The Process of Priority Formulation

How are foreign policy objectives and priorities formulated by decision makers in the U.S. government? Dan Haendel answers this question by examining the decision-making process during the Indo-Pakistani War, focusing on the behavior of government institutions and individuals as they attempted to cope with the events of 1971. After a discussion of post-World War II U.S. foreign policy in South Asia, the area's importance to the United States during the Cold War, and the internal crisis in Pakistan leading up to its war with India, the author considers the U.S. government's response to the Indo-Pakistani clash. He discusses the organizational structure for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, the relative importance of the various governmental decision-making units, and the impact of an individual such as Kissinger within the organization. Using, as his basic source, information gathered in interviews with the participants, he provides an account of deliberations with the U.S. government. This work introduces to the field of foreign policy analysis the concept of priority formulation, Examining the argument that a decision maker establishes a subjective and personal scale, the author points out that beliefs and values are likely to determine the approach used by the decision maker in coping with complex stimuli and in structuring problems.