Chapter7.docx

Chapter 7

American Foreign Policy

Glenn P. Hastedt

Author: Glenn P. Hastedt

Dateline: Trump’s First 100 Days

Presidential performance can be judged by any of a number of different standards. One that continues to be embraced is what they accomplished during their first 100 days. This builds on a sense of high expectations (and sometimes fear) that a newly elected president will move quickly to implement campaign promises. Let’s compare Donald Trump and Barack Obama’s first 100 days of making foreign policy.

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Immediately after his inauguration, Donald Trump moved to implement some of his foreign policy campaign promises. On January 23, 2017, he signed a presidential memorandum withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. On his sixth day in office, January 25, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to begin constructing a wall along the U.S.–Mexico border. The source of funding for the wall was not specified. The following day, he tweeted that “if Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, the, it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting [with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto].” Nieto cancels the meeting. On January 27, 2017, Trump issued Executive Order 1379, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry in the United States.” More commonly known as the Muslim ban, it lowered the number of refugees that were to be admitted to the United States and suspended entry of individuals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The policy was quickly challenged in the courts, and in early February the administration stopped enforcing it. A revised ban issued in March was also challenged successfully in the courts. In March, on his 68th day as president, Trump reversed a series of environmental policies intended to combat climate change.

Trump held a series of meetings with foreign leaders at Mar-a-Lago. One, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, was interrupted by news of a North Korean ballistic missile test. Another, with Chinese President Xi Jinping, occurred the same day that Trump authorized air strikes in Syria in response to its use of chemical weapons. This decision reversed a campaign pledge not to get involved in the Syrian conflict. Trump would also reverse his position on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, and no longer referred to it as obsolete. After meeting with Xi, he stated that China was not a currency manipulator and raised the possibility of moving away from a one-China policy.

In addition to the authorization of Syrian air strikes, the Trump administration engaged in other military actions during its first 100 days. On January 29, the United States carried out an information-gathering military raid in Yemen, in which a U.S. Navy SEAL and several civilians were killed. The Trump administration called it a success, and asserted that it had been under consideration by Obama in December. Initial assessments challenged the conclusion that new intelligence was obtained or that it had been approved by the Obama administration. In early April, the administration announced that the USS Carl Vinson supercarrier had been repositioned in the western Pacific Ocean in response to North Korea’s test firing of a ballistic missile. “We are sending an armada,” said Trump. The announcement proved inaccurate, as the USS Carl Vinson was in the Indian Ocean at the time.

Trump’s national security system began a series of changes that would become frequent during his first two years as president. Retired General Michael Flynn, his first National Security Advisor, resigned after twenty-four days for having misled Vice President Mike Pence about a 164conversation with Russia’s ambassador concerning economic sanctions placed by the Obama administration. He told a former business partner that the new administration would “rip up” the sanctions.

The mystique surrounding a president’s first 100 days in office began with the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 at the height of the Depression. In his first 100 days, Congress passed fifteen major pieces of legislation as part of the New Deal economic recovery program. FDR also began his famous series of radio fireside chats during that time. First 100 days’ performance since then has been spotty, especially in the area of foreign policy. Dwight Eisenhower concentrated on ending the Korean War; in his presidential campaign he had pledged to bring it to an end, and actually went to Korea weeks after being elected. Richard Nixon went on a five-country tour of Europe, announced the end of the draft, and stated that the United States would deploy an anti-ballistic missile defense system in his first 100 days. Jimmy Carter announced that he was pardoning Vietnam draft evaders. Bill Clinton announced a controversial plan to allow gays to serve in the military. George W. Bush announced that the United States was withdrawing from the Kyoto Climate Accord. For details on John F. Kennedy’s first 100 days in office, see the Historical Lesson.

Historical Lesson

John F. Kennedy’s First 100 Days

John Kennedy’s first 100 days in office were among the most active insofar as foreign policy was concerned. The results were both good and bad. Kennedy was inaugurated on January 21, 1961. Three days later he announced that, via an executive order, he was establishing the Peace Corps as a pilot program, naming George McGovern as its director. Congress would be asked to establish it on a permanent basis.

On February 22, Kennedy sent a letter to Nikita Khrushchev, head of the Soviet Communist Party, in which he extended an invitation to hold personal talks on foreign policy matters of interest to both countries. Earlier, Khrushchev had sent Kennedy a congratulatory letter following the election. Kennedy’s advisors urged him not to hold such a meeting. They feared that he would misread Khrushchev’s personality and intentions. [The meeting was held in Vienna in June, after the 100-day period, with Berlin and Laos as the major points of discussion. Initially the summit was seen as a diplomatic success, but that assessment soon changed. Kennedy did not fare well in the private discussions, and Khrushchev appears to have come away from the summit with the view that Kennedy was an inexperienced leader who could be outmaneuvered.]

In March, Kennedy announced an ambitious ten-year plan for economic growth and development in the Western Hemisphere. A central feature of the plan was an economic partnership between the United States and Latin American countries. This partnership became the Alliance for Progress, which officially came into existence in August 1961. The short-term impact of the Alliance for Progress was significant, as the amount of U.S. foreign aid to the region virtually tripled. Long-term assessments were not as positive, as much of the money flowing into the region benefited U.S. corporations that returned profits to the United States rather than local economies.

The most significant foreign policy decision made by Kennedy in his first 100 days came in April 1961, when he approved the Bay of Pigs operation. It called for covert training of Cuban exiles into a paramilitary force. The force would secretly be sent back to Cuba, where it would help spawn a popular uprising designed to overthrow Castro. The plan was developed by the CIA during the Eisenhower administration’s final year in office. During the 1960 presidential campaign, both Kennedy and Richard Nixon called for taking a hard-line stance against Castro, with Kennedy asserting that Eisenhower had not done enough to end his rule. Kennedy was elected president on November 8, 1960, and on November 18 he was briefed on the invasion plan. On January 3, 1961, the Eisenhower administration broke diplomatic relations with Cuba. Kennedy was briefed again on January 28, 1961. At these briefings he called for changes in the invasion plan, one of which was to move the landing to the Bay of Pigs in order to further hide its link to the United States. At an April 12 press conference, when asked what the United States would do to help support anti-Castro Cubans, Kennedy said that the United States had no intention of intervening in Cuban affairs.

The Bay of Pigs invasion took place on April 17, 1961. Little went right. Overwhelmed by Cuban military forces, the U.S.-backed Cubans quickly surrendered. When confronted with news of the invasion’s imminent collapse, Kennedy rejected calls to openly provide additional U.S. assistance. The failure was not a surprise to many. Both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense had voiced their doubts about the CIA plan, as did former Secretary of State Dean Acheson and current members of Kennedy’s State Department.

Applying the Lesson

1. What standard should be used in assessing presidential performance in the first 100 days, and why?

2. How deeply should presidents be involved in the decision-making process? Explain your answer.

3. What is more important in the first 100 days of a presidency: continuity with the past or changing the direction of foreign policy? Explain your answer.

