TRIANGLE INSTITUTE FOR SECURITY STUDIES newsletter

Volume XIII Summer 1998

Contents

T.I.S.S. Membership Update.................................p. 1

Changes to the Executive Committee…................p. 1

Seminars & Distinguished Speaker in Review .....p. 2

Presentations in Review....................................... p. 8

Conference in Review.…………………………..…………p. 9

Schedule of Events 1998/99........................………..p. 18

Research ...............................................................p. 19

Outreach Activities...........................................….p. 25

Internships …………………………………………………p. 27

T.I.S.S. Membership Update

In early July you received a survey and a letter informing you of T.I.S.S. intentions to rely, as far as possible, on electronic communication Many of you have already returned these forms, but some of you have not. Please remember that your continuing membership in T.I.S.S. is linked to your response to these forms. Feel free to call if you have not received one and do wish to continue your membership.

Please note that at the end of the summer the T.I.S.S. e-mail address will be changed to tiss_unc@email.unc.edu

Changes to the Executive Committee 1998/1999

It is with great regret that the Triangle Institute of Security Studies must say farewell to Dr. Ole Holsti , George V. Allen Professor of International Affairs at Duke University and a member of the executive committee of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies since 1978. Dr. Holsti will be retiring from Duke in September. He has been an immensely energetic and loyal presence at T.I.S.S. for more than two decades and it is hard to imagine T.I.S.S. without him. We wish him all of the best in his retirement, and look forward to his continuing participation in T.I.S.S. activities. His place will be taken by Dr. Peter Feaver of Duke University.

Letter from Ole Holsti To members of the T.I.S.S. community: With my retirement on September 1 I will also be stepping down from the Executive Committee of T.I.S.S.. I am delighted that my colleague Peter Feaver will be replacing me. T.I.S.S. and its predecessors—the Triangle Universities Security Seminar [TUSS] and the Duke-UNC Seminar [DUNC] – have been an important part of my intellectual life since my arrival at Duke in 1974. The many dinner meetings, “Quail Roosts,” and other important activities of our group were invariably stimulating. They also served as wonderful vehicles for meeting colleagues at UNC, NCSU, North Carolina Central University, and other institutions, as well as in disciplines other than political science. As universities and disciplines have become more inward-looking and self-

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absorbed, TISS has served as an important way to counter some of these unfortunate trends in academia. During my years with T.I.S.S. and its predecessors I have been impressed by its strong leadership and by the dedication of its post-doctoral fellows and its staff. It has been especially gratifying to witness the recent addition of a major new component to T.I.S.S. activities. The “Study of War” project, under the leadership of Dick Kohn and Alex Roland, elevated T.I.S.S. into a research group with national visibility. The recent $500,000 grant (from an institution which prefers to remain anonymous) for the “Civil-Military Relations” project, directed by Peter Feaver and Dick Kohn, confirms that T.I.S.S. is capable of competing at the national level for major research funding. One of the best features of my retirement is that I will continue to be actively involved with T.I.S.S. activities, including the civil-military relations project. Thus, I expect to continue having regular contacts with members of T.I.S.S.. As I pass the baton to Peter Feaver, I do so with the certainty that T.I.S.S.’s most stimulating and productive days lie ahead. With best wishes to all. Sincerely, Ole R. Holsti.

Sadly, we are also losing another member

of the Executive Committee. Alicia Ward, a Professor of International Studies at Shaw University, is leaving to take a job with the Educational Resource Center in New York. Professor Ward joined our Executive Board only last year, but during that time made an invaluable contribution. She has also been one of T.I.S.S.’s most effective contacts at the HBCU’s. We all wish her the very best of luck in her new position and hope that she will continue to maintain her contacts with our organization.

T.I.S.S. 1997/1998 Seminars in Review

As we mentioned in our last newsletter, T.I.S.S. has regularized its seminar schedule as far as possible. We are grateful to the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, for its willingness to accommodate us. The Humanities Center is a delightful place to meet and its staff, notably Michelle Weeks--is exceptionally helpful.

We also enjoyed the use of the North Carolina State Faculty Club thanks to Bill Harris who kindly sponsored our organization. The new format—coffee and desserts, followed by the talk and discussion— has been very successful.

****** The first seminar meeting of the academic year was held on September 10, 1997. Professor Vincent Davis of the Patterson School of Diplomacy offered his thoughts on the “End of the Cold War: What Has Changed and What Has Not.” Despite a widespread tendency to see the end of the Cold War as bringing about change of a revolutionary nature, Vince Davis argued that many basic patterns have and will continue—notably the American tendency to be surprised by wars.

Americans, Professor Davis continued, have historically shown a cultural antipathy to military service and to war. He identified seven trends in this antipathy: American political leaders, in response to public opinion, are reluctant to involve the country in war; the leaders are reluctant to force Americans to serve in uniform; Americans prefer to fight using machines rather than people; attempts to get convince people to serve are largely ineffective; they try to get out of war and combat as quickly as possible; wars longer than one year long are unpopular and lead to social change; rapid and often substantial down-sizing and demobilization have typically followed American wars.

Raising armies, Davis went on, has always been a problem, from George Washington to John Shalikashvili. The roots of this problem include an “anti-militarism” transmitted to North America by the early colonists and the recent decline of private, personal combat-sustaining values. This decline accompanied the Industrial Revolution with its promotion of interest in individual wealth and comfort. To combat this manpower shortage, the United States has increased its reliance on high tech weapons and tapped new manpower sources for troops (blacks, women, and immigrants).

Unfortunately, industrialization, which historically contributed to both the increasing frequency and the increasing violence of modern wars, is a continuing trend. Cataclysmic events and manipulative political leaders, moreover, have historically overcome the traditional American

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reluctance to enter wars. Thus, Professor Davis argued that the end of the Cold War will not lead to the end of substantial warfare, as some predict.

The difficulty of sustaining public support for military service will result in increasing the cost of the military which will, in turn, set limits on what we want to do and what we can do . But, despite these limits, Davis concluded, military force is likely to continue to be the “essential lubricant” in the international system. After his presentation, Professor Davis was engaged in a lively debate with T.I.S.S. members. The discussion focused in particular on military recruitment. Besides the cultural factors, what other factors caused American reluctance to serve in the military? How great was the need after the end of the Cold War to increase the size of the armed forces? Should we rely more on the citizen soldier as Americans have done in the past? What measures, finally, should be taken to deal with the current crisis? In his answers, Professor Davis stressed the need for American military intervention and preparedness. He also keyed on the importance of education as a tool for overcoming the current crisis.

****** On October 8, Klaus Böhme of the

Swedish Staff and War College spoke to an interested group of political scientists and historians in the Breedlove Room, Duke University. His topic was “Swedish Neutrality: History and Problems.”

Professor Böhme started his discussion by an examination of the roots of Swedish neutrality. He argued that even in the seventeenth century, when Sweden was a great power, it recognized the advantages of neutrality. These advantages became all the more obvious as Swedish power declined. Nonetheless Sweden was not always able to keep out of wars and it was not until 1905, when the Union of Sweden and Norway was dissolved, that Sweden truly really became neutral.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Professor Böhme continued, the Swedes helped forge international laws at The Hague. Their rather optimistic belief that formal rules would solve the problem of conflict was shattered, however, by the realities of World War I. As a neutral, Sweden found itself pressured both by belligerents and domestic political parties to take sides in the war (conservatives wanted to

favor Germany, liberals looked to the Western democracies).

When World War II broke out in 1939, the Swedes were more cynical. Legally neutral, the Swedes, in practice, generally hoped for defeat of the Soviets and the weakening of Germany. They also declared themselves non-belligerent (as opposed to neutral) so as to be able to support the Finns.

During the Cold War Sweden remained true to its tradition of neutrality inasmuch as it did not join NATO, participated in peacekeeping missions and were officially “non-aligned”. However, as a democracy, they felt themselves obligated to support the Western powers and did indeed develop close relations with British and American intelligence services.

