Summary: The Decision-Making Level

LONG KimKhorn, PUC, MA. IRs, ID: 61283 Feb 1, 2013 When some people think democracy is the best form of government because citizen can execute their power through their representatives, others think democracy is the worst form of the government because many ruled by a few in which, mostly statesman or leader not only decide internal affair on what its citizen should do and what should not but, sometime, play as a key person to determine political change which effect on the globe at large. And when some scholar talking about major figure of individual leader in international affair, others like Leo Tolstoy argued for the impersonal forces theory, whereas, major leaders are actually historys slaves like Napoleon and give credit to the group decision making but, however, no single cause/factor can be used to explain the happened thing as whole. In the past, the strong leader represented the political and military power instead of their group; they played as the crucial role in deciding whether or not to go to war. Nonetheless, ruler such as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Napoleon, Bismarck, Hitler, Stalin, de Gaulle, Mao Tse-tung, and Saddam Hussein have decided many great political changes in warfare. But when states have to accept defeat, the strong ruler is only a person that tells his/her citizens to have the bitter pill. For example, Marshal Petain played this role in France in 1940, as did Carl Mannerheim in Finland in 1944, and Charles de Gaulle in France in 1961 by granting independence to Algeria. Historically, many rulers always desire to perform as peace-makers. For example, Mikhail Gorbachev to glasnost and perestroika (opening and restructuring) inside the USSR that led to easing of U.S.-Soviet tensions and movement toward arms control, as well as a partial reduction of conventional forces in Europe and a decrease in the number of strategic unclear warheads. Furthermore, many leaders can exalt their national honors through charismatic personalities, examples, including Edward III and Henry V of England in the 14th and 15th centuries; Philip II and Charles V of Spain in the 16th; Charles XII of Sweden and Louis XIV of France in the 17th; Russias Peter the Great and Prussias Frederick the Great in the 18th; Napoleon Bonaparte in France, Abraham Lincoln in the United States, and Bismarck in Germany in the 19th; and Mussolini of Italy and Hitler in Germany during the 20th century. The role of individual leaders is perhaps most clearly emphasized in the events during the early days of World War II, when Britain Prime Minister, Churchill, stood virtually alone against Nazi Germany. Not necessarily true that only strong leaders initiate wars but weak political leaders also. For instance, Germanys Kaiser Wilhelm and Russias Czar Nicholas are unable to hold their general staffs in check leading to war. If we take a close look to the Cuban Missile Crisis, was happened partly because John F. Kennedy had felt browbeaten by Soviet Premier Khrushchev at their 1961 summit meeting in Vienna and had felt humiliated by the debacle of the failed American-supported invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. As for, Lyndon Johnson also seemed to have been determined not to be defeated by the Asian Communists, Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese. Sometime, the issue is face-saving, in which case leaders are especially likely to precipitate at home. Thus,

President Truman stung by criticism that he had lost China to communists and also the break of Korean War. Historically speaking, some decision making resulted in success and some led to crisis. Those failures can be resulted from issues of perception and misperception, communication and miscommunication, understandings and misunderstanding as like. Major governmental decisions, especially regarding war or warlike actions, are made by small ad hoc groups, that is, groups that may have been convened for that specific purpose. For example, there were 14 persons participated in the emergency deliberation of U.S. government during Korean War and 16 members in the committee convened by President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. While there are many support on ad hoc committee decision, social psychologists have found that risk taking tends to be more pronounced in groups than in individuals, because no one person must take responsibility for the outcome. When leaders are willing to accept a high level of risk, likelihood of war intensely increase. When leaders want to go to war, they tend to ignore the bad news. For example, MacArthur commit to the goal to destroy the North Koreans so it made him insensitive to reports that would counsel caution to someone, slanted intelligence reports and interpret misperception of the situation. For example, prior to World War I, Prince Lichnowsky, the German ambassador to Britain, reported correctly to the Kaiser that Britain was prepared to declare war against Germany. By contrast, the German ambassador to Russia was praised for sending reassuring message back to Berlin, stating that the Czar was not likely to defend Serbia. There are two useful lessons here: (1) when the bearer of bad tidings is likely to fare poorly, he or she may well doctor the message, and (2) people including state leader often exhibit selective attention, so that if they are already committed to a course of action, they tend to disregard what they do not want to hear. Even though, political crises rest upon ruler but when stress is unusually that decision making is most likely to be flawed. Crises decision making is likely to have the following characteristics time pressure, heavy responsibility, faulty and incomplete data, information overload, limited options, short-term over long-term, surprise, and personal stresses that political leader need crisis management in order to prevent a crisis from escalating to war, to keep the leaders in control of the situation, and to gain maximum advantage from such crises when they occur. Technological development is also making crisis to be more difficult to control. For example, prior to World War I, mobilization of the Great Powers was extraordinarily fast, given the immense amounts of men and material involved, but it still required several days. In the unclear age, mobilization requires minutes or even second just pressing a button with a figure and entire wars could be fought within hours. History is replete with examples of this phenomenon. Sometime, war happen due to inaccurate perception of others. For example, five different U.S. presidents apparently misread the determination of the North Vietnamese and their leader, Ho Chi Minh. They seemed convinced that the North Vietnameses drive for unification would crumble if only more American military pressure were applied but in fact Ho Chi Minh not. Furthermore, many leaders misread the history. For example, during the FrancoPrussian War, there were two assumptions widespread among many European politicians and generals: (1) the next war would be intense and brief; (2) a long war would ruin a states economy. Even Hitler also misread the events. When Germany

invaded Poland in 1939, Hitler did not expect that Britain and France would honors their commitments and declare war on Germany. Many part of warfare history, the war creator produce double standard hostility. For example, in 1970, during the Vietnam War, the United States bombed and invaded Cambodia, claiming that because Cambodia was providing haven and supply routes to the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese, it could legally be attacked, even though it was to be sovereign, nonbelligerent state. Theoretically, among psychologists, three related theories have sought to explain this tendency to perceive the other as hostile, while holding the self blameless: (1) ego defense a theory of ego defense emphasizes that individuals would find it troublesome to admit that their activities threaten other; (2) attribution that individuals are intensely aware of the various external constraints on their behavior including economic factor; (3) projection is the phenomenon in which people take certain unacceptable tendencies of their own. Some war happens due to miscommunication. Some communication errors simply happen because people speak different languages and come from different cultures. For example, consider the mokusatsu affair. In the early summer of 1945, the Allies, meeting in Potsdam, issued a surrender ultimatum to Japan. The official Japanese response was to mokusatsu the ultimatum, which was translated into Enlish as ignore leading to Atomic dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortly thereafter. Some war break due to overconfidence for example in 1971, the Pakisani leadership ignoring all evidence that India enjoyed clear superiority nonetheless attacked its archrival seeking, unsuccessfully, to destroy the Indian Air Force on the ground, as Israel had succeeded against Egypt at the onset of the Six-Day War in 1967.