The historical record suggests that focusing too heavily on a president’s first 100 days is not necessarily a good indicator of what foreign policy is to come in the 1,361 days that follow. However, the standard will continue to be used and comparisons made. This chapter looks at the president and foreign policy from various perspectives to provide a better foundation for evaluation. 166It examines the president’s constitutional powers, then turns to the president as a person and the presidency as an institution. It begins by noting the ongoing debate over whether presidents are strong or weak leaders.

Weak President or Strong President

Some see the president as a weak leader, little more than a clerk lacking the power to command others to act who must rely on the ability to persuade.1 Far from running the government, the president struggles simply to make sense of events.2 Information does not come to presidents automatically, nor can they count on speed and secrecy in making and carrying out decisions. In 2003, George W. Bush had a conversation with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Jerry Brenner, who headed the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Bush asked who was in charge of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Rumsfeld said it was Brenner; Brenner said it was Rumsfeld.3

Others see the president as, at least potentially, a strong and powerful leader capable of unilateral action.4 By acting first and alone, they argue, the president places political competitors in the position of having to undo what they have just done. Unilateral presidential action is not a matter of usurping congressional powers as much as it is taking advantage of ambiguities in the constitutional distribution of powers, the existence of vaguely worded legislative language, and the inherent difficulties that Congress, the courts, and other political competitors face in acting in a unified fashion. The unilateral president has many tools at his disposal, ranging from issuing executive orders and national security directives to setting up new organizations and redefining their responsibilities.

The President and the Foreign Affairs Constitution

Chapter 6 introduced the Constitutional distribution of powers within which the president operates in making foreign policy. The Constitution binds both the president and Congress, but over time presidents have developed a number of strategies for circumventing its restrictions. This section examines four of the most important strategies at the president’s disposal: using executive agreements, issuing signing statements, employing unofficial ambassadors, and engaging in undeclared wars. This does not mean that presidents will always get their way or that their actions will go unchallenged. When Congress did not act on immigration reform, Obama issued an executive order providing deportation relief to illegal immigrants in the United States. A federal court judge ruled the order unconstitutional, and the administration was forced to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. On a tied vote, the Supreme Court held that Obama’s immigration reform policy was illegal.

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Executive Agreements

From the outset, presidents have claimed the constitutional authority to engage in international agreements by means other than treaties. Over time, this alternative, known as an executive agreement, became the favored presidential method for entering into understandings with other states. Unlike a treaty, an executive agreement does not require the consent of the Senate before coming into force. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it carries the same legal force as a treaty. The principal limit on its use is political, not legal: the fear that an angry Congress would retaliate by blocking other presidential foreign policy initiatives.

The proportion of executive agreements to treaties has increased steadily over time. Between 1789 and 1839, the United States entered into 60 treaties and 27 executive agreements. A century later, between 1889 and 1939, those numbers had grown to 524 treaties and 917 executive agreements. Because Obama preferred to act through executive orders and memorandums, he did not make as much use of executive agreements as his predecessors. Midway through his last year in office, Obama had entered into 183 executive agreements, compared to 291 for George W. Bush. However, many were for high-profile foreign policy issues, such as a 2012 strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan (establishing the outlines for U.S.–Afghanistan relations after U.S. combat forces left in 2014), the 2015 climate agreement, and the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Consistent with its America First perspective, the Trump administration has not embraced executive agreements to the extent of its predecessors, preferring instead to leave previously established agreements, such as the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement and the Paris Climate agreement. The major exception is Trump’s pursuit of the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement. A numerical comparison shows that the U.S. entered into 76 executive agreements or treaties in 2018, and only 23 as of June 2019. This compares to an average of just over 100 in previous years.5

The Senate has attempted to curb the president’s use of executive agreements on a number of occasions. Two efforts have been particularly noteworthy. The first, the Bricker Amendment, would have required that executive agreements receive the same two-thirds vote of approval from the Senate as treaties. In 1954, the Bricker Amendment failed by one vote to get the two-thirds Senate majority needed to set into motion the amendment ratification process at the state level.

The second was the 1972 Case-Zablocki Act, which required that Congress be informed of all executive agreements so that it could take action to block them if it saw fit.6 This Act was seen as necessary because executive agreements have not always been made public. Particularly revealing in this regard is the history of secret presidential agreements with Saudi Arabia.7 Both Harry Truman and John Kennedy entered into agreements to use military force to protect the Arab nation under certain conditions. However, the Case-Zablocki Act has not ended the practice of secret executive 168agreements. In part, the problem is definitional. In 1975, Representative Les Aspin estimated that four hundred to six hundred agreements had not yet been reported to Congress because the White House claimed that they were understandings, oral promises, or statements of political intent, not executive agreements.8 Included among these were a 1973 secret message that President Nixon had sent to North Vietnam promising reconstruction aid in return for a peace agreement, Henry Kissinger’s 1975 understanding with Israel and Egypt that U.S. personnel would be stationed in the Sinai as part of the disengagement process, and the 1975 Helsinki Accords.

Signing Statements

Presidents may also act unilaterally by issuing signing statements. Some amount to little more than claiming credit for a piece of legislation or thanking key supporters. Others are statements of Constitutional rights and prerogatives. Such was the case in 2005, following the passage of anti-torture legislation. Two weeks after its public signing, Bush quietly attached a signing statement dealing with the rights of detainees. It stated that he would interpret the legislation “in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and . . . in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President in . . . protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.”9 In effect, this statement claimed presidential authority to conduct the War on Terror as the executive saw fit.

Both Obama and Trump actively used signing statements. For example, in June 2009 Obama signed a spending bill that placed conditions on money given to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In his signing statement, Obama stated that he would not allow this legislation to interfere with his presidential authority to conduct foreign policy and negotiate with other countries. In signing the $716 billion defense bill in August 2018, Trump raised objections to fifty provisions of the bill, including one that called for formal consultations with South Korea and Japan before reducing the size of the U.S. military footprint in South Korea. Trump did not say he would refuse to abide by these provisions, but indicated that he would implement them “consistent with his authority as commander in chief.”

Executive Orders, Spending, and Administrative Powers

Presidents also have a number of more subtle options to pursue their foreign policy agendas.10 One is to issue executive orders, directives issued to U.S. government agencies. These differ from executive agreements, which the president enters into with other countries. Obama issued executive orders in a variety of foreign policy areas. In 2016, he signed an executive order ending a twenty-year-old economic sanctions program against Iran 169for its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The order revoked four previous executive orders and modified a fifth one. Eight executive orders imposing sanctions on Iran remained in place. During his second term, Obama issued controversial executive orders involving cybersecurity. One provided for expanded information sharing and collaboration between the government and private sector and development of a voluntary framework for cybersecurity standards and best practices. Another allowed his administration to impose sanctions on groups or individuals engaged in cyberattacks or commercial espionage in cyberspace.

