Case 8.1 Pros and Cons of Balkan Intervention59 “Must the agony of Bosnia-Herzegovina be regarded, with whatever regrets, as somebody else’s trouble? We don’t think so, but the arguments on behalf of that view deserve an answer. Among them are the following: The Balkan conflict is a civil war and unlikely to spread beyond the borders of the former Yugoslavia. Wrong. Belgrade has missiles trained on Vienna. Tito’s Yugoslavia claimed, by way of Macedonia, that northern Greece as far south as Thessaloniki belonged under its sovereignty. Those claims may return. ‘Civil’ war pitting non-Slavic Albanians against Serbs could spread to Albania, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Greece. The United States has no strategic interest in the Balkans. Wrong. No peace, no peace dividend. Unless the West can impose the view that ethnic purity can no longer be the basis for national sovereignty, then endless national wars will replace the Cold War. This threat has appeared in genocidal form in Bosnia. If it cannot be contained here, it will erupt elsewhere, and the Clinton administration’s domestic agenda will be an early casualty. If the West intervenes on behalf of the Bosnians, the Russians will do so on behalf of the Serbs, and the Cold War will be reborn. Wrong. The Russians have more to fear from ‘ethnic cleansing’ than any people on Earth. Nothing would reassure them better than a new, post-Cold War Western policy of massive, early response against the persecution of national minorities, including the Russian minorities found in every post-Soviet republic. The Russian right may favor the Serbs, but Russian self-interest lies elsewhere. The Serbs also have their grievances. Wrong. They do, but their way of responding to these grievances, according to the State Department’s annual human rights report, issued this past week, ‘dwarfs anything seen in Europe since Nazi times.’ Via the Genocide Convention, armed intervention is legal as well as justified. The UN peace plan is the only alternative. Wrong. Incredibly, the plan proposes the reorganization of Bosnia-Herzegovina followed by a cease-fire. A better first step would be a UN declaration that any nation or ethnic group proceeding to statehood on the principle of ethnic purity is an outlaw state and will be treated as such. As now drafted, the UN peace plan, with a map of provinces that not one party to the conflict accepts, is really a plan for continued ‘ethnic cleansing.’” Case 8.2 Images, Arguments, and the Second Persian Gulf Crisis, 1990– 1991 The analysis of policy arguments can be employed to investigate the ways that policymakers represent or structure problems (Chapter 3). We can thereby identify the images, or problem representations, that shape processes of making and justifying decisions. For example, during times of crisis, the images which United States policymakers have of another country affect deliberations about the use of peacekeeping and negotiation, the imposition of economic sanctions, o.

1. Case 8.1 Pros and Cons of Balkan Intervention59
“Must the agony of Bosnia-Herzegovina be regarded, with
whatever regrets, as somebody else’s trouble?
We don’t think so, but the arguments on behalf of that view
deserve an answer. Among them are the
following:
The Balkan conflict is a civil war and unlikely to spread beyond
the borders of the former
Yugoslavia. Wrong. Belgrade has missiles trained on Vienna.
Tito’s Yugoslavia claimed, by way of
Macedonia, that northern Greece as far south as Thessaloniki
belonged under its sovereignty. Those
claims may return. ‘Civil’ war pitting non-Slavic Albanians
against Serbs could spread to Albania,
Turkey, Bulgaria, and Greece.
The United States has no strategic interest in the Balkans.
Wrong. No peace, no peace dividend.
Unless the West can impose the view that ethnic purity can no
longer be the basis for national
sovereignty, then endless national wars will replace the Cold
War. This threat has appeared in
genocidal form in Bosnia. If it cannot be contained here, it will
erupt elsewhere, and the Clinton
administration’s domestic agenda will be an early casualty.
If the West intervenes on behalf of the Bosnians, the Russians
will do so on behalf of the Serbs, and
the Cold War will be reborn. Wrong. The Russians have more to
fear from ‘ethnic cleansing’ than
any people on Earth. Nothing would reassure them better than a
new, post-Cold War Western

2. policy of massive, early response against the persecution of
national minorities, including the
Russian minorities found in every post-Soviet republic. The
Russian right may favor the Serbs, but
Russian self-interest lies elsewhere.
The Serbs also have their grievances. Wrong. They do, but their
way of responding to these
grievances, according to the State Department’s annual human
rights report, issued this past week,
‘dwarfs anything seen in Europe since Nazi times.’ Via the
Genocide Convention, armed
intervention is legal as well as justified.
The UN peace plan is the only alternative. Wrong. Incredibly,
the plan proposes the reorganization
of Bosnia-Herzegovina followed by a cease-fire. A better first
step would be a UN declaration that
any nation or ethnic group proceeding to statehood on the
principle of ethnic purity is an outlaw
state and will be treated as such. As now drafted, the UN peace
plan, with a map of provinces that
not one party to the conflict accepts, is really a plan for
continued ‘ethnic cleansing.’”
Case 8.2 Images, Arguments, and the Second Persian Gulf
Crisis, 1990–
1991
The analysis of policy arguments can be employed to
investigate the ways that policymakers represent or
structure problems (Chapter 3). We can thereby identify the
images, or problem representations, that
shape processes of making and justifying decisions. For
example, during times of crisis, the images which
United States policymakers have of another country affect
deliberations about the use of peacekeeping
and negotiation, the imposition of economic sanctions, or the

