Wildavsky Two Presidencies

8/2/2019 Wildavsky Two Presidencies

1/6

162 163HE TWO PRESIDENCIESAARON WILDAVSKY

21. The Two Presidencies*AARON WILDAVSKY

though any president knows he supportsThe United States has one president, foreign aid and NATO, the world outbut it has two presidencies; one presi side changes much more rapidly thandency is for domestic affairs, and the the nation inside-presidents and theirother is concerned with defense and parties have no prior policies on Argenforeign policy. Since World War'lI, pres tina and the Congo. The world has beidents have had much greater success in come a highly intractable place with acontrolling the nation's defense and whirl of forces we cannot or do notforeign policies than in dominating its know how to alter.domestic policies. Even Lyndon johnsonhas seen his early record of victories indomestic legislation diminish as his THE RECORD OF PRESIDENTIALconcern with foreign affairs grows. CONTROLWhat powers does the president have It takes great crises, such asto control defense and foreign' polic ies Roosevelt's hundred days in the midst ofand so completely overwhelm those the Depression, or the extraordinarywho might wish to thwart him? majorities that Barry Go ldwater's candi,The president's normal problem with dacy willed to Lyndon johnson, for presdomestic policy is to get congressional idents to succeed in controlling domessupport for the programs he prefers. In tic policy. From the end of the 1930s toforeign affairs, in contrast, he can al the present (what may roughly be calledmost always get support for policies that the modern era), presidents have oftenhe believes will protect the nation-but been frustrated in their domestic prohis problem is to find a viable pol icy. grams. From 1938, when conservativesWhoever they are, whether they regrouped their forces,to the time of hisbegin by caring about foreign policy death, Franklin Roosevelt did not get alike Eisenhower and Kennedy or about single piece of significant domesticdomestic policies like Truman and legislation passed. Truman lost out onjohnson, presidents soon discover they most of his intense domestic preferhave more policy preferences in domes ences, except perhaps for housing.tic matters than in foreign policy. The Since Eisenhower did not ask for muchRepublican and Democratic parties pos domestic legislation, he did not meetsess a traditional roster of policies, consistent defeat, yet he failed in hiswhich can easily be adopted by a new general policy of curtailing governmenpresident-for example, he can be tal commitments. Kennedy, of course,either for or against Medicare and aid to faced great difficulties with domesticeducation. Since existing domestic policy usually changes in only small steps, legislation.In the realm of foreign policy therepresidents find it relatively simple to has not been a single major issue onmake minor adjustments. However, al

'Source: Published by permission of Transaction, Inc., from Trans-action, vol. 4, no. 2.Copyright December 1966 by Transaction, Inc.

which presidents, when they were serious and determined, have failed. Thelist of their victories is impressive: entryinto the United Nations, the MarshallPlan, NATO, the Truman Doctrine, thedecisions to stay out of Indochina in1954 and to intervene in Vietnam in the1960s, aid to Poland and Yugoslavia,the test-ban treaty, and many more.Serious setbacks to the president in controlling foreign policy are extraordinaryand unusual.Table 1, compiled from the Congressional Quarterly Service tabulation ofpresidential initiative and congressionalresponse from 1948 through 1964,shows that presidents have significantly better records in foreign and defensematters than in domestic pol icies. Whenrefugees and immigration-which Congress considers primarily a domesticconcern-are removed from the generalforeign policy area, it is clear that presidents prevail about 70 percent of thetime in defense and foreign policY,compared with 40 percent in the domesticsphere.

WORLD EVENTS ANDPRESIDENTIAL RESOU RCESPower in politics is control over gov

ernmental decisions. Ho w does thepresident manage his control of foreignand defense pol icy? The answer doesnot reside in the greater con stitu tionalpower in foreign affairs that presidentshave possessed since the founding ofthe Republic. The answer Ii es in thechanges that have taken place since1945.The number of nations with whichthe United States has diplomatic relations has increased from 53 in 1939 to113 in 1966. But sheer numbers do nottell enough; the world has also becomea much more dangerous place. However remote it may seem at times, ourgovernment must always be aware ofthe possibility of nuclear war.'Yet the mere existence of great powerswith effective thermonuclear weaponswould not, in and of itself, vastly increase our rate of interaction with mostother nations. We see events in Assam or

Table 1CONGRESSIONAL ACTION ON PRESIDENTIAL

PROPOSALS FROM 1948-1964Congressional Action Number ofPolicy Area % Pass . % Fall Proposals

Domestic policy (naturalresources, labor, agriculture,taxes, etc.) 40.2 59.8 2,499Defense policy (defense,disarmament, manpower,misc.) 73.3 26.7 90Foreign policy . 58.5 41.5 655Immigration, refugees 13.2 86.0 129Treaties, general foreignrelations, State Department,foreign aid 70.8 29.2 445

Source: Congressional Quarterly Service. Congress and the Nation, 1945-1964 (Washington, 1965).