Trump has used foreign policy executive orders for a variety of issues including drone strikes, trade violations and abuses, and imposition of economic sanctions on Venezuela and Iran. As noted in the Dateline section at the beginning of this chapter, Trump’s most controversial executive order was his travel ban. Drafted largely within the White House and during the transition, it did not follow the vetting system traditionally used in formulating executive orders. Typically, the White House staff sends a proposed executive order to Congress for comment. It is then sent for review to the Office of Management and Budget, which in turn sends it to relevant departments for comment. The president is also required to obtain guidance from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. In the case of the travel ban, input was restricted to Trump’s appointees and did not involve professional staffers. NSC officials raised concerns and presented lengthy comments. Secretary of Defense Mattis was not given an opportunity to comment on the proposal and did not see the final version until the day it was announced.

Presidents may also use their spending and administrative powers to advance foreign policy initiatives blocked by Congress:

· In 1999, the Senate rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Yet Bill Clinton helped fund a global network of monitoring stations that were vital to detecting illegal tests.

· The United States has not yet signed the 1997 treaty banning land mines, yet it has avoided producing, transferring, or deploying new ones. It is also the world’s leading funder of de-mining projects and helps fund follow-up meetings on the treaty’s progress.

· The United States has not signed the treaty establishing an International Criminal Court (ICC), yet Bush supported a UN resolution referring Darfur to the ICC. Obama sent U.S. forces to Africa to help capture ICC fugitive Joseph Kony and turned over a Congolese warlord to the ICC after he surrendered to a U.S. embassy.

· Trump sought to use funds from other agencies or projects to fund his border wall when Congress did not provide him with the funding he desired. For example, it was announced in September 2019 that $3.6 billion would be redirected from Department of Defense military construction projects to fund the wall.

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Informal Ambassadors

Presidents have also reduced the Senate’s confirmation powers from what was originally intended by using personal representatives as negotiators. President Franklin Roosevelt relied heavily on Harry Hopkins in making international agreements, leaving Secretary of State Cordell Hull to administer “diplomatic trivia.” President Jimmy Carter had Hamilton Jordan conduct secret negotiations during the Iranian hostage crisis. The Reagan administration relied on National Security Council (NSC) staffers and private citizens to carry out the Iran-Contra initiative. Obama turned to informal ambassadors for dealing with a number of high-profile foreign policy problems, most notably reopening relations with Cuba; negotiations were conducted by two White House officials and begun without the knowledge of Secretary of State John Kerry.

A similar problem confronts the Senate if it wishes to influence the type of advice the president receives. Presidents are free to listen to whomever they please. Under Woodrow Wilson, Wilson’s friend and confidant Colonel House was more influential than Secretaries of State William Jennings Bryan and William Lansing. Today, it is widely recognized that the National Security Advisor often has more influence on presidential thinking than the Secretary of State. Yet the former’s appointment is not subject to Senate approval.

Two informal ambassadors have risen to prominence in the Trump administration. One is Rudolf Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer who also headed a lucrative international consulting firm. Giuliani emerged as a central figure in foreign policy to Ukraine, for which Trump was impeached. Giuliani made contact with key Ukrainian individuals and parsed for the removal of key State Department officials. Also influential is Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who holds the title of Senior Advisor. Kushner was put in charge of formulating the administration’s Middle East Peace Plan. Kushner’s lack of foreign policy experience led foreign governments to see him as easily manipulated. A case in point is Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was linked to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, became Kushner’s primary source of information and analysis of events in the region. A related concern was that Kushner lacked the necessary security clearance level to gain access to the most sensitive information. Chief of Staff John Kelly had Kushner’s clearance level downgraded at one point. It was raised back to full Top Secret level in May 2018 over the objection of staffers. Ivanka Trump received a full Top Secret level clearance at the same time.

Undeclared Wars

By one count, the United States has used force over three hundred times.11 However, it has declared war only five times. The passage of the 1973 War Powers Resolution (see the Historical Lesson in chapter 6) did little to redress this imbalance. Rather than willingly abide by it, many presidents 171have submitted reports to Congress declaring that they were doing so voluntarily and characterized their decisions to use force as lying beyond the jurisdiction of the War Powers Resolution. Carter did not engage in advance consultations with Congress in carrying out the Iranian hostage rescue effort, claiming that it was a humanitarian action. Reagan used the same logic in bypassing Congress on the invasion of Grenada. He would later argue that, because U.S. Marines were invited in by the Lebanese government, they were not being sent into a combat situation, so the War Powers Resolution did not apply. This assertion lost much of its support when 241 U.S. soldiers were killed in a terrorist attack. Even though George H. W. Bush did obtain congressional resolution supporting the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he continued to stress that “I don’t think I need it . . . I feel that I have the authority to fully implement the United Nations resolution.” In a twist on this situation that occurred well before the War Powers Resolution, President Grover Cleveland went so far as to tell Congress that even if it declared war against Spain over Cuba, he would not honor that vote and begin a war.

Obama’s thinking on presidential war powers evolved during his presidency. As a presidential candidate, Obama stated, “the president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” As president, his position was consistent with that of his predecessors. Obama sought congressional approval neither for military action against Gaddafi nor for the continuance of military operations there after the mandated sixty-day reporting period established by the War Powers Resolution. Approval, he held, was not necessary because it was a humanitarian operation. Later, he asserted that the sixty-day reporting requirement did not apply because U.S. military activities in Libya fell short of “hostilities.”12

In the case of the Yemen resolution discussed in the Dateline section of chapter 6, Trump has similarly rejected congressional efforts to control his use of military power. In contemplating the use of military force against Iran in response to its downing of a U.S. drone, Trump talked with congressional leaders but did not seek official congressional support or inform them that an attack had been authorized and was under way (only to be recalled).

When Does the President Matter?

In a study of twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy, John Stoessinger was struck by how few individuals made crucial decisions shaping its direction.13 He found that movers (exceptional individuals who, for better or worse, not only find turning points in history but help create them) have been far outnumbered by players (individuals caught up in the flow of events, who respond in a standard and predictable fashion). One explanation for this imbalance is 172that relatively few situations may exist in which the personal characteristics of the president or other policy makers are important for explaining policy.

A useful distinction can be made between action indispensability and actor indispensability.14 Action indispensability refers to situations in which a specific action is critical to the success or failure of a policy. The identity of the actor is not necessarily a critical factor in explaining the action. It is possible that any individual (player) in that situation would have acted in a similar manner. Actor indispensability refers to those situations in which the personal characteristics of the involved individual are critical to explaining the action taken. In Stoessinger’s terms, the individual involved is a mover, increasing the odds of success or failure by bringing unique qualities to bear on a problem.

A crucial element of action indispensability is the degree to which the situation permits restructuring. Some situations are so intractable or unstable that it is unreasonable to expect the actions of an individual policy maker to have much of an impact. In concrete terms, the identity of the president will have the greatest impact on policy under four conditions, all of which were met by the events of 9/11:

1. The issue is new on the agenda. Although the administration of Bill Clinton had given terrorism more attention than the incoming George W. Bush administration, no firm plan of action was in place.

2. The issue is addressed early in the administration. The terrorist attacks occurred early in the Bush administration.

3. The president is deeply involved in ongoing issues. Bush was deeply involved in decision-making following the attacks.

