Leadership and Strategy
Spring Semester, 2017
Williams College
Instructor: Galen Jackson
226 Schapiro Hall
Telephone: (413) 597-2607
Email: [email protected]
Course Description
This class is about the role of leaders and statecraft in international relations. The course begins
with a brief overview of the literature on the relationship between political and military
objectives and of the complexities involved in devising effective strategy. We will also discuss
works related to structural forces at the international level, the role of individuals, and domestic
constraints on foreign policy decision-making in order to underscore the serious obstacles that
leaders face when formulating national security policy. The objective of this part of the course is
to identify and analyze the principal structural and situational constraints—both foreign and
domestic—that limit decision-makers’ freedom of action, and which they must manage
effectively to achieve their diplomatic objectives. The course then integrates theoretical
perspectives related to a range of international security issues—including the causes of war,
alliance politics, nuclear strategy, deterrence, coercion, reassurance, misperception, and
credibility concerns—with illustrative case studies of decision-makers in action. Specifically, we
will examine the causes of the world wars; U.S. intervention in each of those conflicts; the
British appeasement strategy in the 1930s; Israel’s decision to preempt in June 1967; Egypt’s
politico-military strategy in 1973; the road to the Camp David Accords and the 1991 Madrid
Conference; the Berlin and Cuban Missiles crises; the decision to drop the atomic bomb;
American nonproliferation strategy; and the path to war in Vietnam. The basic structure of the
class is interdisciplinary—the goal of this approach is to utilize key conceptual arguments to gain
greater leverage for the examination of major historical decisions in national security policy.
Students will be asked to analyze and evaluate the strategic choices we examine, as well as the
process by which they were reached. The primary objective of the course is for students to
improve dramatically their understanding of the role of leaders and strategic choice in
international politics.
Requirements
Class Participation: Regular attendance and participation is crucial to this course. Discussion
will allow students to consider the assigned readings analytically in greater depth and provide a
forum of debate. I expect to students to come to class prepared to discuss the readings, ask
questions, and engage with their peers. Due to its importance, class participation is worth 25
percent of the final grade. Students will be graded on both attendance and the quality of their
preparation.
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Two 6-8 page essays: Students will write two 6-8 page analytical papers, each worth 25 percent
of the overall grade. I will provide a list of possible paper questions by the second week of the
course. The purpose of these papers is for students to investigate, analyze, and evaluate, in depth,
a major national security decision we examine in the course. Use of additional research sources
is certainly encouraged but not necessary. Students will be graded on their analytical rigor,
quality of writing, and demonstrated understanding of the substantive issues involved. In
evaluating their cases, students will be required to bring a major theoretical perspective in the
international relations literature to bear and to describe the extent to which its expected
predictions were borne out by a close reading of the historical evidence. Papers will be due
during the first lecture period of the sixth week (there will be no class that day to provide you
with additional time to prepare your essays) and during the second lecture of the ninth week.
Late submissions will be penalized a half letter grade for every day they are overdue.
Final Exam: The final will be comprehensive and include identification questions and analytical
essay questions. It will account for 25 percent of the final grade and be held on the last day the
course meets. I will provide a study guide to assist students in their preparation for the exam.
How to Read and Write for this Course
A key goal of this course is to help students improve their ability to read critically. Everything
we will read advances a basic point. While doing the assigned reading, students should ask
themselves a series of questions: What is the author’s main point argument? What is the logic
that supports that argument? Is the evidence that she/he brings to bear compelling? Students who
read actively in this way will not only absorb the material more thoroughly but will also come to
class ready to participate with greater confidence. The goal should be to dissect the piece—to
understand its logical and empirical weaknesses/strengths and to comprehend its significance in
conceptual and policy terms. In our investigation of specific cases, we will examine a number of
primary documents. Students should read these records especially closely; this is your
opportunity to develop your own opinions, using direct evidence, about the various decisions we
study, and will allow you to evaluate the conceptual models we discuss in light of the historical
evidence. The same applies for the assigned video recordings (all available on YouTube).
