His son to die for you.”2 SIMULATION Analogies are another heuristic shortcut (Dyson & Preston, 2006; Breuning, Heuristic Devices 2003). We make comparisons between new situations or people and situations or people that we have earlier experienced or otherwise have learned about. One such mental connection that frequently figures in policy debates is the Munich analogy. This refers to the decision of France and Great Britain to appease Nazi Germany in 1938 when it threatened Czechoslovakia. World War II signified the failure of ap- peasement, and the “lesson” later leaders drew was that compromise with dictators only encourages them. The Munich analogy was clearly in the mind of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld when he urged action against Iraq despite the lack of definitive evidence of Iraqi WMDs, by arguing, “Think of the prelude to World War II... [and] all the countries that said, ‘Well, we don’t have enough evidence.’... There were mil- lions of people dead because of the miscalculations.”3 As the postwar attempt to democratize and stabilize Iraq went from bad to worse, opponents of the war used another analogy, Vietnam. When, for example, President Bush announced in early 2007 that he would “surge” 21,000 extra troops into Iraq, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) warned, “The Department of Defense kept assuring us that each new escala- tion in Vietnam would be the last. Instead, each one led only to the next.”4 Figure 3.1 on page 68 shows how broadly the Vietnam analogy to Iraq resonated with Americans (Schuman & Corning, 2006). Emotional Factors Although it is comforting to imagine that decision makers are coolly rational, the reality is that they get depressed, sad, angry, and experience all the other human emo- tions. For example, President Jimmy Carter was irate when Iranian students study- ing in U.S. colleges picketed the White House in 1980 during the hostage crisis with Iran over its seizure of the U.S. embassy and its staff in Tehran. An incensed rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 68 Confirming Pages 68 CHAPTER 3 Levels of Analysis and Foreign Policy FIGURE 3.1 Iraq and Carter growled that he would like to “go out on the the Vietnam Analogy streets myself and take a swing at... those bastards” (Vandenbroucke, 1991:364). Carter could not go Unsure out on Pennsylvania Avenue and beat up protesters, The views of 5% Americans but his anger and desperation to do something arguably led to his ill-advised and ill-fated attempt to rescue the hostages. Similarly, President Bush was outraged by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “We’re going Vietnam Vietnam to find out who did this,” he told Vice President and Iraq not and Iraq analogous analogous Cheney, “and we’re going to kick their asses.”5 37% 58% Psychological Factors Humans share a number of common psychological traits that also help explain why their feelings and By 2006, most Americans saw the U.S. presence in Iraq as analogous decisions are usually less than fully rational. One to the U.S. entanglement in Vietnam (1964–1973). This analogy such approach is frustration-aggression theory, persuaded some people to advocate a quick U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. which argues that individuals and even societies that In other cases, the analogy strengthened the convictions of people are frustrated sometimes become aggressive. already opposed to the U.S. military presence in Iraq. “Why do they hate us?” President Bush rhetori- Note: The question was: “Do you think the war in Iraq has turned into a situation like cally asked Congress soon after the 9/11 attacks.6 the United States faced in the Vietnam War, or don’t you think so?” “They hate our freedoms,” was the answer the pres- Data source: CNN Poll, November, 2006; data provided by The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut. ident supplied to his own question. Perhaps, but others put the source of rage in a very different light. Based on polling in nine Muslim countries, one analyst suggests that rather than a hatred for freedom, the reason for the widespread negative opinions among Muslims is that, “The people of Islamic countries have significant grievance with the West and the United States in particular” based on their view that the United States is “ruth- less, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked, [and biased against Mus- lims].”7 It is not necessary to agree with Muslims, especially Arabs, to understand their sense of frustration over the lack of a Palestinian homeland, the underdevelop- ment that characterizes most of the Muslim countries, or the sense of being domi- nated and sometimes subjugated by the Christian-led West (Zunes, 2005). Nor does one have to agree that Muslims’ anger justifies the violence that has sometimes occurred to pay heed to the old maxim that an “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Preventing terrorism surely includes building defenses and bringing terror- ists to justice. Those are half-measures, though, and they will be much enhanced by addressing the root causes of terrorism rather than by simply waging war on the terrorists themselves. Biological Factors Although they are highly controversial, various biological theories provide yet an- other way to explain why human decisions fall short of being fully rational. One of the most important issues in human behavior is the degree to which human actions are based on animal instinct and other innate emotional and physical drives or based on socialization and intellect. With specific regard to politics, biopolitics examines the relationship between the physical nature and political behavior of humans. Biopolitics can be illustrated by examining two approaches: ethology and gender. Ethology The comparison of animal and human behavior is called ethology. Konrad Lorenz (On Aggression, 1969), Desmond Morris (The Naked Ape, 1967), Robert Ardrey (The Territorial Imperative, 1961), and some other ethologists argue that like rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 69 Confirming Pages Individual-Level Analysis 69 animals, humans behave in a way that is based partly on innate characteristics. Web Link Ardrey (pp. 12–14), for example, has written that “territoriality—the drive to gain, To learn more about the parallels maintain, and defend the exclusive right to a piece of property—is an animal between the behavior of