DOMESTIC STRUCTURE AND FOREIGN POLICY

by Henry A. Kissinger

I. The Role of Domestic Structure

In the traditional conception, international affairs is
conducted by political units treated almost as personalities. The
domestic structure is taken as given; the study of international affairs
begins where domestic policy ends.

But this approach is appropriate only to stable periods. At
other times the impact of the domestic structure is far more pervasive.
A policy dilemma arises because the pros and cons of a given course
seem evenly balanced. The definition of what constitutes a problem
and what criteria are relevant in "solving" it, reflect to a considerable
extent the domestic notions of what is just, the pressures produced by
the decision-making process, and the experience which forms the
leaders in their rise to eminence. During stable periods this is
obscured because the various states generally have similar conceptions
of the "rules of the game." If the domestic structures are based on
commensurable notions of what is just, a consensus about permissible
aims and methods of foreign policy develops. If domestic structures are
reasonably stable, temptations to use an adventurous foreign policy to
achieve domestic cohesion are at a minimum. In these conditions,

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leaders will generally apply the same criteria and hold similar views
about what constitutes a "reasonable" demand. This does not guarantee
agreement, but it provides the condition for a meaningful dialogue, that
is, it sets the stage for traditional diplomacy.

When the domestic structures are based on fundamentally
different conceptions of what is just, the conduct of international
affairs grows more complex. Then it becomes difficult even to define
the nature of disagreement because what seems most obvious to one
side appears most problematic to the other. Statesmen can still meet,
but their ability to persuade has been reduced for they no longer speak
the same language.

This can occur even when no universal claims are made.
Incompatible domestic structures can passively generate a gulf, simply
because of the difficulty of achieving a consensus about the nature of
"reasonable" aims and methods. But when one or more states claim
universal applicability for their particular structure, schisms grow
deep indeed. In that event, the domestic structure becomes not only an
obstacle to understanding but one of the principal issues in international
affairs. Its requirements condition the conception of alternatives; its
survival seems involved in every dispute. The symbolic aspect of foreign
policy begins to overshadow the substantive component. It becomes
difficult to consider a dispute "on its merits" because the disagreement
seems finally to turn not on a specific issue but on a set of values as

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expressed in domestic arrangements. The consequences of such a
state of affairs was explained by Edmund Burke during the French
Revolution:

> I never thought we could make peace with the system;
> because it was not for the sake of an object we pursued
> in rivalry with each other, but with the system itself
> that we were at war. As I understood the matter, we
> were at war not with its conduct but with its existence;
> convinced that its existence and its hostility were the
> 1
> same.

Of course, the domestic structure is not irrelevant
in any historical period. At a minimum, it determines the amount
of the total social effort which can be devoted to foreign policy.
The wars of the kings who governed by divine right were limited because
feudal rulers, bound by customary law, could not levy income taxes
or conscript their subjects. The French Revolution which based its
policy on a doctrine of popular will, mobilized resources on a truly
national scale for the first time. This was one of the principal
reasons for the startling successes of French arms against a hostile
Europe which possessed greater over-all power. The ideological regimes
of the twentieth century have utilized a still larger share
of the national effort. This has enabled them to hold their own against
an environment possessing far superior resources.

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Aside from the allocation of resources, the domestic structure crucially affects the way the actions of other states are interpreted. To some extent, of course, every society finds itself in an environment not of its own making and has some of the main lines of its foreign policy imposed on it. Indeed, the pressure of the environment can grow so strong that it permits only one interpretation of its significance; Prussia in the eighteenth century and Israel in the contemporary period may have found themselves in this position.

But for the majority of states the margin of decision has been greater. The actual choice has been determined to a considerable degree by their interpretation of the environment and by their leaders' conception of alternatives. Napoleon rejected peace offers beyond the dreams of the kings who had ruled France by "divine right" because he was convinced that *any* settlement which demonstrated the limitations of his power was tantamount to his downfall. That Russia seeks to surround itself with a belt of friendly states in Eastern Europe is a product of geography and history. That it is attempting to do so by imposing a domestic structure based on a particular ideology is a result of conceptions supplied by its own domestic structure.

The domestic structure is decisive finally in the elaboration of positive goals. The most difficult, indeed tragic, aspect of foreign policy is how to deal with the problem of conjecture. When the scope for action is greatest, knowledge on which to base such action is

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small or ambiguous. When knowledge becomes available, the ability to affect events is usually at a minimum. In 1936, no one could know whether Hitler was a misunderstood nationalist or a maniac. By the time certainty was achieved, it had to be paid for with millions of lives.

The conjectural element of foreign policy--the need to gear actions that cannot be proved true when it is made--is never more crucial than in a revolutionary period. Then, the old is obviously disintegrating while the shape of its replacement if highly uncertain. Everything depends, therefore, on some conception of the future. But varying domestic structures can easily produce different assessments of the significance of existing trends and, more importantly, clashing criteria for resolving these differences or for shaping the future. This is the dilemma of our time.

Problems are novel; their scale is vast; their nature is often abstract and always psychological. In the past, international relations were confined to a limited geographic area. The various continents

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pursued their relations essentially in isolation from each other.
Until the eighteenth century, other continents impinged on Europe
only sporadically and for relatively brief periods. And when Europe
extended its sway over much of the world, foreign policy became
limited to the Western Powers with the single exception of Japan.
The international system of the nineteenth century was to all
practical purposes identical with the concert of Europe.

The period after World War II marks the first era of truly
global foreign policy. Each major state is capable of producing
consequences in every part of the globe by a direct application of
its power or because ideas can be transmitted almost instantaneously
or because ideological rivalry gives vast symbolic significance even
to issues which are minor in geopolitical terms. The mere act of
adjusting perspectives to so huge a scale would produce major dislocations.
This problem is compounded by the emergence of so many new states.
Since 1945, the number of participants in the international system
has nearly doubled. In previous periods the addition of even one
or two new states tended to lead to decades of instability until a
new equilibrium was established and accepted. The emergence of scores
of new states has magnified this difficulty many times over.

These upheavals would be challenge enough but they are
overshadowed by the risks posed by modern technology. Peace is
maintained through the threat of mutual destruction based on weapons
for which there exists no operational experience. Deterrence--the

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policy of preventing an action by confronting the opponent with
risks he is unwilling to run--depends in the first instance on
psychological criteria. What the potential aggressor believes is
more crucial than what is objectively true. Deterrence occurs
above all in the minds of men.