Writing development is also an important objective for this course. The ability to write well is an
invaluable skill, one that will benefit students well into the future. Each of the analytical essays
must have a clear thesis statement (typically stated in the first paragraph) and the
logical/empirical arguments students include in their papers should be geared toward supporting
that statement. We will go over the logic, evidence, and concepts relating to each assigned
reading and each case we study in class, so taking detailed notes will help students with the
composition of their papers. This is also your opportunity to raise any points or evidence which
was not discussed in class; indeed, this is a chance to showcase your knowledge of what you
have learned. The papers must include citations and I will provide a guide on how to do this by
the third week of the course. Students who feel they need additional help with their papers
should take their drafts to the Writing Workshop. This is a wonderful resource and I encourage
all students to take full advantage of it. I am happy to discuss the structure, logic, and evidence
relating to student essays during office hours but I will not read rough drafts.
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Readings
Because we will examine such a diverse array of topics and case studies, it is not necessary for
students to purchase any books for this class. There will, however, be a course packet of assigned
readings, and supplementary materials will be posted on the course website or will be accessible
via JSTOR. These will include primary documents, scholarly articles, and individual book
chapters. The required reading will approximate 150 pages per week. Students will be expected
to have completed the assigned reading prior to each class session.
Course Schedule
Week 1: The Fundamentals of Strategy
Lecture #1: The Primacy of the Political (75 pages)
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Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Edited and Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 75-89, 119-121.
Richard K. Betts, “Is Strategy an Illusion?” International Security, Vol. 25, No. 2 (2000),
pp. 5-50.
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
2011), pp. 234-244.
Lecture #2: The Basics of Realism (78 pages)
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John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton,
2001), pp. xi-xii, 1-54.
Hans J. Morgenthau, “The Mainsprings of American Foreign Policy: The National
Interest vs. Moral Abstractions,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 44, No. 4
(1950), pp. 833-854.
Week 2: Constraints and Statecraft
Lecture #3: Individuals and Decision-Making (93 pages)
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Michael Roskin, “From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: Shifting Generational Paradigms and
Foreign Policy,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 89, No. 3 (1974), pp. 563-588.
Robert Jervis, “Do Leaders Matter and How Would We Know?” Security Studies, Vol.
22, No. 2 (2013), pp. 153-179.
Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack, “Let Us Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the
Statesman Back In,” International Security, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2001), pp. 107-146.
Lecture #4: Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy (81 pages)
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John Zaller, “Strategic Politicians, Public Opinion, and the Gulf Crisis,” in Lance Bennett
and David Paletz, eds., Taken by Storm: The News Media, U.S. Foreign Policy, and the
Gulf War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 250-273.
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John M. Owen, “How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace,” International Security,
Vol. 19, No. 2 (1994), pp. 87-125.
James D. Fearon, “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International
Disputes,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (1994), pp. 577-592.
Week 3: World War I
Lecture #5: Causes of the First World War, Part I (105 pages)
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Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966),
pp. 221-225.
Marc Trachtenberg, “The Meaning of Mobilization in 1914,” International Security, Vol.
15, No. 3 (1990-1991), pp. 120-150.
Michael R. Gordon, “Domestic Conflict and the Origins of the First World War: The
British and the German Cases,” Journal of Modern History, Vol. 46, No. 2 (1974), pp.
191-226.
Jack Snyder, “Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984,”
International Security, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1984), pp. 108-140.
Lecture #6: Causes of the First World War, Part II (62 pages)
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Dale C. Copeland, The Origins of Major War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
2000), pp. 56-117.
Week 4: Wilson and Chamberlain
Lecture #7: U.S. Intervention in the First World War (34 pages plus documents)
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Walter Lippmann, U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (Boston: Little, Brown,
1943), pp. 33-39.
Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, pp. 252-254.
Review: Morgenthau, “The Mainsprings of American Foreign Policy,” pp. 847-850.
