Essence of Decision

Cuban Missile Crisis

US had already attempted to overthrow Castro the year before. Also had Guantanamo Bay military
base in Cuba. Therefore from Cuban perspective they were very much under threat → trying to
strengthen relationship to USSR to help them out. Therefore this move can be seen as Castro
attempting to prevent another US invasion by putting nuclear missiles on Cuba. US obviously freak
out about nuclear missiles 90 miles away from US.

‘Essence of Decision Making’ – still very important today

Democratic Peace Theory – claim that democracies do not go to war with each other

Rational Actor Model

Organisations

Competitive Bureucratic Model

Individual Level

Focus on rational actor model. Assume that decision makers are rational and make consistent logical
decisions and arguments.

If we take away Bay of Pigs 1961 can you understand Castro’s actions in 1962? No. Castro’s decisions
only become rational when the historical context is understood. Make decisions based on context
and historical lens. You will always have a history, rather than purely objective and logical.

Rational actor presumes that decision makers always pick the best option available

Organisational Behaviour Approach

Organisations create standard operating procedures.

They allow quick actions from organisations. But are inflexible and don’t allow much creativity.
Therefore can prevent decision makers from implementing ideas above the organisation
Bureaucratic Politics Approach

Putting your own survival at top of list of priorities. For whatever organisation and thing that they
are arguing for. What you are arguing depends on where you are since you are within a bureaucracy
and are responsible for certain things.

Competition between people at head of different bureaucracies

Means that the actual outcome is often different from what any person or group intended or
wanted.

Cuban Missile Crisis Timeline

14/10/62 - No overflights over Cuba for a few months. Restart them and find out that there are
these nuclear missiles launchers. Therefore indicates that nuclear missiles are either there or will be
soon.

13 days of crisis

Rational Actor Model

Requires problem recognition and definition. –

Goal selection – choose the most preferred outcome.

Evaluation and ranking of options available to achieve such an outcome. Including examining all
consequences of each option

Decision maker chooses the option that will obtain the outcome required with the least amount of
cost.

Kennedy convenes Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOM). All the most
important people. They go through everything.

Identify goals. Is it removing the missiles? Retaliation against Cuba. Maintaining balance of power
that favours USA.

Options:

 Do nothing
 Diplomatic Pressure
 Warn Castro that he is insane and the danger that is with it
 Invade Cuba (wasn’t successful the first time so probably not)
 Air strike (initially the most favoured option within EXCOM. Bomb the missiles to prevent
their use. As well as possibly over Havana to teach Cuba a lesson)
 Blockade Cuba (far less conflict heavy option)

Military had a big sway at the beginning. Pushing for a surgical strike to get rid of the missile
problem. But people like Robert Kennedy (Attorney General & brother of JFK) and Robert McNamara
(Secretary of Defence) were pusxhing calming it down. Pushed for blockade, called a quarantine to
make it seem less conflict. Far enough out that Cuba don’t feel endangered whilst not far enough
out to give USSR time to react. Put off potential conflict for a while
Played to US strengths. USSR couldn’t compete in Naval power in the area.

Problems with Rational Actor Model

 Bounded Rationality
 We often make decisions without the full amount of information needed to make purely
objective logical decision. Therefore rational decisions based on bad info in fact seem
irrational
 Group Think and irrational actors in a room – There were 2 main groups in EXCOM pushing
both ways. If you are influential and good at arguing then you can create a ‘group think’
making people think your way. People then don’t want to speak out against the group
position
 Time – under pressure people are unlikely to look rationally through every single option.
Instead will likely lean on the already set out plans and easy solutions. Military pulled out
this plan that they already had drawn up.
o Satisficing – choosing the first available option that meets minimum requirements.
Not examining all alternatives. Options are limited bc don’t have time to actually go
through all the possibilities.

JFK thought that missiles in Turkey had been removed. 1 st day JFK said “Why does he put these in
there, though? … It’s just as if we suddenly began to put a major number of MRBMs [medium-range
ballistic missiles] in Turkey. Now that’d be goddamned dangerous, I would think.” Then gets told by
McGeorge Bundy (National Security Adviser) that the USA did in fact have them there.

JFK thinks that Khruschev’s decision is irrational. Bc he didn’t have the facts in his head. Makes the
Cuba missile decision seem more rational. Lack of info and not remembering stuff

Organizational Processes

Decisions are often made according to routines and SOPs.

CIA started to suspect stuff was happening –USSR changed the watermark on the ships to make it
not look like they were carrying heavy stuff. CIA had informants and photos making them suspicious.
Initially the KGB were very clever with it to get the rockets there but then just set them up in
standard procedures which made the CIA realise what was there. Then start camouflaging them
after they were spotted.

Another SOP was to have surface-to-air missiles there. Could’ve shot down a U2 that flew over
16/10. SOP at the time was only fire if attacked → didn’t shoot at the U2

US also used SOPs –

 EXCOM ask USAF to show plans. Air Force comes back with a massive operation rather than
surgical strike. Turns out that they took out their plans, which were based on knocking out
Cuba. Because plans were designed to destroy all Cuban defences rather than a small
surgical strike. That was the only plan they had. Would’ve taken a large number of planes
and time whereas JFK wanted a quick surgical strike if USAF was to be used. Already came up
with blueprints rather than new plans (as Rational Actor Model would suggest)
 U2 spy planes were flying over Soviet Airspace (27/10). Just observing stuff but because US
was at DEFCON 2 it was armed with nuclear warheads
  26/10 – US launched an ICBM from California into the Pacific. Simply a scheduled test but it
was done at very bad time. Simple a SOP that they need to test the missile at that time.
Other missiles in the base were nuclear armed so Soviets could’ve easily seen that as
launching nuclear missiles.
 28/10 – SOP to test alertness of military base. Demo run of pretend nuclear missile attack.
Everyone thought that there was actually Cuba attacking because it WAS THE FUCKING
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS. (The US are so dumb)

Bureaucratic Politics

Normally predict that the institutions and departments that have the greatest resources and
expertise will win out or at least have a large chance of winning. (E.g. military having resources you
need and therefore need to listen to them as they are implementing it. They have a great influence
due to expertise). May also depend on persuasiveness (e.g. Robert Kennedy and Robert McNamara
bc were very good at arguing + personal Kennedy connection.) Led to both options being on the
table

EXCOM had a lot of different departments there and were all reflecting their own positoons in the
deciisons they pushed.

USAF wanted to show off abilities of Air Force so recommended an air strike. Joint Chiefs of Staffs
wanted air strike and invasion.

People in the military tend to think about military solutions. Rather than non-conflictual options.

If they do that then that can lead to more funding later down the line. So people are fighting for
their departments and wanting to have bureaucratic hell. Wanting to show themselves as
indispensable.

Pro-blockade side – believed it played to their skills. Good at negotiating and political deicion making
so wanted to have time to negotiate

Other stuff

 Kennedy ordered that turkey missiles shouldn’t be fired even if attacked. Joint Chiefs of
Staffs ignored that and didn’t send the order. Shows power of bureaucracy politics
 John McCone (CIA Director) said that the presence of Surface to Air Missiles implied nuclear
weapons might be going to Cuba. Wanted U2 flights to spy on Cuba to find out what was
happening. But because of the previous crisis Dean Rusk (Secretary of State) wanted
everything to calm down, including not having spy flights for a month (September)
 27/10 – Cuba acted independently of USSR and fired and hit U2 plane.

Shows that the departments don’t really act with purely rationality. Acted on their own interest and
even independently.