To achieve an international consensus on the significance
of these developments would be a major task even if domestic structures
were comparable. It becomes especially difficult when domestic
structures differ widely and when universal claims are made on
behalf of them. A systematic assessment of the impact of domestic
structure on the conduct of international affairs would have to treat
such factors as historical tradition, social values, and
the economic system. But this would far transcend the scope of
an article. For the purposes of this discussion we will confine
ourselves to sketching the impact of two factors only: administrative
structure and the formative experience of leadership
groups.

## II. The Impact of the Administrative Structure

In the contemporary period, the very nature of the governmental
structure introduces an element of rigidity which operates more or
less independently of the convictions of statesmen or the ideology
which they represent. Issues are too complex and relevant fact too
manifold to be dealt with on the basis of personal intuition. An
institutionalization of decision-making is an inevitable by-product

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of the risks of international affairs in the nuclear age. Moreover,
almost every modern state is dedicated to some theory of "planning"
--the attempt to structure the future by understanding and, if
necessary, manipulating the environment. Planning involves a quest
for predictability and, above all for "objectivity." There is a
deliberate effort to reduce the relevant element of a problem to
a standard of average performance. The vast bureaucratic mechanisms
that emerge develop a momentum and a vested interest of their own.
As they grow more complex, their internal standards of operation
are not necessarily commensurable. There is a trend toward autarky
using...
or toward / foreign policy as a means to increase domestic control.
A paradoxical consequence may be that increased control over the
domestic environment is purchased at the price of loss of flexibility
in international affairs.

The purpose of bureaucracy is to devise a standard operating
procedure which can cope effectively with most problems. A bureaucracy
is efficient if the matters which it handles routinely are, in fact,
the most frequent and if its procedures are relevant to their solution.
If those criteria are met, the energies of the top leadership are
freed to deal creatively with the unexpected occurrence or with the
need for innovation. Bureaucracy becomes an obstacle when what it
defines as routine does not address the most significant range of
issues or when its prescribed mode of action proves irrelevant to
the problem.

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When this occurs, the bureaucracy absorbs the energies of top executives in reconciling what is expected with what happens; the analysis of where one is overwhelms the consideration of where one should be going. Serving the machine becomes a more absorbing occupation than defining its purpose. Success consists in moving the administrative machine to the point of decision leaving relatively little energy for analyzing the merit of this decision. The quest for "objectivity"--while desirable theoretically--involves the danger that means and ends are confused, that an average standard of performance is exalted as the only valid one. Attention tends to be diverted from the act of choice--which is the ultimate test of statesmanship--to the accumulation of facts. Decisions can be avoided until a crisis brooks no further delay, until the events themselves have removed the element of ambiguity.

Something like this seems to be characteristic of modern bureaucratic states whatever their ideology. In societies with a pragmatic tradition, such as the United States, there develops a greater concern with an analysis of where one is than where one is going. What passes for planning is frequently the projection of the familiar into the future. In societies based on ideology, doctrine is institutionalized and exegesis takes the place of innovation. Creativity must make so many concessions to orthodoxy that it may exhaust itself in doctrinal adaptations. In short, the accumulation of knowledge of the bureaucracy and the impersonality of its method of arriving at decisions can be achieved at a high price. Decision-making can grow

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so complex that the process of producing a bureaucratic consensus may
overshadow the purpose of the effort.

While all thoughtful administrators would grant in the abstract
that these dangers exist, they find it difficult to act on their
knowledge. Lip service is paid to planning; indeed planning staffs
proliferate. However, they suffer from two debilities. The "operating"
elements may not take the planning effort seriously. Plans become
esoteric exercises which are accepted largely because they imply no
practical consequence. They are a sop to administrative theory. At the same time,
planning staffs have a high incentive to try to be "useful," there is
a bias against novel conceptions which are difficult to adapt to an
administrative mold. Yet true innovation is bound to run counter to
prevailing standards. The dilemma of modern bureaucracy is that while
every creative act is lonely, not every lonely act is creative. Formal
criteria are little help in solving this problem because the unique
cannot be expressed "objectively."

The rigidity in the policies of the technologically advanced
societies is in no small part due to the complexity of decision-making.
Crucial problems may--and frequently do--go unrecognized for a long
time. But once the decision-making aparatus has disgorged a policy, it
becomes very difficult to change it. The alternative to the *status quo*
is the prospect of repeating the whole anguishing process of arriving
at decisions. This explains to some extent the curious phenomenon that
decisions taken with enormous doubt and perhaps with a close division

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become practically sacrosanct once adopted. The whole administrative
machinery swings behind their implementations as if activity could still
all doubts.

Moreover, the reputation, indeed the political survival, of
most leaders depends on their ability to realize their goals, however
these may have been arrived at. Whether these goals are desirable is
relatively less crucial. The time span by which administrative success
is measured is considerably shorter than that by which historical
achievement is determined. In heavily bureaucratized societies all
pressures emphasize the first of these accomplishments.

Then, too, the staffs on which modern executives come to depend
develop a momentum of their own. What started out as an aid to
decision-makers often turns into a practically autonomous organization
whose internal problems structure and sometimes compound the issues
which it was originally designed to solve. The decision-maker will
always be aware of the morale of his staff. Though he has the authority,
he cannot overrule it too frequently without impairing its efficiency,
and he may, in any event, lack the knowledge to do so. Placating the
staff then becomes a major preoccupation of the executive. A form of
administrative democracy results, in which a decision often reflects
an attainable consensus rather than substantive conviction (or at least
the two imperceptibly merge). The internal requirements of the bureaucracy
may come to predominate over the purposes which it was intended to serve.
This is probably even more true in highly institutionalized Communist
states--such as the U.S.S.R.--than in the United States.

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When the administrative machine grows very elaborate, the
various levels of the decision-making process are separated by chasms
which are obscured from the outside world by the complexity of the
apparatus. Research often becomes a means to buy time and to assuage
consciences. Studying a problem can turn into an escape from coming
to grips with it. In the process, the gap between the technical
competence of research staffs and what hard pressed political leaders
are capable of absorbing widens constantly. This heightens the insecurity
of the executive and may thus compound either rigidity or arbitrariness
or both. In many fields--strategy being a prime example--decision-makers
may find it difficult to give as many hours to a problem as the expert
has had years to study it. The ultimate decision often depends less
on knowledge than on the ability to brief the top administrator--to
present the facts in a way that can be absorbed rapidly. The effectiveness
of briefing, however, puts a premium on theatrical qualities. Not
everything that sounds plausible is correct and many things which are
correct may not sound plausible when they are first presented and
a second hearing is rare. The stage aspect of briefing
may leave the decision-maker with a gnawing feeling of having been
taken--even, and perhaps especially, when he does not know quite how.