instinct” and that “if man is a part of the natural world, then he possesses as do all primates and humans, click other species a genetic... territorial drive as one ancient animal foundation for that the “Chimpanzee Central” link on the home page of the human conduct known as war.” Jane Goodall Institute at It is clear that territorial disputes between neighboring countries are a common www.janegoodall.org/. cause of war. As one study puts it, “empirical analyses consistently show that territor- ial issues... are more likely to escalate to war than would be expected by chance” (Vasquez & Henehan, 2001:123). To an outsider, some of these territorial clashes may seem rational, but others defy rational explanation. One inexplicable war was the 1998–2000 conflict between two desperately poor countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, over tiny bits of territory along their border. The land was described in one press report as “a dusty terrain of termite mounds, goatherds, and bushes just tall enough for a camel to graze upon comfortably.” It was, said one observer, “like two bald men fighting over a comb.”8 Even the leaders of the two countries could not explain why war was waged. “It’s very difficult to easily find an answer,” Eritrea’s president admitted. “I was sur- prised, shocked, and puzzled,” added Ethiopia’s perplexed prime minister.9 Gender A second biopolitical factor is the possibility that some differences in polit- ical behavior are related to gender. An adviser to President Lyndon Johnson has re- called that once when reporters asked him why the United States was waging war in Vietnam, the president “unzipped his fly, drew out his substantial organ, and de- clared, ‘That is why.’”10 Such earthy explanations by male leaders are far from rare in private, and they lead some scholars to wonder whether they represent a gender- based approach to politics or are merely gauche. Political scientists are just beginning to examine whether gender makes a differ- ence in political attitudes and actions. It is clear that a gender opinion gap exists be- tween men and women on a range of issues. War and other forms of political violence is one of those. Polls among Americans going back as far as World War II have almost always found women less ready than men to resort to war or to continue war. For ex- ample, two-thirds of American men compared to half of American women supported going to war with Iraq in 2003.11 This gender gap was again found internationally with, for instance, men in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and Italy 10% to 15% more favorable toward war than their female counterparts. Indeed, cross-national polls have generally found that the gender gap on war is worldwide, as evident in Figure 3.2. Polls about attitudes toward other forms of political violence yield simi- lar results. One survey that asked Muslims in 11 countries about suicide bombings found that 35% of the men, but only 31% of the women thought they were justified.12 Why do gender gaps exist? Are they inherently rooted in differences in male/ female biological traits, or are they produced by differences in male and female socialization? The idea of gender, as distinct from sex, is based on the belief that all or most behavioral differences between men and women are based on learned role definitions. Thus sex is biology; gender is behavior. There are some, however, who argue that biology strongly controls behavior. One recent book, Manliness, argues that aggressive behavior is closely related to sex (Mansfield, 2006: 16, 64, 85, 206). The author contends that all humans can be aggressive, can exhibit the “bristling snappishness of a dog,” but suggests that “the manly have this trait in excess.” Furthermore, manliness includes a distinct sense of territoriality, a factor that can “connect aggression to defense of whatever is one’s own.” Such behaviors are apt to become national policy because more manly people (conceivably including women) rou03881_ch03.qxd 10/24/07 10:15 AM Page 70 Confirming Pages 70 CHAPTER 3 Levels of Analysis and Foreign Policy FIGURE 3.2 War and the Gender Gap 90% 90% 86% 86% Percent of men and Men women favoring war against Iraq in 1991 Women 62% 62% 60% 53% 53% 53% 50% 49% 50% 47% 45%47% 41% 43% 41% 40% 39% 24% 14% 7% Israelis Mexicans British Americans Germans French Belgians Italians Russians Turks Nigerians Japanese This figure shows the percentages of men and women in favor of using military force to expel Iraq from Kuwait in 1991. Notice that in all but one country, Turkey, more men than women favored using force. Also notice the variations among countries. Women cannot be described as antiwar, nor can men be characterized as pro-war because both men and women in some countries favored war and opposed it in others. Note: The American response (Pew) was to a slightly different question than for all others (Wilcox, et al.) and is used here as generally representative only. Except for Americans, the poll was taken in each country’s capital city. Respondents in the Soviet Union were therefore mostly Russian. Data source: Wilcox, Hewitt, & Allsop (1996); Pew Research Center poll, January 1991. are more likely to be leaders, given that “The manly man is in control when control is difficult or contested” (Kenneally, 2006).13 This view leads to the question of whether equal representation (or perhaps dominance) of women in foreign and defense policy making would change global politics. Concurring with Mansfield that men are particularly prone to bellicosity, Francis Fukuyama (1998:33) concludes that a world led by women “would be less prone to conflict and more conciliatory and cooperative than the one we inhabit now.” Supporting this view, one recent study found that women tend to adopt more collab- orative approaches to negotiation and conflict resolution, while men pursue more conflictual ones (Florea et al., 2003). Other studies, however, have found more mixed results about the potential impact of women decision makers and contend that a future world dominated by women “would not be as rosy as Fukuyama suggests” (Caprioli, 2000:271). What do you think? Would the U.S. invasion of Iraq have occurred if Laura www Bush, not her husband, George W., had been president of the United States; if the long-time head of Iraq had been Sajida Khairallah Telfah, not her husband, Saddam JOIN THE DEBATE Hussein; and if most of the other top