The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)

by Peter T Coleman

  Biased Information Processing: Selective Use and Framing.

  Policymakers and elite decision makers inherently have strong time constraints placed on them by the sheer enormity of pressing political issues they are tasked with addressing. In situations of polythink, decision makers are bombarded with information and intelligence from a variety of individuals and organizations suggesting seemingly innumerable and perhaps even contradictory policy prescriptions. This combination of severe time constraints and near unlimited wells of information can cause decision makers to selectively process information, relying on heuristics and personal predispositions in order to make crucial decisions about, for example, war and national security.

  Although this wealth of information and analysis was indeed voraciously, and less selectively, consumed by both administrations in the later years of the war, the availability of information and intelligence remained a stubborn key problem, particularly as the number of forces in Iraq shrunk from 2009 onward. Political scientist Michael Gordon explains how a key consequence of the military’s departure from Iraq was that the United States had a vastly diminished capacity to monitor violent incidents in a critically strategic country, undermining claims that violence had diminished (Gordon and Trainor, 2012). Indeed, an analysis conducted by Michael Knights at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has shown that Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence has increased in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal:

  Analysis of general incident levels across the country is a better means of tracking these trends, but it is precisely this kind of data that the U.S. government no longer receives due to its military disengagement in Iraq. In effect, the U.S. government is slowly going blind in Iraq due to the military drawdown and the U.S. embassy’s inability to get out and about. According to Washington Institute for Near East Policy metrics derived from ongoing security-liaison relationships in Iraq, there were 561 reported attacks in January 2012, an increase from the 494 in December 2011 and well above the 302 incidents in November. (Knights, 2012)

  Polythink often also results in the development of competing frames to present the same issues, clearly demonstrated by the Bush and Obama administrations’ fundamentally different framing of the Iraq war. It is safe to say that while the Bush administration focused on the potential benefits of nation building in Iraq for the spread of democracy in the Arab world, President Obama introduced a loss aversion framework that portrayed the decision to continue the war as a potential loss on numerous dimensions (e.g., economic, reputation costs, and loss of life).

  However, even within the Obama administration, the decision to end the war was framed in several ways. Instead of talking about a lack of success in establishing democracy in Iraq and about the numerous casualties of the war, or even the growing influence of Iran in Iraq, the administration often framed the decision to exit the war as an economic decision and as a fear of overstretching U.S. commitments abroad. However, often the decision to exit Iraq was also framed as a redoubling of the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan: in order to do a better job in Afghanistan, we must withdraw from Iraq. Thus, both a thematic framing strategy and evaluative framing mechanisms were advanced by the Obama administration, demonstrating the competing worldviews of the decision unit in shaping the withdrawal policy (Geva and Mintz, 1997).

  Lowest-Common-Denominator Decisions and Decision Paralysis.

  Finally, and perhaps most important, polythink can lead to paralysis of the decision-making unit, resulting in a failure to implement policy or the implementation of short-term satisficing policies for which approval can be gained. The postwar planning and withdrawal plans in Iraq are a key example of this phenomenon as the withdrawal plan was tailored to fit lowest-common-denominator compromises that could achieve the broadest coalition of support from the discordant national security, diplomatic, and political teams.

  A key example of this type of satisficing decision making can be seen in the decisions on troop levels and withdrawal pace in the early stage of the Obama administration. In essence, there were two main plans on the table for withdrawing troops from Iraq: the twenty-three-month drawdown plan from the military that Obama had inherited and his sixteen-month campaign promise. The nineteen-month time line for troop withdrawals that was eventually chosen essentially “split the difference between the sixteen months he promised as a candidate and the twenty-three-month timeline favored by his commanders” rather than as the optimal military strategy” (Bruno, 2009). The search for balance between various viewpoints has characterized much of the Obama administration, and this “sometimes awkward attempt to accommodate both sides of the political spectrum, deemed insufficient by critics and infuriating by allies” has also included “his plans to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan” (Parsons and Hennessey, 2012).

  Summary: Managed Polythink in the Iraq Troop Withdrawal

  To sum up, by reviewing these many key symptoms of polythink in the final stages of the Iraq war, we can clearly see in what ways polythink was detrimental to the decision-making process and in what ways President Obama successfully managed to benefit from polythink in the decision-making process.

  And indeed, these many concerns and problems notwithstanding, the decision-making process surrounding the withdrawal succeeded in managing many aspects of these polythink symptoms so that the diversity of policy opinions and viewpoints could contribute to positive decision making. While there was an important and helpful divergence of opinions on the exact details of the time frame of the drawdown (a dynamic we term productive polythink), the decision-making unit was unified in its goal of ending the Iraq war in order to turn its attention to the still-struggling war in Afghanistan. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the “once-ardent opponent of a firm departure date from Iraq,” announced in 2008 that a bridge had been crossed” and the “debate in Iraq was no longer over when to leave, but rather how to do this in a responsible way” (Bruno, 2009).

  CONCLUSION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

  The Iraq war has been the most divisive US military conflict since the Vietnam War. With an estimated 110,991 to 121,182 Iraqis (Iraq Body Count, 2013) and 4,485 Americans killed (News Research Center Iraq War Casualties Database, 2009), and at a cost of more than $800 billion (an astounding 3,000 dollars per second) as of 2011 (Francis, 2011), the costs of this conflict in blood and treasure have been immense. They underscore the critical importance of understanding and optimizing foreign policy decision-making processes before, during, and after the conflict.

  This chapter analyzed three such decision-making processes in Iraq: the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, the surge of 2007, and the decision to end the war in 2011–2012. The chapter demonstrates the ways in which these decisions characterized a dynamic (and often suboptimal) group decision-making process ranging from groupthink in the decision to invade Iraq, to the con-div balanced decision on the surge, to the polythink decision on exiting the war.

