National Security Entrepreneurs and the Biden Presidency: Vincent Boucher Guest Blog

“Presidents alone do not make foreign policy. Nor can they change it on their own.” National Security Entrepreneurs and the Making of American Foreign Policy

The unprecedented—and at times unusually chaotic—nature of this year’s American presidential election captured international attention, leaving many to wonder at the fate and future of American politics and policymaking. One certainty is that the recent confirmation of President-Elect Joe Biden signifies changes are on the horizon. Though which changes exactly and what these will mean for the future of the United States is still to be determined.

In this week’s blog post, MQUP co-author Vincent Boucher explores what this new Biden administration could mean for the future of American foreign policy and national security, explaining the significant role National Security Entrepreneurs have played and could play in the country’s future foreign policy decisions.

In National Security Entrepreneurs and the Making of American Foreign Policy Vincent Boucher, Charles-Philippe David, and Karine Prémont develop a new concept to study entrepreneurial behaviour among foreign policy advisers and offer the first comprehensive framework of analysis to answer this crucial question: why do some entrepreneurs succeed in guaranteeing the adoption of novel policies while others fail? By carefully analyzing significant diplomatic and military decisions and offering a preliminary account of contemporary national security entrepreneurship under various presidents, their new book makes the case for an agent-based explanation of foreign policy change and continuity.

President-elect Joe Biden’s future cabinet and national security team has been the subject of a lot of attention and speculation in the last few weeks, and rightly so. Staffing choices are among the most important and consequential decisions a president-elect first makes. Initial appointments to key national security positions have a great impact on the policies an administration will adopt and implement during its four-year term. “When people take high office in our government, they do not come with a clean slate – they have a firm mind-set”, aptly said former Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Among the thousands of people Joe Biden will appoint, some will effectively attempt to leave their mark on US foreign policy based on their strongly held beliefs on pressing diplomatic, defense, national security or trade issues.

These individuals are what we call NSC entrepreneurs. They are principals or high-ranking officials who seek policy change or innovation on specific issues within the National Security Council system. Not all entrepreneurs reach their goal. In our book, we explain why some succeed and others fail to reorient the country’s foreign policy. We designed a five-variable framework of analysis to highlight key factors enabling success and the main forces preventing the adoption of a preferred option: the entrepreneur’s profile, presidential leadership and management of the decision-making process, major players involved in the policy formulation and decision-making, the national political context, and the presence or absence of significant opportunities.

Through in-depth historical case studies based on archival evidence and preliminary conclusions drawn from contemporary cases of NSC entrepreneurship, our research led us to highlight two factors as instrumental for entrepreneurial success: the entrepreneur’s strategy to exert control over both the framing and transmission of information, and the decision-making process; the presence of a significant opportunity – a policy window – and whether the entrepreneur seizes it. For instance, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane successfully maneuvered Ronald Reagan’s disorganized decision-making process to launch a diplomatic opening to Iran, upending the administration prevailing policy towards the Islamic Republic. McFarlane effectively used his limited access to the president and sold his Iranian initiative to a convalescent Reagan, in July 1985, as a way to help him liberate US hostages in Lebanon.

Our framework also allows us to analyze an overlooked dimension of policy entrepreneurship: failure. Studying cases of entrepreneurial failure is crucial to better understand conditions of both continuity and change in US foreign policy. In the book, we shed new light on classic historical cases, including entrepreneurial failures like Undersecretary of State George W. Ball’s push for negotiations and withdrawal from Vietnam between the fall of 1964 and the spring of 1965. Ball was neither a Cassandra who foresaw the looming quagmire nor President’s Johnson’s domesticated devil’s advocate: he was an entrepreneur working within the NSC system. His failure to sway the president can be explained by his inability to seize opportunities to change the administration policy, like the November 1964 policy review, and his flawed entrepreneurial strategy encapsulated by his decision to refrain from sending his prescient October 5, 1964, directly to President Johnson before the end of February 1965.

NSC entrepreneurship is not a relic of the past. As we demonstrate with snapshot case studies from the last three administrations, it remains a dominant feature of US foreign policy decision-making process. President Trump’s unruly and chaotic process provided fertile ground for ambitious entrepreneurs evolving in his inner circle and within the NSC system. Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade warrior, thrived in this context. A self-proclaimed China expert, Navarro helped shape Trump’s China rhetoric during the 2016 campaign and his policies in the White House. Thanks to his unfaltering loyalty to Trump and their shared scorn for free trade agreements and the so-called globalist elites who defend them, Navarro circumvented formal policymaking and communication channels to undercut other economic advisers, like Gary Cohn, and John Kelly, the president’s chief of staff. By framing policy deliberations and gaming the decision-making process, he successfully transformed his long-held views about China, trade, and tariffs into policy.

Marking a sharp contrast with the outgoing president, Joe Biden has already made clear that he wants to return to a more standard and orderly decision-making process in which his advisers and experts will be empowered. These process and personnel decisions will influence his policies, including his stance towards China. Although Biden promises to engage Beijing on global issues like climate change or nuclear proliferation, we are unlikely to witness a return to a responsible stakeholder approach. Both Democrats and Republicans are now advocating a tougher stance towards China, including Joe Biden’s future secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, and national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. The same can be said about Susan Rice and William Burns, who are also likely to play key roles in the incoming administration. Whether any of these individuals become NSC entrepreneurs trying to reorient the country’s China policy remains to be seen. Until then, we should be on the lookout for indicators, like the president’s level of involvement on foreign policy issues and of authority delegation to advisers, to determine if the Biden administration will be conducive to NSC entrepreneurship.

Vincent Boucher is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM), Research fellow at the Center for United States Studies, and Raoul-Dandurand Chair in Strategic and Diplomatic Studies (UQAM). He is co-author of National Security Entrepreneurs and the Making of American Foreign Policy.