The dynamic between expertise and public opinion has proven to be cause major tensions in American foreign affairs. Both George Kennan and Robert McNamara offer viewpoints that both affirms and alters the presumption that expertise is essential in policy making within the U.S. legislative branch. Kennan argues for the necessity of expertise after witnessing the affect American public opinion has on policy making throughout WWII and the early Cold War. McNamara is an expert and provides insight into the pro’s and con’s of having such experts be the main foreign policy makers with reference to his experience throughout the Vietnam War. What is clear after reviewing both perspectives is that although having expertise within the legislative branch is helpful, it needs to be implemented in away where the excesses of the expertise input is mitigated by someone who knows politics as well as having the academic understanding to translate the ideas of said experts. George Kennan’s American Diplomacy addresses the issue of public opinion in regard to its relation to U.S.
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foreign policy making. Kennan identifies public opinion to be a problem that hinders policy makers in the U.S. from making effective policy internationally. “[…] A good deal of trouble seems to have stemmed from the extent to which the executive has felt itself beholden to short-term trends of public opinion in the country and from what we might call the erratic and subjective nature of public reaction to foreign policy.” (Kennan 99) There is a problem behind the connection between public opinion and legislative moral approach to foreign policy.
U.S. Policy of containment was idealized to be the prevention of communism from spreading through the use of counterforce. America over exaggerated the threat of communism to the public because they did not want the communism influence to spread. The concern was that the government needed the public’s approval enough to the extent that they were prepared to lie about the severity of the problem. Additionally the public’s response was so aggressive against all things communism under McCarthyism, that state action became more rash in attempts to appease the public. In an effort to combat the tensions of public opinion Kennan proposed the implementation of experts in the legislative branch of the government who would be in charge of creating foreign policy. I firmly believe that we could make much more effective use of the principle of professionalism in the conduct of foreign policy; […] develop a corps of professional officers superior to anything that has ever existed in this field; and that by treating these men with respect and drawing on their insight and experience, we could help ourselves considerably. (Kennan 100) Kennan argues that international relations should be an academic field. Under the premise of Global Meliorism there was more of a push for expertise and their involvement in government. After viewing the manner is which the public moved governmental action Kennan feared that it could in the future spurred on potentially irrational government actions into a more terrible war. Kennan stresses the importance for government to be calm and collected in procedure, which he argues would be best realized through the use of experts in the political field. The experts, who became known as the ‘Harvard’s,’ came into the U.S political picture during John F. Kennedy’s presidency. Kennedy was an academic himself and had no difficult taking the insight of the Harvard’s and implementing said insight into political practice. Once Kennedy passed away Lyndon B. Johnson took over as precedency and inherited the Harvard’s. Johnson was not an academic and it negatively affected the way he was able to use and interact with the input of the Harvard’s, one of whom was Robert McNamara. Robert McNamara’s strength was in systems analysis. He held that application of rational thought was an essential successful military planning. His more memorable role in U.S. foreign policy making was his contribution to the Vietnam War. In Retrospect, McNamara judges the actions taken in Vietnam by the Harvard’s as failures on several different points on pages 321 through 323. Theses points were listed as follows: The Harvard’s misjudged the geopolitical intentions of the North Vietnamese and exaggerated potential dangers they
foreign policy making. Kennan identifies public opinion to be a problem that hinders policy makers in the U.S. from making effective policy internationally. “[…] A good deal of trouble seems to have stemmed from the extent to which the executive has felt itself beholden to short-term trends of public opinion in the country and from what we might call the erratic and subjective nature of public reaction to foreign policy.” (Kennan 99) There is a problem behind the connection between public opinion and legislative moral approach to foreign policy.
U.S. Policy of containment was idealized to be the prevention of communism from spreading through the use of counterforce. America over exaggerated the threat of communism to the public because they did not want the communism influence to spread. The concern was that the government needed the public’s approval enough to the extent that they were prepared to lie about the severity of the problem. Additionally the public’s response was so aggressive against all things communism under McCarthyism, that state action became more rash in attempts to appease the public. In an effort to combat the tensions of public opinion Kennan proposed the implementation of experts in the legislative branch of the government who would be in charge of creating foreign policy. I firmly believe that we could make much more effective use of the principle of professionalism in the conduct of foreign policy; […] develop a corps of professional officers superior to anything that has ever existed in this field; and that by treating these men with respect and drawing on their insight and experience, we could help ourselves considerably. (Kennan 100) Kennan argues that international relations should be an academic field. Under the premise of Global Meliorism there was more of a push for expertise and their involvement in government. After viewing the manner is which the public moved governmental action Kennan feared that it could in the future spurred on potentially irrational government actions into a more terrible war. Kennan stresses the importance for government to be calm and collected in procedure, which he argues would be best realized through the use of experts in the political field. The experts, who became known as the ‘Harvard’s,’ came into the U.S political picture during John F. Kennedy’s presidency. Kennedy was an academic himself and had no difficult taking the insight of the Harvard’s and implementing said insight into political practice. Once Kennedy passed away Lyndon B. Johnson took over as precedency and inherited the Harvard’s. Johnson was not an academic and it negatively affected the way he was able to use and interact with the input of the Harvard’s, one of whom was Robert McNamara. Robert McNamara’s strength was in systems analysis. He held that application of rational thought was an essential successful military planning. His more memorable role in U.S. foreign policy making was his contribution to the Vietnam War. In Retrospect, McNamara judges the actions taken in Vietnam by the Harvard’s as failures on several different points on pages 321 through 323. Theses points were listed as follows: The Harvard’s misjudged the geopolitical intentions of the North Vietnamese and exaggerated potential dangers they