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is often too constrained by time and social pressures to fully examine all available
information. Walt Rostow describes the situation:
“It’s not generally realized that the president steps off into the dark with almost every
decision. Therefore, the mobilization of this information – because the gap may be
between what he ought to know and what he knows – is very moving, and it’s the biggest
job faced by the national security advisor. And it underlines the difference between
responsibility, which goes with the decision making, black as the future may look, and
advice. Advice is cheap. The president has to live with the consequences of his
decisions, whatever the information on which he must act” (“A Forum on the Role of the
National Security Advisor”, April 12, 2001).
Advisors fill a crucial role by acting as information shortcuts, providing viewpoints and
critiques to aid the decision making process.
Unfortunately, ambiguity and uncertainty (concerning the strategic situation)
create different prescriptions among these many experts. As Larson argues “Uncertainty
means that reasonable people may differ. When the president’s advisors offer conflicting
diagnoses of the interests at stake and recommendations for action, the president . . . may
then have to use his own judgment in deciding whose advice to accept” (2003, 310). The
foreign policy process begins to look less like a careful, reasoned procedure, and more
like a bargaining game between advisors.
At its core, decision-making is a process of give and take, where advisors present
opinions concerning the available options, and decision makers amend their preferences
accordingly. Because uncertainty is psychologically unsettling, decision makers strive to
construct a concretized picture of the strategic situation in their head. Decision-making is
not only the careful weighting of different policies and their associated utilities but also
the process of minimizing doubt.
President had little influence on the decision, and instead only bolstered the President’s worldview.
Convention