2/6

164 AARON WILDAVSKY THE TWO PRESIDENCIES 165Burundi' as important because they arealso part of a larger worldwide contest,called the cold war, in which great powers are rivals for the control of support ofother nations. Moreover, the reactionagainst the blatant isolationism of the1 9 3 0 ~ has led to a concern with foreignpolicy that is worldwide in scope. Weare interested in what happenseverywhere because we see these eventsas connected with larger interests involving, at the worst, the possibility of ultimate destruction.

Given the overriding fact that theworld is dangerous and that smallcauses are perceived to have potentiallygreat effects in an unstable world, it follows that presidents must be interestedin relatively "small" matters. So theygive Azerbaijan or Lebanon or Vietnamhuge amounts of their time. ArthurSchlesinger, Jr. wrote of Kennedy that"i n the first two months of his administration he probably spent more time onLaos than on anything else." Few failures in domestic policy, presidents soonrealize, could have as disastrous consequences as anyone of dozens of mistakes in the international arena.The result is that foreign policy concerns tend to drive out domestic policy.Except for occasional questions ofdomestic prosperity and for civil rights,foreign affai rs have consistently higherpriority for presidents. Once, when trying to taH


3/6

AARON WILDAVSKY THE TWO PRESIDENCIES 167166troops under fire probably could havebrought about the current high level ofconcern. Yet this relatively well developed popular opinion is difficult tointerpret. While a majority appear tosupport President Johnson's policy, itappears that they could easily be persuaded to withdraw from Vietnam if theadministration changed its line. AIthough a sizable majority would supportvarious initiatives to end the war, they.would seemingly be appalled if this action led to Communist encroachmentselsewhere in Southeast Asia. (See "ThePresident, the Polls, and Vietnam" bySeymour Martin Upset, Trans-action,SepUOct 1966.)Although presidents lead opinion inforeign affairs, they know they will- beheld accountable for the consequencesof their actions. President Johnson hasmaintained a large commitment in Vietnam. His popularity shoots up now andagain in the midst of some imposing action. But the fact that a body of citizensdo not like the war comes back to damage his overall popularity. We will support your initiatives, the people seem tosay, but we wi I reserve the ri ght topunish you (or your party) if we do notlike the results.SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPSOpinions are easier to gauge in domestic affairs because, for one thing, there isa stable structure of interest groups thatcovers virtually all matters of concern.The farm, labor, business, conservation,veteran, civil rights, and other interestgroups provide cues when a proposedpolicy affects them. Thus people whoidentify with these groups may adopttheir views. But in foreign policy mattersthe interest group structure is weak, unstable, and thin rather than dense. Inmany matters affecting Africa and Asia,for example, it is hard to think of wellknown interest groups. While ephemeral groups arise from time to time tosupport or protest particular policies,they usually disappear when the immediate problem is resolved. In con

trast, longer-lasting elile groups like theForeign Policy Association and Councilon Foreign Relations are composed ofpeople of diverse views; refusal to takestrong positions on controversial mattersis a condition of their continued viability.The strongest interest groups areprobably the ethnic associations whosemembers have strong ties with a homeland, as in Poland or Cuba, so they arerarely activated simultaneously on anyspecific issue. They are most effectivewhen most narrowly and intenselyfocused-as in the fierce pressure fromJews to recognize the state of Israel. Buttheir relatively small numbers limitstheir significance to presidents in thevastly more important general foreignpolicy picture-as continued aid to theArab countries shows. Moreover, someethnic groups may conflict on significant issues such as American acceptance of the Oder-Neisse line separatingPoland from what is now East Germany.THE CONGRESSCongressmen also exerci se power inforeign affairs. Yet they are ordinarilynot serious competitors with the president because they follow a self-denyingordinance. They do not think it is theirjob to determine the nation's defensepolicies. Lewis A. Dexter's extensive interviews with members of the SenateArmed Services Committee, who mightbe expected to want a voice in defensepolicy, reveal that they do not desire formen like themselves to run the nation'sdefense establishment. Aside from a fewspecific conflicts among the armed services which allow both the possibilityand desirability of direct intervention,the Armed Services Committee constitutes a sort of real estate committeedealing _with the regional economicconsequences of the location of militaryfaci Iities.The congressional appropriationspower is potentially a significant resource, but circumstances since the endof World War II have tended to reduce