George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy, 60th-Anniversary Expanded Edition (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2012), pp. 59-78.
Read the following primary documents especially closely:
Ø Letter from Presidential Adviser Edward House to President Woodrow Wilson,
August 22, 1914
Ø House Diary Entry, November 4, 1914
Ø House Diary Entry, September 22, 1915
Ø House Diary Entry, December 14, 1916
Ø Message from the head of British Intelligence in the United States, William
Wiseman, to the British Foreign Office, January 16, 1917
Ø Wilson’s Address to the Senate, January 22, 1917
Ø Message from Wiseman to the British Foreign Office, January 26, 1917
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Ø Memorandum from Wilson to Secretary of State Robert Lansing, January 31,
1917
Ø Letter from Lansing to Wilson, February 2, 1917
Ø Minutes of the Cabinet Meeting, March 20, 1917
Ø Wilson’s Address to Congress, April 2, 1917
Lecture #8: The British Appeasement Strategy (80 pages plus documents)
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Robert Burns, “Rumsfeld Warns Against Appeasement,” Washington Post, August 30,
2006.
Dennis Prager, “The Iran Deal Appeases the Greatest Evil of Our Time,” National
Review, July 21, 2015.
Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, pp. 199-208.
Paul Kennedy, “The Tradition of Appeasement in British Foreign Policy, 1865-1939,” in
Kennedy, ed., Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870-1945 (London: George Allen and Unwin,
1983), pp. 13-39.
Christopher Layne, “Security Studies and the Use of History: Neville Chamberlain’s
Grand Strategy Revisited,” Security Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3 (2008), pp. 397-437.
Read the following primary documents especially closely:
Ø Robery Dell, “Chamberlain’s Treason,” The Nation, Vol. 146, No. 11 (March
1938), pp. 292-294.
Ø Address by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to the House of
Commons, March 24, 1938
Ø Letter from Ambassador Neville Henderson to the British Foreign Office,
September 6, 1938
Ø Minutes of a Conversation between Chamberlain and German Chancellor Adolf
Hitler at Berchtesgaden, September 1938
Ø Note by General Ismay to the British Cabinet, September 20, 1938
Ø Watch: Chamberlain’s Speech on “Peace in Our Time,” September 30, 1938,
available on YouTube (one minute and 41 seconds)
Ø Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact, August 23, 1939
Week 5: Democracy and War
Lecture #9: Domestic Constraints and American Intervention, 1941 (67 pages plus documents)
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John M. Schuessler, “The Deception Dividend: FDR’s Undeclared War,” International
Security, Vol. 34, No. 4 (2010), pp. 133-165.
Dan Reiter, “Democracy, Deception, and Entry into War,” Security Studies, Vol. 21, No.
4 (2012), pp. 594-623.
David Kaiser, “World War or No War,” H-Diplo/ISSF Roundtable Reviews, Vol. 5, No. 4
(2013), pp. 41-44.
Read the following primary documents especially closely:
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Ø “Plan Dog Memorandum” from Chief of Naval Operations Harold Stark to
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, November 12, 1940
Ø Letter from Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, June 23, 1941
Ø Note from Roosevelt to Ickes, June 23, 1941
Ø Letter from Ickes to Roosevelt, June 23, 1941
Ø Letter from Ickes to Roosevelt, June 25, 1941
Ø Minutes of British War Cabinet Meeting, August 19, 1941
Ø Listen to: Abbreviation of FDR Fireside Chat 18 on the Greer Incident,
September 11, 1941 (8 minutes and 27 seconds)
Ø Unsent Letter from Ambassador Joseph Grew to Roosevelt, August 14, 1942
Lecture #10: Crisis Decision-Making—Israel’s Preemptive Strike in June 1967 (60 pages plus
documents)
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William B. Quandt, “Lyndon Johnson and the June 1967 War: What Color Was the
Light?” Middle East Journal, Vol. 46, No. 2 (1992), pp. 198-228.