4. The issue is in a state of precarious equilibrium, and events are primed to move in any number of directions. Certainly, from the viewpoint of key individuals in the administration, the terrorist attacks presented the United States with a unique opportunity to remake the political map of the Persian Gulf.

Students of the presidency have focused most heavily on two aspects of the president as individual in attempting to understand U.S. foreign policy. The first is presidential personality. The second is the president’s managerial or leadership style.

Presidential Personality

Textbooks and newspaper accounts of U.S. foreign policy are dominated by references to policies that bear a president’s name, such as the Monroe Doctrine, the Truman Doctrine, or the Bush Doctrine. Personalizing the presidency in this way suggests that the identity of the president matters greatly, and that if a different person had been president, U.S. foreign policy would have been different. Is this really the case?15 A persuasive case can 173be made that situational factors, role variables, and the common socioeconomic backgrounds of policy makers place severe constraints on the impact of personality on policy. This section first looks at a leading effort to capture presidential personality and then examines the conditions under which presidential personality should be expected to make a difference.

The most famous effort to classify presidential personality and explore its implications for policy is that of James David Barber, who defines personality in terms of three elements.16 The first element is worldview, which Barber defines as an individual’s politically relevant beliefs. The second is style, an individual’s habitual ways of responding to political opportunities and challenges through “rhetoric, personal relations, and homework.” Both are heavily influenced by the third and most important component of personality: character, which develops in childhood. Character, the way individuals orient themselves toward life, involves two dimensions: energy and personal satisfaction. Presidents are classified as either passive or active by the amount of energy they put into the presidency. A president who derives personal satisfaction from the job is classified as positive, and one who gets no personal satisfaction from it is classified as negative. Together, these two dimensions produce four presidential personalities. Each type of presidential personality has different implications for U.S. foreign policy.

Active-positive presidents, such as Truman, Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Obama, put a great deal of energy into being president and derive great satisfaction from doing so.17 They are achievement-oriented, value productivity, and enjoy meeting new challenges. The primary danger facing active-positives is the possibility that pragmatism will be seen as “flip-flopping.” Carter’s handling of the Panama Canal Treaties illustrates the ability of active-positives to engage productively in coalition-building efforts and accept the compromises necessary to get a policy measure passed. Carter’s presidency also illustrates the problem with active-positive presidents: They may overextend themselves by pursuing too many goals at once, and may be insensitive to the fact that the irrationalities of politics can frustrate even the best-laid plans. Carter was roundly criticized for being too flexible in the search for results and for trying to do too many things at the outset of his administration: negotiate a SALT II treaty, negotiate a Panama Canal treaty, and reorder U.S. foreign policy priorities by emphasizing human rights and economic problems over the Soviet threat.

Active-negative presidents, such as Johnson and Nixon, are compulsive individuals who are driven to acquire power as a means of compensating for low self-esteem. Active-negatives adopt a domineering posture toward those around them and have difficulty managing their aggressive feelings. The great danger of active-negatives is that they will adhere rigidly to a disastrous foreign policy. Woodrow Wilson did so during the League of Nations controversy; Johnson, with Vietnam; and Nixon, with his actions in the Watergate scandal and the impeachment proceedings.

Donald Trump exhibits many of the characteristics of the active- negative president in his decision-making. Trump has actively used his presidential powers of communication to advance his policy positions and attack those who challenge him. He has not hesitated to use his formal and informal presidential powers of executive orders and memos, budgetary allocations, and appointments (or nonappointments). At the same time, Trump’s frustration by his limited ability to fully exercise what he sees as his presidential powers and the lack of credit for what he has accomplished—including winning the presidency—have been noted repeatedly. Critiques of his policies are taken personally, as illustrated by his response to Harley Davidson’s decision to move some of its production outside the U.S. Aides described him as feeling betrayed. There are numerous accounts of him lashing out at aides for failures to implement his policies. Most significantly, Trump often finds himself locked in losing or overly costly policy disputes, such as building a wall along the Mexican border, his embrace of Vladimir Putin and rejection of findings about Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, and his trade war with China.

Passive-positive presidents, such as Reagan, are directed individuals who seek affection as a reward for being agreeable. They do not make full use of the powers of the presidency but feel satisfied with the job as they define it. Passive-negative presidents, such as Eisenhower, get little satisfaction from the job and use few of the powers available to them. They are in politics only because others have encouraged them to be and feel a responsibility to meet these expectations. Their actions are plagued by low self-esteem and feelings of uselessness. They do not enjoy the game of politics. Rather than bargain and compromise, they seek to avoid confrontation by emphasizing vague principles and procedural arrangements. Passive-positive and passive-negative presidents are especially prone to two problems. The first is policy drift. Problems may go unaddressed and opportunities for action may be missed because of both a general disinterest in using the powers of the presidency and reluctance to engage in the nitty-gritty political work necessary to forge a consensus and move ahead. The second potential danger is the absence of accountability. Without the energetic involvement of the president in making policy, an inevitable question arises: “Who is in charge?”

Placing a president in one of Barber’s categories involves a great deal of subjective judgment. Consider the case of Eisenhower, who he defined as a passive-negative president. Recent evidence suggests that this may not be the case.18 Eisenhower may have deliberately cultivated the image of not being involved in policy making in order to deflect political pressures. His “hidden-hand leadership” combined a behind-the-scenes activism with a low public profile.

An even more significant complicating factor is that Barber’s personality traits may not be permanent. Change may occur over time, because multiple traits are present. George W. Bush is a case in point.19 Bush can 175be seen as passive in his delegation of authority to others, his preference for focusing on a few select themes, and his engagement in binary black-and-white thinking, which allowed him to make decisions without getting into the deeper questions involved in an issue. At the same time, he had a very active side. Bob Woodward, who chronicled the Bush administration’s decisions to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, said that Bush’s decision-making style “bordered on the hurried. He wanted actions, solutions. Once on course, he directed his energy at forging on, rarely looking back, scoffing at—even ridiculing—doubt and anything less than 100 percent commitment.”20

Presidential Managerial Style

Presidents do not lead by personality alone. Just as important to the outcome of their presidency is the managerial style, they embrace to get others to follow. In addition, while the influence of presidential personality might be greatest under a limited set of conditions, a president’s managerial and leadership style can be expected to have a more uniform effect on U.S. foreign policy. Getting others to follow is not easy.

Presidential managerial styles can be described in any number of ways. Zbigniew Brzezinski gave the following thumbnail sketches of how the first three post–Cold War presidents managed foreign policy.21 George H. W. Bush had a “top-down” managerial style that placed him firmly in command of decisions. This did not mean that he was always happy with the way the system worked, however. Commenting on discussions about dealing with Soviet pressure on Lithuania, Bush later said, “I was dissatisfied with this discussion since it did not point to action and I wanted to take action.”22 Bill Clinton had a kaffeeklatsch (informal get-together over coffee) approach to decision-making. His meetings lacked an agenda, rarely began or ended on schedule, were frequently marked by the spontaneous participation of individuals who had little reason to be there, and often ended without any clear sense that a decision had been reached. George W. Bush is described as having “strong gut instincts” along with a “propensity for catastrophic decisiveness” and a temperament prone to “dogmatic formulations.”