diplomatic and national security posts in the Do Women Speak with a United States and Iraq had been held by women, not men? Different Voice? Perceptions There is an ancient philosophical debate over whether there is an objective world or whether everything is only what we perceive it to be. Whatever the answer to that debate may be, it is clear that we all view the world through perceptual lenses that distort reality at least to some degree. All the elements of individual-level analysis that we have been discussing, and others, help shape perceptions. Whatever their rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 71 Confirming Pages Individual-Level Analysis 71 source, though, perceptions have a number of characteristics that influence global politics. To demonstrate this, we can take a look at four common characteristics of perceptions. We tend to see opponents as more threatening than they may actually be. The nu- clear programs of North Korea and Iran have alarmed many Americans. One survey found that 71% of Americans considered Iran a threat to regional stability and 77% saw North Korea in the same way. By contrast, in the other 20 countries surveyed, only 40% believed Iran to be a force for instability and just 47% perceived North Korea in that light.14 We tend to see the behavior of others as more planned and coordinated than our own. During the cold war, Americans and Soviets were mutually convinced that the other side was orchestrating a coordinated global campaign to subvert them. Perhaps more accurately, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (1979:1202) has described the two superpowers as behaving like “two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other whom he as- sumes to have perfect vision.” Each, according to Kissinger, “tends to ascribe to the other side a consistency, foresight, and coherence that its own experience belies.” We find it hard to understand why others dislike, mistrust, and fear us. President George W. Bush captured this overly positive sense of self during a press conference when he pronounced himself “amazed that there’s such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us.... Like most Americans, I just can’t believe it because I know how good we are.”15 Others are less sure of Americans’ innate goodness. One recent survey found that 60% or more of poll respondents in countries as diverse as Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey, and Russia thought that the United States posed a military threat to them.16 We and others tend to have similar images of one another. Between countries and even between leaders, it is common to find a mirror-image perception. This means that each side perceives the other in roughly similar terms. Figure 3.3 depicts this sense of mutual threat that exists between the United States and Muslim countries. FIGURE 3.3 Mirror Images of Threat Unsure Unsure 3% 7% Do not feel Feel Do not feel Feel threatened threatened Mirror threatened threatened by U.S. by U.S. image by Muslims by Muslims 36% 61% 33% 60% Muslims Americans Threat perception of U.S. in Muslim countries Threat perception of Muslim countries in U.S. Americans and citizens of Muslim countries share a mirror image of hostility toward one another. Note the almost equal percentages of Americans who see Muslims as hostile and Muslims who see Americans as hostile. Note: The question of Americans was, “Do you think the Muslim world considers itself at war with the United States?” The question in Muslim countries was, “How worried are you, if at all, that the U.S. could become a military threat to your country someday? Are you very worried, somewhat worried, not too worried, or not at all worried?” Data source: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (2003). rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 72 Confirming Pages 72 CHAPTER 3 Levels of Analysis and Foreign Policy Organizational Behavior Yet another common characteristic of humans is that they tend to think and act differently in collective settings than they do as individuals. This leads to a second approach to individual-level analysis, one that examines how people act in organiza- tions. Two concepts, role behavior and group decision-making behavior, illustrate this approach. Role Behavior We all play a variety of roles based on our attitudes about the positions we have and the behaviors we adopt in them. For example, how you act when you are in class, on the job, or in a family situation varies depending in part on your role—on whether you are a professor or a student, a manager or a worker, a parent or a child. Presidents and other policy makers also play roles. The script for a role is derived from a combination of self-expectations (how we expect ourselves to act) and external expectations (how others expect us to behave). For leaders, these latter expectations are transmitted by cues from advisers, critics, and public opinion. One common role expectation is that leaders be decisive. A leader who approaches a problem by saying, “I don’t know what to do” or “We can’t do anything” will be accused of weakness. For example, President Bush was in Florida when the 9/11 attacks occurred, and the Secret Service wanted him to remain safely out of Washington, D.C., for a time. However, Bush’s sense of his role as president soon prevailed, and he irrita- bly told his chief of staff, “I want to go back [to Washington] ASAP.” By 7:00 P.M. that evening he was back in the White House, and 90 minutes later he addressed the nation from the Oval Office. The president felt it was important to reassure the public by being visible at his post in the White House. “One of the things I wanted to do was to calm nerves,” he later said. “I felt like I had a job as the commander in chief” to show the country “that I was safe... not me, George W., but me the president.”17 Decision-Making Behavior within Organizations When people give advice and make decisions within an organization, they not only have to consider what they think but also how their opinions and decisions will be viewed by others in the organization, especially its leaders. The calculation of how our views will “go over” tends to promote groupthink. This concept denotes pres- sure within organizations to achieve consensus by agreeing with the prevailing opin- ion, especially the view of the leader (Schafer & Crichlow, 2002). The image of the devil’s advocate pressing principled, unpopular