Since the end of the Cold War, Professor Böhme concluded, neutrality has become to some degree an anachronism. It is possible, as a result, that Sweden might now join NAT0 and participate more actively in the UN. However, by and large the Swedes are happy with neutrality and feel that it has served them well. For the remainder of the evening, the audience took advantage of Professor Böhme’s extensive knowledge to ask him questions on a wide range of issues. He was asked about Swedish participation in eugenics, about intelligence sharing operations, about peacekeeping operations, and about the Nobel Peace Prize. One issue that generated a lot of interest was the moral ambiguity of adopting a neutral role. Böhme was asked, for example, whether or not the Swedish self-image had suffered from the knowledge that they had failed to resist the Nazi and Soviet regimes in World War II. The future of Sweden was also discussed. Asked whether or not Sweden would eventually join the European community, Böhme outlined some of the problems, but conceded that it would probably be to Sweden’s advantage if it did.

****** On November 5, 1997 Thomas Ricks, Pentagon Reporter for the Wall Street Journal, spoke to a large audience at the North Carolina State University Club, Raleigh, on “The Growing Gap between the Military and American Society.”

Rather than follow the usual T.I.S.S. format (a fifty minute talk, followed by a question and answer session), Ricks gave a brief

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introductory talk on the nature, genesis, and public reaction to a controversial article he had written in the in the Atlantic Monthly (now the final chapter of his book, Making the Corps). He then quickly opened the floor to a question and answer session. Ricks started by graciously acknowledging his debt to both Dick Kohn, who stimulated his interest in military-civilian relations, and Ole Holsti, whose statistical findings on the political affiliation of officers corroborated Ricks’ theory that there is a growing gap between the military and society in America.

Ricks then outlined some of the reasons given in the article for the gap: the development of the all-volunteer force; the increasingly individualistic nature of civilian society; the changing security environment; and the blurring of domestic and foreign problems. He noted that he had proposed several solutions to the problem, including the restoration of the draft as a means of reconnecting the elites to the military and the restoration of ROTC units to the elite educational institutions of the U.S.

Ricks went on to comment on the highly controversial nature of the response to his article. Responses varied from emphatic agreement from those (often highly ranking officers) who agreed that such a trend existed to equally emphatic disagreement on the part of others (typically junior officers). He speculated that these different responses were linked to the fact that older officers formed the last small bastion of “liberalism” in an increasingly conservative military. The question and answer session that ensued was extended and lively. The audience was, as is typical of T.I.S.S. meetings, diverse in composition and ideology. This eclecticism was especially useful in a meeting devoted to the inquiry into the growing gap between civilians and military. Various aspects of Ricks’ work were discussed. Some members of the audience questioned the assumption that there really was a growing gap between the military and the civilian world. One attendee suggested that American society as a whole was becoming increasingly conservative. The military, he said, had better mechanisms for implementing conservative policies. As a result, it merely appeared to be more conservative. Others disagreed, arguing that the military was more conservative than society at

large. Ricks conceded that there was a conservative swing in America as a whole. He reiterated, however, that the Marine Corps culture clearly condemned American society.

Another issue discussed was the source of increased military conservatism. Members of the audience came up with a variety of explanations ranging from military outrage over Clinton’s homosexual policies to the growth of “high-tech” warfare. Several military officers attending the meeting stated that they voted for their economic self-interest and argued that the voting patterns of the military reflected the economic concerns of the military rather than any cultural values. Ricks himself offered two suggestions: bitterness over Vietnam and military alienation from the democratic party. Considerable attention was paid to the question of how to deal with the problems caused by the gap. The effectiveness of officers trained through ROTC programs was stressed by several persons, including Tom Ricks. At various points in the discussion Ricks also stressed the need to make better use of civilians whose skills were of special value in the changing military environment. (He noted that this was one of the advantages of the National Guard.) Ricks’ rather challenging suggestion that the draft should be reinstated led to an animated discussion of the relative benefits of relying on a draft as opposed to the All-Volunteer Force. The draft was acknowledged to be a useful means of involving a wider variety of people in military service as well as closing the military-civilian gap. On the other hand, a number of problems were noted, including the viability of reinstating the draft in an era of downsizing, the problem of draft evasion, and the difficulty of ensuring fair administration. Ricks argued that the draft (one year national service with reserve) might be made acceptable by linking it to a benefits package. The merits of the All-Volunteer Force were defended by several attendees. It was also acknowledged, however, that its current effectiveness was at risk. The Post-Cold War environment made the military services less attractive. Diminishing benefits (which Ricks saw as the likely outcome of the inevitable budget crunch) would also serve to erode the ranks.

In his concluding remarks, Ricks suggested that a combination of the AVF and national service might offer the best solution.

******

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Henk Geomans, a Duke Political Scientist originally from the Netherlands, spoke to T.I.S.S. on December 10th on, “War and Punishment: the Causes of War Termination.”

He outlined and defended his current research. Oligarchic regimes, he hypothesized, are less likely than dictatorships or democracies to compromise with their enemies and lower their war aims when their chances of winning a war appear to be decreasing. This, he said, stems from the fact that oligarchies fear to “moderately” lose a war as much as to “badly” lose a war. Either way they face dire “punishment’—exile, death, or political overthrow. Hence they are tempted to gamble on victory. Understanding this helps us explain why some wars end more slowly than others.

In a clearly structured presentation, Professor Goemans first introduced his audience to the literature of his field, then explained his thesis and its logical underpinnings. He illustrated his logic by drawing on an historical case study. He contrasted the responses of the British (democratic) and German (oligarchic) governments as new and depressing evidence reached them as to their chances of a victory. By the end of 1917, Goemans maintains that pessimism led the British to lower their war aims. By contrast, in 1916, when German assessments were bleak, German war aims actually increased. Professor Goemans concluded his presentation by discussing the statistical evidence that underpinned his study. Professor Goeman’s challenging hypothesis inspired an animated debate. Much of it stemmed from the presence at the meeting of historians whose own methodology and approach tended to be at odds with those of the political scientists. Several T.I.S.S. members expressed discomfort with the rigid conceptual framework which, in their estimation, was not sufficiently nuanced to encompass all the relevant variables. Governments, they argued, surely calculated their war aims on the basis of far more complex considerations than suggested by Professor Goemans. The existence of counter-examples which tended to disprove his thesis were also noted—the administration under President Lyndon Johnson, to give an example, prosecuted the war in Vietnam despite pessimism as to its outcome. Definitional problems were also raised;

how, for example, do you define a democracy or an oligarchy? Dr. Goemans was also asked to defend his choice of wars (some of which were not included in his data base) and questioned about the applicability of his model to other types of wars such as low intensity conflicts, civil wars etc. Throughout the evening, Professor Goemans defended his thesis and discipline with verve. ******

On February 11th, 1998 Catherine Lutz of UNC-Chapel Hill, introduced a T.I.S.S. audience to an anthropological perspective. Dr. Lutz is currently studying the culture of Fayetteville, North Carolina, a city much affected by the establishment of nearby Fort Bragg during World War I. She spoke on “War’s Wages: a Military City and the American Twentieth Century.”

As introduction, Dr. Lutz explained her research concerns—first, the impact of war preparation on society and second, the nature of civilian identity. She defined “militarization” as “the contrary and tense social process(material and discursive) by which societies prepare to engage in organized violence.” (Geyer 1989) During the course of her presentation, Professor Lutz highlighted aspects of Fayetteville’s history, discussing how, at various points the inhabitants reacted to the military presence and how factors such as military employment affected the community. She sought to convey her sense of the complexity of local responses to the military presence. To give one example, in the twenties and thirties the military, she said, was seen by some as glamorous, others as the cause of the ruin of Fayetteville; while some feared soldiers, others saw the soldiers as the victims of exploitation. Lutz concluded her talk by spending some time on race relations and how they were affected by “militarization.” She argued that the military presence did not lead to greatly accelerated desegregation though it did close the gap between the income of blacks and whites. Racialized neighborhoods continued, as did racism. In the question and answer session that followed, differences in approach between anthropologists and historians became evident. Alex Roland, for example, took exception to Dr. Lutz’s definition of militarization, which, he noted, in his experience, was invariably associated with qualitative values especially the glorification of military class or policies. Dr. Lutz’s definition

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was, he felt, too broad to be helpful. Others present felt that the focus on the micro level created some problems: Tom Buell suggested the need to put Fayetteville in a broader perspective by studying other examples of community-base relations. Several retired members of the military also felt that Dr. Lutz’s sense of the military was not sufficiently nuanced: Pope Air Force base, for example, was put under the same umbrella as Bragg, though Air Force and Army cultures are quite distinct. At the same time, the discussion was enlivened by the presence of Gary Moss of the Fayetteville Times; for some time the discussion focused on the problems currently faced by Fayeteville; why it has a negative image, and why it fails to receive its fair share of state attention and money.

