WHAT CAN BE DONE? Improvements in the operations of the United States Government cannot be realized unless they are designed to take account of the incentives and constraints that govern the interaction among the government's branches and agencies as well as among the officials within them. This is true in the national security area as much as in domestic policy areas. Thus, to change the conduct of negotiations with Communist countries one would have to modify such factors as the bargaining process between the State and Defense Departments, career considerations of Foreign Service Officers, and the impact of news media on foreign policy planning. Even a seemingly simple change, such as reduction or refocussing of the State Department's cable traffic (for instance, to shift away from the emphasis on the opponent's rhetoric) cannot be instituted easily. That is to say, if the Secretary of State desired such a change, he could not simply request it one morning and expect it to last without modifying a number of other practices. Foreign Service Officers expect to get rated, in part, on the basis of their reporting, and might fear that silence would not be rewarded even if there is nothing important to report. During the formulation of a negotiating position, a certain amount of bargaining among departments and agencies is common within our government; (except during fast-moving crises, such as the Cuban missile crisis, when the bureaucracy may be largely left out of the decision process). The exigencies of this internal bargaining sharply limit the tactics that our negotiators can use externally. As seen from the State Department, they constitute a strong reason against making certain demands that might remain unacceptable to the opponent, or against confronting the opponent with counter-demands that are to be dropped in exchange for the dropping of his demands. It is feared that once such demands had been raised by our negotiators, other government agencies would insist that the demands be maintained even after they no longer serve their purpose. That is to say, to avoid being hemmed in by vetoes from other government agencies, our negotiators sometimes feel they must eschew a bargaining strategy that might pay off against a foreign government. A promising approach to improve our management of negotiations is to raise the level of discourse in which interagency coordination is being conducted. On the one hand, our officials should no longer feel free to object to an American negotiating position simply by arguing that it would be "unacceptable" to the opponent. And little weight should be given to someone's forecast as to what a Communist opponent would demand or accept, if this forecast is based solely on an exegesis of the opponent's rhetoric without an analysis of his military, economic and political strength. On the other hand, nobody should get away with the argument that we have to hold on to some bargaining position simply because we have taken that position some years ago. Nor should the State Department or the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency have to put up with the argument from the military side of our government, that we must not negotiate about the discontinuance of some military activity simply because that activity is "vital." If there is any meaning to the importance of such activities, there has to be a price at which it is worthwhile for the United States to give them up. In our policy-making process, the concept "vital" without a price tag should be ruled out of order as sheer metaphysics. Furthermore, in the policy-making process within our government we must maintain clarity about the ground rules of international conduct, and distinguish desirable from actual constraints on the opponent's behavior. Just because we might think in terms of spheres of interest, for instance, does not mean that our Communist opponents will have to act accordingly. Our news media are, of course, an important source of domestic opinion that our negotiators have to consider. But sometimes our senior officials subconsciously slip into the tendency to bargain with our news media instead of with the opponent. For instance, if our news media have been arguing that a certain concession by us (such as the cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam) would bring an agreement, our policy-makers should not feel cheated if this does not turn out to be true. Even if the news media sometimes act as if they were the opponent's spokesman, we should not blame the opponent for ignoring the script of our news media. AN INVENTORY OF CONGRESSIONAL CONCERN WITH RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 90TH CONGRESS, 2D SESSION ᏢᎪᎡᎢ 4 A BIBLIOGRAPHY PREPARED FOR THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT RESEARCH OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS 31-818 JULY 31, 1969 Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Operations U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1969 PURCHASED THROUGH ՌՈՐ EX PROJECT |