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Pandora's Trap
Presidential Decision Making and Blame Avoidance in Vietnam and Iraq
Authors:
Publisher:
2011
Summary
How important is presidential personality and leadership style in foreign policy decisions? To answer this question, Thomas Preston takes readers inside the Bush administration's decision-making process and use of intelligence to better understand how administration officials justified the Iraq War—and how they sought to avoid blame for the consequences of their actions. Based on extensive interviews with key Bush administration officials, Preston offers students of American foreign policy, presidential decision making, the dynamics of blame avoidance, and future practitioners with an in depth examination of how presidential personality and leadership style impacted Bush's central foreign policy failure. In addition, Preston looks critically at the oft-cited comparisons of Iraq to Lyndon Johnson's leadership during the Vietnam War, exploring where the analogy fits and a number of important differences. He shows how both presidents' styles exacerbated their managerial weaknesses in these cases and the limits of blame avoidance strategies. Importantly, the book provides a cautionary tale for future leaders to consider more carefully the long-term consequences of satisfying their short term policy desires by lifting the lid to any new Pandora's trap.
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Bibliographic data
Copyright year
2011
ISBN-Print
978-0-7425-6263-9
ISBN-Online
978-1-4422-1215-2
Publisher
Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language
English
Pages
264
Product type
Book Titles
Table of contents
ChapterPages
Contents No access
Preface No access
Acknowledgments No access
Chapter 01. Introduction No access Pages 1 - 10
Chapter 02. A Tale of Two Texans: The Leadership Styles of George W. Bush and Lyndon Johnson No access Pages 11 - 68
Chapter 03. The Politics of Blame Avoidance: Presidential Strategies for Surviving the Washington “Blame Game” No access Pages 69 - 104
Chapter 04. Opening Pandora’s Box: Blame Avoidance, 9/11, and the Push for War with Iraq No access Pages 105 - 148
Chapter 05. Opening Pandora’s Box: Blame Avoidance during the Iraq War No access Pages 149 - 192
Chapter 06. Bush and Iraq: Revisiting the Vietnam Analogy No access Pages 193 - 228