3. use of deadly force. This case looks at the
deliberations surrounding the U.S. decision to use military force
to produce an Iraqi withdrawal from
Kuwait during the Second Persian Gulf Crisis of 1990–1991.
It is important to recognize that there have been three Persian
Gulf crises since 1980. The First Persian
Gulf Crisis, which involved 8 years of war between Iraq and
Iran, spanned the period September 1980–
August 1988. The longest war in the twentieth-century, an
estimated half-million civilians and military
339
events. The rectangles with shaved corners represent valued
policy outcomes, or objectives. The objectives
are to lower fuel consumption, reduce travel time, and avert
traffic fatalities and injuries. To the right of
the objectives is another shaved rectangle, which designates the
net benefits (benefits less costs) of the
four objectives. In this case, the surprising result of using the
influence diagram was the discovery of
causally relevant economic events such as recession and
unemployment, which affect miles driven, which
in turn affects the achievement of all four objectives. The “root
cause” appears to be the OPEC oil
embargo.
The decision tree is another way to represent the influence
diagram. Whereas the influence diagram
shows how policy choices and uncertain events affect the
achievement of objectives, the decision tree
displays the monetary value of these outcomes. In this abridged

4. and simplified decision tree, there are two
branches that not only represent the two alternatives (renew or
not renew the NMSL), but also the OPEC
oil crisis, the recession, the costs of miles traveled, and the
dollar benefits of reducing fatalities. The
bolded branches show the events with the greatest likelihood of
occurring, or which already have
occurred.
Figure C1.2.1
Influence Diagram and Decision Tree
Case 1.3 Mapping International Security and Energy Crises
Another way to represent problems is to use the argument
mapping methods introduced earlier in this
chapter (Figure 1.3). The role of argument mapping in
structuring policy discourses may be illustrated by
Graham Allison’s well-known study of foreign policy decision-
making during the Cuban missile crisis of
48
October 1962.55 Showing how different explanatory models
yield different conclusions, Allison argues that
government policy analysts use implicit conceptual models to
think about and make policy
recommendations. These conceptual models explain the
behavior of governments in terms that assume
the rationality of political choices (rational actor model), the
inertia created by organizational processes
(organizational process model), and the effects of bureaucratic
politics (bureaucratic politics model). Each
of these models provides its own explanation of policymaking.

5. In 1962, the policy alternatives open to the United States in
responding to the crisis ranged from no
action and diplomatic pressure to secret negotiations, invasion,
surgical air strikes, and blockade. Among
the several claims made at the time of the Cuban missile crisis,
let us consider the policy actually adopted
by the United States: “The United States should blockade
Cuba.” In this case, the policy-relevant
knowledge (I) is “The Soviet Union is placing offensive
missiles in Cuba.” The warrant states that “the
blockade will force the withdrawal of missiles by showing the
Russians that the United States is
determined to use force.” In providing reasons to accept the
warrant, the backing (B) supports the warrant
by stating that “an increase in the cost of an alternative reduces
the likelihood of that alternative being
chosen.”56 The backing (B) represents a general theoretical
proposition, or law, within the rational policy
model. After the objection (O) has successfully challenged the
warrant, the qualifier (Q) changes from
absolutely to doubtful.
Allison’s account shows how the use of multiple competing
explanations can facilitate critical thinking.
The use of multiple competing models moves the analysis from
a simple uncontested argument (Figure
C1.3.1) to a new argument which is complex, contested, and
dynamic (Figure C1.3.2). This change occurs
because a serious objection has been raised about the warrant
and the backing of the claim. The objection
states: “But Soviet leaders may fail to convince their naval units
to depart from established organizational
routines.” The warrant for this objection is: “The bulk of
research on organizations shows that major lines
of organizational behavior tend to be straight. Behavior at time t

6. + 1 differs little from behavior at time
t.57 The blockade will not work.” The warrant for the objection
is again a general proposition or law
within the organizational process model, otherwise known as
the disjointed incremental theory of policy
change.
Simple uncontested maps of arguments about the OPEC oil
embargo are presented alongside arguments
about the Cuban missile crisis (Figures C1.3.1[a] and [b]). The
comparisons show that the simple
argument maps tend to result in uncritical thinking. By contrast,
the complex, dynamic, and contested
maps of the same crises (Figures C1.3.2[a] and [b]) illustrate
what is meant by critical thinking.
49
Figure C1.3.1
Simple Argument Maps Are Static and Uncontested
50
Figure C1.3.2
Complex Argument Maps Are Dynamic and Contested
51