Viewed from a more analytical perspective, four basic managerial options have been employed by presidents to bring order and coherence to their foreign policy.23 None is, by definition, superior to another. All have contributed to foreign policy successes and failures. The first is a competitive system, which places a great deal of emphasis on the free and open expression of ideas. Jurisdictions and grants of authority overlap, as individuals and departments compete for the president’s attention in putting forward ideas and programs. Franklin Roosevelt is the only president who successfully employed such a model. Johnson is seen as having tried and failed. A second leadership style involves setting up a formalistic system, in which 176the president establishes orderly routines and procedures for organizing the administration’s policy deliberations. The system is hierarchically structured, with the president deeply involved as the final arbitrator in defining strategy and policy choices. Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Obama each set up variations of formalistic systems.

The third management style centers on the creation of a collegial system, in which the president tries to bring together a group of advisors to operate as a problem-solving team. Kennedy, Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton set up this type of system. The fourth management style, employing a chief executive officer (CEO) system, was introduced by George W. Bush. In spirit, it harkens back to a Nixon-style attempt to govern by stressing loyalty, tightly controlling the flow of information, and surrounding the president with an “iron triangle” of aides to the exclusion of others in the White House. There have been noticeable differences in implementation of the CEO system. In contrast to the Nixon NSC system, which stressed hierarchy and centralized control, Bush put into place a flattened power structure, in which the president set the overall direction of policy but delegated responsibility for carrying through on policy to key individuals.

On one level, Trump’s managerial system leaves no doubt that foreign policy decisions reside with him. As one observer who worked in the Clinton and Obama White Houses noted, “it’s a presidency of one person” or as Trump put it, “I alone can fix it.” His foreign policy decisions, often expressed as tweets, have routinely contradicted comments made by key advisors and department heads or have caught them by surprise, as was the case with a Tweet to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that resulted in Trump crossing the DMZ into North Korea for a meeting. Trump placing himself at the center of managing foreign policy is far from unique; what distinguishes his system is the organizational foundation on which his emphasis rests—the centrality of presidential choice.

A deeper look into Trumps’ managerial system reveals a resemblance to the competitive managerial system successfully employed by Roosevelt (but less so by Johnson). Trump created a flat decision-making organization with multiple centers of power vying for his attention, creating what some have called a “team of rivals” operating environment. Others have called it chaos because of his initial set of principal advisors: Chief of Staff Reince Preibus, son-in-law and Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, and Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon. Competitive multiple power centers have continued to exist even as major personnel changes have taken place in these positions and others. What changed was the dynamics of interaction between these power centers and Trump. Initially, the competition was between groups advancing different agendas, most notably anti-globalists (Bannon) and pro-business voices (Kushner). Competition then shifted, highlighting efforts by new advisors, such as McMaster and Kelly, to curb Trump’s inclination to create turmoil as the operating context within which foreign policy decisions are made. Most recently, the competition for  177Trump’s attention highlights efforts by those who agree with his America First agenda to energize Trump to act, and by less prominent voices who raise obstacles to doing so.

Further managerial problems in the Trump administration are found on examination of staffing issues and the problems they create. Two staffing issues stand out. The one receiving the most comments is the high turnover rate among staff members and the large number of vacancies. By spring 2018, the turnover rate in the White House had reached 43 percent, which did not include the upcoming departures of Chief of Staff John Kelly and national security advisor General H. R. McMaster. The turnover rate in Trump’s first year as president was three time as high as Obama’s and twice as high as Reagan’s. The comparison with Reagan brings out a second point. Both Reagan and Trump campaigned as outsiders, but Reagan came to the White House with a large and skilled set of foreign policy advisors and staff to consult for advice. Trump did not. A significant number of Republican foreign policy experts declared that they would not join his administration, and many of those whose names were put forward for key foreign policy positions were rejected by the Trump transition team for their lack of loyalty. The end result was referred to by administration officials as a “lean administration” that had “shed excess baggage”; others saw it as lacking the skills or resources to comment on and implement Trump’s foreign policy effectively.

The National Security Council

Leadership requires more than getting individuals to work together toward a common set of goals. It also has an organizational foundation. Bureaucracies are needed to provide advice, develop policy alternatives, and implement policies. Experience has taught presidents that bureaucracies are not easily moved. As a result, presidents have been forced to look elsewhere for organizations that will allow them to lead. The central foreign policy structure on which presidents have grown to rely is the National Security Council (NSC) system, which is composed of three parts: an advisory body of cabinet rank officials, a National Security Advisor, and a professional staff.

According to the 1947 National Security Act that founded it, the purpose of the NSC was to advise the president “with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to national security.”24 The NSC went through four phases prior to the start of the Trump administration. Each altered the manner in which foreign policy problems come to the president.

The first phase of the NSC’s history ran from 1947 to 1960. During this period, the NSC gradually became overly institutionalized. Truman was the first president to have the NSC, and was cautious in using it. He particularly wanted to avoid setting any precedents that would give the 178NSC the power to supervise executive branch agencies or establish a norm of group responsibility for foreign policy decisions. For Truman, foreign policy was the responsibility of the president alone. The NSC was to be an advisory body, and nothing more. To emphasize this point, Truman did not attend early meetings of the NSC. However, the outbreak of the Korean War changed Truman’s approach. He started to use the NSC more systematically, and began attending its regularly scheduled meetings. All national security issues were now to be brought to his attention through the NSC system; the NSC staff was reorganized, and the emphasis on outside consultants was replaced by a senior staff served by staff assistants.

The institutionalization and involvement of the NSC in policy making continued under Eisenhower, who created a Planning Board, to develop policy recommendations for the president, and an Operations Coordinating Board, to oversee the implementation of national security decisions. Eisenhower also established the post of assistant for national security affairs (commonly known as the president’s national security advisor) to coordinate the national security decision-making process more forcefully. This NSC system never really functioned as envisioned. Instead of producing high-quality policy recommendations, decisions were made on the basis of the lowest common denominator of agreement. Rather than increasing presidential options, it limited them. Policy implementation continued to be governed by departmental objectives and definitions of the problem, rather than by presidential goals and perspectives.25

During the second phase of the NSC’s history, which began with the Kennedy administration and lasted until 1980, it became overly personalized. Under Kennedy, the importance of the NSC system that Eisenhower had created declined. Kennedy adopted an activist approach to national security management grounded in informal operating procedures. The emphasis was on multiple lines of communication, direct presidential contacts with second- and third-level officials, and securing outside expert advice. Ad hoc interagency task forces replaced the formal NSC system as the primary decision-making unit. Within the NSC system, emphasis switched from the council itself to the NSC staff.

