Changing Course: Leaders, Advisors, and Politics of Wartime Decision-Making

• In Event: Foreign Policy Decision-Making

Abstract

Why do some democratic leaders continue or even intensify fighting in ongoing military interventions they initiate despite mounting losses on the ground and growing opposition at home? Why do other leaders, facing similar circumstances, opt to disengage? The literature on war duration and termination cannot fully account for variation in both the timing and substance of the decisions democratic leaders make to change course in protracted military interventions. To address these shortcomings, this study posits that democratic leaders will make wartime decisions that seek to satisfy the preferences of what I call “bellwether bureaucrats” within their inner circle: those military and civilian advisors who provide leaders with salient indicators about support for the intervention’s current course and whose opposition would prove especially damaging domestically should their dissent spill over into public view through press leaks or disclosures to legislative allies. As battlefield setbacks mount and domestic support for the intervention diminishes, leaders will find themselves vulnerable to criticism not just from opposition party elites, but also from members of their own party. Leaders will make choices that satisfy those advisors most capable of mobilizing support or silencing opposition among the core elements of their increasingly narrow governing coalitions within their own party. I evaluate this argument using Bayesian process tracing methods and comparative case studies of Lyndon Johnson's decision-making in Vietnam following the 1968 Tet Offensive, Ronald Reagan's decision-making in Lebanon following the 1983 Marine barracks bombing, and President George W. Bush's 2007 decision to "surge" U.S. forces in Iraq.

Author

• Theo Milonopoulos, Naval War College