Spring 2018

The Conduct of Foreign Policy

SA. 200.701

Professor Stevenson 



12/09/2017

*Disclaimer: Please note that the syllabus may

change before or during the class. The most up-to-
date syllabus can be found in Blackboard.
 SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
The Johns Hopkins University

Mon & Tues, 2-4:30 in Rome 206 Spring 2018

Professor Stevenson: charlie.stevenson@gmail.com
Office hours: Nitze 513. By appointment

Course Number 200.701: The Conduct of Foreign Policy

This course deals with the process of analyzing, deciding, and implementing U.S. foreign
policy. It gives students a framework for thinking strategically about policy and concepts for
analyzing the results of policy choices. It emphasizes the bureaucratic and political factors that
influence decision-making. It concentrates on the central role of the President, but also
explores the particular capabilities and cultures of other government agencies as well as the
influence of outside forces. The course uses readings, case studies, guest speakers, and role-
playing exercises and requires active class participation. Students should purchase Mort
Halperin’s Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy, since its analysis is basic to understanding
this course. Not surprisingly, Charles A. Stevenson’s America’s Foreign Policy Toolkit: Key
Institutions and Processes provides the key themes for the course and many of its chapters
are assigned.

Course requirements: There will be several guest speakers – experienced practitioners. In

order to accommodate two sections, however, they will be scheduled during SAIS brownbag
periods, primarily Mondays at 1230 in Rome 200. While attendance cannot be required, these
sessions are integral to the class and students are strongly encouraged to attend. Students are
expected to participate actively in class discussions and role-playing exercises. In addition,
some will be assigned special oral reports. Each student must write a book report or policy
options paper (about 5 pages); which will be due March 16. By April 13 students need to
submit a 1-2 page paper analyzing lessons learned from a visit to Capitol Hill. Subsequently,
students have a choice—either taking an oral exam or writing an essay of at least 20 pages
[5000 words] in length. The long paper will be due Monday, May 7.

Topics & Readings

1. Introduction: Mon-Tues, January 29-30, 2018

Required Readings: Kevin P. Marsh, “The Intersection of War and Politics: The Iraq War Troop
Surge and Bureaucratic Politics,” Armed Forces & Society July 2012, pp. 413-437.
Andrew F. Krepinevich and Barry D. Watts, Regaining Strategic Competence, Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2009, Ch.4, and Conclusions.
Amy B. Zegart, “Why the Best is Not Yet to Come in Policy Planning,” in Daniel W. Drezner
(ed.), Avoiding Trivia: The Role of Strategic Planning in American Foreign Policy ,
Brookings, 2009, pp. 113-124.
Council on Foreign Relations, Preventive Priorities Survey 2018, will be made available in
advance of class.
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Additional Readings: Peter D. Feaver, “The Right to be Right: Civil-Military Relations and the
Iraq Surge Decision,” International Security, Spring 2011, 87-125.
Kevin Marsh, “Obama’s Surge: A Bureaucratic Politics Analysis of the Decision to Order A
Troop Surge in the Afghanistan War,” Foreign Policy Analysis (2014), 10, 265-288.

2. The Decision-Making Process: February 5-6

Required Readings: Morton Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy, Brookings,
Second Edition, 2006. Read all, or at least chs. 2, 3, 5-9, 12-14.
Alexander L. George, “Analysis and Judgment in Policymaking,” in Stanley A. Renshon &
Deborah Welch Larson, Good Judgment in Foreign Policy, Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2003, pp. 259-268.
Robert W. Komer, “Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S.-GVN
Performance in Vietnam,” August 1972, RAND paper for DARPA, accessible at:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/2005/R967.sum.pdf
James C. Thomson, Jr., “How could Vietnam Happen? – An Autopsy,” The Atlantic, April 1968.
Graham Allison, “How it went down,” Time, 5/7/2012.

Additional Readings: Graham Allison & Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision, 2d edition,
Addison-Wesley, 1999, chs. 1,3 5.
Alex Mintz and Karl DeRouen, Jr., Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making, Cambridge
UP, 2010.
Mark Schafer and Scott Crichlow, Groupthink vs. High-Quality Decision Making in International
Relations, Columbia UP, 2010.

