“We know Saddam has the weapons, what do we do?”
This was how my undergraduate course on American Foreign policy usually began. By a show of anonymous hands, the class was divided evenly in their support for the pending war on Iraq. Already being outraged by the Bush Administration, this young student of political science was quite skeptical of many of the stated reasons for an Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.
Yet, after attending enough classes, and discussing international relations as if one were a policy maker, the assumptions that Saddam had large quantities weapons of mass destruction became internalized; as the professor always said, “We have the receipts.” Even though I was always a vocal opponent of the war, it was as if to get a seat at the table, one had to adopt a certain train of thought and accept certain assumptions.
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In the spirit of thinking as an international relations policy maker, certain historical events overshadowed any given conversation. And in this context, existential dilemmas become practically whittled down to a spectrum of a few choices. All of which are framed in such a way as to influence another country so that it behaves consistently with our national interest. This spectrum typically covers policy options starting with the least threatening and costly for the policy maker, and increasingly becoming more serious and expensive. The first option being diplomacy, going through economic sticks and carrots, to covert operations, coercion through military presence and ending at some form of direct military intervention.
It wasn’t until recently that I thought it was worth investigating the appeal of adopting this train of thought. A few hypotheses come to mind. One may be the desire to feel as if one were a member of the administration sitting around the table, thinking in the same terms as the powerful. As Erich Fromm wrote about how people align themselves with authority. But primarily, my guess is that there is an impulse to be rational, to take foreign policy seriously. In order to strive for being rational, one may think that one has to really put him or herself in the shoes of the policy maker. In other words, to let go of lofty ideals or principles and adopt a position that is realistic and accounts for constructs such as realpolitik.
The flipside to this train of thought is that those who are not thinking in such terms are somehow naïve. Those who are articulating values without putting them in the context of the choices aforementioned are thought to be disconnected from the existential realities that policy makers must face. It is here, where the cold utilitarian logic lives. Where within the policy maker frame, one must always chose between two evils. Do we contain Iraq and enforce sanctions or do we invade? If hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died under sanctions would war be more humane? (e.g. Link)
One little concern with thinking exclusively in this model is that it is often divorced from reality. When playing policy maker, one doesn’t have access to a great deal classified information. Nor does one necessarily have access to private meetings or underlying reasons for government action (unless they are leaked), only those which have been publicly stated. One lacks the factual resources to make an informed decision. Alas, one has to rest on the assumptions of those in power.
Thus, one is left with the information that is available. The only problem with this approach is that it’s a setup. With Iraq, it turned out the cute cartoons and al-Qaeda connections were a farce. And yet, after the fact, when one may think previous ideas were rational at the time, one may resist being introspective and fully admitting their inaccurate predictions. To admit to articulating such a position places some responsibility on one’s shoulders for enabling the violence that ensued. By perpetuating policy maker frames we can unintentionally end up becoming voluntary propagandists, apologists for policies that cause an extraordinary amount of suffering.
And the scary thing is that this mindset of emulating a fantasy policy maker, is that it is not isolated to foreign policy. In a way, it nearly permeates every issue presented to the public by those in power. Such defenses have been given with the privatization of social security, and the illegal wiretaps. When the government tries to make excuses using a modicum of logic, often times the logic is put in this frame and the public is invited to spread the message.
The good news is that there is an alternative. We can view ourselves as citizens. We aren’t in power, yet we are powerful. We can make demands. We can speak our minds. It is only when the herd becomes infatuated with pontificating as if they were making decisions in power that the interest of the government does not match that of the citizens.
In the end, the policy maker frame isn’t something that can be easily dismissed. There is certainly much to learn from an experienced researcher or professor of conflict resolution. It also remains true at times that there may be tough decisions that policy makers are forced to make, which may be in the context of information the public cannot access. Yet, just as Freud thought dreams were the “royal road to the unconscious,” there are ways of discovering truth about our government from a variety of sources, ranging from leaked memos to whistleblowers; secrets do surface. It is from these experiences history has taught us a lesson. As citizens, we need not be slaves to the policy making frame. We can incorporate this train of thought as an ideological tool to add to our collection, instead of submitting all of our values in the pursuit of being mini Zbigniew Brzezinskis or James Carvilles. In fact, the policy makers should serve our interests, they should work for us, the citizens. Heck, it’s their job.
Some diarists/diaries which inspired this piece:
“Obama’s scold is a good sign” by wu ming
“I’m a Dem When I Want to Be” by pyrrho