Roland Popp, “Stumbling Decidedly into the Six-Day War,” Middle East Journal, Vol.
60, No. 2 (2006), pp. 281-309.
Watch: The Fifty Years War, Israel and the Arabs, Part I, available on YouTube (50:001:17:40 [27 minutes and 40 seconds])
Read the following primary documents especially closely:
Ø Aide-Mémoire from the Department of State to the Israeli Embassy, February 11,
1957
Ø Memo from Harold Saunders of the NSC Staff to National Security Adviser Walt
Rostow, May 19, 1967
Ø Soviet Statement on the Middle East Crisis, May 23, 1967
Ø Memorandum of Conversation between U.S. and Israeli Officials, May 26, 1967
Ø Note from Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin to President Lyndon Johnson, May 27,
1967
Ø Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s May 30, 1967 speech
Ø Memo from Saunders to Rostow, May 31, 1967
Ø Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev’s Address to the Plenum of the Central
Committee, June 20, 1967
Week 6: Diplomacy and Military Strategy
Lecture #11: NO CLASS—PAPERS DUE
Lecture #12: Fitting Military Strategy to Political Objectives—Sadat’s War (54 pages plus
documents)
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John J. Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1983), pp. 155-164.
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Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Red Star on the Nile: The Soviet-Egyptian Influence Relationship
since the June War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 212-247.
Paul C. Avey, “Who’s Afraid of the Bomb? The Role of Nuclear Non-Use Norms in
Confrontations between Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Opponents,” Security Studies, Vol. 24,
No. 4 (2015), pp. 586-593.
Watch: The Fifty Years War, Israel and the Arabs, Part II, available on YouTube (0:0027:05 [27 minutes and 5 seconds])
Read the following primary documents especially closely:
Ø Address by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to the National Assembly, February 4,
1971
Ø Telephone Conversation between National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and
Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco, February 17, 1971
Ø Israeli Peace Proposal, February 26, 1971
Ø Conversation between Secretary of State William Rogers and President Richard
Nixon, May 10, 1971
Ø U.S.-U.S.S.R. Joint Communiqué on the Middle East, May 29, 1972
Ø Memorandum of Conversation between Kissinger and Israeli Ambassador Simcha
Dinitz, March 30, 1973
Ø Arnaud de Borchgrave, “The Battle is Now Inevitable,” Newsweek, April 9, 1973.
Ø Memorandum of Conversation between Kissinger and Egyptian National Security
Adviser Hafez Ismail, May 20, 1973
Ø Memorandum of Conversation between Nixon and Brezhnev, June 23, 1973
Week 7: Statecraft and the Two-Level Game
Lecture #13: Jimmy Carter, the Two-Level Game, and the Road to Camp David (84 pages plus
documents)
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Aaron David Miller, The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for ArabIsraeli Peace (New York: Bantam, 2008), pp. 75-124, 157-190.
Read the following primary documents especially closely:
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Memorandum from Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to Carter, May 25, 1977
Memorandum from Hamilton Jordan to President Jimmy Carter, June 1977
Memorandum of Conversation between American and Israeli Officials, July 19, 1977
Memorandum of Conversation between Carter and Sadat, February 4, 1978
Memorandum from Stuart Eizenstat to Carter, April 13, 1978
Telegram from Ambassador Samuel Lewis to the Department of State, October 30,
1978
Lecture #14: George H.W. Bush, the Two-Level Game, and the Road to Madrid (60 pages)
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Daniel Kurtzer et al., The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 19892011 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), pp. 20-35.
Miller, The Much Too Promised Land, pp. 191-234.
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Watch: The Fifty Years War, Israel and the Arabs, Part II, available on YouTube (56:451:36:15 [39 minutes and 30 seconds])
Week 8: Nuclear Weapons I
Lecture #15: Nuclear Weapons and International Politics (99 pages)
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Todd S. Sechser and Matthew Fuhrmann, “Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail,”
International Organization, Vol. 67, No. 1 (2013), pp. 173-195.
