Thread by Tanner Greer

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The Western response to Russian invasion falls hard and fast. If it was falling too hard and too fast, how would we know?

We rush headlong into decisions whose consequences we have not debated or thought through

scholars-stage.org/pausing-at-the-precipice/
Some of the decisions we have made are truly extraordinary: the restrictions on the Russian central bank has few precedents. The decision to *openly* give arms to Ukraine has no precedents this side of the Cold War.
"None of these actions are as audacious as the Russian invasion which precipitated them." But...
I think a lot about the decision making process that led the United States to invade Iraq in 2003. I have written multiple 7k word essays that try and piece together why the Bush administration failed so catastrophically (e.g. scholars-stage.org/learning-from-our-defeat-1-the-assumptions-of-donald-rumsfeld/ and scholars-stage.org/learning-from-our-defeat-the-skill-of-the-vulcans/).
No book has influenced my interpretation of this era more than Michael Mazarr's LEAP OF FAITH: HUBRIS, NEGLIGENCE, AND AMERICA'S GREATEST FOREIGN POLICY TRAGEDY.

amzn.to/38LarRI
This book has not only influenced my understanding of these people....
But of foreign policy decision making in general. Mazarr's framework provides a powerful conceptual lens to understand foreign policy failures across eras.
A lot of the classical political science literature on war and great power politics assumes "rationality" from state actors. There is a lot of wisdom in these approaches: they make a good deal of sense even when one side considers the objective of the other incoherent or absurd.
But a lot of rationalist theory of conflict assumes that we are fighting for *things.* Violence is an instrument to achieve a specific outcome; foreign policy is an attempt to match actions to end states desired.
Inasmuch as policy and strategy have stated end goals that the state in question would like to achieve, rationalist models make a lot of sense.

But there is a less formal meaning to words like "rationalist" that is relevant here.
If the purpose of policy is to achieve certain ends, you would imagine that *policy creation* would resemble a careful weighing of pros and cons as statesmen try to figure out whether action x or policy y will create the end state they most desire.
But in 2002-2003, that is not what happened. Why?
Mazarr's answer is that under certain circumstances, the "logic of consequences" is overtaken by what he calls "the logic of appropriateness."
Mazarr compares the imperatives of approporiateness to the "sacred values" identified by anthropologists and psychologists www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLUbHPggKI
These values prime action: those who violate them are met with anger and contempt. They are ends in themselves, not instruments by which other ends are secured. Acting on these values is less about securing certain goals than "doing the right thing."
There is an important reason this sort of judgement takes front seat in many foreign policy crises. Events move fast. Outcomes are uncertain. Facts are uncertain. Humans need to simplify the universe down to something they can comprehend.
As Mazarr explains, this simplification process leads us to rely on intuitions in place of well reasoned calculations. Nevertheless, this intuitive, values-grounded, emotion led process often *feels* like rational, consequences focused analysis:
In the U.S. government, the formal national security "interagency" process has some built in features that are designed to combat these problems.
When the interagency is working as it should, it forces proponents of a policy option to articulate exactly the connection between their chosen means and envisioned ends. They are required to formally debate their proposals (usually through "options memos") w/ those who disagree.
This is a cumbersome and slow process. You get a sense for why that is just by looking at an org chart
But the process is often effective for at least forcing multiple views to be heard, potential consequences of action to be considered, and so forth. It is a system designed to protect policy makers from their own assumptions and biases. When it works, it works well.
Under George W. Bush the process did not work well. There are many reasons for this (explored herehttps://scholars-stage.org/learning-from-our-defeat-the-skill-of-the-vulcans/ ) but the most important:
the big names under Bush--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell--had such storied reputations & were so skilled at bureaucratic warfare that no bureaucratic guide-rails could contain them. Their disputes tore the NSC process to shreds. We live with the consequences of their failed NSC today.
The danger in 2022 is different. We approach the fifth dawn of a fast-moving war; decision makers are determined to respond to an event which has not yet concluded.
This rush to act while action is still possible means that all slow paced proceduralism will of necessity be suspended. In the days to come those in high places will be forced to rely on snap judgements and emotional response to guide their decisions.
Added to the rapid decision cycles are the *emotional* circumstance in which these decisions must be made. As I write:
his sort of moral resolution is not inherently bad. It is the only wellspring of daring or fortitude. But our daring must accord with the outcomes we desire!
In our rush to act, haste to punish, and speed to celebrate a heroic resistance, certain questions are not being asked. For example:
Now it is possible that each of these measures--to say nothing of those proposed but not yet adopted--can be defended. They might be the right ones! But we have a responsibility to think them through!
What happened in Iraq has had grave consequences for the world. But NATO affairs operate on a different scale. There the consequences of getting this wrong will be far higher.
Read my full essay here: scholars-stage.org/pausing-at-the-precipice/
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