****** On April 8, Major General Anthony John Trythall from the U.K. brought the T.I.S.S. seminar series to an enjoyable close with a talk on “ Military History and War: The Contemporary Relevance of Major General J.F.C. Fuller.”

General Trythall began his talk by presenting the audience with a brief biography of this remarkable and controversial British military theorist (born in 1878) who combined an interest in the occult with keen rationality, who blotted his record by his fascist sympathies, and who antagonized his contemporaries by his brilliance.

Trythall then went on to discuss some of Fuller’s writings. Fuller, he pointed out, wrote voluminously and sometimes quite abstrusely. Trythall discussed Fuller’s early interest in the importance of tanks; he was the prophet of penetration as a route to victory and one of the originators of the concept of “blitzkrieg.” His conviction that mechanized warfare would be central to future warfare was not taken as seriously by British military as by continental thinkers, Trythall noted.

After discussing Fuller’s principles of war, Trythall concluded his presentation by discussing Fuller’s contemporary relevance. Clearly in some ways, he admitted, Fuller’s ideas are not applicable to the current military environment. Fuller was, he noted, largely concerned with maneuver warfare on a grand scale which might not reoccur in the future. Similarly, rapid technological and political change reduce the

pertinence of his ideas. Notwithstanding, in Trythall’s estimation, many of Fuller’s ideas remain incisive and relevant. The issue of Fuller’s relevance and influence dominated the question and answer session that followed. General Trythall stressed that Fuller did have a direct influence on the development of armored forces in World War I, and indeed this influence might have been still greater had not the war ended when it did. Asked which generals of World War II most closely lived by his rules, Trythall’s response was Patton. Fuller’s difficulties in getting his military superiors to listen to his ideas also interested the audience. Asked why this was, Trythall raised several possibilities. One was the fact that he was overly intellectual. Another was that Fuller’s promotion of the concept of mechanized warfare was a threat to the social system of the time, cavalry regiments, he observed, wanted a life in the military like that which they enjoyed at home. Asked how to deal with this problem, Trythall’s response was one had to “box cleverly.” Finally, Trythall was asked how Fuller’s ideas could best be used in the future. Trythall’s recommendation was that all armies should recognize that warfare between great armies has to be fully and completely mechanized. Traditional armies and the presence of a separate air force should be done away with and replaced by one arm with many parts. The Air Force members present took this with good grace. The seminar then adjourned. ____________________________________________________________________________ Distinguished Speaker Program This year the Triangle Institute for Security Studies inaugurated its Distinguished Speaker Program by bringing Admiral Stansfield Turner to the Triangle. Admiral Turner, whose naval career culminated with his promotion to Admiral of full rank and his appointment as Commander-in-Chief of NATO forces in Southern Europe Mediterranean, was the Director of the CIA under President Carter. He is the author of several works, most recently, Caging the Nuclear Genie (1997). Admiral Turner not only addressed T.I.S.S. members at the traditional monthly seminar, but also spoke to a lively group at Barnes and Noble

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Bookstore in Durham and gave a talk to a packed audience at the Forest at Duke (a retirement community where several T.I.S.S. members live, including military historians Theodore Ropp, Richard Preston, and I.B. Holley and diplomat and political scientist Roy Melbourne.) Turner’s visit to the Triangle received a good deal of local publicity. An interview of Admiral Turner by news correspondent Chris Hasken at WUNC-FM (the flagship NPR station for NC) was aired during “All Things Considered” and an interview by T.I.S.S. member Van Denton of the Raleigh News and Observer was featured in the Q Section of the newspaper on Sunday, March 8, 1998. Admiral Turner used these occasions to advance the cause with which his name is now closely associated: the reduction of nuclear weapons. In Turner’s estimate, the threat of nuclear weapons is the greatest threat we face today and the United States has an obligation to exercise leadership in reducing this threat.

Admiral Turner argued that the U.S. arsenal of some 15,000 nuclear warheads vastly exceeds what we need for purposes of deterrence. The United States clings to a doctrine which permits “first use.” The reluctance of the United States to reduce its nuclear arsenal in any meaningful way, even in START II, Turner argued, sends a damaging message to nations around the world. Our own reliance on nuclear weapons increases their value in the eyes of other nations and makes it harder for us to talk others out of them. Admiral Turner spoke of his conviction that the United States should drastically and rapidly reduce the number of its nuclear weapons and thereby inject momentum into arms reduction treaties. He recommended two strategies for the safe reduction of nuclear weapons which he thinks would not undermine our national security. These strategies are “de-alerting” and “escrow”. De-alerting, which means making weapons less ready by such means as the separation of the warhead from the delivery system, would prevent hair-trigger responses and reduce the dangers of accidents. To put nuclear weapons in “strategic escrow” would mean to reduce their readiness and make it cost something to restore them to readiness. Weapons “in escrow” might, for example, have their warheads placed several hundred miles from the delivery vehicle and be monitored by foreign observers. This would be

accompanied by the declaration of “No First Use” by Americans, the development of “No First Use” treaties, and the development of modest defenses against nuclear attack. Putting weapons in escrow, Turner believes, could be accomplished quickly since the heads of state in the United States and Russia would not have to get permission from the Senate or the Duma. The advantage of putting weapons in escrow, Turner explained, is that it would prevent the dangers that might accompany rapid disarmament. Should some nation—say— Iraq develop a nuclear capacity and threaten to use it, nuclear nations of the world could recover their systems and threaten the rogue nation with destruction. At the same time, however, it would devalue the weapons and show the world that the United States was not asking of other nations what it would not itself do. With weapons in escrow, he continued, nations around the world would be more willing to sit down at the negotiating table and think about further reductions. Perhaps they might even one day, be willing to think about eventual nuclear disarmament. The question and answer sessions at both the Forest at Duke and at the National Humanities Center were lively. Many members of the audience at the Forest were interested in other aspects of Turner’s career and thus the Admiral was questioned on such diverse issues as the role of the UN, the expansion of NATO, and US policy towards Iraq. Also of interest to the audience was the comparative threat posed by chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons. Turner maintained that the nuclear threat was still the most serious problem to face us. He also stressed the need to be sensitive to the policy needs of other nations, particularly the Russians.

At the T.I.S.S. seminar meeting, Turner’s expertise as former Director of CIA was drawn upon by Nancy Mitchell of North Carolina State University, who commented on the problems caused by restricted access to intelligence sources. Historians had, she said, a hard time trying to fathom the CIA role in the nineteen seventies. For the most, part, however, the discussion here remained more tightly focused on the issue of nuclear warfare, as various members sought more detailed clarification form Turner of his theories. Rolin Mainuddin of North Carolina Central University raised the interesting and timely question of how it is that one might be able to

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persuade India and Pakistan to put their weapons away. An optimist here, Turner argued in favor of appeal to logic—we should tell such countries, he said, that nuclear wars are ultimately not winnable.

All of Admiral Turner’s presentations were immensely stimulating. We look forward to continuing the Distinguished Speaker Program next year.

Presentations in Review

During the academic year T.I.S.S. also

sponsored and co-sponsored a number of interesting talks on the Carolina Campus. Special thanks go to Jerry Berke of the West Triangle Chapter of the UN Association of America for his initiative in bringing some of these people to the area and sharing them with the community.

On 2nd October, 1997 Dr. Judit Katona-Apte, Program Officer with the World Food Program, spoke on “Getting Food to the Hungry: the work of the UN in Humanitarian Operations.” While her own interests were largely with the logistics of getting food in conflict-ridden areas in Africa, the question and answer session indicated a real interest on the part of the audience in some of the political aspects of this issue. On Wednesday, November 5, 1997 Thomas Ricks, Pentagon Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal (who also spoke to a T.I.S.S. audience later in the day) gave a talk on “The Military and the Media: Old Whines in New Battles.” On Tuesday, November 11, 1997 David Jackman, Associate Representative of the Quaker United Nations Office, gave a lucid, objective, and informative talk on “UN Peacekeeping ” The presence in the audience of a student from Bosnia with first hand experience of such peacekeeping efforts gave particular poignancy to the discussions. Finally, Ken Rutherford, co-founder of the Landmine Survivors Network, gave a presentation accompanied by slides on Thursday, November 13, 1997. The talk was entitled "U.S. Landmine Policy and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines." Ken Rutherford, who lost his legs in a landmine explosion, spent a considerable amount of time discussing his tour of Bosnia with the late Princess Diana. He spoke eloquently of the need for the United States to give assistance to victims and help in the global effort to clear mines.