its effectiveness. The appropriationscommittees and Congress itself mightmake their will felt by refusing to allotfunds unless basic policies were altered.But this has not happened. While Congress makes its traditional small cuts inthe military budget, presidents havemostly found themselves ward ng offcongressional attempts to increasespecific items sti II further.Most of the time, the administration'srefusal to spend has not been seriouslychallenged. However, there have beenoccasions when individual legislators orcomm ittees have been i nfl uentia I.Senator Henry Jackson in his campaign(with the aid of colleagues on the Joint-Committee on Atomic Energy) was ableto gain acceptance for the Polarisweapons system and Senator A r t h . u ~ . Vandenberg played a part in deter ining the shape of the Marshall Plan an .so on. The few congressmen who areexpert in defense policy act, as SamuelP. Huntington says, largely as lobbyistswith the executive branch. It is apparently more fruitful for these congressional experts to use their resources inorder to get a hearing from the executive than to work on other congressmen.When an issue involves the actual' useor threat of violence, it takes a greatdeal to convince congressmen not' tofollow the president's lead. JamesRobinson's tabulation of foreign and defense policy issues from the late 1930sto 1961 (Table 2) shows dominant influence by Congress in only one caseout of seven-the 1954 decision not tointervene with armed force in Indochina. In that instance PresidentEisenhower deliberately sounded outcongressional opinion and, finding itnegative, decided not to interveneagainst the advice of Admiral Radford,chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.This attempt to abandon responsibilitydid not succeed, as the years of American involvement demonstrate.THE MILITARYThe outstanding feature of the military's

pa rticipation in making defen se pol cyis their amazing weakness. Whether thepolicy decisions involve the size of thearmed forces, the choice of weaponssystems, the total defense budget, or itsdivision into components, the militaryhave not prevailed. Let us take budgetary decisions as representative of thekey choices to be made in defense policy. Since the end of World War II themil tary has not been able to achievesignificant (billion dollar) increases inappropriations by their ow n efforts.Under Truman and Eisenhower defensebudgets were determined by w hat Huntington calls the remainder method: thetwo presidents estimated reve nues, decided what they could spend on domestic matters, and the remainder wasassigned to defense. The usual controversy was between some mi Iitary andcongressional groups supporti ng muchlarger expenditures while the presidentand his executive allies refused. A typical case, involving the desire of the AirForce to increase the number of groupsof planes is described by Huntington inThe Common Defense:

The FY [fiscal year] 1949 budget provided48 groups. After the Czech cou p, the Ad-ministration yielded and backed an AirForce of 55 groups in its spring rearma-ment program. Congress added additionalfunds to aid Air Force expansion to 70groups. The Administration refused toutilize them, however, and in the gatheringeconomy wave of the summer and fall of1948, the Air Force goal was cut backagain to 48 groups. In 1949 the House ofRepresentatives picked up the challengeand appropriated funds for 58 groups. ThePresident impounded the money. In June,1950, the Air Force had 48 groups.

The great increases in the defensebudget were due far more to Stalin andmodern technology than to the military.The Korean War resulted in an increasefrom 12 to 44 billions and much of therest followed Sputnik and the huge costsof missile programs. Thus moderntechnology and international conflictput an end to the one major effort to


4/6

168 AARON WILDAVSKY THE TWO PRESIDENCIES 169Table 2 terized the entire postwar period. In eral Dynamics or Boeing get the expenCONGRESSIONAL INVOLVEMENT IN FOREIGN deed, the military have not been united sive contract?-is a larger than lifeAND DEFENSE POLICY DECISIONS on any major matter of defense policy. example of the pressures brought to

Congr.. .lonalInyoly.m.nt Initiator

Pr.domInant Inf1u.nc. L.gl. latlon Vlol.nce D.cl. lon

The apparant unity of the Joint Chiefs ofStaff turns out to be illusory. The vastmajority of their recommendations appear to be unanimous and are accepted

bear in search of lucrative contracts.But neither the TFX case no r the usualvigorous competition for contracts is involved with the making of substantiveI u .

