Doctoral thesis

Faculty of Social Studies

Department of International Relations and European Studies

DOCTORAL THESIS

Brno 2013 Aaron T. Walter

MASARYK UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Social Studies

Department of International Relations and European Studies

Aaron T. Walter

American Foreign Policy: Special And Strategic Relations with Israel

(1980-2000)

Doctoral Thesis

Supervisor: prof. PhDr. Břetislav Dančák, Ph.D.

Brno 2013

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

In Brno, 31.8.2013 Aaron T. Walter

1.2 Research Question…………………………………………………………….9

1.3 Terms…………………………………………………………………………...10

1.4 Time and space………………………………………………………………..15

1.5 Literature Review……………………………………………………………...16

1.6 Theory & Methodology………………………………………………………..21

2.1. Neoclassical Realism and United States foreign policy…………………...38

2.2. Theoretical construction……………………………………………………….57

2.3. Research Foundations: Historical Perspective……………………………..63

Constraints: Bureaucratic and political……………………………………………..99

Constraints: Bureaucratic and political……………………………………………123

Constraints: Bureaucratic and political……………………………………………137

In this research, there is a concentrated specific time period and area. Discussed are the relations between Israel and the United States, two countries who have had a bond for years, which strongly determined the foreign policy of the United States towards the Middle East. This relationship has been illustrated by various kinds of support, such as military and financial help as well as political interaction. Moreover, concerning the time period, I have chosen to focus on the administrations of two Republicans and one Democrat.

1.5. Literature review

Literature on the nature of foreign policy of the United States, including its challenges offered in broad context Hans Morgenthau (1985) Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, Laura Neack, Jeanne A.K. Hay & Patrick J. Haney (eds). (1995) Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in Its Second Generation as well as Ken Booth & Steve Smith (1995) International Relations Theory Today and Miroslav Nincic (1992) Democracy and Foreign Policy: the Fallacy of Political Realism were most valuable. Explaining U.S. foreign policy during and immediately after the Cold War within the context of superpower collaboration and confrontation were Henry Kissinger (1977) American Foreign Policy, J. Dumbrell (1997) American Foreign Policy: Carter to Clinton, James Dougherty and Robert Pfaltzgraff (1986) American Foreign Policy: FDR to Reagan, R.J. McMahaon ‘Making Sense of American Foreign Policy During the Reagan Years’, Diplomatic History, 1995, vol.19 and R.A. Melanson (1996) American Foreign Policy since the Vietnam War: The Search for Consensus form Nixon to Clinton and finally Michal Beschloss & Strob Talbot (1993) At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War proved most helpful.

Literature on the United States and the Middle East offering broad explanation of American foreign policy in the region since 1945 was found in Henry Kissinger (1979) The White House Years, Walter Isaacson (1982) Kissinger: A Biography, W. Stivers (1986) America’s Confrontation with Revolutionary Change in the Middle East and Jimmy Carter (1982) Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, William Quandt (1986) Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics and Quandt (1993) Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Isreali Conflict since 1967.

Specific literature does exist on this topic though not extensive. Abraham Ben-Zvi (1993) discusses the origins of the American-Israeli Alliance beginning with American presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy (1996) John F. Kennedy’s first military cooperation with the State of Israel and (2002) specifically the limits of this special relationship. Warren Bass (2003) also discusses the US-Israeli Alliance though he does not offer anything significantly new not already uncovered by Ben-Zvi. It is Ben-Zvi (1993) again who looks at the limits of the American and Israeli relationship, while David Schoenbaum (1993) looks at the two countries special liaison throughout history. And William Quandt’s historical overview of the special relations between the U.S. and Israel on Israeli-Palestinian peace process is investigated in William B. Quandt Peace Process, American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1967. Nd. A further review can be read in Hussein Agha and Robert Malley. “Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors,” The New York Review of Books, Volume 48, Number 13, August 13, 2001 where Agha and Malley make it clear that the inherent contradictions in the various roles that the United States had taken made it impossible for it to act effectively to promote a genuine peace deal. And looking at various constraints upon presidential decisions, Steven Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America’s Middle East Policy, from Truman to Reagan Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985 writing about Presidential decision-making, argues that: Domestic politics affects the timing and handling of [Presidential] decisions [regarding Israel] more than their actual content. Since the nexus of foreign policymaking is in the Executive Branch, not the Congress, so the assumption that contributions to Congressional campaigns shapes policies around crucial decisions around the Israeli- Palestinian peace process seems highly problematic. Congress acts mostly as an intermediary filtering public opinion and transmitting it to the decision-making bodies in the Executive Branch.

