A Cybernetic Approach to Continuity in US Foreign Policy

One of the basic themes in the study of international relations is the phenomenon of continuity. To account for this continuity, scholars usually resort to one of two different explanatory strategies: purported long-term goals of states or the psychology of those who dominate the state’s foreign policy making. This paper proposes an alternative way of thinking about continuity. First, we lay out a picture of foreign policy continuity for a particular state, the United States, indicating the different levels of policy and what features a multilevel argument about continuity must have. Second, we turn to the cybernetic tradition and sketch out a class of theories about policy making, those which emphasize means-, rather than ends-driven activities. We then indicate how, in general, such theories can address the issue of multi-level policy continuity. Finally, we return to the issue of U.S. foreign policy and put forward a sort of test issue to apply and evaluate cybernetic explanations: how to account for the repeated resort to the same sort of policies even after major foreign policy disasters. Our answer, cybernetically, is that U.S. policy makers engage in what we would call tactical learning. One of the basic themes in the study of international relations is the phenomenon of continuity. States are widely believed to pursue policies which, although obviously crafted to the particulars of specific situations, nonetheless revolve around a core that is stable for decades, if not centuries. Thus, a casual glance through both scholarly monographs and introductory textbooks reveals statements about state X’s long-term goals, pressure group Y’s core interests, or leader Z’s ideological fixation, in each case as manifested through any number of specific policies. To account for this continuity, scholars usually resort to one of two different explanatory strategies. Some focus on long-term goals, whether read off from the geopolitical situation of the country in question (e.g., the need for warm-water ports or natural resources, for allies or buffer states) or from internal characteristics of the country (e.g., a liberal political and economic system, a sense of exceptionalism, ingrained racial prejudices). Other explanations center instead on the psychology of those who dominate the state’s foreign policy making: crusading or pragmatic personalities, perceptual or cognitive biases regarding particular kinds of information, deep-seated fears of chaotic situations, perhaps due to traumatic collective memories. Whatever the virtues of any of the above explanations for the continuity of a state’s foreign policy, they suffer from several important defects. First, they tend to lack a translation mechanism by which they can account for specific foreign policy decisions. How exactly is it that the myriad of policies a state pursues across various issue areas are accounted for by a particular goal or personality characteristic? For 1 On this point, see Sylvan and Majeski (2007: ch. 1). example, does the goal of pursuing open political and economic systems tell us much about protecting the environment? If so, how? Off the bat, then, entire classes of policy turn out not to be accounted for by long-term factors. But the same question arises for those types of policies which do fall within the scope of the latter. For example, if a state is supposed to pursue the goal of open markets, does that mean that whenever decisions must be made about trade or investment, negotiators will always push for a maximalist solution as opposed to a compromise? Does it mean that if leaders have a strong disposition in favor of democracy, they can never back dictators, even as a temporary measure (and in that case, how long is “temporary” (see Kirkpatrick, 1979)? Even if this issue is resolved, questions of timing and policy choice still persist: if people of a given skin tone are considered incapable of self-rule, should their lands be annexed, ruled through intermediaries, or turned over to other states or institutions; and when should this happen, and for how long? Finally, what is the relation between long-term factors? If more than one is at work, then which takes priority, under what circumstances, and how? Nothing in the literature sheds any light on this subject. In short, explanations for policy continuity as indicative of long-term goals or abiding psychological characteristics are not, in fact, explanations at all. The overriding problem with trying to explain policy continuity by long-term factors such as goals or leaders’ psychology is that the notion of continuity is of necessity multi-level. On the one hand, policy is made at particular times, for particular problems, often in particular places; and it is frequently remade as situations change. This implies that policy is contoured along multiple dimensions. On the other hand, arguments that stress sempiternal goals or biases spotlight a single dimension, to the exclusion of all others, thereby either ignoring all the other facets of policy or being obliged to claim that they somehow reflect the principal dimension.