Matthew Kroenig, “Nuclear Superiority and the Balance of Resolve: Explaining Nuclear
Crisis Outcomes,” International Organization, Vol. 67, No.1 (2013), pp. 141-171.
Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of
Armageddon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 1-45.
Lecture #16: Case Studies: The Berlin and Cuban Missile Crises (85 pages)
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William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “Debate Over Trump’s Fitness Raises Issue of
Checks on Nuclear Power,” New York Times, August 4, 2016.
Ernest R. May, “America’s Berlin: Heart of the Cold War,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 77, No.
4 (1998), pp. 148-160.
Francis J. Gavin, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Nuclear Weapons: A
Review Essay,” H-Diplo/ISSF Forum, No. 2 (2014), pp. 11-36.
Francis J. Gavin, Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), pp. 57-74.
Marc Trachtenberg, “The Influence of Nuclear Weapons in the Cuban Missile Crisis,”
International Security, Vol. 10, No. 1 (1985), pp. 137-163.
Watch: “The Missiles of October: What the World Didn’t Know” (1992), available on
YouTube (one hour and 26 minutes)
Week 9: Nuclear Weapons II
Lecture #17: Morality and International Politics—Dropping the Atomic Bomb (88 pages)
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Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, pp. 107-135
Robert A. Pape, “Why Japan Surrendered,” International Security, Vol. 18, No. 2 (1993),
pp. 154-201.
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,” Harpers,
No. 194 (1947), pp. 97-107.
Lecture #18: The United States and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (81 pages plus documents)
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PAPERS DUE AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS
Francis J. Gavin, “Strategies of Inhibition: U.S. Grand Strategy, the Nuclear Revolution,
and Nonproliferation,” International Security, Vol. 40, No. 1 (2015), pp. 9-46.
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Gene Gerzhoy and Nicholas Miller, “Donald Trump Thinks More Countries Should Have
Nuclear Weapons—Here’s What the Research Says,” Washington Post Monkey Cage,
April 6, 2016.
Joe Cirincione, “Trump’s Nuclear Insanity,” Politico Magazine, March 30, 2016.
Kenneth N. Waltz, “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb: Nuclear Balancing Would Mean
Stability,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 4 (2012), pp. 2-5.
Matthew Kroenig, “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike is the Least Bad Option,” Foreign
Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 1 (2012), pp. 76-86.
Read the following primary documents especially closely:
Ø 1950 Anglo-French-American Tripartite Declaration
Ø Letter from Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to President John F.
Kennedy, May 12, 1963
Ø Memorandum from Robert Komer of the National Security Council Staff to
Kennedy, July 23, 1963
Ø Message from Komer to National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, March 1,
1965
Ø Telegram from Ambassador Walworth Barbour to the Department of State, June
27, 1967
Ø Memorandum of Telephone Conversation between Secretary of State Dean Rusk
and Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford, November 1, 1968
Ø Memorandum for the Record, June 20, 1969
Week 10: The United States and the Vietnam War
Lecture #19: Explaining Strategic Mistakes—The Path to Vietnam
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Fredrik Logevall, “Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol.
34, No. 1 (2004), pp. 100-112.
Elizabeth Saunders, “War and the Inner Circle: Democratic Elites and the Politics of
Using Force,” Security Studies, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2015), pp. 484-497.
Read the following primary documents especially closely:
Ø Memorandum from Vice President Hubert Humphrey to President Johnson, February
17, 1965
Ø Memorandum from Undersecretary of State George W. Ball to President Johnson,
June 18, 1965
Ø Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation between Ball and Special Assisant to the
President Bill Moyers, June 21, 1965
Ø Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation between Ball and National Security
Adviser McGeorge Bundy, June 26, 1965
Ø Memoranda of Conversation between U.S. officials, July 21, 1965
Lecture #20: FINAL EXAM
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No assigned reading—prepare for exam
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