(High,Low,Non.)(Congra.. (Congr.. .

or orEx.cutIY. Ex.cully.)orR.lIOlullon(V or No)

at Stake(Y orNo)TIme(Long orShort)

by the secretary of defense and the president. But this facade of unity can onlybe achieved by methods that vitiate thedefense policy. Vital questions like thesize of the defense budget, the choice ofstrategic programs, massive retaliationNeutraltty Legislation, impact of the recommendations. Gen vs. a counter-city strategy, and the likethe 1930s High Exec Cong Yes No Long uine disagreements are hidden by vague .were far beyond the policy aims of anyLend-Lease, 1941Aid to Russia, 1941Repeal 01 ChineseExclusion, 1943Fulbright Resolution,1943Building the AtomicBomb,1944Foreign Services Act 01

HighLowHighHighLow

ExecExecCongCongExec

ExecExec. GongCongExec

YesNoYesYesYes

YesNoNoNoYes

LongLongLongLongLong

language that commits no one to anything. Mutually contradictory plans arestrung together so everyone appears toget somethi ng, but noth ng is decided.Since it is impossible to agree on'-really important matters, al l sorts of trivia arebrought in to make a record of agreement. While it may be true, as Admiral

company. Industrial firms, then, do notcontrol such decisions, no r is theremuch evidence that they actually try.No doubt a precipitous and drastic rushto disarmament would meet with opposition from industrial firms among otherinterests. However, there nas neverbeen a time when any significant ele

1946 High Exec Exec Yes No Long Denfield, a former chief of naval opera ment in the go vernment con sidered aTruman Doctrine, 1947The Marshall Plan,1947-48Bar"n Airlift, 1948VandenbergResolution, 1948North Atlantic Treaty,1947-49Korean Decision, 1950

HighHighNoneHighHighNone

ExecExecExecExecExecExec

ExecExecExecCongExecExec

YesYesNoYesYesNo

NoNoYesNoNoYes

LongLongLongLongLongShort

tions, said, that "O n nine-tenths of thematters that come before them the JointChiefs of Staff reach agreement themselves," the vastly more important truthis that "normally the only disputes areon strategic concepts, the size andcomposition of forces, and budget matters."

disarmament policy to be feasible.It may appear that industrial firms hadno special reason to concern themselveswith the government's stance on defensebecause they agree with the national consensus on resisting communism, maintaining a large defense establishment,and rejecting isolationism. However, thisJapanese PeaceTreaty, 1952Bohlen Nomination,1953Indo-China, 1954Formosan Resolution,

1955Intemational FinanceCorporation, 1956Foreign Aid, 1957Reciprocal TradeAgreements, 1958

HighHighHighHighLowHighHigh

ExecExecExecExecExecExecExec

ExecExecCongExecExecExecExec

YesYesNoYesYesYesYes

NoNoYesYesNo. NoNo

LongLongShortLongLongLongLong

MILITARY-INDUSTRIALBut what about the fabled militilryindustrial complex? If the mil tary alone.is divided and weak, perhaps the giantindustrial firms that are so dependent ondefense contracts playa large part inmaking policy.First, there is an important distinctionbetween the questions Who will get agiven contract? and What will our de-

hypothesis about the climate of opinionexplains everything and nothing. Forevery pol icy that is adopted or rejectedcan be explained away em the groundsthat the cold war climate of opi nion dictated what happened. Did the UnitedStates fail to intervene with armed force inVietnam in 1954? That must be becausethe climate of opinion was against it. Didthe United States send troops to Vietnamin the 1960s? That must be because theMonroney Resolution,1958Cuban Decision, 1961 HighLow GongExec GongExec YesNo NoYes LongLong

fense policy be? It is apparent that different answers may be given to thesequite different questions. There are litercold war climate demanded it. If theUnited States bui Ids more m issi les,negotiates a test-ban treaty, intervenes in

Source: James A. Robinson, Congress and Foreign Policy Making (Homewood. Illinois, 1962). ally tens of thousands of defense contractors. They may compete vigorously the Dominican Republic, fails to intervene in a dozen other situations, all thesefor business. In the course of this com actions fit the hypothesis by definition.subordinate foreign affairs to domesticpolicies through the budget.