views is appealing, but such individuals are rarities in organizations, in part because those who take this approach get forced out. Similarly, agencies that dissent can wind up with their budgets cut and their areas of responsibility diminished. In a case in point, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld favored sending a relatively small force to invade and pacify Iraq in 2003. Disagreeing, General Eric Shinseki, head of the U.S. Army, told Congress that several hundred thousand troops would be needed. Rumsfeld, whose approach was summed up by another retired four-star general as “Do it my way or leave,” forced Shinseki to retire.18 According to another national security official at that time, Rumsfeld’s actions “sent a very clear signal to the military leadership... [and] served to silence critics just at the point in time when, internal to the process, you most wanted critical judgment.” History records that in time virtually everyone realized that, as one senator put it in 2007, “We never had enough troops to begin with.... General Shinseki was right.”19 rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 73 Confirming Pages Individual-Level Analysis 73 FIGURE 3.4 Decision Process and Policy Outcome Policy success Mixed 0% 12.5% Mixed Policy 25% failure 12.5% Policy Policy failure Policy success Mixed 43% success 50% 57% 75% Policy failure 25% Good decision process Mediocre decision process Poor decision process Good decision processes characterized by a lack of groupthink tend to result in better policy than mediocre and poor decision processes, which are respectively burdened with medium or high instances of groupthink. The research represented in this figure examined the decision making of various policies for evidence of groupthink and then asked experts to evaluate the success or failure of the resulting policy. As indicated, decisions with little or no evidence of groupthink worked well in the estimate of 75% of the experts, with another 12.5% each rating the policy a mixed outcome or a failure. By contrast, none of the experts judged any of the poor decision processes marked by significant groupthink to be a success. Data source: Herek, Janis, & Huth (1987). In some cases, not giving a leader unpleasant advice may even involve physical survival. One reason that Saddam Hussein miscalculated his chances of success was that his generals misled him about their ability to repel U.S. and British forces. The officers knew they could not withstand the allied onslaught, but they feared telling Saddam Hussein the truth. As one Iraqi general later explained, “We never provided true information as it is here on planet Earth.... Any commander who spoke the truth would lose his head.”20 Even if a leader wants broad advice, getting it is sometimes difficult because groupthink tends to screen out those who “think outside the box.” Anthony Lake, who served as national security adviser to President Clinton, recognized that “there is a danger that when people work well together” and are of the same mind, it can lead to “groupthink... [with] not enough options reaching the president.”21 That concern continues. As one adviser has commented about the flow of information in the Bush White House, “The president finds out what he wants to know, but he does not necessarily find out what he might need to know.”22 Poor decisions are frequently the end result of groupthink. This characteristic is evident in Figure 3.4. Thus developing strategies to avoid such decision-making pathologies should improve the quality of the output (Mitchell, 2005). Leaders and Their Individual Traits Foreign policy making is much more likely than domestic policy making to be cen- tered on a country’s top leadership. Therefore, a third approach to individual-level analysis focuses on idiosyncratic analysis. This is the study of humans as individu- als and how each leader’s personal (idiosyncratic) characteristics help shape his or her decisions (Renshon & Larson, 2002). As one study puts it, “The goals, abilities, rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 74 Confirming Pages 74 CHAPTER 3 Levels of Analysis and Foreign Policy and foibles of individuals are crucial to the intentions, capabilities, and strategies of Did You Know That: a state” (Byman & Pollack, 2001:111). When Iraq’s Minister of The fundamental question idiosyncratic analysis asks is how the personal traits Health, Riyad al-Ani, sug- gested to Saddam Hussein of leaders affect their decisions. Why, for example, are older leaders more likely than that he might be able to younger ones to initiate and escalate military confrontations? (Horowitz, McDermott, end the war with Iran & Stam, 2005). Five of the many possible factors to consider are personality, physical (1980–1988) by resigning, and mental health, ego and ambition, political history and personal experiences, and then resuming the presi- perceptions and operational reality. dency after the peace, the Iraqi dictator was so out- raged that he had the hap- Personality less minister executed, his When studying personality types and their impact on policy, scholars examine body dismembered, and the a leader’s basic orientations toward self and toward others, behavioral patterns, and at- parts sent to his wife. titudes about such politically relevant concepts as authority (Dyson, 2006). There are numerous categorization schemes. The most well known places political personality along an active-passive scale and a positive-negative scale (Barber, 1985). Active leaders are policy innovators; passive leaders are reactors. Positive personalities have egos strong enough to enjoy (or at least accept) the contentious political environment; negative personalities are apt to feel burdened, even abused, by political criticism. Many scholars favor active-positive presidents, but all four types have drawbacks. Activists, for example, may take action in a situation when waiting or even doing nothing would be preferable. Reflecting on this, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk (1990:137) recalled, “We tended then—and now—to exaggerate the necessity to take action. Given time, many problems work themselves out or disappear.” Of recent U.S. presidents, Clinton has an active-positive personality. He reveled www in the job and admitted to being “almost compulsively overactive” (Renshon, 1995:59). Scholars differ on President George W. Bush. One assessment is that he is ANALYZE THE ISSUE an active-positive personality who “loves his job and is very energetic and focused” The Cuban Missile Crisis (DiIulio, 2003:3). Perhaps, but he is certainly less active than Clinton, and might even be positive-passive (Etheredge, 2001). Whatever the best combination may be, active-negative is the worst. The more active a leader, the more criticism he or she encounters. Positive personalities take such criticism in stride, but negative personalities are prone to assume that oppo- nents are enemies. This causes negative personalities to withdraw into an inner cir- cle of subordinates who are supportive and who give an unreal, groupthink view of events and domestic and international opinion. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were both active-negative personalities who showed symptoms of delusion, struck out at their enemies, and generally developed bunker mentalities. Yet their active- negative personalities were but shadows of Saddam Hussein’s. According to a post- war report to the CIA, Saddam’s psychology was shaped powerfully by a deprived and violent childhood.23 Reflecting that, he changed his original name, Hussein al-Takrit, by dropping al-Takrit (his birthplace) and adding Saddam, an Arabic word that means “one who confronts.” Physical and Mental Health A leader’s physical and mental health can be important factors in decision making. For example, Franklin Roosevelt was so ill from hypertension in 1945 that one historian concludes that he was “in no condition to govern the republic” (Farrell, 1998:xi). Among other impacts, some analysts believe that Roosevelt’s weakness left him unable to resist Stalin’s demands for Soviet domination of Eastern Europe when the two, along with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, met at Yalta in February 1945, just two months before Roosevelt died from a massive stroke. rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 75 Confirming Pages Individual-Level Analysis 75 Occasionally leaders also suffer from psychological problems. Adolf Hitler was arguably unbalanced as a result of ailments that may have included advanced syphilis and by his huge intake of such medically prescribed drugs as barbiturates, cardiac stimulants, opiates, steroids, methamphetamine, and cocaine (Hayden, 2003). Accord- ing to one analysis, “The precise effects of this pharmaceutical cocktail on Hitler’s mental state [are] difficult to gauge. Suffice it to say, in the jargon of the street, Hitler was simultaneously taking coke and speed.”24 The drug combinations Hitler used offer one explanation for the bizarre manic-depressive cycle of his decision making late in the war. Alcohol abuse can also lead to problems. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once Web Link referred to President Richard Nixon as “my drunken friend,” who among other For the personality of U.S. events was once reportedly incapacitated during an international crisis with the presidents and others and the Soviet Union (Schulzinger, 1989:178). More recently, an official in the Clinton suitability of your personality to administration has recalled that Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin was often inebriated. achieve presidential greatness, visit the interactive Web site of Indeed, during the first summit meeting of the two presidents in 1994, Yeltsin arrived the Foundation for the Study of so drunk that he “could barely get off the plane.” He continued to get “pretty roaring” Personality in History at at other times during the summit, and at one point was “staggering around in his un- www.personalityinhistory.com/. derpants shouting for pizza.” As for Yeltsin’s decisions, the U.S. official terms them “sometimes... just wacko.” As an illustration, the adviser relates that during the U.S.-led bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999, “Yeltsin, who was clearly in his cups, suggested that he and Clinton had to get together on an emergency basis, and... should meet on a submarine.” Such images might have been grotesquely amusing had not the besotted Russian president controlled a huge nuclear arsenal.25 Ego and Ambition A leader’s ego and personal ambitions can also influence policy. One thing that ar- guably drove Saddam Hussein was his grandiose vision of himself. According to one intelligence report, the Iraqi leader saw himself in “larger than life terms comparable to Nebuchadnezzar [the great Babylonian king, 605–563 B.C.] and Saladin [the Sultan of Egypt who in 1189 defeated the Christians during the Third Crusade].” The ego of the first President Bush also may have influenced policy. He came to office in 1989 with a reputation for being wishy-washy, and Newsweek even ran a picture of him with a banner, “The Wimp Factor,” on its cover. Arguably an ego- wounded Bush responded by being too tough. He soon invaded Panama, and the following year in the Persian Gulf crisis his fierce determination not to negotiate with Iraq left it little choice but to fight or capitulate. Certainly, it would be outrageous to claim that Bush decided on war only to assuage his ego. But it would be naïve to ignore the possible role of this factor. In fact, after defeating Panama and Iraq, the president displayed a prickly pride when he told reporters, “You’re talking to the wimp... to the guy that had a cover of a national magazine... put that label on me. And now some that saw that we can react when the going gets tough maybe have withdrawn that allegation.”26 Political History and Personal Experiences Decision makers are also affected by their personal experiences. It is worth speculat- ing how much the personal experiences of President Bush influenced his determina- tion in 2003 to drive Saddam Hussein from power. It is clear that Bush is very close to his family (Greenstein, 2003; Helco, 2003). That connection, in the view of some, made him especially sensitive to the criticism of his father for not toppling the Iraqi dictator in 1991, and may have created in the younger Bush an urge to complete the business of his father (Wead, 2003).27 Moreover, it is widely believed that Saddam rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 76 Confirming Pages 76 CHAPTER 3 Levels of Analysis and Foreign Policy Hussein tried to have the first President Bush assassinated when he visited Kuwait in 1993. Nine years later, his son told a gathering, “There’s no doubt [that Saddam Hussein] can’t