3. The Role of the President: February 12-13

Required Readings: Theodore Sorensen, Decision-Making in the White House, Columbia UP,
1964, pp. 1-89.
Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics, chs. 4, 11, 15.
Francis Bator, “No Good Choices: LBJ and the Vietnam/Great Society Connection,” Diplomatic
History, June 2008, 309-340.
July, 1965 Vietnam materials.[Electronic Reserves]
Thomas Alan Schwartz, “Henry… Winning an Election is Terribly Important”; Politics in the
History of U.S. Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History, April 2009, 173-190.
Olivier Knox, “How a presidential phone call gets made,” Yahoo News, March 17, 2014.
Special Presidential calendars for Truman & Carter [Electronic Reserves]
Articles on Trump presidency will be made available in advance of class.

Additional Readings: Derek Chollet, The Long Game, Public Affairs, 2016.
James P. Pfeifner, “Decision Making in the Obama White House,” Presidential Studies
Quarterly, June 2011, 244-261.

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Olivier Knox, “Inside President Obama’s Secret Schedule,” Yahoo News, July 7, 2014.
Melvin P.Leffler, “The Foreign Policies of the George W. Bush Administration: Memoirs,
History, Legacy,” Diplomatic History, vol.. 37, no. 3 (2013), 190-216.
David Rohde and Warren Strobel, “The Micromanager in Chief,” The Atlantic, October 9, 2014.
Peter W. Rodman, Presidential Command, Knopf, 2009.
Bradley H. Patterson, Jr., The White House Staff, Brookings, 2000.
Bob Woodward, Obama’s War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.

4. The National Security Council: February 19-20

Required Readings: Charles A. Stevenson, America’s Foreign Policy Toolkit, CQ Press, 2012,
ch. 3.
David J. Rothkopf, National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear, Public Affairs,
2014, 163-168, 204-208, 295, 344-347.
Kori Schake and William Wechsler, “Process Makes Perfect: Best Practices in the Art of
National Security Policymaking,” Jan. 2017, abridged version. [See course files]
National Security Presidential Memorandum 4, April 4, 2017. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-
press-office/2017/04/04/national-security-presidential-memorandum-4
John A. Gans, Jr. “The Midnight Watch: The NSC Staff, Drift, and Decision in Conflict,” JHU
Dissertation, November, 2014, pp. 16-25.
Ken Menkhaus with Louis Ortmayer, Key Decisions in the Somalia Intervention, Pew Case
Studies in International Affairs, Case 464, 1995.
Colin Powell, It Worked For Me, HarperCollins, 2012, 181-186.

Additional Readings: Chester Crocker et al. “A Foundational Proposal for the Next
Administration,” Atlantic Council, June, 2016.
Shawn Brimley et al., “Enabling Decision: Shaping the National Security Council for the Next
President,” CNAS, June 2015, 1-16.
Ivo M. Daalder & I. M. Destler, “In the Shadow of the Oval Office,” Foreign Affairs, January-
February 2009, 114-129.
Karen De Young, “How the Obama White House runs foreign policy,” Washington Post, Aug.
4, 2015.
Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Sentinel, 2011, ch. 24, pp. 315-330.
Peter Feaver and William Inboden, “Implementing an Effective Foreign Policy,” The John Hay
Initiative, at http://www.choosingtolead.net/implementing-an-effective-foreign-policy
Amy B. Zegart, Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC, Stanford
University, 1999.
Gordon M. Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam,
Henry Holt, 2008.

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5. The Department of State: February 26-27

Required Readings: Stevenson, Toolkit, ch.6.

Ronald E. Neumann, “Demystifying the Interagency Process and Explaining the Ambassador’s
Role,” InterAgency Journal, vol. 6, Issue 3, summer 2015, 3-9.
Shoon Murray and Anthony Quainton, “Combatant Commanders, Ambassadorial Authority,
and the Conduct of Diplomacy,” in Gordon Adams & Shoon Murray, Mission Creep: The
Militarization of US Foreign Policy? Georgetown UP, 2014, pp. 166-191.
Rebecca Hamilton, “Inside Colin Powell’s Decision to Declare Genocide in Darfur,” The
Atlantic, Aug. 17, 2011.
Allis Radosh & Ronald Radosh – A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel,
Harper Collins, 2009, pp. 277-339.
Glenn Kessler, “Boko Haran: Inside the State Department Debate over the ‘terrorist’ label,”
Washington Post, May 19, 2014.
Christopher R. Hill, “They Set me to Iraq; Then they ignored me,” Politico magazine, Oct. 2,
2014.