In Kennedy’s revamped management system, the National Security Advisor played a key role. This person was responsible for ensuring that the staff operated from a presidential perspective. McGeorge Bundy held this post under Kennedy and in the first part of the Johnson administration. He was replaced by Walt Rostow in 1966. The change in advisors brought with it a change in operating style. Bundy saw his role as a facilitator or honest broker whose job was to encourage the airing of ideas and policy alternatives. Rostow was more of an ideologue, concerned with policy advocacy over process management.

Like Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson took an activist stance and favored small, informal policy-making settings over the formal NSC system. Major decisions about Vietnam were made at the Tuesday lunch group that 179brought together Johnson and his key foreign policy advisors. According to William Bundy, the Tuesday lunch group was a “procedural abomination,” lacking a formal agenda and clearly stated conclusions, wearing on participants, and confusing to those at the working levels.26 The NSC coordinating system was overwhelmed by the pressures of Vietnam, and was often bypassed because of the tendency of the White House to make key policy decisions.

Nixon began his presidency with a pledge to put the NSC system back at the center of the foreign policy decision-making process.27 This was achieved by, first, selecting Henry Kissinger as his National Security Advisor and William Rogers as his Secretary of State. The combination of a strong, opinionated, and activist National Security Advisor and a Secretary of State with little foreign policy experience guaranteed that foreign policy would be made in the White House. Second, Nixon created an elaborate NSC committee and staff system with Kissinger at its center; Kissinger was allowed to direct the flow of paper in the direction he wanted, bringing the NSC system into play on certain issues and cutting it out of others. By the end of the Nixon administration, the NSC was largely “on the outside looking in.” It met only three times in 1973, compared with thirty-seven times in 1969. Such important decisions as the invasion of Cambodia, Kissinger’s trip to China, the Paris peace negotiations, bombing in Vietnam, and putting U.S. troops on worldwide alert during the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East were made outside the NSC system.

Carter dismantled the elaborate Nixon-Ford-Kissinger committee system in favor of two committees. The Policy Review Committee handled long-term projects. A Special Coordinating Committee dealt with short-term problems, crisis situations, and covert action. Collegiality also returned, as evident in the prominent policy-making roles played by the Friday foreign policy breakfasts (attended by Carter and his key foreign policy advisors), but at a price. The Friday foreign policy breakfasts became substitutes for full NSC meetings; decisions made during the breakfasts were not always fully integrated into the NSC system, nor did they necessarily result in clearly articulated positions.28

During the Reagan administration, the NSC entered a third phase. Pledging to depersonalize the system, Reagan pushed too far in the opposite direction, causing it to go into decline. The National Security Advisor became a “nonperson,” with little foreign policy influence or stature. With no force able to coordinate foreign policy, an unprecedented degree of bureaucratic infighting and fragmentation came to characterize (and paralyze) Reagan’s foreign policy. The NSC staff moved in two different directions. On the one hand, it became preoccupied with bureaucratic trivia (including twenty-five committees, fifty-five midlevel committees, and some one hundred task forces and working groups). On the other hand, it became involved in the actual conduct of foreign policy in the Iran-Contra initiative. Only with the arrival of Colin Powell as National Security Advisor 180and the passing from the Cabinet of such powerful and highly opinionated figures as Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Director of Central Intelligence William Casey did a coherent foreign policy agenda appear.29

In the George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations, decision-making in the NSC was transformed again, becoming more collegial in nature. Both presidents selected low-key National Security Advisors who were expected to stay out of the public limelight. The final result was less than anticipated. The primary problem encountered in George H. W. Bush’s administration was too much homogeneity in outlook. All of the participants, including the president, were confident that they understood the world, and they were slow to adapt to the end of the Cold War. Bill Clinton failed to make his collegial system work because he was unable to provide a constant vision to guide his team, or to construct an effective division of labor among its members.

George W. Bush and Obama continued to try and construct a collegial system. Central to George W. Bush’s advisory system was the “War Cabinet,” consisting of some twelve key Bush advisors on the war against terrorism. Instead of operating in a collegial fashion, however, this system became highly competitive and split over how to conduct foreign policy. No real discussions took place. Instead, key officials holding strong views on policy issues, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, routinely employed back channels to communicate with Bush privately about policy matters.30 Commenting on the decision to invade Iraq, one CIA official recalled that “there was no meeting; no policy options papers, no showdown in the Situation Room where the wisdom of going to war was debated or the decision to do so made.”31

In setting up his NSC system, President Obama created an advisory system that emphasized his role as the key foreign policy decision-maker. In surveying Obama’s system, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair was moved to note that, at any one time, there was not one National Security Advisor in the Obama administration, but at least three and as many as five.32 Obama’s national security system also continued a controversial trend. Under Carter, the NSC had twenty-five staffers; under George W. Bush, it had reached two hundred. Under Obama it doubled in size to four hundred staffers, who increasingly were perceived as lacking in professional expertise. Critics of this growth saw it as reducing the input of the State Department, Defense Department, and other foreign policy bureaucracies. Defenders saw it as reflecting the changed nature of foreign policy making; the more important role of domestic political considerations require the White House to play a more active and controlling role.

Trump’s first national security advisor, retired General Michael Flynn, resigned after twenty-four days. Flynn was replaced by Gen. H. R. McMaster, who quickly moved to reorganize the operation of the NSC by removing “flynnstones” and White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon from the NSC’s cabinet-level Principles Committee. Bannon did, however, 181retain walk-in rights to speak with Trump, something McMaster did not have. McMaster also succeeded in returning the Homeland Security Council to the control of the NSC (it was an independent unit in Trump’s original NSC blueprint). McMaster was known as a forceful, independent thinker. He often came into conflict with other high-ranking officials, such as Mattis and Kelly. In addition, he often disagreed with Trump, most notably on Russia, a situation that led to his removal after slightly more than one year in the position. Trump routinely spoke of the need to get along with Russia, but, in public remarks following his removal, McMaster identified Russia as using “old and new forms of aggression to undermine our open societies and the foundations of international peace and stability” and criticized the administration for failing to respond strongly enough.

On April 9, 2018, John Bolton became Trump’s third National Security Advisor in fourteen months. Bolton had previously served in the George W. Bush administration, where earned a reputation as a strident hawk who favored direct military action against U.S. adversaries. He was one of the leading voices for invading Iraq, because of its supposed pursuit of nuclear weapons. Just prior to assuming the position of National Security Advisor, Bolton wrote a newspaper editorial that presented a legal justification for a preemptive first strike against North Korea, saying that it was on the cusp of being able to attack the United States and was helping Iran and ISIS develop nuclear weapons. Bolton brought an immediate change to NSC operations. Where McMaster held regular NSC meetings, Bolton isolated the council. Bolton also reached out regularly to members of Congress to advance his views and engaged in social media postings.

Bolton served 520 days as National Security Advisor before being fired by Trump (or, as he claimed, resigning) after the collapse of peace talks with the Taliban. While both hold hawkish foreign policy views, Bolton and Trump differed on using military force and entering into diplomatic talks with adversaries. Trump advocated the former but was also interested in making diplomatic deals. Bolton opposed both, and clashes between them became common. Trump also came to view Bolton’s loyalty with suspicion. By summer 2019, Bolton was isolated from decision-making on an Afghanistan/Taliban peace agreement. He opposed pursuing the agreement, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo supported it. The agreement collapsed when Trump cancelled a meeting at Camp David where he had planned to announce it. That meeting and the details of the agreement had been advanced by Trump and pursued by a small circle of Trump advisors without input from the National Security Council.

