We are used to seeing domestic policy debates played out as part of the normal push-and-shove of the legislative process. A good example is the seemingly endless and very public health care policy debate. But we are less used to seeing Executive Branch foreign-policy reviews played out practically in the open, as with the ongoing Afghan policy review.
Certainly, this whole process is sharply different from the “I’m the decider” approach of George W. Bush.
Our suggestion last December, in a RealClearWorld comment, was that Obama would follow the “multiple advocacy” model of presidential decision-making. In it, the president encourages active policy debate and vigorous advocacy of alternative views, and ultimately chooses one or creates a synthesis from among the competing views.
While the approach itself is not unique (President Kennedy also favored it), its openness to media and punditry alike is unusual – at least for a subject so sensitive. The Western response to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union we now know were guided by similar processes of multiple advocacy – but they were played out behind closed doors.
Though nowhere near as central to world order as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the strategic reassessment of the U.S. role in Afghanistan has been remarkably well covered in the media.
Read the entire article in REAL CLEAR WORLD