THE POLITICS OF DEFENSE POLICY COMMUNICATION: THE "THREAT" OF SOVIET STRATEGIC DEFENSE

This paper suggests a technique for evaluating threat assessments when reliable data is unavailable. Previously, scholars have found that political leaders manipulated threat assessments to achieve desired defense policy outcomes. Yet contemporary communication about threats are not easily studied, leading some writers to call for new studies of Clausewitz's so-called "social" dimension of strategy – the efforts by governments to assure domestic support for defense policies. To apply the suggested technique, this paper examines the Reagan Administration's claim that the threats from Soviet strategic defenses justify the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative. The Administration's arguments are found to be unclear and internally inconsistent. Despite some fear appeals about Soviet threats, Reagan officials typically noted that American offensive forces will continue to render Soviet defenses impotent and obsolete for the forseeable future. Indeed, vague and inconsistent statements about Soviet forces may have undermined Administration efforts to fulfill SDI funding goals, to codify early deployment plans, and even to establish Manhattan or Apollo-type policy preeminince.     

THE JUSTICE MOTIVE IN THE SOCIAL POLICY PROCESS: SEARCHING FOR NORMATIVE RULES OF DISTRIBUTION

Policy analysis in the United States relies heavily on the microeconomic assumption that the primary motive in individual and organizational behavior is self interest. After describing how the over-reliance on self interest emerged, this paper provides evidence that participants in the social policy process relyon other motivations to structure their decision-rules which are equally if not more important than self interest. The paper goes on to describe and explain how decision-rules based on notions of distributive justice operate and to integrate this line of inquiry with an evolving paradigm for policy research which is sensitive to organizational context, supports adaptive administration, and encourages the analysis of the normative premises underlying social policy action.     

SOVIET AGRICULTURAL POLICY IN THE 1980

During the early 1960s. the USSR entered a stage where the pent-up forces for a higher standard of living no longer could be ignored. These forces showed in an increased demand for high-quality food products, particularly meat, and raised Soviet demand for feed grains. The Soviets came to rely increasingly on the world grain market for these—particularly on the United States. Nonetheless, consumer discontent over food supplies and the reliance on imported grain was a strategic weakness which the United States sought to exploit in 1980. The USSR reacted by formulating a IIFood PrOgramI1 that is the basis of today's Soviet agricultural policy. Its implications for trade could be significant.