There are several government documents that may be relied upon, B.W. Jentleson & T.G. Paterson (eds.)(1997) Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign Relations, 4 volumes, from the U.S. Government. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-1957, V.16, Suez Crisis (1990), U.S. Government. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, V.13, Arab-Israeli Dispute; United Arab Republic; North Africa (1992), and U.S. Government. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-68, V.18, Arab-Israeli Dispute (2000), while the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States Ronald Reagan, 1982, Book 2: July 3 to December 31, 1982; Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States George H.W. Bush, 1989, Book 1. United States Government Printing, U.S. National Archives have also used. Finally, ready access to primary sources found Foreign Relations of the United States¹⁴ containing published US diplomatic documents. Furthermore, the presidential libraries of Ronald Reagan¹⁵, George Bush¹⁶, and Bill Clinton¹⁷ provide detailed information on the Presidential administrations under review in this research with copious primary source material. While not a government website, the archival documents made available through the Jewish Virtual Library¹⁸ provided amble secondary source material.

The purpose on my research here on the topic of US-Israeli special relations is to be more focused on the US administrations. Such a narrow focus, it is believed, will indicated and support the working hypothesis that while the American presidents confirmed the special nature of their relationship with Israel, it was only President Clinton who experienced it, yet all three administrations reaffirm the central tenant of NCR scholarship.

Literature on the topic of strategic relationship does exist. Much of it is extremely thorough. In Ben-Zvi¹⁹ argues that both American presidents invested in Israel's growing strength and political stability, evolving with the increasing significance of the Middle East on the world stage. Ben-Zvi also traces the process of deterrence and coercion used by both presidents to transform Israel into a strategic asset for the United States. There is the work by Melman and Raviv²⁰ showcasing thorough and intricate work of investigation and research, offering a new level of understanding of America's most intense international alliance, as does Organsky.²¹

Some notable articles have appeared in periodicals and academic journals in the last few decades on this topic. Most notable is Puschel²² who investigates the a JCSS study²³ on the American-Israeli strategic relationship since 1967 and Feldman²⁴ who discusses the future of U.S.-Israeli relations as does Malka²⁵ writing from the arresting title: “Crossroads: the future of the U.S.-Israeli strategic partnership”. The research has been assisted by additional literature that may be used as foundational support as the U.S. Army War College²⁶ looking at the strategic lessons from Middle East crisis and the U.S.-Israeli connection respectfully.

However, there has not been enough research conducted utilizing Rational Choice theory and Cognitive approach created by Alex Mintz within neoclassical to answer the question of what kind of relationship did the U.S. have with Israel under Republican and Democrat presidents and discover if any possible variations there might be. Therefore, the intent is to contrast the approach taken by the Reagan Administration and the George Bush²⁷ Administration. Both ideologically the same, but while Reagan had fairly good relations with his Israeli counterpart, George Bush had a difficult almost confrontational relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Shamir; while, the Clinton Administration had better relations with the Rabin (1992-1995) and Barak governments (1999-2000) than the Netanyahu government (1996-1998).

1.6. Theory & Methodology

After careful review of the realism paradigm, neoclassical realism is most suitable for the explanation of the subject matter. Baylis, et.al.²⁸ offer the basic definition of this form of realism as that of the actions of a state in the international system being explained by systemic variables, examples being the distribution of power capabilities among states or cognitive variables such as the perception and misperception of systemic pressures, other states' intentions, or threats with domestic variables then, namely state institutions, elites, and societal actors affecting the power and freedom of action of the decision-makers in foreign policy.

In research for this topic, the neorealist concept of balance of power is affirmed, but with the additional insight into state leaders’ inability or ability to mobilize domestic support which results in either an underexpansion or underbalanced behavior leading to imbalances within the international system. During the 1990s, theorists began to investigate how foreign policy was shaped by international power. What was the link between the dependent variable and the independent variable, all the while with considerable influence by domestic politics or an intervening variable? From seeking an explanation, neoclassical realism (NCR) was born.