stand us. After all, this is the guy that tried to kill my dad at one time.” White House officials quickly issued assurances that the president did not mean “to personalize” his campaign to depose the Iraqi dictator, but it is hard to totally dis- count the antipathy of a devoted son toward a man who “tried to kill my dad.”28 Perceptions and Operational Reality Decision makers’ images of reality constitute a fifth idiosyncratic element that influ- ences their approach to foreign policy. Although we have already examined human perceptions in this chapter, it is worth separately considering the perception of leaders here because of the central role they play in making policy. Whatever their source, the sum of a leader’s perceptions creates his or her worldview (Hermann & Keller, 2004). One scholar who served on the staff of President George W. Bush has written, “By the time I left the White House... I was convinced... [that] the sitting president’s ‘world view’—‘his primary, politically relevant beliefs, particularly his conceptions of social causality, human nature, and the central moral conflicts of the time’—probably explain as much or more about... foreign policy than any other single variable” (DiIulio, 2003:3). Perceptions play a key role in policy because they form an operational reality. That is, policy makers tend to act based on perceptions, whether they are accu- rate or not. For example, research shows that supposedly “rogue states” are no more likely than any other country to start a war (Caprioli & Trumbore, 2005). Yet the operational reality of the perceptions among most ranking officials in the Bush administration was that one such rogue state, Iraq, one of the “axis of evil” in Bush’s mind, had WMD capabilities and intended to develop them more fully. This was a key factor in the U.S.-led intervention. That those perceptions were wrong is an important question in its own right. But as far as the causes of the war itself are con- cerned, the operational reality (even though it differed from the objective reality) was determined by the belief of President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and others that Saddam Hussein did have such weapons and that they presented a long-term threat. A related perceptual phenomenon is called an operational code (Schafer & Walker, 2006). This idea describes how any given leader’s worldview and “philo- sophical propensities for diagnosing” how world politics operates influence the “leader’s... propensities for choosing” rewards, threats, force, and other methods of diplomacy as the best way to be successful (Walker, Schafer, & Young, 1998:176). President Bill Clinton’s worldview saw the United States as operating in a complex, technology-driven, interconnected world, in which conflict was more likely to result from countries’ internal conditions (such as poverty) than from traditional power rivalries between states. Among other things, this led Clinton to favor a multilateral approach to diplomacy, to often view the motives and actions of other countries in nuanced shades of gray, and to delve deeply into the intricacies of policy. George W. Bush’s operational code is very different. Whereas Clinton took a cerebral approach to policy, Bush has described himself as more a “gut” player than an intellectual (Daalder & Lindsay, 2003:7). Perhaps stemming from his profound religious convictions, Bush, more than Clinton, is apt to see the world in right- versus-wrong terms.29 For him, not only were the terrorists who launched the 9/11 attacks analogous to the fascists of the 1930s, but countries suspected of abet- ting terrorism were part of an axis of evil. Compared to Clinton, this belief also makes Bush more disposed to see the world as a more inescapably dangerous place rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 77 Confirming Pages Individual-Level Analysis 77 A leader’s sense of self can impact foreign policy. President George W. Bush arguably has a strong sense of obligation to reshape the United States and the world drawn from his family’s tradition of public service. This 1950 photo shows Bush’s grandfather, Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut, as well as his father and future president, George H. W. Bush, who is holding the younger President Bush. Also shown are the senator’s wife, Dorothy, and Barbara Bush, the current president’s mother. Younger brother Jeb, now the governor of Florida, had not yet been born. and to follow a unilateralist path in pursuit of what he believes to be right. Just as Woodrow Wilson’s strong religious convictions helped shape his crusading desire to make the world safe for democracy, so too may Bush’s religious fervor be an ele- ment in his missionary-like urge to make the world into a better place by promot- ing democracy, free enterprise, and generally what he might term the “American way” (Rhodes, 2003). As one analyst notes, “it is impossible to understand Bush’s presidential character without fully appreciating his profoundly small ‘d’ democratic beliefs” (DiIulio, 2003:3). Finally, some analysts believe that Bush draws a strong sense of duty to lead and sacrifice from the history of the Bush family’s public service dating back several generations. For the president this sense of personal leadership translates into feeling responsible to use his position as the leader of what he sees as a great and good country to reshape the world. As one scholar has noted, for Bush, “With 9/11, the long-hidden mission, the purpose for everything that had gone before [in becoming president], seemed to snap into place. In the political ethos of the Bush family, the charge to keep was to behave with responsibility. The terrorist attack filled in the blank space as to what responsibility required in the new post–Cold War era.... The Bush Doctrine... was born” (Helco, 2003:20). Policy as a Mix of Rational and Irrational Factors After spending considerable time on the myriad emotional, perceptual, and other factors that detract from rationality, a balanced discussion requires us to stress here that while decisions are rarely fully rational, they are seldom totally irrational rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 78 Confirming Pages 78 CHAPTER 3 Levels of Analysis and Foreign Policy (Mercer, 2005). Instead, it is best to see human decisions as a mix of rational and irrational inputs. This view of how individuals and groups make policy