Foreign policy decision-makers should give far greater credence to the views of country experts.  Their expertise should trump expertise on the Big Picture issue of the day, such as the War on Terror.  Had we done this in the past, we would not have fought in Vietnam; Afghanistan might have had a very different recent history, without the Taliban and al Qaeda; and we either would not have fought at all or would have employed very different strategies in Iraq.

Historically, most of our major foreign policy decisions – especially those that failed – were made by amateurs, by people with only a cursory understanding of the past or current situation of the country concerned.

Vietnam.  Take Vietnam as an example.  In the 1950s and early ‘60s, the few Americans who were experts on this country knew of Ho Chi Minh’s high regard for the US after World War II, when he even based their declaration of independence almost directly on ours.  They knew that his communism was only skin deep, that he was primarily a nationalist.  They knew of Vietnam’s historic animosity towards China, and recognized that any alliance between the two was of a pragmatic nature only – one that would easily be severed when the situation changed.  They knew that the historic relations between the Vietnamese and other Indochinese peoples made laughable the idea that Vietnam might serve as a ‘domino’, causing other countries to follow it into Communism.

But no-one paid attention to these experts.  Instead, both Democratic and Republican presidents relied on advisors whose major international expertise concerned communism, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War.  These advisors believed in a Big Picture – that International Communism was expanding from country to country and had to be stopped.  They assumed that a little country like Vietnam would simply fit into this Big Picture, and that knowledge of the specifics of its history, culture, and leaders would be of minor concern.

The advisors were wrong.  The decisions made by our presidents were wrong.  Thousands died.

Afghanistan.  Another, more recent example concerns Afghanistan.  During the 1980s, after Soviet troops had invaded and installed their own Afghan government, our Big Picture experts touted the same Cold War message: We needed to stop the spread of International Communism.  They knew nothing of Afghanistan, its history, its culture, or its relationship with its neighbor, Pakistan.  Focusing only on defeating the Russians, our experts decided that we should send huge quantities of arms to the mujaheddin who were attempting to fight them.  The conduit for these arms had to be Pakistan, as this was the only plausible route for sending rifles, hand-held rockets, and other arms to the mujaheddin. 

After making this decision, our experts disregarded the process that followed.  They completely ignored the fact that Pakistan’s main interest did not coincide with ours: we wanted to see a free and stable Afghanistan; they wanted to ensure the weakness of a post-communist Afghan state (primarily out of fear that a strong Afghanistan would prove attractive to Pakistan’s own Pashtun population).  To our Big Picture decision-makers, this was a minor issue, not worthy of their time or energy.  So Pakistan had its way; it helped create a series of competing armed groups, knowing that these groups would eventually fight among themselves.  The mujaheddin succeeded in kicking out the Russians.  Then – as Pakistan had intended – they fought amongst themselves, ensuring a weak government.  When that happened, the Taliban came along spouting reform and took over the country extraordinarily quickly, primarily because the Afghan people were sick and tired of the mujaheddin groups’ infighting.  And we all know what the ascendancy of the Taliban in Afghanistan led to.

But in the 1980s there were Americans knowledgeable about Afghanistan and its history, who were saying that we were making a terrible mistake, that Pakistan was not a country on which to rely, that our support for multiple groups would create chaos in Afghanistan and lead to a situation worse than Russian control. 

The country experts’ predictions came true.  The Big Picture experts were wrong.  Thousands died.

Iraq.  Our invasion of Iraq was a similar situation.   By 2003, the Big Picture issue had changed from the Cold War to the War On Terror.  For the neo-cons in power under George Bush, a subsidiary Big Picture issue was Democratizing the Middle East.  But neither the President nor any of his top advisors knew anything about Iraq, the country.  To them, it was simply next in line on their Big Picture quest.  To Cheney and Rumsfeld, Iraq was intended to follow Afghanistan as a successful element of the fight against the perpetrators of 9/11.  To Wolfowitz and his neo-con gang, Iraq would be the domino that would topple other Arab countries into democracy. 

To the extent that they relied upon anyone with real knowledge of Iraq’s history and culture, they chose people like Ahmed Chalabi, who had his own very obvious reasons for misleading our leaders.  They paid no attention to the views of neutral American experts on the country of Iraq – and certainly not to anyone who might have suggested that our occupation of the country would prove difficult. 

Our Big Picture experts were wrong.  Thousands are dying.

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Decision-making.  In these examples, there were individuals with long-term, in-depth understanding of the country – people who knew the country before it made headlines – who recognized in advance that we would fail, and knew why we would fail.  Had we listened more carefully to them we would have made much better decisions – and thousands of Americans and others would still be alive.  But these experts were not the people who made the decisions.

Instead of country experts, foreign policy generalists craft our policies.  They usually claim that they listen carefully to country experts, but they don’t.  In reality, they base their decisions on how they think other people and countries ought to act, rather than how the specific people and country actually act.  And usually they believe that countries ought to act within the framework of their own Big Picture understanding of the world.  But every country has its quirks: generalizing across national borders is bound to lead to errors.

To improve our foreign policy decision-making, the decision-makers need a lesson in humility – to recognize that their own understanding and prediction of other people’s behavior might be completely wrong.  By the time someone becomes a Deputy Secretary or Secretary of State or Defense, or a National Security Advisor or the Vice President or President of the country, he or she has certainly developed a considerable amount of expertise.  But that expertise is usually in areas very different from the topic of the day: being an expert in one area does not make one an expert in all areas.  To some extent, top decision-makers do recognize this dilemma: for example, they generally have no qualms about relying on outside, neutral experts concerning technical, scientific, or engineering topics that are beyond their own realm of expertise.  Unfortunately, this humility is not carried over to issues of human behavior.  Political leaders and their top advisors tend to believe that they know how people will behave; they see their own political success as verification of this conclusion.

But people in other countries are not Americans.  They think and act differently.  Foreign policy that ignores this fact is bound to fail.

Our country’s leaders believed that they knew how the Vietnamese and the Afghans and the Iraqis would act.  Surprise. 

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The Big Picture issue of the day often is very relevant.  But it is not the only issue.  Country expertise is usually of greater import than Big Picture expertise.  Our foreign policy decision-makers need to pay at least as much heed to neutral national experts who have a long-term relationship with the focused country.  Their expertise will be crucial to the success of our country’s foreign policy decisions and success.

 


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