Sophistication may thus encourage paralysis or a crude
popularization which defeats its own purpose. The excessively theoretical
approach of many research staffs overlooks the problem of the strain
of decision-making in times of crisis. What is relevant for policy

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also depends not only on academic truth but on what can be implemented under stress. The technical staffs are frequently operating in a framework of theoretical standards while in fact their usefulness depends on essentially psychological criteria. To be politically meaningful, their proposals must involve answers to the following types of questions: Does the executive understand the proposal? Does he believe in it? Does he accept it as a guide to action or as an excuse for doing nothing? But if this kind of concern is given too much weight, the requirements of salesmanship will defeat substance.

The pragmatism of executives thus clashes with the theoretical bent of research or planning staffs. Executives as a rule take cognizance of a problem only when it emerges as an administrative issue. They thus unwittingly encourage bureaucratic contests as the only means of generating decisions. Or the various elements of the bureaucracy make a series of non-aggression pacts with each other and thus reduce the decision-maker to a benevolent constitutional monarch. As the special role of the executive increasingly becomes to choose between proposals generated administratively, decision-makers turn into arbiters rather than leaders. Whether they wait until a problem emerges as an administrative issue or until a crisis has demonstrated the irrelevance of the standard operating procedure, the modern decision-makers often find themselves swamped by events.

Faced with an administrative machine which is both elaborate and fragmented, the executive is forced into essentially lateral means of control. Many of his public pronouncements though ostensibly directed

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period. For then, the problems which are most obtrusive may be
least relevant. The issues which are most significant may not be
suitable for administrative formulation and even when formulated may
not lend themselves to bureaucratic consensus. When the issue is how
to transform the existing framework, routine can become an additional
obstacle to both comprehension and action.

This problem, serious enough *within* each society, is magnified
in the conduct of international affairs. While the formal machinery of
decision-making in developed countries shows many similarities, the
criteria which influence decisions vary enormously. With each administrative
machine increasingly absorbed in its own internal problems, diplomacy
loses its flexibility. Leaders are extremely aware of the problems of
placating their own bureaucracy; they cannot depart too far from its
prescriptions without raising serious morale problems. Decisions are
reached so painfully that the very anguish of decision-making acts as a
brake on the give-and-take of traditional diplomacy.

This is true even *within* alliances. The complaints of allies
in either of the two great blocs about inadequate consultation go beyond
the specific issues which produce them. Meaningful consultation with
other nations become very difficult when the internal process of
decision-making already has some of the characteristics of compacts
between quasi-sovereign entities. As more and more countries grow
committed to national planning, the trend toward autarky--and not only in

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economics--grows. There is an increasing reluctance to hazard a
hard-won domestic consensus in an international forum. This accounts
to some extent for the practice of relying on special emissaries or
personal envoys; their status outside the bureaucracy frees them from
some of its restraints. Just as in domestic decision-making, international
agreements are sometimes possible only by ignoring safeguards against
capricious action. It is a paradoxical aspect of modern bureaucracies
that their quest for objectivity and calculability often leads to impasses
which can be overcome only by essentially arbitrary decisions

What is true within alliances--that is among nations which
have at least some common objectives--becomes even more acute in relations
between antagonistic states or blocs. The gap created when two large
bureaucracies generate goals largely in isolation from each other and
on the basis of not necessarily commensurable criteria is magnified
considerably by an ideological schism. The degree of ideological fervor
is not decisive; the problem would exist even if the original ideological
commitment has declined on either or both sides. The criteria for
bureaucratic decision-making may continue to be influenced by ideology
even after its elan has dissipated. Bureaucratic structures generate
their own momentum which may more than counterbalance the loss of earlier
fanaticism. In the early stages of a revolutionary movement, ideology
is crucial and the accident of personalities can be decisive. The Reign
of Terror in France was ended by the elimination of a single man,

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Robespierre. The Bolshevik revolution could hardly have taken place
had Lenin not been on the famous train which crossed Germany into Russia.
But once a revolution becomes institutionalized, the administrative
structures which it has spawned develop their own vested interests.
Ideology may grow less significant in creating commitment; it becomes
pervasive in supplying criteria of administrative choice. Ideologies
prevail by being taken for granted. Orthodoxy substitutes for conviction
and produces its own form of rigidity.

In such circumstances, a meaningful dialogue across ideological
dividing lines becomes extraordinarily difficult. The more elaborate
the administrative structure, the less relevant an individual's view
becomes--indeed one of the purposes of bureaucracy is to liberate
decision-making from the accident of personalities. Thus while personal
convictions may be modified it requires a really monumental effort
to alter bureaucratic commitments. And if change occurs, the bureaucracy
prefers to move at its own pace and not be excessively influenced by
statements or pressures of foreigners. For all these reasons, diplomacy
tends to become rigid or to turn into an abstract bargaining process
based on largely formal criteria such as "splitting the difference."
Either course is self-defeating: the former because it negates the very
purpose of diplomacy; the latter because it subordinates purpose to
technique and because it may encourage intransigence. Indeed, the
incentive for intransigence increases if it is known that the difference
will generally be split.

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Ideological differences are compounded because major parts of the world are only in the first stages of administrative evolution. Where the technologically advanced countries suffer from the inertia of overadministration, the developing areas often lack even the rudiments of effective bureaucracy. Where the advanced countries may drown in "facts," the emerging nations are frequently without the most elementary needed knowledge for forming a meaningful judgment or for implementing it once it has been taken. Where large bureaucracies operate in alternating spurts of rigidity and catastrophic (in relation to the bureaucracy) upheaval, the new states tend to take decisions on the basis of almost random pressures. The excessive institutionalization of one and the inadequate structure of the other inhibit international stability.

### III. The Nature of Leadership

Whatever one's view about the degree to which choices in international affairs are "objectively" determined, the decisions are made by individuals who will be above all conscious of the seeming multiplicity of options. Their understanding of the nature of their choice depends on many factors, especially the experience during the rise to eminence.

The mediating, conciliatory style of British policy in the nineteenth century reflected, in part, the qualities encouraged during careers in Parliament and the values of a cohesive-leadership group connected by ties of family and common education. The hysterical cast of the policy of Imperial Germany was given impetus by a domestic structure

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in which political parties were deprived of responsibility while
ministers were obliged to balance a monarch by divine right against a
Parliament composed of representatives without any prospect of ever
holding office. Consensus could be achieved most easily through fits
of national passion which in turn disquieted all of Germany's neighbors.
Germany's foreign policy grew unstable because its domestic structure
did little to discourage capricious improvisations; it may even have
put a premium on them.