It could be argued that the presidentmerely ratifies the decisions made bythe military and their allies. If the mili

tary and/or Congress were united andinsistent on defense policy, it would certainly be difficult for presidents to resistthese forces. But it is precisely the d s-unity of the military that has charac

petition, they may wine and dine military officers, use retired generals, seekintervention by their congressmen,place ads in trade journals, and evencontribute to political campaigns. Thefamous TFX controversy-Should Gen-

The argument is reminiscent of hose whodefined the Soviet Union as permanentlyhostile and therefore interpreted increases of Soviet troops as menacing anddecreases of troop strength as equallysinister.


5/6

170 AARON WILDAVSKY THE TWO PRESIDENCIES 171

If the growth of the military establishment s not directly equated with increasing military control of defense policy, theextraordinary weakness of the professional soldier still requires explanation.Huntington has written about how majormilitary leaders .were seduced in theTruman and Eisenhower years into believing that they should bow to the judgment of civilians that the economy couldnot stand much larger military expenditures. Once the size of the military piewas accepted as a fixed constraint, themilitary services were compelled to puttheir major energies into quarreling withone another over who should get thelarger share. Given the natural rivalries ofthe military and their traditional acceptance of civilian rule, the president and hisadvisers-who could claim responsibilityfor the broader picture of reconciling defense and domestic policies-had the.upper hand. There are, however, additional explanations to be considered.The dominant role of the congressional appropriations committee is to beguardian of the treasury. This is manifested in the pride of its members incutting the president's budget. Thus itwas difficult to get this crucial committee to recommend even a few hundredmillion increase in defense; it was practically impossible to get them to consider the several billion jump that mightreally have made a difference. A relatedbudgetary matter concerned the planning, programming, and budgeting sys-tem introduced by Secretary of DefenseMcNamara. For if the defense budgetcontained major categories thatcrisscrossed the services, only the secretary of defense could put it together.Whatever the other debatable consequences of program budgeting, its majorconsequence was to grant power to thesecretary and his civilian advisers.The subordination of the militarythrough program budgeting is just onesymptom of a more general weakness ofthe military. In the past decade the military has suffered a lack of intellectualskills appropriate to the nuclear age. For

no one has (and no one wants) directexperience with nuclear war. So theusual military talk about being the onlypeople to have combat experience isnot very impressive. Instead, the imaginative creation of possible. futurewars-in order to avoid them-requirespeople with a high capacity for abstractthought combined with the ability tomanipulate symbols using quantitativemethods. West Point has not producedmany such men.THE STATE DEPARTMENTModern presidents expect the State Department to carry out their policies. JohnF. Kennedy felt that State was "i n someparticular sense 'his' department." If asecretary of state forgets this, as was apparently the case with James Byrnesunder Truman, a president may findanother man. But the State Department,especially the Foreign Service, is also ahighly professional organization with alife and momentum of its own. If a president does not push hard, he may findhis preferences somehow dissipated intime. Arthur Schlesinger fills his bookon Kennedy with laments about the bureaucratic inertia and recalcitrance ofthe State Department.Yet Schlesinger's own accountsuggests that State could not ordinarilyresist the president. At one point, hewrites o f "the President, himself, increasingly the day-to-day director ofAmerican foreign policy." On the nextpage, we learn that "Kennedy dealt personally with almost every aspect of policy around the globe. He knew moreabout certain areas than the senior officials at State and probably called asmany issues to their attention as theydid to his." The president insisted on hisway in Laos. He pushed through his policy on the Congo against strong opposition with the State Department. HadKennedy wanted to get a great dealmore initiative out of the State Department, as Schlesinger insists, he couldhave replaced the Secretary of State, aman who did not command special