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1997-8 Conference in Review “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: Bridging the Gap.”

On Saturday January 10, 1998, some forty T.I.S.S. members attended a one day conference on the “Study of Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy.” The setting was the lovely Aqueduct Conference Center outside of Chapel Hill – a place which brought back fond memories of T.I.S.S.’s old haunt at Quail Roost.

The Conference was organized by Cori Dauber of the Communications Department at UNC-Chapel Hill. Its purpose was to bring together scholars from both the humanities and the social sciences in a manner that would encourage them to talk with, rather than past, one another. Both of these communities had, she felt, a track record of misunderstanding and misinterpreting the works of the other. The conference was designed to expose the gaps in their perspectives, to clarify their differing assumptions, and hopefully, to make obvious to one another the merits as well as the limitations of their approaches. To achieve these goals, the conference was organized in a rather untraditional fashion. There were four roundtables. The first three panels spotlighted the work of three thinkers who have studied public opinion and foreign policy: Ole Holsti, Duke University (representing the social sciences), Thomas Goodnight, Northwestern University (the humanities), and Warren Strobel, The Washington Times (a journalist). In each case, the presenter was engaged in a discussion by scholars drawn from a different discipline who questioned him in such a way as to expose the gaps in perspective between the different research communities. The panelists on the final roundtable commented on the day’s proceedings and discussed whether dialogues of this kind could indeed pave the way to more productive research and analysis. A brief report of the days’ proceedings follows. (For a more extended discussion , see American Diplomacy. The Conference Proceedings are being published in our internet journal http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat].)

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Roundtable 1. The Social Science Study of the Public Role in American Foreign Policy. Ole Holsti (Duke University), author of Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy, was the keynote speaker of the first roundtable. After stressing the importance of inter-disciplinary studies, Professor Holsti proceeded to review the conclusions and the conceptual underpinnings of his new book, which analyses and assesses the impact foreign policy has had on public opinion⎯and vice versa. First, Holsti outlined the long-standing debate between realists and liberals. Realists, he said, tended to have the view that public opinion had little that was constructive to offer to foreign policy. They saw the public as passive and uninterested at best, a dangerous influence at worst. Liberals, by contrast, believed that the average citizen, was capable of making sensible judgments on issues of war and peace and act as an all-important brake on the ambitions of leaders. Second, Holsti spoke of the evolution of attitudes towards public opinion in the twentieth century. World War I impressed upon people the need to understand the effect of public opinion on foreign policy and World War II saw the beginnings of scientific polling. In the two decades after World War II a series of studies, undertaken with a view to finding whether or not America would return to its traditional isolationism, led to a consensus, known as the Almond-Lipmann consensus (after two well-known political science theorists). This consensus held that public opinion was highly volatile and emotional and lacked coherence because the public was ill-informed, but that (fortunately) public opinion had little impact on foreign affairs. More recent research, Professor Holsti continued, much of it inspired by the Vietnam War, challenged these conclusions. Three views are now widely shared by political scientists. They generally agree that public opinion is relatively stable and changes in response to changing world situations. They also agree that the public is capable of “low-information rationality, ” (that is cognitive short cuts taken in order to reach reasonable judgments). Finally, they think that public opinion is not irrelevant and is likely to become more important over time. To conclude his presentation, Holsti pointed out the need to develop standard

questions, do more comparative analyses, and undertake further archival work (case studies). He suggested that we should define more closely what we mean by public opinion and think in a more subtle fashion about how it influences governments. A discussion followed, led by two scholars of “Public Argument Studies” Eric Doxtader (UNC-Chapel Hill) and David Cheshier (Georgia State University).

David Cheshier started by asking Professor Holsti how he defined and identified the “public.” Holsti replied that, despite sampling problems, he thought the best way to identify the public was by surveys. Cheshier then suggested that, instead of trying to understand the attitudes of, say, elites and masses, it might be more useful to try and determine how political leaders invoke particular visions of the public to serve their purposes and how in turn groups of citizens respond to those visions.

The discussion then turned to the difficulties involved in polling. Eric Doxtader asked whether he was correct in thinking that governments often use polls to promote their own programs. Holsti said that he was, noting that during the Vietnam war, for example, polling questions were designed to create the impression that government policy towards the war in South East Asia was supported by the public. Cheshier then asked Holsti whether polling could truly get to grips with the process of “opinion formation.” He pointed to some of the obstacles, including the so-called “warm-glow factor” (the tendency of people to answer questions the way they feel they ought to be answering them). Holsti conceded that ascertaining public opinion was tricky for the reasons outlined. He stressed the importance of framing questions in just the right way and also suggested that there were now computer -aided survey techniques that might be useful in overcoming the problems. David Cheshier then pointed out that Holsti’s stress on the need to develop standardized questioning seemed a little at odds with his desire to find ways to get at a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of public opinion. Holsti explained that standardized questions (dealing with the recurring issues of foreign affairs) were needed in order to compare results over time.

In response to Eric Doxtader’s last questions, Holsti argued that the people who

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undertook the surveys should decide their purposes. He also said that there had always been, and doubtless would continue to be, a debate over the appropriate role of the public in the creation of policy. Asked by David Cheshier whether or not polls have resulted in the “watering down” of public debates, Holsti argued that, to the contrary, surveys can help generate discussion. The floor was then opened to a more general discussion. Two issues, in particular, dominated the conversation (1.) how to define the “public” and (2.) whether or not public opinion should and did influence policy-making.

Dick Kohn (History) raised the question of how one could speak of the “public” in gross terms at all, given the fact that it was comprised of enormously atomized and shifting series of groups. Curt Jones (State Department Retired) tried to parse the “public,” breaking it down into such groups as politicians, bureaucrats, media, factions, and lobbyists. Cori Dauber (Communications) drew attention to yet another problem when she pointed out that different factions assume prominence at different times. One should, she suggested, probably speak of public opinion as “something that exists in potential and needs to be called forth.” Political scientist Richard Sobel defined public opinion as “the predominant sentiment of a population” (which would mean that in a democracy public opinion would be the beliefs held by at least one percent more than half the population). Ralph Levering (History) asked whether the opinion of the mass public was the same as that of the voting public

On the question of influence, the realist position was echoed by Bill Dale (State Department Retired) who commented on the dangers of an ill-informed public pressuring policy makers. Jim Abrahamson (History) suggested that policy-makers, specifically presidents, sought to determine public opinion, largely in order to gauge what people’s reaction to their policies might be.

Professor Holsti was, in general, very receptive to the comments of the attendees, though he did note that our leaders contribute to public ignorance by failing to inform them, and he also insisted on the fact that modern polling does take into account variables such as gender, race, and occupation.

Roundtable 2: Public Argument and the Study of Foreign Policy Thomas Goodnight of Northwestern University was the keynote speaker of the second roundtable. His purpose, he said, was to introduce the perspective of communication studies and suggest the relevance of this field of inquiry to foreign-policy, international security and international relations.

Goodnight went on to introduce the study of argumentation. This, he said, was rooted in rhetoric⎯ the ancient art of public speaking. It has been cultivated since ancient times by foreign policy practitioners. In America, in particular, rhetoric was traditionally seen as a critical tool for the development of a democratic republic. Americans traditionally learned the study of rhetoric either by the imitation and questioning of speeches or by learning how to influence public opinion. The latter, more systematic approach, leaned on other disciplines such as psychology, politics, or moral philosophy. Goodnight then went on to explain the methodology used by rhetoricians which, he said, entailed careful reading of texts and stressed context and controversy. One text, in particular, he said, can help explain the approach of this school. It is a passage from the Iliad in which Ulysses sought to persuade Achilles to get back into the fight against the Trojans. Ulysses appealed to the hero at multiple levels⎯public, personal, and professional⎯but failed to convince him. Achilles’ quarrel with his fellow Greeks stemmed from a perceived slight to his honor, and so he felt insulted when Ulysses offered him a bribe. The ability to persuade and influence, Goodnight said, as this text shows, hinges upon the context. Goodnight then turned to the core thesis of his presentation, that “controversy studies” could make a real contribution to the post-Cold War epoch. During the Cold War, Goodnight elaborated, public argument had centered upon crisis studies. While the rhetoric of the Cold War had made a valuable contribution, it was no longer applicable in the new environment. This environment was highly controversial, thanks to a variety of factors; the lack of a clear-cut ideology; the growth of global communications which complicate discourse; the blurring of traditional roles in the military (the use of troops as peace-keepers, for example); and “systems-thinking.”

