Bridging the Gap: Managing Expectations, Improving Communications

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Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ I explore these issues, with Benjamin Friedman and Harvey M. Sapolsky, ‘Learning the Right Lessons from Iraq’, Policy Analysis no. 610, Cato Institute, 13 Febr. 2008, <https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-610.pdf≥. See also David C. Hendrickson and Robert W. Tucker, ‘Revisions in Need of Revising: What Went Wrong in the Iraq War, (Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College Dec. 2005); Chaim Kaufmann, ‘Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War’, International Security 29/1 (Summer 2004), 5–48; and Paul R. Pillar, ‘Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq,’ Foreign Affairs (Mar./Apr. 2006), 15–27.

² Philip E. Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2005).

³ Colin Powell, My American Journey (New York: Random House 1995), 576.

⁴ Elaine Sciolino, ‘Madeleine Albright’s audition’, New York Times, 22 Sept. 1996.

⁵ Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment, 216, 223.

⁶ Adam Elkus, ‘Professor, Tear Down This Wall: Is the Divide Between Security Studies and Strategic Studies Permanent?’ War on the Rocks, 18 Apr. 2016, <http://warontherocks.com/2016/04/professor-tear-down-this-wall-is-the-divide-between-security-studies-and-strategic-studies-permanent/>.

⁷ Joshua Rovner, ‘Warring Tribes Studying War and Peace’, War on the Rocks, 12 Apr. 2016, <http://warontherocks.com/2016/04/warring-tribes-studying-war-and-peace/>.

⁸ Jennifer Keister, ‘The Illusion of Chaos: Why Ungoverned Spaces Aren’t Ungoverned, and Why That Matters’, Cato Policy Analysis no. 766, 9 Dec. 2014, <http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/illusion-chaos-why-ungoverned-spaces-arent-ungoverned-why-matters>; Emma Ashford, ‘Friends Like These: Why Petrostates Make Bad Allies’, Cato Policy Analysis no. 770, 31 Mar. 2015, <http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/friends-these-why-petrostates-make-bad-allies>; and Brad Stapleton, ‘The Problem with the Light Footprint: Shifting Tactics in Lieu of Strategy’, Cato Policy Analysis no. 792, 7 Jun. 2016, <http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/problem-light-footprint-shifting-tactics-lieu-strategy>.

⁹ Examples include T. X. Hammes, ‘Technologies Converge and Power Diffuses: The Evolution of Small, Smart, and Cheap Weapons’, Cato Policy Analysis no. 786, 27 Jan. 2016, <http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/technologies-converge-power-diffuses-evolution-small-smart-cheap>; Jennifer Lind, ‘Japan’s Security Evolution’, Cato Policy Analysis no. 788, 25 Febr. 2016, <http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/japans-security-evolution>; Erica D. Borghard, ‘Arms and Influence in Syria: The Pitfalls of Greater U.S. Involvement’, Cato Policy Analysis no. 734, 7 Aug. 2013, <http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/arms-influence-syria-pitfalls-greater-us-involvement>.

¹⁰ James Goldgeier and Bruce Jentleson, ‘How to Bridge the Gap Between Policy and Scholarship’, War on the Rocks, 29 Jun. 2015, <http://warontherocks.com/2015/06/how-to-bridge-the-gap-between-policy-and-scholarship/>.

¹¹ Bridging the Gap Project, http://bridgingthegapproject.org/.

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Christopher Preble

Christopher Preble is the vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. He is the author of The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2009) and John F. Kennedy and the Missile Gap (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press 2004).