This dissertation will utilize the basic theoretical architecture of neoclassical realism: Distribution of power in the international system (independent variable) Domestic perception of the system and/or domestic incentives (intervening variable)²⁹ and foreign policy decision (dependent variable). With the introduction of an intervening variable, NCR can help explain the U.S. grand strategy within an unchanging systemic environment, and observe unit change that in turn may drive strategic adjustment as shifts occur within the state or international scene.³⁰ To this end, institutional power, personnel, or popularity of ideas may precipitate changes, “in goals or encourage reassessment of the means by which to pursue them. Such shifts may be driven from the bottom up, by electoral results or by the use of bureaucratic leverage; or from the top down, in the form of the executive power of patronage and final decision.”³¹

Since the attention of my research is on the geographical area of the Middle East, security issues need to be addressed. To this, defensive realism is employed to explain the actions of both actors in question since it is believed that domestic politics can influence a state’s foreign policy. And since security for Israel and the United States are mutually important to national interests due to the especially highly constrained international environment, meaning, external threats to national interests and values are particularly high.³² Waltz himself admits, “in the absence of counterweights, a country’s internal impulses prevail”.³³ The neoclassical realist position takes that admission further, arguing that variables at the unit-level – in the ideas and perceptions of actors within the state – play a “pivotal” role in the selection of a grand strategy.³⁴

Another approach utilized in my work is that of decision-making (DM) theory. DM theory directs attention not to states but seeks to highlight the behavior of the specific human decision makers who actually shape governmental policy. Snyder, Bruck and Sapin (1963)³⁵ look at the state as the official decision maker, but narrowing the subject of investigation however, political analysis may become more precise and more amenable to systematic analysis. So there is within political realism in foreign policy occurrences outside national borders according to policymakers while the overarch umbrella is realism, it is those politicians behavior and personality that influence decisions as well and play a role in the foreign relations. For example, the political realism encountered by President Clinton in 1994 between PLO Chairman Yasar Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was different five years later when Clinton tried to mediate between Arafat and Ehud Barak.

Since the focus of NCR is on foreign policy, and all three levels of analysis are present: international, the state, and the individual; this theory best supports the argumentation of the kind of foreign policy decisions American presidents have made towards Israel.

Like structural realism, though, NCR attributes ultimate causal power to the international level and seeks to build real theories, similar to structural realism. Neoclassical realism is different because it defines foreign policy, not recurring patterns of behavior, as its dependent variable, thereby sharing the classical goal of focusing on the state and its relationship to society, but aspiring to "greater methodological sophistication"³⁶ than its classical predecessors.

Neoclassical realism serves as a bridge to the classical literature, namely with insights into state motives and changes herein. While classical realists considered fear, honor, and interest, or power, self-interest, and prestige; even status quo and revisionism as the real building blocs of understanding state motives³⁷ However, this assumes a level of rationalism; a degree of rationalist certitude birthing the belief that politics can be rationally controlled; while human nature involves other dimensions, biology and spirituality, as Morgenthau labeled them, and to understand power politics, what really motivates concrete actors instead of making general assumptions about average actors must be understood³⁸. Furthermore, the formally neat distinction between international power and domestic issues as the independent variable and intervening variables respectfully we now can see the interaction between these factors and the link to single and comparative case studies of limited reach. This interaction is also understood in how behavior of individual actors influences decision-making.

Nick Horton states “decision theory in foreign policy analysis has been characterized by a split between two different, and at times rival, models of human behavior.”³⁹ The first is the classical model of Rational Choice theory⁴⁰, a theory that takes as its starting point the end of the decision making process and attempts to figure out why the choice was finally made. The second is the Cognitive approach, a theory that focuses on the “how” questions of decision-making and attempts to reconstruct why the end outcome occurred.  In an attempt to integrate these two different, but useful, approaches, Alex Mintz created Poliheuristic Theory (PH);⁴¹ Horton further explains that the model consists of two stages. “The first is the “heuristic” stage.  In this stage the actor uses heuristics, or simple tools of thought, to limit the number of choices available to him.  This is similar in character to Robert Axelrod’s Schema Theory⁴² and other cognitive approaches⁴³; and Tversky and Kahneman⁴⁴, including Prospect Theory by Lev⁴⁵ and Tversky and Kahneman⁴⁶.   The second stage is the “evaluation” or “calculation” stage.  Here the actor makes calculations based on the given information garnered from the first stage. PH theory is an attempt to understand both why and how a particular actor came to a decision.” For example, why did Ronald Reagan support Israeli military action in Lebanon in 1982, but withdraw American military personal from Lebanon in 1984.