Robert O’Brien replaced Bolton as national security advisor. O’Brien holds conservative foreign policy views and came to the position with little government experience outside of serving as the lead hostage negotiator for the State Department. It is widely speculated that, rather than serving as an independent source of foreign policy ideas or critical commentary, he would largely act as a supporting voice of Trump’s foreign policy.

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Other White House Voices

The NSC system is not the only body close to the president that exercises influence over the making of U.S. foreign policy. Four other voices have grown in prominence: the vice president, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), the president’s Chief of Staff (COS), and the First Lady.

The Vice President

Political folklore assigns the vice president little more than a ceremonial position in the policy-making process, barring the death of the president. There is often great truth in these images. Harry Truman spoke with Franklin Roosevelt only eight times and knew nothing of the development of the atomic bomb or Roosevelt’s discussions with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin about the shape of the post–World War II international system.

Of late, however, much has changed. More and more, vice presidents are playing selective but important foreign policy roles.33 Dan Quayle, George H. W. Bush’s vice president, became the administration’s most active voice on Latin American affairs, and his decidedly pro-Israel position was important in maintaining the Persian Gulf War alliance against Iraq. Al Gore, Bill Clinton’s vice president, established himself as a key administration expert on Russia and some of the important newly emerging states, such as Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Joe Biden continued in the role of activist vice president as part of the Obama administration. In 2013 Biden traveled to China, where he played the administration’s “bad cop,” publicly criticizing Chinese leaders for their attempts to silence American media criticism by blocking their websites in China and not renewing correspondents’ visas. In some respects, Mike Pence has followed in Biden’s footsteps, being sent abroad to advance and defend the Trump administration’s foreign policy. However, Pence has also advanced his own foreign policy agenda, based on his conservative Christian world view. He has spoken out for religious freedom, criticizing countries such as Myanmar for its persecution of Muslims more forcefully than Trump. He has also pressured the State Department and USAID to redirect some $300 million in development funds intended for Iraq to help Christian and other minority groups in the region.

By far the most active and influential vice president in making foreign policy decisions was Dick Cheney, George W. Bush’s vice president. He assembled a national security staff larger than that of any previous vice president and brought a clear-cut perspective on foreign policy matters and considerable foreign policy experience to the office. As Secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush, Cheney had established himself as the most aggressive member of that administration’s inner circle in dealing with the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War, arguing that “we ought to lead and shape events.”34

After the 9/11 attacks, Cheney became a powerful voice for taking the war to Iraq, often engaging in spirited exchanges with Secretary of State Colin Powell, who opposed such a move. Both before and after the invasion of Iraq, Cheney vehemently and publicly asserted that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that a link existed between Iraq and al-Qaeda. His behind-the-scenes efforts to root out intelligence supporting this position and his preoccupation with discrediting opponents of the war are among the most controversial aspects of the Bush administration’s handling of prewar intelligence. Bush and Cheney were not always in agreement in foreign policy matters, however, and by the end of his presidency the distance between their views grew.35

The U.S. Trade Representative

Up until the early 1960s, the State Department had primary responsibility for conducting international economic negotiations. That changed with the passage of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, which created the Office of the Special Trade Representative to head an interagency trade organization located in the White House. The move, which was led by Congress, was seen as necessary because the State Department was not viewed as a strong enough advocate of American economic interests.

The USTR is charged with the responsibilities of overseeing U.S. activity in multilateral trade negotiations, and negotiating trade issues with other states and within the UN system of organizations. Thus, it was Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, rather than Secretary of State Colin Powell, who accompanied George W. Bush to meet with Latin American leaders in hopes of laying the foundation for the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Zoellick also supervised U.S. negotiations at the Doha Round of World Trade Organization talks.

Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s USTR, is a longtime Trump supporter who worked on trade issues in the Reagan administration, has a reputation as a tough negotiator, and is an advocate of high tariffs an instrument of foreign policy. Shortly after he assumed this position in 2017, Trump announced his intention to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In December 2018, Trump announced that Lighthizer would be the new chief negotiator in trade talks with China. (Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin had been the first two negotiators.) Lighthizer has long been critical of China’s trade policies. He opposed its entry into the World Trade Organization and charged the nation with intellectual property theft.

The White House Chief of Staff

By convention, a division of labor has evolved in White House decision-making circles between the Chief of Staff (COS) and the National 184Security Advisor. Each acts as a principal source of advice for the president—the COS for domestic policy and the National Security Advisor for foreign policy. This division of labor is disappearing; more and more, the COS has come to have an important voice in foreign policy matters. Several reasons for this change stand out. Foremost is the blurring of the boundary between foreign and domestic policy. As you learned in Chapter 2, many of today’s traditional foreign policy problems can be characterized as intermestic issues, with elements of both foreign and domestic policy. As a consequence, the COS’s domestic political expertise has become relevant to decisions on many foreign policy issues. As Carter’s COS Hamilton Jordan recalls, he sought to play the role of an early warning system to alert officials to potential domestic political problems embedded in foreign policy decisions.

In addition to providing advice, the COS acts as a gatekeeper, regulating those who have access to the president. Leon Panetta, Bill Clinton’s second COS, insisted that all decision papers, including those from the NSC, go to the president only after his review. If he felt that not enough options were begin given to Clinton, the paper was returned. The influence of domestic considerations filtered through the COS’s office affects not only what decisions are made, but also to how foreign policy decisions are communicated. Brent Scowcroft, George H. W. Bush’s National Security Advisor, noted that he had expected the NSC to write the first draft of the president’s national security speeches because the language was so very important, butthis was not the case. Instead, the White House speech writers took the lead, with the result that foreign policy speeches often sounded like campaign speeches laced with dramatic rhetoric.

Examples of the prominent foreign policy role played by the COS in recent administrations are easy to find. Andrew Card, George W. Bush’s first COS, was one of those placed in charge of the Homeland Security Council after the 9/11 attacks. As the Bush administration moved toward war with Iraq, Card established the White House Iraq Group to make sure that the various parts of the White House were working in harmony on Iraq. Secretary of Defense Gates was highly critical of Obama’s COS Thomas Donilon, complaining that decisions about military intervention into Libya were made without significant military input. At one point, Gates told the Pentagon not to give the White House staff too much military information because they did not understand it.

The foreign policy influence of the COS in the Trump administration comes through most strongly in the role definitions adopted by General John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney. After replacing Reince Preibus, Kelly was charged with bringing order to the White House. To a large extent he succeeded in managing the flow of paper and the number of people who had access to Trump. What Kelly was unable to do was impose discipline on Trump; after initially welcoming Kelly’s presence, he grew to resent it, along with Kelly’s efforts to modify his foreign policy thinking on such 185issues as the border wall. When asked how to evaluate his tenure as COS, Kelly responded that it was best measured by what the president did not do. Mulvaney, a former Member of Congress and leader of the Tea Party movement, reversed direction. He decentralized the White House, removing many of the procedural changes in access that Kelly had initiated. Most significantly, rather than try to manage Trump, his approach was to let him follow his instincts.