Additional Readings: Nicholas Kralev, America’s Other Army: The U.S. Foreign Service and
21st Century Diplomacy, Nicholas Kralev, 2012, esp. chs. 4, 11, 12.
American Academy of Diplomacy, American Diplomacy at Risk, Washington, April 2015.
Robert Hopkins Miller, Inside an Embassy: The Political Role of Diplomats Abroad, Institute for
the Study of Diplomacy, 1992.
James F. Dobbins, Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy,
Brookings/Rand, 2017.

6. Instruments of foreign economic policy: March 5-6.

Required Readings: Stevenson, Toolkit, ch. 7.

Dina Temple-Raston and Harvey Rishikof, “The Department of the Treasury: Brogues on the
Ground,” in George & Rishikof, 2d edition, 162-182.
Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris, “The Lost Art of Economic Statecraft,” Foreign
Affairs, March/April 2016.
Juan C. Zarate – Treasury’s War, New York, Public Affairs, 2013, pp. 45-60, 201-210, 329-
348.
I.M. (Mac) Destler, “The Foreign Economic Bureaucracy,” September 2010, accessible at:
www.publicpolicy.umd.edu/.../destler/the_foreign_economic_bureaucracy..
Ian Fergusspn & Paul Kerr, “The U.S. Export Control System and the Export Control Reform
Initiative,” CRS Report to Congress, July 24, 2017.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41916.pdf

Additional Readings: Brian Katz, “International Trade and Economic Policy, Planning and
Strategy in the USG: The National Economic Council (NEC).

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Marian Lawson, “Does Foreign Aid Work?”, CRS Report for Congress, June 23, 2016,
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42827.pdf
Curt Tarnoff and Marian L. Lawson, “Foreign Aid: An Introduction to U.S. Programs,” CRS
Report for Congress, June 17, 2016, accessible at
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40213.pdf

7. The Department of Defense: March 12-13. First papers due March 16.

Required Readings: Roger Z. George & Harvey Rishikof – The National Security Enterprise:
Navigating the Labyrinth, Georgetown UP 2d edition, 2017, Ch. 6, “The Office of the
Secretary of Defense,” and Ch. 7, “The Military: Forging a Joint Warrior Culture,” pp..
120-161.
Stevenson, Toolkit, ch. 8.
Robert M. Gates, Duty, Knopf, 2014, 80-103, 287-303, 573-588.
Stefano Recchia – Reassuring the Reluctant Warriors, Cornell, 2015, pp.147-177.
Neil Sheehan -- A Fiery Peace in a Cold War, Random House, 2009, pp. 268-278, 287-303.

Additional Readings: Charles A. Stevenson, SecDef: The Nearly Impossible Job of Secretary
of Defense, Potomac Books, 2006, chs. 13-16.
Joseph J. Collins, “Opting for War: An Analysis of the Decision to Invade Iraq,” Project on
National Security Reform, Case Studies, vol. 1, pp. 9-58, accessible via www.pnsr.org.
Eric S. Edelman, “The Strange Career of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance,” in Melvyn
Leffler [ed.], In Uncertain Times, Cornell, 2011, 63-77.
Richard H. Kohn & Peter Feaver, Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American
National Security, MIT Press, 2001.
Peter Feaver, Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military relations, Harvard
University Press, March 2003.
Charles A. Stevenson, Warriors and Politicians: U.S. Civil-Military Relations Under Stress,
London: Routledge, 2006.

8. The Intelligence Community: March 26-27

Required Readings: Stevenson, Toolkit, ch. 9.

Yochi Dreazen & Sean Naylor, Mission Unstoppable: Why is the CIA Running America’s
Foreign Policy?” foreignpolicy.com, May 18, 2015.
Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy, Columbia University Press, 2011, pp. 121-
140.
Henry Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence, Penguin, 2012, 35-58, 94-98.
Leon Panetta, Worthy Fights, Penguin Press, 2014, 209-214, 228-235.
Shane Harris, @War: The rise of the Military Internet Complex, Houghton Mifflin, 2014, esp. ch
10 "The Secret Sauce," pp.153-170.
Justin Vaughn & Jose Villalobos, Czars in the White House, University of Michigan of Press,

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2015, pp. 124-150.