support in the Democratic party or inCongress. It may be that Kennedywanted too strongly to run his ownforeign policy. Dean Rusk may haveknown far better than Schlesinger thatthe one thing Kennedy did not want wasa man who might rival him in the fieldof foreign affairs.Schlesinger comes closest to the truthwhen he writes that "the White Housecould always win any battle it chose overthe [Foreign] Service; but the prestige andproficiency of the Service limited the.number of battles any White Housewould find it profitable to fight" Whenthe president knew what he wanted, hegot it. When he was doubtful and perplexed, he sought good advice and'frequently di d not get that. But there is noevidence that the people on his stCfff.cameup with better ideas. The real problemmay have been a lack of good ideas anywhere. Kennedy undoubtedly encouraged his staff to prod the State Department. But the president was sufficientlycautious not to push so hard that he gothis way when he was not certain whatthat way should be. In this context Kennedy appears to have played his staff offagainst elements in the State DepartmentThe growth of a special White Housestaff to help presidents in foreign affairsexpresses their need for assistance, theirrefuYaI to rely completely on the regularexecutive agencies, and their ability tofind competent men. The deployment of.this staff must remain a presidential prerogative, however, if its members are toserve presidents and not their opponents.Whenever critics do not Iike existingforeign and defense pol icies, th ey arelikely to complain that the White Housestaff is screening out divergent views fromthe president's attention. Naturally, thecritics recommend introducing manymore different viewpoints. If the criticscould maneu ver the president into counting hands all day ("on the one hand andon the othe r"), they would make it impossible for him to act. Such a viewpoint isalso congen ial to those who bel ieve thataction rather than inaction is the greatest

present danger in foreign policy. But presidents resolutely refuse to become prisoners of their advisers by using them asother people would like. Presidents re-main in control of their staff as well as ofmajor foreign policy decisions.HOW COMPLETE IS THE

CONTROL?Some analysts say that the success ofpresidents in controlling foreign policy

decisions is largely illusory. It isachieved, they say, by anticipating thereactions of others, and eli minatingproposals that would run into severeopposition. There is some truth in thisobjection. In politics, where transac.tions are based on a high degree ofmutual interdependence, what othersmay do has to be taken into accountBut basing presidential success inforeign and defense policy on anticipated reactions suggests a static situation which does not exist. For if presidents propose only those pol icies thatwould get support in Congress, andCongress opposes them only when itknows that it can muster overwhelmingstrength, there would never be any conflict. Indeed, there might never be anyaction.

How can "anticipated reaction" explain the conflict over policies like theMarshall Plan and the test-ban treaty inwhich severe opposition was overComeonly by strenuous efforts? Furthermore,why doesn't "anticipated reaqion" workin domestic affairs? One would have toargue that for some reason presidentialperception of what would be successfulis consistently confused on domestic issues and most always accurate on majorforeign policy issues. But the role of "anticipated reactions" should be greater inthe more familiar domestic situations,which provide a backlog of experiencefor forecasting, than in fore ign pol icywith many novel situations such as theSuez crisis or the Rhodesian affair.Are there significant historical examples which might refute the thesis of


6/6

THE PRESIDENT AND THE MILITARY 173AARON WILDAVSKY72presidential control of foreign policy?Foreign aid may be a case in point. Formany years, presidents have struggled toget foreign aid appropriations becauseof hostility from public and congres~ i o n a l opinion. Yet several billion dol-lars'a year are appropriated regularlydespite the evident unpopularity of theprogram. In the aid programs to Communist countries like Poland and Yugoslavia, the Congress attaches all sorts ofrestrictions to the aid, but presidentsfind ways of getting around them.What about the example of recognitionof Communist China? The sentiment ofthe country always has been against recognizing Red China or admitting it to theUnited Nations. But have presidentswanted to recognize Red China and beenhamstrung by opposition? The answer, Isuggest, is a qualified "no." By the timerecognition of Red China might have become a serious issue for the Truman administration, the war in Korea effectivelyprecluded its consideration. There is noevidence that President Eisenhower orSecretary Dulles ever thought it wise torecognize Red China or help admit her tothe United Nations. The Kennedy administration viewed the matter as not of majorimportance and, considering the opposition, moved cautiously in suggestingchange. Then came the war in Vietnam. Ifthe advantages for foreign policy hadbeen perceived to be much higher, thenKennedy or Johnson might have proposed changing American policy towardrecognition of Red China.One possible exception, in the caseof Red China, however, does not seemsufficient to invalidate the general thesisthat presidents do considerably better ingetting their way in foreign and defensepolicy than in domestic policies.

