Power Over Rationality: The Bush Administration and the Gulf Crisis (SUNY Series in The Making of Foreign Policy: Theories and Issues)
Books / Hardcover
Books › History › United States › General
ISBN: 0791414213 / Publisher: SUNY Press, February 1993
Applies cognitive models to what is known about the decision-making process within the US government that led to the war against Iraq in 1991. Concludes that if you have a big enough stick, and a loud enough voice, you don't have to make any sense. An admittedly initial assessment based on the little empirical evidence available so soon, and certainly to be challenged when the memoirs start rolling out. Paper edition (unseen), $12.95. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
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To most Americans, the Gulf War symbolizes the culmination of a highly sophisticated decision-making process within the Bush administration. In this highly readable and challenging book, Hybel demonstrates the shortcomings of such a view by using cognitive models to examine how the administration defined problems, identified goals, assessed alternatives, and selected options during the seven months preceding the start of the war.This book will prove to be a critical contribution to the understanding of the Bush administration’s thinking process during the Gulf crisis and of the value of cognitive models in explaining foreign policy making.
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