Browse declassified PDBs at https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/presidents-daily-brief
such as this on the day Saigon fell
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0006014785.pdf

Additional Readings: David Priess, The President’s Book of Secrets, Public Affairs, 2016.
Michael Morell, The Great War of Our Time, New York: Hachette Book Group, 2015.
Duane R. Clarridge, A Spy for All Seasons , Scribner, 1997, ch5 on India; ch 8 on agent
recruitment, pp.73-100, 123-148.
Michael Herman, “What Difference Did it Make?” Intelligence and National Security, December
2011, 886-901.
Amy B. Zegart -- Spying Blind, Princeton University Press, 2007, pp. 88-118.
Kenneth Michael Absher, “Mind-Sets and Missiles: A First Hand Account of the Cuban Missile
Crisis,” U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, September 2009, accessible
at http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=935 .

9. The budget process: April 2-3

Required Readings: Stevenson, Toolkit, ch. 5.

Dov S. Zackheim – A Vulcan’s Tale, Brookings, 2011, 58-75, 88-97.
Grant Driessen, “The Federal Budget: Overview and Issues for 2018 and Beyond,” CRS
Report to Congress, June 30, 2017. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44881.pdf

Additional Readings: Gordon Adams & Cindy Williams -- Buying National Security, Routledge,
2009, chs. 1, 8, & 10.
Allen Schick, The Federal Budget, Third Edition: Politics, Policy, Process, Brookings, 2007,
esp. chs. 4 & 5.
Robert Keith, “Introduction to the Federal Budget Process,” CRS Report for Congress,
December, 3, 2012.

10. PCC exercise April 9-10. Hill visit papers due April 13.

11. The Role of Congress: April 16-17

Required Readings: James M. Lindsay, Congress and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy,
Johns Hopkins, 1994, chs. 4-8.
Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics, ch. 16.
Stevenson, Toolkit, ch. 4.
David Corn, Showdown, Morrow, 2012, ch. 4, pp.102-121.
Charles B. Cushman, Jr., “Congress and the Politics of Defense and Foreign Policy Making,” in
Adams & Murray, Mission Creep, pp. 74-96.

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Additional Readings: David P. Auerswald and Colton C. Campbell, Congress and the Politics
of National Security, Cambridge, 2012.
Rebecca K.C. Hersman, Friends and Foes: How Congress and the President Really Make
Foreign Policy, Brookings, 1990.
Burdett A. Loomis, [ed.], The U.S. Senate: From Deliberation to Dysfunction, CQ Press, 2011.
Charles A. Stevenson, Congress at War: The Politics of Conflict since 1789, Potomac Books,
2007.
Julian E. Zelizer, Arsenal of Democracy, Basic Books, 2010.

12. The Role of the Media & Interest Groups: April 23-24

Required Readings: Stevenson, Toolkit, ch. 12.

Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics, ch. 10.
Byron Calame, “Scoops, Impact or Glory: What Motivates Reporters?” New York Times,
December 3, 2006
Richard T. Cooper and Faye Fiore, “In Politics, Leaking Stories is a Fine Art,” Los Angeles
Times, April 9, 2006.
Paul Farhi, "What's in a scoop?", Washington Post, Oct.29, 2014.
Gerald Felix Warburg, “Lobbyists: When U.S. national Security and Special Interests
Compete,” in Roger Z. George & Harvey Rishikof, The National Security Enterprise:
Navigating the Labyrinth, Georgetown UP 2d edition, 323-340.
Matt Grossmann, The Not-So-Special Interests (Stanford University Press, 2012), 169-186.
Daniel Drezner, “American Think Tanks in the twenty-first century,” International Journal Policy
Brief, Sept, 2015.

Additional Readings: Eric Lipton & Brooke Williams, “Researchers or Corporate Allies? Think
Tanks Blur the Line,” New York Times, Aug. 7, 2016.
Doris A. Graber, ed., Mass Media and American Politics, CQ Press, 8th ed, 2009, ch.11.
Articles by Lee Drutman from The Monkey Cage, October 2009;
Connie Bruck, “Friends of Israel,” New Yorker , Sept 1, 2014.