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The changed context made it necessary to develop a new rhetoric. The study of argumentation could help in this task. Goodnight was then questioned by two scholars from the University of North Carolina, Michael Hunt (History) and Timothy McKeown (Political Science). Both took the opportunity to refine their understanding of the meaning and methods of scholars engaged in communication studies. In response to questions from Hunt, Goodnight elaborated on his understanding of “controversy.” He explained that controversies in the post-Cold War were more nebulous than they had been in previous decades. He defined fields as “expert areas of decision-making” and “prudent” decision-making, as a choice made that was reasonable at the time. Goodnight then addressed the concerns of McKeown, who asked him what standards of evidence and logic scholars in his field used, given that they rejected the strategy of “modernists,” which entails systematic and detailed research. Goodnight explained that modernists, in his estimate, relied too heavily on statistics, and tried to impose artificial, categorical distinctions. They often failed to see the public as the public saw themselves. Rhetoricians, he said, seek to validate their positions by putting together information that will lead others to adopt their view. Common wisdom and/or a prudent “rule of thumb” is regarded as sufficient evidence.

Asked by McKeown whether or not arguments really had a substantive impact, Goodnight responded that this missed the point of argument studies. In his field you examined texts in order to gain valuable insights. A sensitive reading of controversies, he said, can help us understand such things as how to form our own identity, what are the acceptable means of conducting foreign policy, and what constitutes real public action versus private interests. It helps us build a style and appreciate whether or not that style will help or hinder the growth of democratic values.

In the comment period that followed, the effort to flesh out some of the differences and similarities across the disciplines continued. Considerable resonance was found between the views of political scientists and rhetoricians when it came to the definition of the “public.” Tom Goodnight agreed with Peter Feaver (Political Science) that the “public” was viewed in at least

three ways; sometimes, as an audience that claps or boos the activities of the policy makers; sometimes as the subject who answers a survey or votes ; and sometimes as the price tag on policy. However, Goodnight also stressed what he perceived to be the unique contribution of his discipline to the understanding of a public. The study of rhetoric could help determine the proper course of action. It helped one to determine whether or not an expressed opinion actually reflected the interest of a group and point out the risks and advantages of different styles. An issue mentioned in passing by Goodnight, which caught the attention of the participants and helped highlight the approach of rhetoricians, was that of peace-keeping. Warren Strobel (Washington Times) and Mark Padgett (Military Science) were both interested in how public support could be won for operations of this sort. Goodnight, in his response, made clear the importance of rhetoric; he stressed the difficulty of building up an appropriate vocabulary and the need to familiarize the public with distinctions between such terms as peace-keeping, peace-enforcement and peace-making. Goodnight was given further opportunity to stress the relevance of rhetoric to politicians by Richard Sobel, who asked him to expand on an article he had written in the Quarterly Journal of Speech. Goodnight did so, emphasizing the way in which President Ronald Reagan had been able to use rhetoric to turn the tables on his opponents in the nuclear freeze movement and win support for his policies. Artful ambiguity and rhetorical inventiveness, he concluded, can accomplish amazing things. On this note, the morning session ended. Roundtable 3: Methodological Implications in the Debate over the “CNN Effect”. Warren Strobel of the Washington Times was the keynote speaker in the third roundtable. After drawing attention to some of differences between the methodological approaches of scholars and a journalists, (the latter rely heavily on interviews) he went on to explain some of his basic assumptions. First, he explained how he thought policy-makers used the term “public.” Most commonly, he said, what they really meant when they spoke of public opinion was “public opinion that it was prudent to heed.” Sometimes, when trying to win support for a policy, they saw

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the public as a kind of “issue public.” Sometimes, but rarely, they thought in terms of a mass public. The purpose of his book, he continued, was to show that there was no meaningful “CNN effect.” The notion that global real time television had a profound and growing influence on American foreign policy and on American public opinion towards that foreign policy has been, he said, grossly exaggerated. Ironically, he argued, belief in the CNN effect itself posed a potential threat in that it was linked to mistrust of the public and a belief that foreign policy should not be based on public opinion. While he conceded that smart officials did spend a lot of time selling policy and preparing it for public consumption, Strobel insisted that the connection between policy-making, public opinion, and the news media often played itself out in surprising ways. He used intervention in Bosnia as one example to illustrate his point. Though at first sight it might look as if, fired by television imagery, the public forced the governments hand, closer analysis makes it clear that the Clinton administration had been moving in the direction of intervention for a host of unrelated reasons long before this. A similar thing occurred in Somalia. Long before the public saw pictures of the dead U.S. soldier's body being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, polling data shows that support for Somalia was already dropping. Strobel concluded by making two further observations about the media’s power to persuade. He noted that not all television images seem equally able to move the public. Images of starving innocents, for example, did seem to prompt public opinion to pressure policy-makers to “do something,” whereas pictures of civil war, of butchery, of ethnic fighting did not. He also commented that the media often did not directly influence the policy-makers. Rather, mid-level officials tried to use the media to influence the American public. He again offered the example of Somalia where, he said, officials at the State Department, USAID, members of Congress interested in Africa and voluntary humanitarian groups used the media to heighten public awareness of the plight of the Somalis and thus influence President George Bush to intervene. Peter Feaver (Political Science, Duke University) was Strobel’s first questioner. His main point of contention was that Warren Strobel

exaggerated his case. Strobel, Feaver suggested, was, at times, in danger of creating one caricature while in the midst of debunking another. He came close to implying that the media was little more than the parrot of government. In fact, the media itself provides the opportunities which reduce the control of policy makers. Feaver then elaborated on this, drawing attention to media coverage of opinions of many people besides the policy-makers; its bias against positive news, which makes it difficult for politicians to make their successes known; its ability to give a twist to presidential actions; its role in increasing the cost of getting congressional support for policy; and the speed of news cycles which, by getting ahead of a cumbersome interagency coordination process, sometimes created a false impression of leadership vacillation. Feaver concluded by complimenting Strobel’s book and suggesting four possible avenues for future research; first, the relationship between policy and public affairs; second, the significance of the growing reliance of foreign governments on western media; third the role played by the media in inter-governmental disputes; and fourth, government leaks.

The floor was then given to Richard Sobel (Political Science, Harvard University). After a brief tribute to the works of Holsti and Strobel, Sobel provided the audience with a list of other classics of his field, noting especially the review article of Holsti, "Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: Challenges to the Almond-Lipmann Consensus" in International Studies Quarterly, 36; Ralph Levering's book, The Public and Foreign Policy; and his own work, America's Role in a Changing World: A Public Perspective.

Sobel then turned his attention to Strobel’s work. He stressed the importance of the journalist’s thesis, agreeing that the “CNN effect” has been overstated. It is, he said, much more contextual and much more nuanced than many suggest.

He then offered criticisms of some of the assumptions in Strobel's book. First, he that public opinion is not to be confused with the views reported by the media. The media, he claimed, almost systematically mis-portrays public opinion. To prove this he cited examples of media misrepresentation of public responses to the situation in Bosnia and to the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Second, he argued that it is wrong

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to assume that the public read the polls and that this affects policy.