THE WORLD INFLUENCEThe forces impelling presidents to be

concerned with the widest range offoreign and defense policies also affectthe ways in which they calculate their

power stakes. As Kennedy used to say,"Domestic policy . . . can only defeatus; foreign pol icy can kill us."It no longer makes sense for presidents to "play politics" with foreign anddefense policies. In the past, presidentsmight have thought that they could gainby prolonged delay or by not acting atall. The problem might disappear or bepassed on to thei r successors. Presidentsmust now expect to pay the high coststhemselves if the world situation deteriorates. The advantages of pursuing apolicy that is viable in the world, thatwill not blow up on presidents or theirfellow citizens, far outweigh any temporary pol itical disadvantages accrued insupporting an initially unpopular policy.Compared with domestic affairs, presidents engaged in world politics are immensely more concerned with meetingproblems on their own terms. Who supports and opposes a policy, though amatter of considerable interest, does notassume the crucial importance that itdoes in domestic affairs. The best policypresigents can find is also the best politics.The fact that there are numerousforeign and defense policy situationscompeting fo r a president's attentionmeans that it is worthwhile to organizepolitical activity in order to affect hisagenda. For if a president pays more attention to certain problems he may develop different preferences; he may seekand receive different advice; his newcalculations may lead him to devotegreater resources to seeking a solution.Interested congressmen may exertinfluence not by directly determining apresidential decision, but indirectly bymaking it costly for a president to avoidreconsidering the basis for his action. Forexample, citizen groups, such as thoseconcerned with a change in China policy, may have an impact simply by keeping their proposals on the public agenda.A president may be compelled to reconsider a problem even though he couldnot overtly be forced to alter the prevailing policy.

In foreign affairs we may be ap-proaching the stage where knowledge ispower. There is a tremendous receptivity to good ideas in Washington. Mostanyone who can present a convincingrationale for dealing with a hard worldfinds a ready audience. The best way toconvince presidents to follow a desiredpolicy is to show that it might work. Aman lik e McNamara thrives because heperforms; he comes up with answers hecan defend. It is, to be sure, extremely.

difficult to devise good policies or topred ict their consequences accurately.Nor is it easy to convince others that agiven policy is superior to other alternatives. But it is the way to influence withpresidents. For if they are convincedthat the current pol cy is be st, the Iikel hood of gaining sufficient force to com-pel a change is quite sma II. The manwho can bui ld better fore ign poli cieswill find presidents beating a path to hisdoor.

22. The President and the Military*MORTON H. HALPERIN

All presidents are dependent on thepermanent bureaucracies of governmentinherited from their predecessors. Apresident must have the information andanalysis of options which the bureaucracies provide in order to anticipateproblems and make educated choices.He must, in most cases, also have thecooperation of the bureaucracies ,to turnhis decisions into governmental action.A bureaucracy can effectively defuse apresidential decision by refusing to support it with influential members of Congress or to implement it faithfully.The president's dependence on the bureaucracy and his limited freedom tomaneuver are acute in all areas. The mili-tary, however, poses a unique set ofproblems for him. These arise in part from thelimitations upon the president when he isseeking military advice. When the National Security Counci or other presidential sessions are convened to discusshigh-level foreign and n a t i o n a ~ securitymatters, the president has a great deal ofinfluence on the selection of all thosewho will attend, except the chairman of

, the Joint Chiefs of Staff OCS), wh o must bechosen from a small group of seniorcareer mil itary officers. Compare also thepresident's ability to appoint noncareerpeople to subcabinet and ambassadorialposts with the limitat ions on his range ofselection for appointments to senior mili-tary positions or overseas military commands.One dile mma for the presi dent is finding alternative sources of military advice. The military, for example, has avirtual mo nopoly on provi di ng information to the president about the readinessand capabilities of U.S. or even alliedforces. Other groups and individualscan provide advice on many "military"questions, but their access to informatio[1 is limited. The president may 'callfor judgments from his secretary of defense, but the secretary's analysis mustrely on the basic factual material andfield evaluations provided by the mili-tary.Judgments about the l ikely effectiveness of American combat operations arealso the exclusive province of the mili-

"Source: Reprinted by permission from Foreign Affairs, January 1972. Copyright 1971 bythe Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.

Wildavsky Two Presidencies

Documents

Transcript of Wildavsky Two Presidencies