choices is called poliheuristic theory. This theory depicts decision making as a two-stage process (Kinne, 2005; Redd, 2005; Dacey & Carlson, 2004). During the first stage, decision makers use shortcuts to eliminate policy options that are unacceptable for irrational personal reasons. Poliheuristic theorists especially focus on reelection hopes and other domestic political considerations, but the shortcuts could include any of the other irrational factors we have been discussing. With the unacceptable choices discarded, “the process moves to a second stage, during which the decision maker uses more analytic processing in an attempt to minimize risks and maximize benefits” in a more rational way (Mintz, 2004:3). It is at this second stage that de- cision makers tend to set aside domestic politics and personal factors and concen- trate on strategic, realpolitik considerations ( James & Zhang, 2005; DeRouen Jr. & Sprecher, 2004). For example, one recent study using poliheuristic theory looked at U.S. decision making during the hostage crisis with Iran. As noted above, there is ample evidence of nonrational factors in the decisions of President Carter and other top administra- tion officials. The study concluded that “Carter ruled out alternatives” that had neg- ative domestic political consequences, then “selected from the remaining alternatives according to its ability to simultaneously maximize net benefits with respect to mili- tary and strategic concerns” (Brulé, 2005:99). STATE-LEVEL ANALYSIS For all the importance of the human input, policy making is significantly influenced by the fact that it occurs within the context of a political structure. Countries are the most important of these structures. By analyzing the impact of structures on policy making, state-level analysis improves our understanding of policy. This level of analysis emphasizes the characteristics of states and how they make foreign policy choices and implement them (Hudson, 2005; Bueno de Mesquita, 2002). What is important from this perspective, then, is how a country’s political struc- ture and the political forces and subnational actors within the country cause its government to decide to adopt one or another foreign policy (Chittick & Pingel, 2002). Making Foreign Policy: Type of Government, Situation, and Policy Those who study how foreign policy is made over time in one country or compara- tively in several countries soon realize there is no such thing as a single foreign pol- icy process. Instead, how policy is made varies considerably. Type of Government and the Foreign Policy Process One variable that affects the foreign policy process is the type of government a coun- try has. These types range along a scale that has absolute authoritarian governments on one end and unfettered democratic governments on the other. The more author- itarian a government is, the more likely it is that foreign policy will be centered in a narrow segment of the government, even in the hands of the president or what- ever the leader is called. It is important to realize, though, that no government is rou03881_ch03.qxd 10/24/07 10:15 AM Page 79 Confirming Pages State-Level Analysis 79 absolutely under the thumb of any individual. States FIGURE 3.5 The Opinion are too big and too complex for that to happen, and Rally Effect thus secondary leaders (such as foreign ministers), 86% 89% Percent approving the job bureaucrats, interest groups, and other domestic el- the president is doing ements play a role in even very authoritarian politi- cal systems. 71% At the other end of the scale, foreign policy 70% making in democracies is much more open with 66% 65% inputs from legislators, the media, public opinion, 9/11 attacks and opposition parties, as well as those foreign War with Iraq 57% policy–making actors that influence authoritarian 51% 52% government policy. President Bill Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on behalf of the United States, for example, but the Senate dis- 9/7 9/14 10/18 8/19 3/3 3/22 4/22 5/19 11/18 agreed with his view and in 1999 refused to ratify 2001 2002 2003 it. Yet even in the most democratic state, foreign policy tends to be dominated by the country’s top People usually rally behind their leader during times of crisis. Public leadership. approval of President Bush’s performance in office skyrocketed 35% after the 9/11 attacks, then rose sharply again at the onset of the war with Iraq. Also note that the rally effect is fleeting, and the president’s Type of Situation and the Foreign Policy Process ratings soon declined after each peak. The policy-making process also varies within coun- Data source: CNN/USAToday/Gallup Polls found at Polling Report.com. tries. Situation is one variable. For example, policy is made differently during crisis and noncrisis situa- tions. A crisis situation occurs when decision makers are (1) surprised by an event, (2) feel threatened (especially militarily), and (3) believe that they have only a short time to react (Brecher & Wilkenfeld, 1997). The more intense each of the three factors is, the more acute the sense of crisis. Whereas noncrisis situations often involve a broad array of domestic actors trying to shape policy, crisis policy making is likely to be dominated by the political leader and a small group of advisers. One reason this occurs involves the rally effect. This is the propensity of the public and other domestic political actors to support the leader during time of crisis. Figure 3.5 shows the impact of the rally effect on the popularity of President Bush at the time of the 9/11 attack and also at the onset of the Iraq War in 2003 (Hetherington & Nelson, 2003). A similar pattern was evident in Great Britain, the only major U.S. ally. There, support for the way Prime Minister Tony Blair was handling the crisis with Iraq rose from 48% before the war to 63% after it began.30 Type of Policy and the Foreign Policy Process How foreign policy is decided also varies according to the nature of the issue area involved. Issues that have little immediate or obvious impact on Americans can be termed pure foreign policy. A narrow range of decision makers usually makes such decisions in the executive branch with little or no domestic opposition or even notice. For instance, President Bush consented to expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by adding seven new members (Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) in 2004. Even though this substantially added to U.S. defense commitments by including countries that bor- der Russia, the move was nearly invisible within the United States. The media made little mention of it, and pollsters did not even bother to ask the public what rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 80 Confirming Pages 80 CHAPTER 3 Levels of Analysis and Foreign Policy The Expansion of NATO CANADA NATO in 1998 New members 1999 UNITED STATES New members 2004 Candidate countries F IN Y ICELAND L WA AN N NOR SWEDE D ESTONIA RUSSIA UNITED DENMARK LATVIA KINGDOM LITHUANIA NETH. IRELAND POLAND BELARUS GERMANY SLOVAKIA BEL. CZECH. UKRAINE KAZAKHSTAN LUX. G. AUST. UN MOLDOVA FRANCE H ROMANIA CRO. SWITZ. SLOVENIA BOS.