The First Lady

According to traditional thinking, first ladies play largely ceremonial foreign policy roles. It is important to recognize that, while the most common, this not the only role that first ladies have played. First ladies have long been involved informally in making U.S. foreign policy. Abigail Adams lobbied President John Adams on a treaty with the Netherlands in 1799. Edith Wilson served as Woodrow Wilson’s communication link with both foreign governments and others in the U.S. government while he was incapacitated by a stroke. While generally neutral on policy matters, she tried but failed to get Wilson to accept Senator Henry Cabot Lodge’s reservations about the League of Nations. Eleanor Roosevelt engaged in a wide series of debates with President Franklin Roosevelt during his presidency.

Two recent first ladies who adopted a much more visible and active role in foreign policy were Rosalynn Carter and Hillary Clinton. The signature foreign policy undertaking of Rosalynn Carter’s stay in the White House was a June 1977 trip to Latin America. With Jimmy Carter heavily involved in completing the Panama Canal Treaties, the Middle East peace process, and arms control talks with the Soviet Union, the decision was made to send her to Latin America as signs of U.S. interest in the region and its commitment to human rights. In preparation for the trip, Rosalynn Carter met with scholars and representatives from the State Department, Treasury Department, National Security Department, and Organization of American States.

As first lady, Hillary Clinton’s signature foreign policy initiative involved advocacy for women’s rights and her attendance at the Fourth United Nations Conference on Women, held in Beijing in September 1995. In addressing that body, she strongly criticized China’s treatment of women.

Melania Trump has embraced the traditional passive foreign policy role of first ladies, advancing in a low-key manner her signature foreign policy agenda, highlighting the role of U.S. foreign aid in helping children exemplified by her 2018 trip to Africa. Similarly, Laura Bush was seen much more than heard, but did have a focal point for her foreign policy activities, including freedom in Burma. Michelle Obama’s primary area of international involvement was youth engagement.

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Over the Horizon: Improving Presidential Transitions

As noted at the outset of this chapter, for many, the first 100 days of a president’s term in office are seen as sending important signals as to what the future holds for their presidency. For others, just as important—and perhaps even more important—are the seventy-two days between election as president in November and inauguration the following January, when the transition from one president to another takes place.

Newly elected presidents whose predecessor was from a different party face a number of common challenges in constructing an effective and efficient transition process. According to Kurt Campbell and James Steinberg, six stand out: (1) Government by Amateurs, (2) Solving the Jig Saw Puzzle, (3) Promises to Keep, (4) the Clean Slate Syndrome, (5) Fumbled Information Handoffs, and (6) Only One President at a Time.

Prior to 2008, very little formal transition planning took place to help overcome these problems. Transitions were largely ad hoc affairs consisting of occasional national security briefings after the election. 9/11 changed that. As one senior George W. Bush administration official involved in both the 2000 and 2008 transitions noted, “Thank goodness it was September 11 and not February 11 because we would have been completely incapable of dealing with them.” Still, another official noted that in 2008 “we were kind of making it up as we went along.”

The desire to better prepare a presidential candidate to become president led to the creation of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. In studying the 2008 transition, it found that both McCain and Obama began transition planning in spring 2008; McCain’s campaign was less aggressive, believing that he would face fewer problems succeeding a Republican president. Fears of appearing overly presumptuous or overly confident about victory were major psychological and political impediments to transition planning. The report recommended that future presidential candidates appoint transition directors within two weeks of gaining the nomination, and that by January 1 the president-elect should give Congress the names of its nominees for the top fifty State Department, Defense Department, national security, and economic positions. The Senate should vote on them on or shortly after inauguration day.

In March 2016, Congress passed legislation establishing a set of deadlines that both presidential candidates and the administration had to meet, which Obama signed into law. That very month, transition coordinators from some forty different agencies met to discuss transition planning. The legislation had established a May deadline, six months before the election, for a president to create a transition coordinating council at the White House and in federal agencies.

Trump’s transition experienced all six of the challenges identified above. In this respect it was not unique. On the other hand, many of the problems it encountered were more severe, demonstrating little evidence of learning form the past. His transition highlights how much work remains to be done to improve presidential transitions. Another step in that direction was announced in March 2019; two former CIA officials created an unclassified briefing book on major challenges facing the United States, which is being given to announced presidential candidates in an effort to help them address issues rising from fake news and foreign election interference.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. Where does presidential responsibility begin and end in foreign policy making, and why?

2. Is there a “best” type of presidential personality for foreign affairs? Explain your answer.

3. Is the way the NSC is organized or presidential management style more important in determining presidential success in foreign policy? Explain your answer.

Key Terms

· action indispensability, 172

· actor indispensability, 172

· Bricker Amendment, 167

· Chief executive officer (CEO) system, 176

· collegial system, 176

· competitive system, 175

· executive agreement, 167

· formalistic system, 175

· gatekeeper, 184

· presidential personality, 173

· signing statements, 168

· unilateral president, 166

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Further Reading

Michael Armacost, Ballots, Bullets and Bargains: American Foreign Policy and Presidential Elections (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015).

This book examines the influence of the electoral process on how candidates define their foreign policy positions. Particular attention is paid to how sitting presidents select foreign policy problems to fix and the pressures on newly elected presidents to act boldly.

James David Barber, The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985).

This study popularized the concept of presidential character, and presents a still widely used framework for studying presidential personality and its impact on foreign policy.

Matthew Eshbaugh and Christopher Linebarger, “Presidential and Media Leadership of Public Opinion on Iraq,” Foreign Policy Analysis 10 (2014), 351–69.

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Examining presidential speeches, news coverage, and levels of public support for the Iraq War, the authors find that, while the tone of media coverage drove support for the president, the tone of presidential rhetoric influenced the public’s assessment of George W. Bush’s handling of it.

David Kaye, “Stealth Multilateralism,” Foreign Affairs 92 (September 2013), 113–24.

This article highlights the extent to which presidents have managed to circumvent congressional rejection of foreign policy initiatives that they consider threats to U.S. sovereignty. It concludes by noting the limitations of such work-around tactics.

Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power (New York: Free Press, 1960).

This classic account of presidential power emphasizes the weaknesses of the president in pursuing his foreign policy agenda.

Paul Rutledge and Heather Larson-Price, “The President as Agenda Setter-in-Chief,” Policy Studies Journal 42 (2014), 443–64.

This article examines the influence of the presidency on setting the congressional policy agenda in six areas, from 1956 to 2005. It finds compelling evidence of presidential leadership and a reactive Congress, especially with regard to international affairs issues.

Elizabeth Saunders, Leaders at War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011).

This study on how presidents shape decisions on military intervention develops a typology and applies it to cases that stress the importance of threat definition and the nature of the selected intervention strategy.

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