Professor Sobel then discussed what he saw as the essentially limited ability of leaders to shape public attitudes. In Bosnia, for example, he said that despite a rather widespread willingness on the part of publics to intervene, few leaders tried to recognize this or respond to it. When President Bill Clinton eventually did send American troops in 1995, his view of why they should intervene (leadership role) was not echoed by the public in the polls. In the comment period that followed, the question of influence was one that emerged with frequency. Were policy makers influenced by public opinion? Or were they more interested in the views of lobbyists? Did the ability of the public to influence policy-makers vary depending upon how involved they became in issues? Did the media influence public opinion? The prominent role played by columnists and pundits in focusing, and shaping opinions and raising questions was commented on--not always favorably. This, in turn, led to the issue of media responsibility. In response to an inquiry by Ted Triebel (U.S. Navy, Retired), Strobel agreed that the media did have a responsibility to inform the public about foreign affairs and policy options, but drew attention to the difficulties of doing this without alienating the public and facing low ratings. On a different note, some interesting methodological questions were raised. On request, Strobel further clarified his interview techniques. He also explained to Carol Winkler why it was that he concluded that upper administration officials and policy-makers were not simply face-saving when they said they were not influenced by television images. It was, he said, the cumulative impact of numerous interviews that persuaded him they were telling the truth. Attention was also paid to some of the ways in which people respond to the media and the effect this has on the accuracy of information. Richard Sobel noted the phenomenon (called the Hawthorne effect) whereby, when attention is paid to someone, their behavior and answers change. Peter Feaver drew attention to the tendency for persons to blame circumstances for bad outcomes and attribute good outcomes to their good dispositions. The withering of modern attention spans was also addressed. Strobel and Eric Doxtader both identified this as a problem which limited public

ability to understand what was going on in foreign affairs. Finally, the role of the media in war-time was addressed. Was the public misled by the media during Vietnam into believing it was losing a winnable war? Or did these TV images merely confirm to the people that the government was lying to them when it insisted that the war was drawing near to a conclusion. And why was the media kept in chains by the military during the Gulf War? Was it a rather misguided suspicion on the part of the Army (not the Marines); a ploy to focus Saddam Hussein’s attention away from the crucial missions?; or a very real need for operational security? Opinions varied. Roundtable 4: Bridging Gaps: Do We Really Have Something to Say to One Another?

The final panel included Henry Mattox (U.S. Foreign Service, Retired and Department of History, North Carolina State University), Catherine Lutz (Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and Clifford Griffin (Department of Political Science, North Carolina State University) who had been asked to bring to the conference some insights from their real life experience as practitioners of foreign policy and field workers. They were joined by Ole Holsti.

Henry Mattox, commented on his

perception of the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy. First, he raised the question of whether or not policy makers should base their decisions on public opinion. Mattox cited the divergent views of two very famous public figures, George Kennan and Franklin Roosevelt. George Kennan, Mattox pointed out, said that the public was ill equipped to serve in the role of ultimate arbiter of foreign policy. The public was ignorant of foreign affairs, intolerant of ambiguous and complicated policies and impatient of long term solutions or commitments that ran into difficulties. On the other hand, Mattox went on to say, President Franklin Roosevelt saw the public as an integral part of the American process of policy making. In March 1945 F.D.R. wrote to Stalin, saying that “genuine popular support of the U.S. is required to carry out any government policy, foreign or domestic. The American people

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make up their own mind and no government can change it.”

Mattox then noted that not all professionals are equally interested in public opinion. Foreign policy officials, he said, come in different colors: elected and senior appointed officials; senior and middle level careerists; and diplomats abroad. Of these, Mattox said, the first, group, vulnerable to elections, do react to public opinion regarding foreign. The other two groups do so much less—middle level professionals have little time amidst all the red tape to worry about public opinion, and diplomats abroad are not much exposed to foreign policy and, in any event, implement rather than make policy. A personal anecdote, suggesting the somewhat arbitrary fashion in which foreign policy is in fact often “made,” concluded his talk.

Catherine Lutz, an anthropologist,

spoke next. As introduction, she said that her main aim was to suggest some of the ways in which ethnographic research might contribute to solving the problems shared across the disciplines. The methodology used by persons in her field could be used to help students of foreign policy and public opinion monitor the process of opinion formation. It would provide insights not so readily available from the archives alone. Ethnographers might also help somewhat to repair the split between disciplines. Ethnographers, she said, paid great concern to what people mean when they use a word or exactly how they are interpreting other peoples’ words. They are well aware that different people construe words and expressions in very different ways.

Dr. Lutz then talked a bit about her own research. One project involved the examination of five sites in North Carolina. Five researchers (herself included) spent a year engaged in the study of local publics. They listened to local talk radio, talked to locals in the barber shops, and read local newspaper stories. They watched the evolution of highly contentious issues, paying attention to who it was who became involved and who did not, and to how public opinions were formed and used. Dr. Lutz noted that, in her own experience, she never really saw a moment when opinion , as pollsters put it, “crystallized.”

Another work she was engaged in , Lutz said, was a look at the National Geographic Magazine. Her interest here was in how people came to

formulate their views, particularly views of the Third World. She discovered that readers, for example, considered any article about peoples with dark skins to be about Africa. She also commented on how readers put interpretations into the magazine not necessarily intended by its producers. Thus, the juxtaposition of say, a bridge and an African dugout canoe, meant only to achieve visual interest, encouraged people to believe in the advance from primitive to more advanced cultures.

Catherine Lutz then turned her attention to several points that had attracted her attention in the course of the earlier discussions. First of all she noted that persons at the conference seemed, in effect, to equate public opinion with “white opinion.” Yet Black opinion was often different (Somalia being a case in point). Dr. Lutz then suggested that ethnography, with its focus on understanding cultural discourse, might help shed light on why responses to television images were so different. Picking up on a theme from Warren Strobel’s presentation, she noted that the fact that our compassion was more aroused by pictures of refugees than corpses was linked to the fact that women and children represented innocence to Americans.

Clifford Griffin, a political scientist and

the third panelist to speak, offered a series of personal insights into the nature of the public and how the public formed its opinions. He focused, in particular, on American intervention in the Caribbean. First of all, he stressed the importance of involving the public in foreign policy decisions. Indeed, he went so far as to suggest that it might, on occasion, be a good thing for policy makers to consider not only American public opinion, but also the opinion of those publics also affected by those policies. This did, he conceded, have its drawbacks, given the ability of people to muddle and confuse events. He cited an amusing, if disturbing event, when he overheard a young man justify the invasion of Grenada on the grounds that our marine barracks there had been bombed! At the same time, Professor Griffin stressed that framers of policy clearly did not always speak for the people.

Dr. Griffin then turned his attention briefly to the issue of how public opinion was influenced by the media. He focused particularly on the importance of context. Just after the

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invasion of Haiti he was asked, in an interview, about potential casualties. This interview was aired in between human interest stories dealing with servicemen getting ready to deploy. This striking juxtaposition clearly must have affected people’s reaction to the intervention.

Griffin’s next devoted some attention to how to determine public opinion. He emphasized that scientific polling is not the only way to get a sense of how the public feels. In Jamaica, for example, “rum-shop politics” which entails listening to what ordinary people are saying in a setting where they felt comfortable, can pay real dividends. To conclude his talk, Griffin returned to the nature of the “public.” In his view, he said, the American public is so diverse that the word has no meaning.

The final panelist was Ole Holsti. After

reaffirming his faith in inter-disciplinary dialogue, he selected a few points for special comment. He had been struck, he said, by the reminder that democratic leaders used public opinion as leverage in dealing with other countries. He noted again the importance of looking at how public opinion was formed. He observed that Black opinion was now beginning to make a difference. His last remarks concerned the important role played by pollsters in helping policy makers anticipate changes in public opinion--the impending shift from interventionism to isolationism after World War II being a case in point.

During the final comment period, many of the same issues were resurrected. Tim Hynes (Communications) suggested that thinking about “positions” might provide a good way to approach the study of public opinion. Positions are loosely connected facts, opinions, and values, as well as a series of heuristics. When persons are asked questions about public policy, they will muster these resources more or less carefully, depending upon how carefully they think their views are being examined.

The degree to which policy making should or did rely on public opinion was again raised. Curt Jones and Ole Holsti agreed that the American government had an obligation to inform the public and the public had an obligation to guide the government. Jones, however, was critical of American foreign policy and attributed its failures to the lack of a healthy relationship between government and the public. Holsti, by

contrast, had a much more positive estimate of American foreign policy in the post-war years. As to the degree of public influence here , too, there was divergence of opinion. On the one hand, Robert Miller (History) felt that, at least when it came to war-making, Presidents called the shots, while Bill Dale noted that, as a junior staff officer at the NSC 1951-2 he was told that he should leave the consideration of public opinion to the political level of government. On the other hand, both Holsti and Griffin assured Alicia Ward (International Relations) of the growing influence of Hispanics ⎯notably Cuban Americans⎯in policy formation.

Skepticism was also voiced as to whether we could ever really answer this kind of question. Dick Kohn doubted it was possible to isolate any one critical influence affecting our decision-making. Given how many factors may be at work⎯our personal priorities, timing, our relationship with our boss, and countless others⎯to try to do this may be to chase the unattainable Holy Grail. The political scientists at the meeting were, in general, rather more optimistic about our ability to get to grips with the decision-making process. Richard Sobel suggested that one way to do this might be to form an interdisciplinary team to observe and analyze a National Security Council meeting. Holsti drew attention to the existence of rather extensive documentation on the Cuban Missile Crisis which could be used to understand decision-making. He further insisted that, if studies are properly done and take into consideration the fact that the problem is variable, interactive and complex, some generalizations can be formulated. Any way, he said, the effort has to be made, if we are not to end up viewing foreign policy as hunting tigers in a dark jungle.

The conference closed with a discussion about public apathy. Goodnight made the suggestion, seconded by Ole Holsti, that, appearances to the contrary, foreign policy does continue to matter to the general public. The end of the Cold War, he said, brought about a blurring of domestic and foreign issues. Interest in foreign policy was now linked to such issues as technology, trade and human rights, but there is interest.

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At this point, after extending warm thanks to the organizers of the conference, the meeting was adjourned.

Schedule Academic Year 1998/9 The following events are planned for the Fall (but, it should be noted, are subject to change) Seminar Schedule 1998/9 These will be evening* events, the presentation itself beginning at 7:30 PM following coffee/desserts. Sept. 24 (Thursday) Amy Smithson, Henry Stimson Center, [Chemical Weapons] Oct. 6 (Tuesday) Jeremy Black, Exeter University, U.K. [Early Modern Technology] Nov. (Date to be set) Bob Cottrol, George Washington University [Opposing Gun Control] December 3 (Thursday) Russel Van Wyk, UNC-Chapel Hill [Russian archives and German Intelligence Agencies between the Wars] January (Date to be set) Tami Biddle, Duke University [Air Power] March (Date to be set) General Lee Butler, U.S. Air Force, Retired [Nuclear Disarmament] April 1 (Thursday) Duke Doctoral Candidates David Silbey [World War I: the British Working Class] and Wayne Lee [Riots and War in Colonial North Carolina] *The Distinguished Speakers (Lee Butler and Bob Cottrol) and Jeremy Black will be in the area for several days and will also be giving afternoon talks (time and place to be arranged.) Conference Schedule 1998/9 A Conference on “Conflict in Africa” will be held at the Friday Center on February 5th and 6th. The Friday afternoon sessions will focus on a topical analysis of the roots of conflict and feature, among others. The Saturday morning sessions will be devoted to a series of case-studies of conflict within different regions of Africa. Saturday afternoon will focus on Conflict Resolution. Among the speakers who have agreed to speak are Dr. Pauline Baker, President of the Fund for Peace, Dr. Claude Emerson Welch, Distinguished Service Professor, SUNY-Buffalo, Dr. Julius Nyang’oro and Dr. Catherine Newbury of UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Anthony Clayton of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, U.K., Dr. René Lemarchand, Professor Emeritus, University of Florida at Gainesville and Dr. John Cann, USMC Command and Staff College, Quantico, MD. The Sixth Graduate Studies and International Careers Conference is planned for October or November as part of the T.I.S.S. Outreach Program. The purpose of this one-day affair is to inform undergraduates from North Carolina’s historically black colleges and universities with the opportunities that advanced study provides for a career in an international field. It gives students information about careers and programs of study from practitioners and graduate school officials. For information about the conference, contact Carolyn Pumphrey at (919) 962 8601 or pumphrey@email.unc.edu

WARNING As of September, notices of forthcoming events will be posted on our Website (http://unc.edu/depts/T.I.S.S.) and sent to our members via email. Snail-mail announcements will be sent only to those individuals who specifically requested this at the time of returning their surveys.

Research 1997-1998

Study of War Research Project

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As you may remember, the T.I.S.S. Study of War project culminated last June in a conference at Cantigny. Editing of the Proceedings of this Conference is underway: we hope that they will be in the hands of John Votaw of the First Division Museum by mid-October. Richard H. Kohn and Alex Roland are also editing the papers which will be published as a book.

Civil-Military Relations Research Project Dick Kohn and Peter Feaver successfully launched a new research project this year. The project, entitled “Bridging the Gap: Assuring Military Effectiveness When Military Culture Diverges From Civilian Society “ has been generously funded (the funding institution has requested that it remain anonymous) and is due to be completed in the year 2000. Their report follows.

Civil-Military Relations Project Studies List Our project will answer three overall questions: What is the nature of the civil-military gap? What factors shape the gap: causing it, and causing it to narrow or widen over time? And what does the gap matter for public policy, especially military effectiveness and civil-military cooperation. I. What is the Nature of the Gap? A. The Gap as Measured by Attitudes and Knowledge 1. What is the gap between civilian elite and military opinion? How do civilian and military elites differ in values, opinions, perspectives, and attitudes, particularly in the areas of foreign and national security policy? How (as opposed to why) has the gap changed over time? What do civilian elite think of and know about the military, and vice-versa? What patterns can be identified (military more socially conservative, or civilians more willing to contemplate untraditional uses for the military, etc.)? Are the patterns substantially different when the military is disaggregated by service, gender, age, subspecialty, or other categories? This study will analyze a new survey of elite and military opinion, comparing those findings to existing surveys.

Authors: Ole Holsti (Duke) and Paul Gronke (Duke).

2. What is the gap between mass public opinion and the military? How does the mass public and the military differ in values, opinions, perspectives, and attitudes, particularly in the areas of foreign and national security policy? How (as opposed to why) has the gap changed over time? What does the public think of and know about the military, andvice-versa? What patterns can be identified (military more socially conservative, or civilians more willing to contemplate untraditional uses for the military, etc.)? Are the patterns substantially different if the military is disaggregated by service, gender, age, subspecialty, or other categories? This study will analyze new surveys of mass civilian and military opinion, comparing those findings to existing surveys.

Author: James Davis (Chicago and National Opinion Research Center).

3. How do opinions differ at the senior policymaker level? Drawing on extensive interviews with senior civilian and military policymakers, and supplemented by other material as available, this study investigates whether the patterns identified in the survey analyses hold at the most senior levels of government. How much does the senior military leadership differ in values, opinions, attitudes, and perspectives from those of the national command authorities in the view of the military? How do these differences affect the relationship and policy outcomes? How aware are policymakers of the civil-military issues of concern to this study?

Authors: David Tarr (Wisconsin) and Peter Roman (Duquesne).

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B. The Gap as Measured by Civil-Military Interaction 4. What is the nature, extent and character of civil-military interaction in the post-Cold War era? How does the current level compare with the Cold War and American historical patterns? This study would take the Janowitzean lens and explore the nature of the integration, divergence, and convergence of civilian and military institutions, behaviors, and spheres. While exploiting some of the survey results (on degree of civilian contact with the military, for instance), this study would also draw on the large sociological literature on the topic, and on the author's observations and analysis of recent civil-military interaction and institutional trends.

Author: Mayer Kestnbaum (Maryland). II. What factors shape the gap? 5. What has caused changes in the gap? This study identifies and evaluates the various factors that may have caused the gap to widen or narrow over the past generation. It explores the influence of the Vietnam War, the changes in international security environment, the changes in civilian culture, as well as the factors selected for special studies (see below) and compares their relative influence in shaping the gap over time. This study would be more of a synthesis and interpretation than thetailored inquiries described below, and will blend historical inquiry and political science analysis.

Author: Michael Desch (Kentucky). A. Accession and Personnel Policies 6. How has accession policy and personnel policies affected the gap? The last sizable wave of literature on civil-military relations was occasioned by the end of the Vietnam War and the inauguration of the All Volunteer Force. At that time, many observers warned that the end of the draft would bring about a growing separation between civilian and military cultures, and a decrease in diversity in the military. Are current concerns simply the fulfillment of these predictions? How have accession and personnel policies shaped the gap, as described in section I? How has the transition to an occupational (vice institutional) model of military service affected the gap?

