IR 360 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Cuban Revolutionary Air And Air Defense Force, Brigade 2506, Misgivings
1 May 2018
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Complex Decisionmaking Case Studies
Unit Ten
Crisis Management
The Bay of Pigs 1961
• Fulgencio Battista (American backed dictator of Cuban, overthrown by communists)
• Eisenhower OK with the idea of Battista being overthrown because they didn’t realize it
was a communist insurgency
• Eisenhower must have agreed to the Bay of Pigs invasion
• Brigade 2506
• Create a lodgment which would ignite a Cuban uprising and revolt in the military
• All of this is predicated by a projected by a preemptive strike of B-26’s in Guatemala
BOP: Bureacraticus
• Many untested assumptions
• Many difficulties with how this is supposed to occur
• If any of these turned out wrong it would be a serious problem (turned out all
assumptions were wrong)
• Richard Bissell and Allen Dulles’ deep plan
• Whole situation has a step 2 (other shoe will drop scenario) Dulles wanted to use
this to create the spark for a much larger American invention which he believed to
be inevitable
• American B-26 pilots (strike bombers from WWII) flown by the Alabama National
Guard but it doesn’t happen
• Marines on the USS Essex…how did they get there? If this was only a CIA operation?
• Full invasion force of Marines on Essex…probably part of the deep plan (second
part of the invasion)
BOP: Sociologicus
• Hasty rush to consensus, Kennedy administration comes into office and right away there
is pressure for group coherence (Kennedy himself acquiesces)
• Many mistakes:
• People would believe CIA’s story of Cuban operation (solely a Cuban operation of
Cubans you trained and armed themselves)
• Cuban air force was ineffective, not threat to invasion of ships in Brigade 2506
• Cuban air force cold be destroyed peremptorily
• Belief that 1,400 men would triumph over tens of thousands of Cuban troops
• Moral in exile force was high
• Popular uprising in Cuba to aid them but nothing ever happens like that
Sociologicus Errors
• An Illusion of Invulnerability
• Every country when it thinks its militarily strong thinks anything will go wrong
• Illusion of Unanimity when if fact there were deep misgivings on the part of the president
• Suppression of Personal Doubts especially on the part of the president
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Self-appointed Mindguards- that person who militantly crushes anyone with dissent in a
group
• Docility fostered by Suave Leadership (people were convinced by Kennedy)
• Taboo against Antagonizing New Member's
• When someone came on board everyone tried to make them feel welcome and
there were some new members on EXCOMM
BOP: Psycholgicus
• Cognitive Consistency
• Communists were bad, Cubans have lied to us, neglected the situation too long
and it is time to act
• Defensive Avoidance
• There are some unpleasant truths here but I really don’t want to deal with them
• Don’t want to pay attention to the inconvenient facts
• Wishful Thinking
• All these things are going to go right and all these estimations are going to be
correct
• Analogical Reasoning, i.e. Operation Zapata
• I have seen this before, we’ve tried this stuff before, we know how it works out
• This isn’t the first time we’ve overthrown a small LA country
Cuban Missile Crisis 1962
• Psychologicus
• Cognitive consistency
• Lot of reasons to believe these people behaved in a certain way and so certain
things could be expected (behaving the way they always do)
• Analogical reasoning
• Fourth conflict JFK had with communists and he’s able to adjust accordingly
• Prospect theory
• President goes through options with EXCOMM and picks the one that seems
most reasonable
• Emotional processes on brinkmanship, Ralph K. White’s thoughts on emotion
• Contraction of our thinking skills during crisis situations
• Sense of urgency
Escalating Vietnam
• Kennedy’s special forces war; JFK wanted to fight this war with special forces (reinvents
green berets)
• Tonkin Gulf 1964 (allowed Johnson to send troops in)
• Bombing and 82K troops in 1965 (one year after Tonkin Gulf)
• Gradual escalation
• Tet Offensive 1968 (6 times the amount of troops from 1965)
EV: Bureaucraticus
• Organizational parochialism: great deal of “I’m in charge of this, get your nose out of it”
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find more resources at oneclass.com
• Bureaucratic detachment: everybody steps back and doesn’t get into an argument over
that
• Clifford/McNamara (152)
• Clifford (fixer in Washington at the top) did not want this escalation and tried to
talk Johnson out of it but McNamara was not to be dissuaded
• Opponents were juniors, except for George Ball
EV: Sociologicus
• Stress on group cohesiveness
• Argument was what are they going to say about their previous decisions…are you
gonna walk away from 10,000 dead troops? And then escalate, escalate, escalate
• Effects of commitment to prior group decisions
• Conformity pressures to escalate the war once things had been established
• Unanimity within the group (Tuesday Lunch Group)
• Overlooking risks
EV: Psychologicus
• Value of Analogies:
• Define the nature of the situation
• Assess the stakes
• Provide prescriptions
• Predict chances of success
• Evaluate moral rightness
• Warn about dangers
• Paranoid behavior (Johnson believes the press is out to get him, consistent negative
portrayal of info)
• Analogical reasoning
• Korea experience (US had seen experience of managing north south east asia conflict)
• Munich crisis (west lost its nerve and we cant do that)
• Dien Bien Phu (Ball)
• Failure of nerve and refusal to escalate resulted in defeat so we have to
escalate
Iran Hostage Crisis 1979
• Iran problems 1953 to 1977
• Seizure of embassy 11/4/1979 by Iranian religious hardliners
• Carter Try and See approach- cranks through a variety of options (diplomacy track 2,
military attempt to rescue the hostages, etc)
• Seven options (page 175 in reading)
• Swing and miss 7 times
• Hostage release 1981 after Reagan is inaugurated and President Carter is no longer
president
IHC: Bureaucraticus
• “Where you stand depends on where you sit”
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Bop: bureacraticus: many difficulties with how this is supposed to occur. If this was only a cia operation: full invasion force of marines on essex probably part of the deep plan (second part of the invasion) Bop: sociologicus: hasty rush to consensus, kennedy administration comes into office and right away there is pressure for group coherence (kennedy himself acquiesces, many mistakes, people would believe cia"s story of cuban operation (solely a cuban operation of. Sociologicus errors: an illusion of invulnerability, every country when it thinks its militarily strong thinks anything will go wrong. I have seen this before, we"ve tried this stuff before, we know how it works out: this isn"t the first time we"ve overthrown a small la country. And then escalate, escalate, escalate: effects of commitment to prior group decisions, conformity pressures to escalate the war once things had been established, unanimity within the group (tuesday lunch group, overlooking risks.