13. Finale: Role of the Courts/Course Review/Orals Prep April 30-May 1

Required Readings: Harvey Rishikof, “The US Supreme Court: The Cult of the Robe in the
National Security Enterprise,” in George & Rishikof, 2d edition, pp. 300-322.
Joan Biskupic and Elder Witt, The Supreme Court & the Powers of the American Government,
Conressional Quarterly, 1997, pp. 169-195, 235-237.
Jared P. Cole, “The Political Question Doctrine,” CRS Reports, December 23, 2014.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43834.pdf

Additional Readings: Stevenson, Toolkit, ch. 13.

Charles P. Ries, Improving Decisionmaking in a Turbulent World, Rand Corporation, 2016, pp.

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1-9, 31-46.
Leon S. Fuerth, Anticipatory Governance, October 2012, pp 1-8, 29-54, 68-69.
Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis, Joint Staff J7, Decade of War, Volume I, Enduring
Lessons from the Past Decade of Operations, 15 June 2012.
Hart-Rudman Commission Report: U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century – Road
Map for National Security: Imperative for Change, 2001.

Detailed Course Description and Policies

Course Objectives
The course seeks to describe the interagency process by which U.S. foreign policy is
formulated and implemented and provide a framework for analyzing policy decisions. Using
guest speakers and role-playing exercises, it strives to give students an appreciation for how
the policy process feels to participants.

Learning Outcomes
The overarching learning objective of the course is for students to understand and be able to
apply bureaucratic politics analysis to the institutions and processes involved in conducting
American foreign policy. For each of those institutions, students are expected to learn its
authorities and capabilities, its organizational culture, and how it interacts with Congress and
the rest of the Executive Branch. Students should also learn to appreciate strategic planning
and understand the difficulties involved in performing it. In addition to understanding
governmental institutions, students should understand the influence of outside forces, including
the media, public opinion, and interest groups on the conduct of foreign policy. As a result of
studying these topics and participating in role-playing exercises, students should be better able
to analyze the U.S. processes for deciding and implementing foreign policy.

Deadlines and Grades

The required papers are due on the dates indicated on page 1. Electronic copies arriving in the
instructor’s email inbox after 10pm on those dates will be considered late and penalized
accordingly. The book reports will be judged in terms of how well they [1] note the main
themes; [2] analyze how well the evidence supports the book’s argument; and [3] answer the
So what? question: What difference does your reading this book make to your understanding
of policymaking? The options paper will be judged on the basis of its strategic logic and
consistency. The Hill visit paper will be judged by how well students relate their observations
to a deeper understanding of Congress as a human and political institution.

Long paper topics need to be approved by the instructor no later than April 1. The long paper
will be evaluated in terms of its topic focus, quality of research, logic and organization, and
clarity of expression. The oral will be evaluated in terms of student knowledge and expression,
with higher grades going to answers with clear generalizations, useful distinctions, and
pertinent examples.

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The course grade will be based on: the long paper or oral exam [50%]; the short paper [20%];
the Hill visit report [10%]; and class participation [20%]. Class participation has three elements:
(1) completing the assigned readings, (2) attending all classes and (3) contributing to the
discussion. Students are expected to follow contemporary developments in U.S. foreign policy
and U.S. politics through the news media and to be prepared to discuss key issues in class.
Participation is judged less on the frequency of commenting than on the quality of comments,
such as: listening to and commenting on what classmates say; asking helpful questions; citing
examples from personal experience or the assigned readings; suggesting comparisons or
contrasts with prior discussions.

A learning experiment: There is significant and persuasive research that learning is better
when notes are handwritten rather than typed on a laptop. There is also evidence that students
are distracted when classmates have open electronic devices. As an experiment, students will
not be allowed to have laptops or other electronic devices open and usable during class
discussions.

[For background, see these items: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-

don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/
http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2013/08/20/new-study-shows-computers-in-class-distract-both-users-
and-non-users/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/04/28/confessions-of-a-luddite-
professor/]

Honor Code
Enrollment at SAIS obligates each student to conduct all activities in accordance with the rules
and spirit of the school’s Honor Code. The Honor Code governs student conduct at SAIS. It
covers all activities in which students present information as their own, including written
papers, examinations, oral presentations and materials submitted to potential employers or
other educational institutions. It requires that students be truthful and exercise integrity and
honesty in their dealings with others, both inside SAIS and in the larger community. While the
Honor code goes well beyond plagiarism, it is important that each student understand what is
and what is not plagiarism. The Turnitin software is available to faculty in detecting plagiarism.
Plagiarism will definitely result in failure of the paper or exam and may result in failing the
course depending on the judgment of the professor.