The collapse of the essentially aristocratic conception of
foreign policy of the nineteenth century has made the career experiences
of leaders even more crucial. An aristocracy--if it lives up to its
values--will reject the arbitrariness of absolutist rule; and it will
base itself on a notion of quality which discourages the temptations
of demagoguery inherent in plebiscitarian democracy. Where position is
felt to be a birthright, generosity is possible (though not guaranteed);
flexibility is not inhibited by a commitment to perpetual success.
Where a leader's estimate of himself is not completely dependent on
his standing in an administrative structure, measures can be judged
in terms of a conception of the future rather than of an almost compulsive
desire to avoid even a temporary set-back. When the statesmen belonged
to a community transcending national boundaries, there tended to be
consensus on the criteria of what constituted a reasonable proposal.
This did not prevent conflicts, but it did define their nature and
encouraged dialogue. The bane of aristocratic foreign policy was the

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risk of frivolousness, of a self-confidence unrelated to knowledge,
and of too much emphasis on intuition.

At any event, ours is the age of the expert or the charismatic
leader. The expert has his constituency--those who have a vested interest
in commonly held opinions; elaborating and defining its consensus has after
all made him an expert. Since the expert is often the product of the
administrative dilemmas described earlier, he is usually in a poor position
to transcend them. The charismatic leader, on the other hand, needs a
perpetual revolution to maintain his position. Neither the expert nor
the charismatic leader operates in an environment which puts a premium
on long-range conceptions or on generosity or on subordinating the leader's
ego to purposes which transcend his own career.

Leadership groups are formed by at least three factors: their
experiences during their rise to eminence; the structure in which they
must operate; the values of their society. Three contemporary types will
be discussed here: (a) the bureaucratic-pragmatic type, (b) the ideological
type, and (c) the revolutionary=charismatic type.

Bureaucratic-pragmatic leadership: the main example of this
type of leadership is the American elite--though the leadership groups
of other Western countries increasingly approximate the American pattern.
Shaped by a society without fundamental social schisms (at least until the
race problem became visible) and the product of an environment in which
most recognized problems have proved soluble, its approach to policy
is ad hoc, pragmatic, and somewhat mechanical.

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Because pragmatism is based on the conviction that the context
of events produces a solution, there is a tendency to await developments.
The belief is prevalent that every problem will yield if attacked with
sufficient energy. It is inconceivable, therefore, that delay might
result in irretrievable disaster; at worst it is thought to require a
redoubled effort later on. Problems are segmented into constitutent
elements, each of which is dealt with by experts in the special difficulty
it involves. There is little emphasis or concern for their interrelationship.
Technical issues enjoy more careful attention, and receive more sophisticated
treatment, than political ones. Though the importance of intangibles is
affirmed in theory, it is difficult to obtain a consensus on which factors
are significant and even harder to find a meaningful mode for dealing with
them. Things are done because one knows how to do them and not because
one ought to do them. The criteria for dealing with trends which are
conjectural are less well developed than those for immediate crisis.
Pragmatism, at least in its generally accepted form, is more concerned
with method than with judgment; or rather it seeks to reduce judgment
to methodology and value to knowledge.

This is reinforced by the special qualities of the professions
--law and business--which furnish the core of the leadership groups in
America.

Lawyers--at least in the
Anglo-Saxon tradition--prefer to deal with actual rather than hypothetical
cases; they have little confidence in the possibility of stating a future
issue abstractly. But planning by its very nature is hypothetical. Its

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success depends precisely on the ability to transcend the existing
framework. Lawyers may be prepared to undertake this task; but they
will do well in it only to the extent that they are able to overcome
the special qualities encouraged by their profession. What comes
naturally to lawyers in the Anglo-Saxon tradition is the sophisticated
analysis of a series of *ad hoc* issues which emerge as problems through
adversary proceedings. In so far as lawyers draw on the experience
which forms them, they have a bias toward awaiting development and toward
operating within the definition of the problem as formulated by its chief
spokesmen.

This has several consequences. It compounds the already powerful
tendencies within American society to identify foreign policy with the
solution of immediate issues. It produces great refinement of issues
as they arise, but it also encourages the administrative dilemmas described
earlier. Issues are dealt with only as the pressure of events imposes
the need for resolving them. Then, each of the contending factions
within the bureaucracy has a maximum incentive to state its case in
its most extreme form because the ultimate outcome depends, to a
considerable extent, on a bargaining process. The premium placed on
advocacy turns decision-making into a series of adjustments among special
interests--a process more suited to domestic than to foreign policy.
This procedure tends to neglect planning because the future has no
administrative constituency and is, therefore, without representation
in the adversary proceedings. Problems tend to be slighted until some

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agency or department is made responsible for them. When this occurs
--usually when a difficulty has already grown acute--the relevant
department becomes an all-out spokesman for its particular area of
responsibility. The outcome usually depends more on the pressures or
the persuasiveness of the contending advocates than on a concept of
over-all purpose. While these tendencies exist to some extent in all
bureaucracies they are particularly pronounced in the American system
of government.

This explains in part the peculiar alternation of rigidity
and spasms of flexibility in American diplomacy. On a given issue--be
it the Berlin crisis or disarmament or the war in Vietnam--there
generally exists a great reluctance to develop a negotiating position
or a statement of objectives except in the most general terms. This
stems from a desire not to prejudge the process of negotiations and
above all to retain flexibility in the face of unforeseeable events.
But when an approaching conference or some other pressures make the
development of a position imperative and some office or individual is
assigned the specific task, a sudden change occurs. The responsible
official--generally irrespective of his previous commitments--tends
to become an all-out advocated of his area of responsibility. Both
personal and bureaucratic success are identified with bringing the
particular assignment to a conclusion. Where so much stock is placed
in negotiating skill, a failure of a conference may be viewed as a
reflection on the ability of the negotiator rather than on the objective

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difficulty of the subject. Confidence in the bargaining process causes American negotiators to be extremely sensitive to the tactical requirements of the conference table--sometimes at the expense of longer term considerations. In internal discussions, American negotiators irrespective of their previous commitments-- generally/ often become advocates for the maximum range of concessions; their legal background tempts them to act as mediators between their own government and the country with which they are negotiating.

The attitudes of the business elite reinforce the convictions of the legal profession. The American business executive rises through a process of selection which rewards the ability to manipulate the known--in itself a conciliatory procedure. The special skill of the executive is thought to consist in coordinating well defined functions rather than in challenging them. The procedure is relatively effective in the business world, where the executive can often substitute decisiveness, long experience and a wide range of personal acquaintance for reflectiveness. In international affairs, however--especially in a revolutionary situation --the strong will which is one of our business executives' notable traits may produce essentially arbitrary choices. Or unfamiliarity with the subject matter may have the opposite effect of turning the executive into a spokesman of his technical staffs. In either case, the business executive is even more dependent than the lawyer on the bureaucracy's formulation of the issue. The business elite is even less able or willing than the lawyer to recognize that the formulation of an issue, not the technical remedy, is usually the central problem.