- SERBIA GEORGIA Ca ITALY HERZ. Black Sea BULGARIA s MONT. pia ANDORRA MACEDONIA n SPAIN Se ALBANIA TURKEY PORTUGAL a GREECE ARMENIA Mediterranean Sea AZERBAIJAN The expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) eastward to the very borders of Russia has potentially great stakes for Americans because the NATO treaty pledges them to defend numerous small states that were once in the orbit of Moscow and even part of the former USSR. Yet as pure foreign policy issues, the rounds of expansion in 1999 and 2004 drew almost no notice and less dissent among the American people and members of Congress. By contrast, intermestic issues, such as trade, draw much greater public and legislative interest and activity. it thought. Neither did the expansion arouse much interest in the Senate, which ratified it unanimously. By contrast, foreign policy that has an immediate and obvious domestic impact on Americans is called intermestic policy. This type of policy is apt to foster sub- stantial activity by legislators, interest groups, and other foreign policy–making actors and thereby diminish the ability of the executive leaders to fashion policy to their liking. Foreign trade is a classic example of an intermestic issue because it affects both international relations and the domestic economy in terms of jobs, prices, and other factors. This domestic connection activates business, labor, and consumer groups who, in turn, bring Congress into the fray (Grossman & Helpma, 2002). Therefore national leaders, such as presidents, usually have much greater say over pure foreign policy than they do over intermestic policy. For example, in stark contrast to Bush’s easy success in getting the NATO expansion ratified, he had to struggle mightily to persuade Congress to give him greater latitude (called fast-track authority) in negotiating trade treaties. Although his party controlled both houses of Congress, the president was only successful after a concerted effort that included person- ally going to Capitol Hill to lobby legislators and to offer inducements to gain sup- port. Even then, the final vote in the House of Representatives was a razor-thin 215 to 212. rou03881_ch03.qxd 9/7/07 15:22 Page 81 Confirming Pages State-Level Analysis 81 Making Foreign Policy: Political Culture Each country’s foreign policy tends to reflect its political culture. This concept rep- resents a society’s widely held, traditional values and its fundamental practices that are slow to change (Paquette, 2003; Jung, 2002). Leaders tend to formulate policies that are compatible with their society’s political culture because the leaders share many or all of those values. Also, even if they do not share a particular value, lead- ers want to avoid the backlash that adopting policies counter to the political culture One aspect of political culture might cause. To analyze any country’s political culture, you would look into such that affects China’s foreign things as how a people feel about themselves and their country, how they view oth- policy is Sinocentrism, the tendency of the Chinese to ers, what role they think their country should play in the world, and what they see see themselves and their as moral behavior. country as the center of the How Americans and Chinese feel about themselves and about projecting political and cultural world. their values to others provide examples. Both Americans and Chinese are per- This self-image is represented suaded that their own cultures are superior. In Americans, this is called American by these Chinese characters. exceptionalism, an attitude that, for instance, led 81% of Americans to agree They are Zhong Guó, the in a poll that the spread of their values would have a positive effect on other Chinese name for their country, which translates as parts of the world.31 A similar sense of superiority among the Chinese is called middle (Zhong, on the left) Sinocentrism. This tendency of the Chinese to see themselves as the political and place (Guó, on the right). cultural center of the world is expressed, among other ways, in their word for their country: “Zhong Guó” means “middle place” and symbolizes the Chinese image of themselves. Where Americans and Chinese differ is in their beliefs about trying to impose it on others. Americans are sometimes described as having a missionary impulse, that is, possessing a zeal to reshape the world in the American image. For exam- ple, it is this aspect of American political culture that has led the United States to try not only to defeat hostile regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, but ad- ditionally, to replace them with democratic governments. There is also evidence that the United States makes other decisions, such as foreign aid allocations, based in part on how closely countries adhere to American conceptions of human rights. Chinese attitudes about projecting values are very different. Despite China’s Web Link immense pride in its culture, there is no history of trying to impose it on others, To support research about even when China dominated much of the world that it knew. The orientation is American political culture at the based in part on Confucianism’s tenet of leading by example rather than by forceful University of Pittsburgh, fill out conversion. It also has to do with the Sinocentric attitude that the “barbarians” are the Web questionnaire at www.pitt.edu/~redsox/polcul.html. not well suited to aspire to the heights of Chinese culture and are best left to them- selves as much as possible. Among other current ramifications, this nonmissionary attitude makes it very hard for the Chinese to understand why Americans and some others try to insist that China adopt what i