| The decision to militarily intervene in an international crisis is one fraught with complexity and uncertainty, and may ultimately lead a state to war. This research provides an analytical approach---based on the work of Graham Allison in Essence of Decision---to help understand why states (specifically superpowers) choose to militarily intervene in certain international crises and not others. The modified Allisonian construct presented in this study synthesizes national, organizational and individual level factors into one integrated framework. That framework is then used to comparatively analyze two important Cold War era superpower interventions---the U.S.-led intervention at the Bay of Pigs and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.; The case studies indicate that despite significantly different political systems and governmental structures, the basic determinants of military intervention were reasonably consistent between the two superpowers. Realpolitik spurred interventionary impulses; organizational factors highly structured the decision contexts and provided key decisional path dependencies; but in the end, the ultimate intervention decisions came down to individuals driven by multiple---and often competing---interests, with the president and general secretary reigning supreme in the process. Most interestingly, past intervention experiences of both the Soviets and Americans highly influenced the cognitive constructs that drove policy deliberations. Reasoning by historical analogy guided both the questions of whether to intervene and how to intervene. Past lessons linked perceived interests to policy preferences by providing mental causal models. |