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All this gives American policy its particular cast. Problems are dealt with as they arise. Agreement on what constitutes a problem generally depends on an emerging crisis which settles the previously inconclusive disputes about priorities. When a problem is recognized, it is dealt with by a mobilization of all resources to overcome the immediate symptoms often at the risk of slighting longer term issues which may not yet have assumed crisis proportions. Decisions emerge from a compromise of conflicting pressures in which accidents of personality or persuasiveness paly a crucial role. The compromise, in turn, often reflects the maxim that "if two parties disagree the truth is usually somewhere in between." But the pedantic application of such truisms causes the various contenders to exaggerate their positions for bargaining purposes or to construct fictitious extremes to make their position appear moderate. In either case, internal bargaining predominates over substance.

The *ad hoc* tendency of our decision-makers and the reliance on adversary proceeding cause issues to be stated in black and white terms. This suppresses a feeling for nuance and makes it difficult to recognize the relationship between seemingly discrete events. Even with the perspective of a decade there is little consensus about the relationship between the actions culminating in the Suez fiasco and the French decision to enter the nuclear field; or about the inconsistency between the neutralization of Laos and the step-up of the military effort in Vietnam.

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The same quality also produces a relatively low valuation of historical factors. Nations are treated as similar phenomena and those states presenting similar immediate problems are treated similarly. Since many of our policy-makers first address themselves to an issue when it emerges as their area of responsibility, their approach to it is often highly anectodal. Great weight is given to what people say and relatively little to the significance of these affirmations in terms of domestic structure or historical background. Agreement may be taken at face value and seen as reflecting more consensus than actually exists. Opposition tends to produce moral outrage which often assumes the form of personal animosity--the attitude of some American policy-makers toward President de Gaulle is a good example. (This was one of the reasons that the State Department constantly overestimated the degree of European support for the EDC or the MLF.)

The legal background of our policy-makers produces a bias in favor of constitutional solutions. The issue of supra-nationalism or confederalism in Europe has been discussed largely in terms of the right of countries to make independent decisions. Much less weight has been given to the realities which would limit the application of a majority vote against a major country whatever the legal arrangements. (The fight over the application of Article 19 of the United Nations Charter was based on the same attitude.) Similarly, legal terms such

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as "integration" and "assignment" sometimes become ends in themselves
and thus obscure the operational reality to which they refer. In short,
the American leadership groups show high competence in dealing with
technical issues, and much less virtuosity in mastering a historical
process. And the policies of other Western countries exhibit variations
of the American pattern. A lesser pragmatism in continental Europe is
counter-balanced by a smaller ability to play a world-role.

**The Ideological Type of Leadership.** As has been discussed above,² the impact of ideology can persist long after its initial fervor has been spent. Whatever the ideological commitment of individual leaders, a lifetime spent in the Communist hierarchy must influence their basic categories of thought--especially since Communist ideology continues to perform important functions. It still furnishes the standard of truth and the guarantee of ultimate success. It provides a means

for maintaining cohesion among the various Communist parties
of the world. It supplies criteria for the settlement of disputes both
within the bureaucracy of individual Communist countries and among the
various Communist states.

However attenuated, Communist ideology is, in part, responsible
for international tensions. This is less because of specific Marxist
tactical prescriptions--with respect to which Communists have shown a
high degree of flexibility--than because of the basic Marxist-Leninist
categories for interpreting reality. Communist leaders never tire of
affirming that Marxism-Leninism is the key element of their self-proclaimed

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superiority over the outside world; as Marxist-Leninists they are convinced
that they understand the historical process better than the non-Communist
world.

The essence of Marxism-Leninism--and the reason that normal diplomacy
with Communist states is so difficult--is the view that "objective" factors
such as the social structure, the economic process, and above all, the
class struggle are more important than the personal convictions of statesmen.
Belief in the predominance of objective factors explains the Soviet approach
to the problem of security. If personal convictions are "subjective,"
Soviet security cannot be allowed to rest on the good will of other statesmen,
especially those of a different social system. This produces a quest for
what may be described as absolute security-- the attempt to be so strong
as to be independent of the decisions of other countries. But absolute
security for one country means absolute insecurity for all others; it
can be achieved only by reducing other states to impotence. Thus an
essentially defensive foreign policy tends to produce a constant probing
which can be indistinguishable from traditional aggression.

The belief in the predominance of objective factors explains
why, in the past, periods of detente have proved so precarious. When
there is a choice between Western good will or a physical gain, the
pressures to choose the latter have been overwhelming. The wartime
friendship with the West was sacrificed to the possibility of establishing
Communist-controlled governments in Eastern Europe. The spirit of Geneva
did not survive the temptations offered by the prospect of undermining

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the Western position in the Middle East. The many overtures of the Kennedy administration were rebuffed until the Cuban missile crisis demonstrated that the balance of forces was not in fact favorable for a test of strength.

The reliance on objective factors has complicated negotiations between the West and the Communist countries. Communist negotiators find it difficult to admit that they could be swayed by the arguments of men who have, by definition, an inferior grasp of the laws of historical development. No matter what is said, they think that they understand their Western counterpart better than he understands himself. Concessions are possible, but they are made to "reality," not to individuals or to a bargaining process. Diplomacy becomes difficult when one of the parties considers the key element to negotiation-- the give-and-take of the process of bargaining--as but a superstructure for factors not part of the negotiation itself.

Finally, whatever the decline in ideological fervor, orthodoxy requires the maintenance of a posture of ideological hostility to the non-Communist world even during period of coexistence. Thus, in a reply to a Chinese challenge, the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. declared: "We fully support the destruction of capitalism. We not only believe in the inevitable death of capitalism but we are doing everything possible for it to be accomplished through class struggle as quickly as possible."³

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The wariness toward the outside world is reinforced by the
personal experiences which Communist leaders have had on the road
to eminence. In a system where there is no legitimate succession, a
great deal of energy is absorbed in the internal maneuvering.

Leaders rise to the top by eliminating--sometimes
physically, always bureaucratically--all possible opponents. Stalin
had all individuals who helped him into power executed. Khrushchev
disgraced Kaganovich whose protégé he had been, and turned on Marshal
Zhukov six months after being saved by him from a conspiracy of his
other colleagues. Brezhnev and Kosygin owed their careers to Khrushchev;
they nevertheless overthrew him and started a campaign of calumny against
him within twenty-four hours of his dismissal.