There is a very large literature in behavioral decision theory that suggests that human decision makers do everything they can to avoid making value trade-offs. For example, decision makers “satisce” (by adopting a sequential search process and selecting the best alternative that is “good enough”) rather than optimize.⁴⁷ They also adopt non-compensatory decision rules that eliminate difficult value trade-offs⁴⁸, a tendency that is also widely recognized in the decision- making literature in international relations.⁴⁹ For example, one common non-compensatory decision strategy is “elimination by aspects”⁵⁰ where alternatives are eliminated from consideration on the basis of a single criterion without regard to other criteria. The failure to make value trade-offs may ease the burdens of choice but can lead to suboptimal decisions. As such, the rational model of foreign policy making is not value-free. This is where the decision-making theory (DM) is helpful in my analysis.

A central place in DM theory is perception. Robert Jervis⁵¹ observed the tendency of leaders to interpret their own decision as responses to objective conditions, while attributing the actions of foreign rivals to a hostile disposition. Michael Brecher⁵² insists, “the operational environment affects the results or outcomes of decisions directly but influences the choice among policy options, that is, the decisions themselves, only as it is filtered through the images of decision-makers.”⁵³ For other early studies in this field, see Harold Lasswell⁵⁴ and James A Robinson and R. Roger Majak⁵⁵, including the bibliographical references;⁵⁶ Brecher makes the elite image the decisive input of a foreign-policy system;⁵⁷ while Jutta Weldes⁵⁸ goes as far as to claim, following the constructivist approach that decision makers “construct the national interest” within this understanding of relations among the various important states and other actors.

Robert Putnam⁵⁹ portrayed political leaders positioned between two tables of (1) international negotiation, whether in crisis or non-crisis situations, and (2) the pressures of domestic political forces. The diplomatic course, tailed then both to what other states are likely to find acceptable and to what domestic constituencies can be persuaded to ratify. Therefore, DM brings much to the overall analysis and supports quality research. Finally, it should be noted that neoclassical realism is appealing from a research point of view since it holds possession of theoretical rigor that Waltz brought to the field in neorealism, but incorporates content rich analysis in the process-tracing method of case studies.

The case study method has been chosen because it is the best approach to add to the body of knowledge on this topic. Simply, through better understanding of a key part, one understands better the whole. The case study is the most sound methodically for my research. In taking a broad cross-disciplinary view of the topic insight can be gained on any topic. This indicates the fact that by examining basic methodological issues in a wide empirical context an understanding not visible from a narrow perspective is possible. Case study research, by definition, is focused as John Gerring says, “on a single, relatively bounded unit. That single may, or may not, afford opportunities for large-N within case analysis. Individual-level variation bears upon a group-level inference,”⁶⁰ Gerring uses various examples to describe this, citing Middletown, by Robert and Helen Lynd and Political Ideology, by Robert Lane to name two where style of analysis differ only in the respect of qualitative analysis. The hypothesis itself should be the primary interest. In framing the question a researcher is able to explore and gain insight in contrast to a cross-case researcher whose empirical data is rather narrow. Case study research conducted with the purpose of offering relevant information vis a vis the hypothesis allows for greater confidence, the true intent being to eliminate rival explanations by confirming the theory. As Gerring points out, “for the single-case study allows one to test a multitude of hypotheses in a rough-and-ready way.”⁶¹ This, expressed a different way gives virtue to internal validity: where the focus is on cause and effect relationships. The notion of one thing leading to another is applicable here; where event A (i.e. Madrid Peace Conference) leads to event B (i.e. Oslo Accords). In the case of the research, Republican administration approaches are more special while Democratic administration foreign policy towards Israel is more strategic. Criticism can be made about the scope of proposition. Essentially, to offer an analysis that gives less about more or more about less. This criticism can also be defended though by offering the choice and preference for depth in comparison to breadth.