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ear? What factors or strategies enable a powerful advisor to imprint their thoughts on a
crisis decision? And further, what explains a failed advisory attempt?
The paper continues in three parts. First, I present a brief theoretical justification
and presentation concerning the impact of advisors. This first section argues advisors can
draw from four bases of power to persuade leaders. Importantly, this explication allows
the construction of three hypothetical dimensions for advisory success. The second
section presents two case studies designed to explore the efficacy of these dimensions in
the context of two crises. The final section provides directions for further research.
ADVISORY INFLUENCE
Selecting an appropriate foreign policy to a crisis is more than a knee-jerk
reaction to intentions, capabilities, or signals. Domestic and international pressures
complicate the task immensely, often resulting in a ‘hedging strategy.’ As Halperin
notes, "Because many issues come at him at once and from many different directions
with many different pressures involved . . . behavior is characterized, perhaps to a
surprising extent, by . . . uncommitted thinking. He will often respond at any one time to
whichever pressures are momentarily strongest, whether they come from particular
elements in the bureaucracy, from foreign governments, or from his own domestic
political concerns" (1974, 82). For any crisis, leaders attempt to adjudicate complex
political tradeoffs while bombarded with a number of briefings and memos. Advisors
play an important role in easing these demands by providing information to a leader who
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Max Boot, for example, argues the President is a neo-conservative at heart. Advisors surrounding the
Convention