Anyone succeeding in Communist leadership struggles must be
single-minded, unemotional, dedicated and, above all, motivated by
an enormous desire for power. Nothing in the personal experience of
Soviet leaders would lead them to accept protestations of good will
at face value. Suspiciousness is inherent in their domestic position.
It is unlikely that their attitude toward the outside world is more
benign than toward their own colleagues or that they would expect more
consideration from it.

The combination of personal qualities and ideological structure
also affects relations among Communist states. Since national rivalries
are thought to be the result of class conflict, they are expected to

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disappear wherever Socialism has triumphed. When disagreements occur they are dealt with by analogy to internal Communist disputes: by attempting to ostracize and then to destroy the opponent. The tendency to treat different opinions as manifestations of heresy causes disagreements to harden into bitter schisms. The debate between Communist China and the U.S.S.R. is in many respects more acrimonious than that between the U.S.S.R. and the non-Communist world.

Even though the basic conceptual categories of Communist leadership groups are similar, the impact of the domestic structure of the individual Communist states on international relations varies greatly. It makes a considerable difference whether an ideology has become institutionalized, as in the Soviet Union, or whether it is still impelled by its early revolutionary fervor, as in Communist China. Where ideology has become institutionalized a special form of pragmatism may develop. It may be just as empirical as that of the United States but it will operate in a different realm of "reality." A different philosophical basis leads to the emergence of another set of categories for the settlement of disputes, and these in turn generate another range of problems.

A Communist bureaucratic structure, however pragmatic, will have different priorities from ours; it will give greater weight to doctrinal considerations and conceptual problems. It is more than ritual when speeches of senior Soviet leaders begin with hour-long

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recitals of Communist ideology: and, even if it were ritual, it
must affect the definition of what is considered reasonable in internal
arguments. Bureaucratization and pragmatism may lead to a loss of
elan; they do not guarantee convergence of Western and Soviet thinking.

The more revolutionary manifestations of Communism, such
as Communist China, still possess more ideological fervor, but,
paradoxically, their structure may permit a wider latitude for new
departures. Tactical intransigence and ideological vitality should
not be confused with structural rigidity. Because the leadership
bases its rule on a prestige which transcends bureaucratic authority,
it has not yet given so many hostages to the administrative structure.
If the leadership should change--or if its attitudes are modified--policy
could probably be altered much more dramatically in Communist China than
in the more institutionalized Communist countries.

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**The Charismatic-Revolutionary Type of Leadership.** The contemporary international order is heavily influenced by yet another leadership type: the charismatic-revolutionary leader. For many of the leaders of the new nations the bureaucratic-pragmatic approach of the West is irrelevant because they are more interested in the future which they wish to construct than in the manipulation of the environment which dominates the thinking of the pragmatists. And ideology is not satisfactory because doctrine supplies rigid categories which overshadow the personal experiences which have provided the impetus for so many of the leaders of the new nations.

The type of individual who leads a struggle for independence has been sustained in the risks and suffering of such a course primarily by a commitment to a vision which enabled him to override conditions which had seemed overwhelmingly hostile. Revolutionaries are rarely motivated primarily by material considerations--though the illusion that they are persists in the West. Material incentives do not cause a man to risk his existence and to launch himself into the uncertainties of a revolutionary struggle. If Castro or Sukarno had been principally interested in economics, their talents would have guaranteed them a brilliant career in the societies they overthrew. What made their

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sacrifices worthwhile to them was a vision of the future--or a quest for political power. To revolutionaries the significant reality is the world which they are striving to bring about, not the world they are fighting to overcome.

This difference in perspective accounts for the inconclusiveness of much of the dialogue between the West and many of the leaders of the new countries. The West has a tendency to believe that the tensions in the emerging nations are caused by a low level of economic activity. To the apostles of economic development, raising the Gross National Product seems the key to political stability. They believe that it should receive the highest priority from the political leaders of new countries and supply their chief motivation.

But to the charismatic heads of many of the new nations, economic progress, while not unwelcome, offers too limited a scope for their ambitions. It can be achieved only by slow, painful, highly technical measures which contrast with the heroic exertions of the struggle for independence. Results are long-delayed; credit for them cannot be clearly established. If Castro were to act on the advice of theorists of economic development, the best he could hope for would be that after some decades he would lead a small progressive country--perhaps a Switzerland of the Caribbean. Compared to the prospect of leading a

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revolution throughout Latin America, this goal would appear trivial, boring, perhaps unreal to him.

Moreover, to the extent that economic progress is achieved, it may magnify domestic political instability, at least in its early phases. Economic advance disrupts the traditional political structure. It thus places constant pressures on the incumbent leaders to re-establish the legitimacy of their rule. For this purpose a dramatic foreign policy is particularly apt. Many leaders of the new countries seem convinced that an adventurous foreign policy will not harm prospects for economic development and may even foster it. The competition of the superpowers makes it likely that economic assistance will be forthcoming regardless of the actions of the recipients. Indeed the more obtrusive their foreign policy the greater is their prospect of being wooed by the chief contenders.

The tendency toward a reckless policy is magnified by the uncertain sense of identity of many of the new nations. National boundaries often correspond to the administrative subdivisions established by the former colonial rulers. States thus have few of the attributes of nineteenth-century European nationalism: common language, common culture, or even common history. In many cases, the only common experience is a century or so of imperial rule. As a result, there is a

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great pressure toward authoritarian rule, and a high incentive to use
foreign policy as a means of bringing about domestic cohesion.

Western-style democracy presupposes that society transcends
the political realm; in that case opposition challenges a particular
method of achieving common aims but not the existence of the state itself.

In many of the new countries, by contrast, the state represents
the primary, sometimes the sole, manifestation of social cohesion.
Opposition can therefore easily appear as treason--apart from the fact
that leaders who have spent several decades running the risks of
revolutionary struggle are not likely to favor a system of government
which makes them dispensable. Indeed the attraction of Communism
for many of these leaders is not Marxist-Leninist economic theory but
the legitimacy for authoritarian rule which it provides.

No matter what the system of government, many of the leaders
of the new nations use foreign policy as a means to escape intractable
internal difficulties and as a device to achieve domestic cohesion. The
international arena provides an opportunity for the dramatic measures
which are impossible at home. These are often cast in an anti-Western
mold because this is the easiest way to recreate the struggle against
imperial rule which is the principal unifying element for many new
nations. The incentive is particularly strong because the rivalry of

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the nuclear powers eliminates many of the risks which previously
were associated with an adventurous foreign policy--especially if
that foreign policy is directed against the West which lacks any
effective sanctions.

Traditional military pressure is large precluded by the
nuclear stalemate and respect for world opinion. But the West is
neither prepared nor able to use the sanction which weighs most
heavily on the new countries: the deliberate exploitation of their
weak domestic structure. In many areas the ability to foment domestic
unrest is a more potent weapon than traditional arms. Many of the
leaders of the new countries will be prepared to ignore the classical
panoply of power; but they will be very sensitive to the threat of
domestic upheaval. States with a high capacity for exploiting domestic
instability can use it as a tool of foreign policy. China, though lacking
almost all forms of classical long-range military strength is a growing
factor in Africa. Weak states may be more concerned with a country's
capacity to organize domestic unrest in their territory than with its
capacity for physical destruction.

**Conclusion.** Contemporary domestic structures thus present
an unprecedented challenge to the emergence of a stable international
order. The bureaucratic-pragmatic societies concentrate on the
manipulation of an empirical reality which they treat as given; the

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ideological societies are split between an essentially bureaucratic approach (though in a different realm of reality than the bureaucratic-pragmatic structures) and a group using ideology mainly for revolutionary ends. The new nations, in so far as they are active in international affairs, have a high incentive to seek in foreign policy the perpetuation of charismatic leadership.

These difference are a major obstacle to a consensus on what constitutes a "reasonable" proposal. A common diagnosis of the existing situation is hard to achieve and it is even more difficult to concert measures for a solution.

The situation is complicated by the one feature all types of leadership have in common: the premium put on short-term goals and the domestic need to succeed at all times. In the bureaucratic societies policy emerges from a compromise which often produces the least common denominator and it is implemented by individuals whose reputation is made by administering the status quo. The leadership of the institutionalized ideological state may be even more the prisoner of essentially corporate bodies. Neither leadership can afford radical changes of course for they result in profound repercussions in its administrative structure. And the charismatic leaders of the new nations are like tightrope artists--one false step and they will plunge from their perch.

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It is no accident that most great statesmen have been either representatives of essentially conservative structures or revolutionaries.

A conservative structure produces a sense for nuance and a notion of quality which provides the framework of great conceptions; a revolutionary order involves a notion of exaltation which dissolves technical limitations.

Both deal with the basic dilemma of the impact of foreign policy on domestic structure: how to gain acceptance for a policy when the crucial test is not the wisdom of individual moves but the validity of the over-all design.

#### IV. Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy: The Prospects for World Order

Many contemporary divisions are thus traceable to differences in domestic structure. But are there not countervailing factors? How about the spread of technology and its associated rationality, or the adoption on a global scale of many Western political forms? Unfortunately the process of "Westernization" does not inevitably produce a similar concept of reality. For what matters is not the institutions or the technology, but the significance which is attached to them. And this differs depending on the evolution of the society concerned.

The term "nation" does not mean the same thing when applied to such various phenomena as India, France, and Nigeria. Similarly, technology is likely to have a different significance for different peoples depending on how and when it was acquired.

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Any society is part of an evolutionary process which proceeds by means of two seemingly contradictory mechanisms. On the one hand, the span of possible adaptations is delimited by the physical environment, the internal structure, and, above all, by previous choices. On the other hand, evolution proceeds not in a straight line but through a series of complicated variations which appear anything but obvious to the chief actors. In retrospect a choice may seem to have been nearly random or else to have represented the only available alternative. In either case, the choice is not an isolated act but an accumulation of previous decisions reflecting history or tradition and values as well as the immediate pressures of the need for survival. And each decision delimits the range of possible future adaptations.

Young societies are in a position to make radical changes of course which are highly impractical at a later stage. As a society becomes more elaborate and as its tradition is firmly established, its choices with respect to its internal organization grow more restricted. If a highly articulated social unit attempts basic shifts, it runs the risk of doing violence to its internal organization, to its history and values as embodied in its structure. When it accepts institutions or values developed elsewhere it must adapt them to what its structure can absorb. The institutions of any political unit must therefore be viewed in historical context for that alone can give an indication of their future. Societies--even

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when their institutions are similar--may be like ships passing in the
night which find themselves but temporarily in the same place.

Is there then no hope for cooperation and stability? Is our
international system doomed to incomprehension and its members to
mounting frustration?

It must be admitted that if the domestic structures were
considered in isolation, the prognosis would not be too hopeful. But
domestic structures do not exist in a vacuum. They must respond to
the requirements of the environment. And here all states find
themselves face to face with the necessity of avoiding a nuclear
holocaust. While this condition does not restrain all nations equally,
it nevertheless defines a common task which technology will impose
on ever more countries as a direct responsibility.

Then, too, a certain similarity in the forms of administration
may bring about common criteria of rationality as Professor Jaguaribe
has pointed out in his contribution to this volume. ⁴ Science and
technology will spread. Improved communications may lead to the emergence
of a common culture. The fissures between domestic structures and
the different stages of evolution are important, but they may be
outweighed by the increasing interdependence of humanity.

It would be tempting to end on this note and to base the hope
for peace of the self-evidence of the need for it. But this would be too

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pat.. The deepest problem of the contemporary international order
may be that most of the debates which form the headlines of the day
are peripheral to the basic division in the contemporary world and to
the issues described in this article. The cleavage is not over
particular political arrangements--except as cleavage is symptoms--but
between two styles of policy and two philosophical perspectives.

The two styles can be defined as the political as against
the revolutionary approach to order or, reduced to personalities, as
the distinction between the statesman and the prophet.

The statesman manipulates reality; his first goal is
'survival'; he feels responsible not only for the best
but also for the worst conceivable outcome. His view of human nature
is wary; he is conscious of many great hopes which have failed, of many
good intentions that could not be realized, of selfishness and ambition
and violence. He is, therefore, inclined to erect hedges against the
possibility that even the most brilliant idea might prove abortive and
that the most eloquent formulation might hide ulterior motives. He will
try to avoid certain experiments, not because he would object to the
results if they succeeded, but because he would feel himself responsible
for the consequences if they failed. He is suspicious of those who
personalize foreign policy for history teaches him the fragility of

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structures dependent on individuals. To the statesman, gradualism
is the essence of stability; he represents an era of average performance,
of gradual change and slow construction.

By contrast, the prophet is less concerned with manipulating
than with creating reality. What is possible interests him less than what
is "right." He offers his vision as his test and his good faith as a
guarantee. He believes in total solutions; he is less absorbed in
methodology than in purpose. He believes in the perfectibility of man.
His approach is timeless and not dependent on circumstances. He
objects to gradualism as an unnecessary concession to circumstance.
He will risk everything because his vision is the primary significant
reality to him. Paradoxically, his more optimistic view of human
nature makes him more intolerant than the statesman. If truth is both
knowable and attainable, only immorality or stupidity can keep man
from realizing it. The prophet represents an era of exaltation, of great
upheavals, of vast accomplishments, but also of enormous disasters.

The encounter between the political and the prophetic approach
to policy is always somewhat inconclusive and frustrating. The test of
the statesman is the permanence of the international structure under
stress. The test of the prophet is inherent in his vision. The statesman
will seek to reduce the prophet's intuition to precise measures; he judges
ideas on their utility and not on their "truth." To the prophet this

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approach is almost sacreligious because it represents the triumph of
expediency over universal principles. To the statesman negotiation
is the mechanism of stability because it testifies to the fact that
maintenance of the existing order is more important than any dispute
within it. To the prophet negotiations can have only symbolic value--as
a mean of converting or demoralizing the opponent; truth, by definition,
cannot be compromised.

Both approaches have prevailed at different periods in history.
The political approach dominated European foreign policy between the
end of the religious wars and the French Revolution and then again
between the Congress of Vienna and the outbreak of World War I. The
prophetic mode was in the ascendant during the great upheavals of the
religious struggles, the period of the French Revolution and in the
contemporary uprisings in major parts of the world.

Both modes have produced considerable accomplishments,
though the prophetic style is likely to involve the greater dislocations
and more suffering. Each has its nemesis. The nemesis of the
statesman is that equilibrium, though it may be the condition of
stability, does not supply its own motivation; that of the prophet is the
impossibility of sustaining a mood of exaltation without the risk of
a
submerging man in the vastness of/vision and reducing him to a mere
figure to be manipulated.

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As for the difference in philosophical perspective it may reflect the divergence of the two lines of thought which since the Renaissance have distinguished the West from the part of the world now called underdeveloped (with Russia occupying an intermediary position). The West is deeply committed to the notion that the real world is external to the observer, that knowledge consists of recording and classifying data--the more accurately the better. Cultures which escaped the early impact of Newtonian thinking have retained the essentially pre-Newtonian view that the real world is almost completely *internal* to the observer.

Although this attitude was a liability for centuries--because it prevented the development of the technology and and consumer goods which the West enjoyed--it offers great flexibility with respect to the contemporary revolutionary turmoil. It enables the societies which do not share our cultural mode to alter reality by influencing the perspective of the observer--a process which we are largely unprepared to handle or even to perceive. And this can be accomplished under contemporary conditions without sacrificing technological progress. Technology comes as a gift; acquiring it in its advanced form does not presuppose the philosophical commitment that discovering it imposed on the West. Empirical reality has a much different significance for many of the new countries than for the West because in a certain sense they never went through the process of discovering it (with Russia again occupying an

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intermediary position). At the same time, the difference in
philosophical perspective may cause us to seem cold, supercilious,
lacking in compassion. The instability of the contemporary world
order may thus have at its core a philosophical schism which makes
the issues producing most political debates seem largely tangential.

Such differences in style and philosophical perspective are
not unprecedented. What is novel is the global scale on which they
occur and the risks which the failure to overcome them would entail.
Historically, cleavages of lesser magnitude have been worked out
dialectically, with one style of policy or one philosophical approach
later
dominant in one era only to give way/to another conception of reality.
And the transition was rarely free of violence. The challenge of our
time is whether we can deal consciously and creatively with what in
pervious centuries was adjusted through a series of more or less
violent and frequently catastrophic upheavals. We must construct an
international order before a crisis imposes it as a necessity.

This is a question not of blueprints but of attitudes. In fact
the overconcern with technical blueprints is itself a symptom of our
difficulties. Before the problem of order can be "dealt" with--even
philosophically--we must be certain that the right questions are being
asked.

- 46 -

We can point to some hopeful signs. The most sensitive
thinkers of the West have recognized that excessive empiricism may
lead to stagnation. In many of the new countries--and in some Communist
ones as well--the second or third generation of leaders is in the process
of freeing itself from the fervor and dogmatism of the early revolutionary
period and of relating their actions to an environment which they helped
to create. But these are as yet only the first tentative signs of progress
on a course whose significance is not always understood. Indeed it is
characteristic of an age of turmoil that it produces so many immediate
issues that little time is left to penetrate their deeper meaning. The
most serious problem therefore becomes to acquire a sufficiently wide
perspective so that the present does not overwhelm the future.

Not the least important part of the pressure will be supplied
by the publicity stipulated for in the procedure of settlement. The
obscure issues from which international quarrels arise will be dragged
out into the light of day and the creation of an informed public opinion
made possible.

1. The Covenant of the League of Nations with a Commentary Thereon, Cmd. 151, pp. 12, 16

For the most part [he told the House] there is no attempt to
rely on anything like a superstate; no attempt to rely upon force to
carry out a decision of the Council or the Assembly of the League.
That is almost impracticable as things stand now. What we rely upon is
public opinion. . . and if we are wrong about it, then the whole thing
is wrong.

2. House of Commons, July 21, 1919: Official Report, cols. 990, 992

Suppose somebody does not abide by these engagements, then what happens? An absolute isolation, a boycott! The boycott is automatic. There is no 'but' or 'if' about that in the Covenant. . . No goods can be shipped in or out, no telegraphic messages can be exchanged, except through the elusive wireless perhaps; there should be no communication of any kind between the people of the other nations and the people of that nation. . . It is the most complete boycott ever conceived in a public document.

- 3 -

13a -

to outsiders perform a perhaps more important role in laying down
guidelines for the bureaucracy. The chief significance of a foreign
policy speech by the President may thus be that it settles an internal
debate in Washington (a public statement is more useful for this purpose
than an administrative memorandum because it is harder to reverse).

At the same time, the bureaucracy's awareness of this method of
control tempts it to undercut its debates by using pronouncements by
the decision-makers as charters for special purposes. The executive
thus finds himself confronted by proposals for public declarations which
may be innocuous in themselves but which can be used by some agency
or department to launch a study or program which will strict his
freedom of decision later on.

All of this drives the executive in the direction of extra-bureaucratic
means of decision. The practice of relying on special emissaries or
personal envoys is an example; their status outside the bureaucracy
frees them from some of its restraints. International agreements are
sometimes possible only by ignoring safeguards against capricious action.
It is a paradoxical aspect of modern bureaucracies that their quest for
objectivity and calculability often leads to impasses which can be overcome
only by essentially arbitrary decisions.

Such a mode of operation would involve a great risk of stagnation
even in "normal" times. It becomes especially dangerous in a revolutionary

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