  The concept of polythink is also relevant to the current developments in Iraq. Due to the multireligious, multiethnic makeup of Iraq and competition among rival groups for power, a newly elected Iraqi government is likely to exhibit more symptoms of polythink than of groupthink. The concept of polythink has broad theoretical and policy applications for many countries and can serve, with further development, as a useful tool to help explain and predict conflict processes and outcomes.

  Remedies to Polythink

  The key to overcoming polythink and groupthink lies in the concept of the decision unit. Decisions are shaped and influenced by the composition of the decision unit. As such, executives in business, politics, public policy, foreign policy, national security decision making, and other domains need to carefully compose the decision unit. Among the recommendations we provide is to focus on the decision unit architecture or engineering in forming advisory units to the president and other executives. In other words, policymakers should try to think in advance of the policies and solutions they want to achieve and build the decision unit accord
ingly, preferably in a con-div mode, where there are divergent perspectives among group members but a general consensus on policy goals and overall worldviews. One example of decision unit engineering can be found in the deliberate construction of President Obama’s second-term team. The advisory group of this second Obama administration seems to be more unified in its worldviews and conception and limitation of American military power than the more diverse “team of rivals” group in Obama’s first term (Ignatius, 2013). Many analysts view this as a deliberate move on Obama’s part, a result of the discord he faced in his first term in office among his cabinet members. This is likely to have implications for U.S. foreign policy and national security decisions.

  Another method of countering unbalanced decision-making units is through the use of analytical tools including a decision support system such as the decision board system (Mintz et al., 1997). The use of an objective, computerized system may be one way of assisting the president to avoid polythink and groupthink in his decision unit for the following reasons:

  It displays a wide range of policy alternatives, including those that the president may not ultimately use and policy alternatives that can be viewed as representing new ideas.

  It lists a large set of criteria for selecting the right policy for the president. The human mind cannot comprehend and calculate so many dimensions of a decision without a computerized system that aids policymakers in formulating their decisions.

  It enables the president and his advisors to do if-then analysis, based on various assumptions and scenarios.

  It leads to a careful evaluation of alternatives and dimensions in a comprehensive and systematic way, thus overcoming many of the biases in information processing, group dynamics, and individual decision making. It can also assist policymakers in organizing alternatives in a clearer, more controlled manner.

  For example, the use of a decision support system for President Obama on the Iran nuclear issue may help the president determine policy options even in the dynamic and chaotic environment of the Middle East.

  Polythink, Groupthink, and the Con-Div Dynamic in Conflict Management Processes

  When applied to conflict management and conflict resolution, one can expect polythink, groupthink, and the con-div processes to affect conflict initiation decisions, conflict escalation or deescalation decisions, and conflict termination decisions as a function of the group decision-making composition and dynamic. For example, the neo-con group that dominated the Bush administration in the lead-up to the Iraq war may have made very different policy choices than a more diverse group would have made. The challenge for the policymaker is to build a decision unit that reflects various opinions in a balanced way. In cases of polythink in an advisory group, the policymaker should strive to leverage the plurality of inputs into a successful and balanced conflict management and resolution decision.

  We have focused on the effect of polythink on conflict management and resolution. Our analysis has several policy implications:

  The composition of the decision unit making war and peace decisions and the group dynamic affects the ultimate choice.

  Decision units can exhibit groupthink, polythink and various con-div configurations.

  Whereas sunk costs affect most national security and foreign policy decision, leaders should avoid falling into a path-dependence trap that is likely to lead them to decisions that are then difficult to reverse. Many foreign policy conflicts are a result of following such path-dependence processes.

  Polythink can be beneficial to leaders who can successfully manage and use the plurality of views as important input into decision making. It can even unfreeze the close-mindedness of group members.

  Groupthink can lead to defective, shortsighted decisions, as evident by the problematic planning of postwar Iraq in the administration. Another characteristic of groupthink that was evident in the decision to enter the war was the failure to consider the complexity of the adversary and its multifaceted composition, including tribal and religious factions.

  Polythink can have a negative effect on long-term planning in war and in peace, as conflicting opinions within the decision unit and advisory group lead to some satisficing incremental decisions rather than to carefully planned long-term objectives. This can impede long-term policy planning and policy implementation.

  We showed that the polythink, groupthink, and con-div processes have wide-ranging implications for war initiation decisions, escalation, and termination decisions. The composition of the decision unit making war and peace decisions and the group dynamics within this unit affect the choices it makes. Understanding these dynamics is key to understanding, predicting, and improving national security and foreign policy decisions.

  Notes

  1. Consider, for example, the effect of polythink, groupthink, and con-div on budgetary decisions at the local, state, or federal level. It is clear that such group processes affect the ultimate choice and allocation and distribution of resources, for example, to national security versus social programs—what is known as the guns-and-butter dilemma in budgeting.

  2. Indeed, there has been much research on the important role of higher levels of integrative complexity (an iterative process of divergent and convergent thinking) on constructive decision making by political leaders (see Suedfeld, Tetlock, and Ramirez, 1977). In the War on Terrorism project, Suedfeld and colleagues expand on previous work (see Suedfeld and Leighton, 2002) seeking to analyze changes in the integrative complexity of world leaders prior to 9/11 and up until the end of the Iraq war. Specifically, the authors examined the integrative complexity of world leaders during the war on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the war on the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and U.S leaders during the broader War on Terrorism.

  3. This group conflict is perhaps best represented in the high turnover of staff in the Obama administration. By the end of Obama’s third year in office, only one of the top eight officials in the government’s foreign policy apparatus was in the same job as at the start of the administration: Hillary Clinton (Mann, 2012).

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