“Secrecy and wishful thinking, the Pentagon official said, are defining characteristics of Rumsfeld’s Pentagon.” This line from Seymour Hersh’s article in the May 17, 2004 issue of The New Yorker speaks to a much larger problem. The above line is true, not solely of the Pentagon, but of the Bush administration generally. Just a cursory list of attributes of the decision making system in this administration (heretofore unknown levels of secrecy in government, insulation from any views not espoused by the dominant figures in the in-group, firing/defaming/endangering anyone who speaks against the in-group, no personal accountability, dispensing with safeguards that are supposed to curtail abuses by the government) show it to be an administration that is very poorly equipped to deal with sudden challenges or the emergence of new events and actors. And that’s before we even get to the question about whether such an administration can win the support of masses around the world to the type of politics it purportedly favors.
As to the latter issue, is a leader who works in this style and purports to “lead by example” capable of winning a war in which victory entails not battlefield success, but instead winning over the hearts and minds of tens of millions? If our government moves itself markedly away from traditions of openness and transparency, if it is not willing to tolerate dissent within its ranks much less work with those who have opposing world views, if its officials are not held responsible for the failures that they oversee, should we really encourage others to adopt our system of government? Is it a surprise that millions beyond our borders (or for that matter inside our borders) do not see its illiberal tendencies as something to admire?
The Bush administration seems particularly ill-equipped to win a war on terrorism. This is true as much because of what it does as whom it contains. All too often we do not practice what we preach. And it is not simply a matter of carrying out policies that are likely to make the masses doubt our sincerity in pursuing our supposed cause. If other governments see important segments of our own nation and government excluded from decision making, why should they believe that we will have any real commitment to protecting their interests, foreign interests, in combating this war? If other countries see that the White House is openly hostile to its own foreign ministry and intelligence services, is that establishing the type of environment in which other governments are likely to view the Bush administration as a trustworthy they can work with? Of course the arrogance of the Bush team and their disregard for the opinions and interests of other international actors is well known (see this excellent Fareed Zakaria piece on the subject). Wolfowitz even went so far as to suggest we wouldn’t oppose a military coup against the elected government of a NATO ally if it would get what we wanted. But this self-righteousness and disregard of others seems less a form of America-firstism, than a deeply held view by a small cadre of individuals working around the president that they alone know what is right. And they are determined to maximize their role and power and run the country into the ground if that’s what’s needed to keep it on the path they so zealously believe in.
This is the broader problem. Insulation, secrecy and governmental decision-making structures that don’t simply allow for, but in fact demand, extreme levels of groupthink are doomed to commit failures as a result of both of spirited excess and of willful ignorance. It’s not simply something seen in foreign policy. You’ve seen it in how a variety of national policies have been created by this administration (energy, education, economics). A few individuals tied to the central players in the administration have designed decision-making processes that exclude any dissenting views (even by the people who ostensibly should be running policy making in certain areas, for example, the Secretary of State, or the Secretary of the Treasury). In many cases they’ve showed little interest in talking to policy experts. In many cases they’ve shown an astounding lack of interest in long-term planning, or in planning alternatives in case a policy hits a dead end, basically in anything remotely resembling intellectual curiosity, much less prudence. Teamwork isn’t valued. Information searches and information processing are heavily skewed by the need to only have information that fits with one’s pre-existing biases.
In such a hyper-insulated decision making environment, it is not at all surprising that policy mistakes, even disasters, would occur. There is a body of literature in political science (see Mark Schafer and Scott Crichlow’s 2002 article in International Studies Quarterly or the work of Paul ‘t Hart) that has found empirical evidence for the proposition that having such a poorly structured decision-making system (an insulated group that fosters biased leadership, eschews methodical procedures, limits the exchange of opinions, promotes an illusion of invulnerability, belittles teamwork, and excludes experts) is likely to produce foreign policy outputs that fail to maximize the national interest. And of course in terms of foreign policy, such a group that believes strongly in its own self righteousness, stereotypes others, fails to fully survey alternatives and strategies, and skews its information processing role in a way that reinforces its preexisting views is unusually likely to choose to pursue its aims through conflict (also often not a value maximizing choice).
One of the things that makes this administration unique is that they appear more insulated and more effective at suppressing dissenters (even those who serve in policy-making roles) than any other administration in memory. Another thing that makes them unique is that there are many examples of administrations behaving in an insulated manner, but trying to rectify that (to a degree) after some policy-making catastrophe. As of yet, this administration has not done that. At least in the realm of foreign policy and national security, it has shown no interest in enlarging the circle of decision makers, or in punishing any of the true-believers who have made egregious errors of judgement. There is every reason to think that as long as George Bush stays in office that this type of closed-minded decision making will continue to prevail. And given history and systematic research on decision-making styles there is every reason to think that this “Damn-the-torpedoes” approach to governance will result in more policy disasters. While the week to week parade of horribles that have dominated the news of late is bad enough, the greater tragedy is that the Bush White House is fostering and formalizing a style of decision making that makes future fiascoes more likely, not less.
Posted by armand at May 23, 2004 01:21 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics