The U.S. experience in negotiating with North Korea has likewise suffered from paralyzing domestic disagreements between moderates and conservatives concerning the North s intentions and trustworthiness. Capture, by contrast, is the hijacking of the foreign policy making process by narrow, highly focused sets of special interests. Taking advantage of indifference or inaction on the part of other potentially influential parties, these groups succeed in advancing their parochial interests, potentially at the expense of the national interest. Here again, capture can also afflict policy making in the security realm, as illustrated by the successes of business interests in gutting sanctions against India and Pakistan in the aftermath of their testing of nuclear weapons, and in sustaining Congressional support for questionable weapons systems. Paralysis and capture are symmetric pathologies in U.S. foreign policy making.
Paralysis is the result of over-activation of mutually inconsistent, polarized sets of interests.
Capture, on the other hand, is the result under-activation of appropriate balancing forces, leading to a policy making process that is insufficiently bounded. In both paralysis and capture, the result is a failure to build a coalition of the middle to support and sustain judicious foreign policy. The result are policies that are misguided or unsustainable or both. While the potential for paralysis and capture always have been inherent in our system of government, U.S. leaders are facing increasingly severe difficulties negotiating in the shadow of domestic politics. The loss of a monolithic, implacable foe-state has introduced a new and uncomfortable ambiguity into the conduct of U.S. foreign policy.