Author: David Segal (Maryland). B. Media 7. How is the gap shaped by the elite media? What role has the elite media, especially the organs of elite civilian opinion and the specialty military press, played in shaping the two cultures? What role has the media played in influencing civilian perceptions of the military and military perceptions of the civilian world? How has elite media changed over time? How does it differ from popular media? This study would look at elite civilian media (e.g. New Republic, etc.) as well as specialty military journals (e.g. Parameters, Marine Corps Gazette, etc.) and explore how the gap is reflected in, and shaped by, this literature.

Author: David Paletz (Duke). 8. How is the gap shaped by television and visual media? What role has the popular media, particularly television, played in shaping military culture and in shaping civilian perceptions of the military? How has the military been portrayed? How have military views of civilian society been portrayed? This study will build on the large literature on this subject to explore changes in the way popular culture has depicted the military and American society and the way this influenced the gap between civilian and military society.

Author: Cori Dauber (UNC).

9. How is the gap shaped by film? What role has the popular media, particularly the film industry, played in shaping military culture and in shaping civilian perceptions of the military? How has the military been portrayed? How have military views of civilian society been portrayed?

Author: David Paletz (Duke).

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10. How is the gap shaped by literature? What role has literature, both fiction and non-fiction played, in shaping military culture and in shaping civilian perceptions of the military? How has the military been portrayed? How have military views of civilian society been portrayed?

Author: Howard Harper (UNC). C. Professional Military Education 11. How might professional military education (PME) at the senior war college-level and its teaching (or lack thereof) on civil-military relations and professionalism be contributing to the gap? How are civil-military relations and concepts of professionalism taught in PME? This study would review the current PME curricula at the senior war colleges with a focus on what PME teaches about civil-military realtions, particularly civilian control of the military, and how PME shapes military attitudes about civilian culture, military understanding about the proper nature of civil-military relations, and military perspectives on professionalism.

Author: Judith Stiehm (Florida International). 12. How might professional military education (PME) at the accession and staff college-level and its teaching (or lack thereof) on civil-military relations and professionalism be contributing to the gap? How are civil-military relations and concepts of professionalism taught in PME? This study would review the current PME curricula at the service academies, representative ROTC units, and the staff colleges with a focus on what PME teaches about civil-military relations, particularly civilian control of the military, and how PME shapes military attitudes about civilian culture, military understanding about the proper nature of civil-military relations, and military perspectives on professionalism.

Author: Don Snider (United States Military Academy). III. What does the Gap Matter for Public Policy? A. Grand Strategy 13. How does the early post-Cold War civil-military friction compare to historical patterns of civil-military interaction? Is the alleged "crisis" in American civil-military relations a departure from historical norms? How have the military and civilians clashed during previous times in history; what has been the pattern of civil-military conflict? To what extent was the friction related to differences in values, attitudes, and perspectives between civilian and military elites? Did civil-military gaps foster military disrespect for, and possibly unresponsiveness to, civilian direction and oversight? Do present conditions suggest a problem in the future?

Author: Russell Weigley (Temple). 14. How has the civil-military gap affected the propensity to use force? Has the military resisted intervention because of lack of trust in civilian understanding, motives, or steadfastness of purpose? Does the gap make civilians overly eager (compared to the military) to commit U.S. troops in foolhardy missions? Or, conversely, does the gap make civilians overly reluctant, perhaps because of casualty shyness? What is the nature and origin of the alleged post-Cold War casualty shyness? Does the present gap raise concerns for the future? This study would explore the linkages between civil-military relations and the use of force.

Authors: Peter Feaver (Duke) and Christopher Gelpi (Duke). B. Operations 15. Does a civil-military gap lead to deleterious civilian ignorance, partisan or personal political needs, or intrusion into strategy and operations? The military generally believes that civilian intervention has disastrous results on the battlefield and in warfare. This view is based on personal reminiscence, contemporary accounts, anecdotes, and sometimes even and myths (for instance, that Lyndon Johnson's target selection prevented air power from deciding the Vietnam conflict. This study would explore the evidentiary base for this concern, paying special attention to the post-Cold War era.

Author: Eliot Cohen (Johns Hopkins-SAIS).

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C. Policy and Force Structure 16. How does the civil-military gap affect peace-time military policy? Does a civil-military gap undermine support for peacetime military spending? Has civilian ignorance of the military, or military isolation from society, led to deleterious cuts in the defense budgets during peacetime? Conversely, does the gap permit higher-than-expected peacetime spending, perhaps by affecting the way the military deals with its superiors in the Executive branch and Congress? Does civilian ignorance or a gap lead to dysfunctional or wasteful policies, or a reluctance to override military advice or requests? Has the gap made it more difficult for the military to recruit and retain adequate quantity and quality of personnel? This study will examine the historical record to see whether there is any causal relationship between the gap (as described in section I) and peacetime policy in national security affairs. Does the present gap raise concerns for the future? The study will link the large literatures on defense spending, on accession policy, and on procurement and readiness, demonstrating causal relationships (as identified) and speculating on implications for the future.

Author: Benjamin Fordham (SUNY-Albany).

17. Does a civil-military gap lead to civilian imposition of policies that are destructive of the military culture (and cohesion) required for military effectiveness? How essential is "traditional military" or "warrior" culture for military effectiveness? How detrimental to military culture are civilian-led changes in policies, particularly equal opportunity and integration of women, minorities or gays into the armed forces? Does the civil-military gap exacerbate these issues? Does the present gap raise concerns for the future?

Authors: Laura Miller (UCLA) and Jay Williams (Loyola-Chicago). Surveys The project will conduct two major surveys tailored to civil-military relations issues: (1) a new survey of civilian public opinion and (2) a new survey of military opinion, both officer and enlisted. The civilian survey will be in two parts: one, of mass civilian public opinion, will be a telephone survey developed by the project team in conjunction with an established survey house; the other, of elite civilian opinion, will be a more extensive written questionnaire developed by the project team. This same written questionnaire will be used to survey the military. The written survey will be conducted by Dr. Ole Holsti of Duke University and employ methods he developed in the Foreign Policy Leadership Project (FPLP). The FPLP has conducted extensive quadrennial mail surveys of elite civilian and military opinion since 1976. For our project, we will increase the military component of the survey sample to capture cross-service and cross-rank differences. The civilian sample will be drawn from Who's Who. For the military sample, we will seek to survey students in the following professional military education institutions: the three service Academies, representative ROTC units, the five Staff Colleges, the five War Colleges, and the short courses for flag officers offered by the National Defense and Air Universities. Previous surveys have left unanswered precisely the questions of greatest import for a study of the interaction of civilian and military cultures. For instance, mass surveys tend to confirm that the public holds the military in high regard, especially relative to other public institutions like Congress or the White House. Less well understood, however, are the reasons for that respect and its consequences. We will ask respondents to explain their level of confidence in the military: is it, for example, because of the military's unique culture, its recent success, military values, or its importance to national life? The new surveys will ask respondents to characterize civilian and military cultures to identify which aspects of the culture are salient and why. The surveys will also explore whether recent gender problems have undermined or changed civilian and military perceptions of each other. Are the malefactors viewed as deviations from or representatives of the prevailing military culture? Respondents will be asked to specify appropriate and inappropriate uses for the military ⎯ for instance, humanitarian missions, domestic law enforcement, as well as efforts to redress racial or gender

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discrimination. What makes a mission inappropriate for the military? The surveys will then explore hypothetical scenarios that reflect real-world dilemmas for civil-military relations. If civilian leaders ask the military to do something the respondent has identified as inappropriate, or dangerous to the national defense, how should the military respond? By pairing a mass and an elite survey in the same project, we will be able to explore dynamics that previous surveys have hinted at but left unresolved. For instance, are mass public attitudes closer in content to the military than are elite attitudes? Do generational differences within the military track with generational differences within the mass (or elite) public? Do differences in partisanship correlate with respect for the military, with respect for civilian authority, or with other questions of interest for the culture clash?

Participants Co-Principal Investigators Peter D. Feaver, Political Science, Duke University Richard H. Kohn, History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Advisory Board Robert Art, Political Science, Brandeis University Debbie Avant, Political Science, George Washington University Andrew C. Bacevich, History, Boston University Archie Barrett, Public Policy, Department of Defense (Retired) Richard Betts, Political Science, Columbia University Stephen Biddle, Operations Research/Public Policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Charles F. Brower IV, History, U.