Post-Cold War United States national security decision-making: The cases of Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda

This study explores U.S. National Security decisions involving the use of military force that were made during the post-Cold War era in cases where there was general agreement among the decision makers that traditional U.S. security interests were not involved. Eight separate decisions in three distinct cases (Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda) are analyzed using four recognized models of decision-making in an effort to explain the decision-making process. These models are the Rational Actor Model, the Organizational Model, the Government-Politics Model, and the Human Factors Model.; The central hypothesis of this study is that applying any single model, which can provide some degree of explanatory power, will result in an incomplete understanding of the decision-making process. This result is due to the fact that each model examines only a small sample of the various forces acting on the decision-maker. Since all the forces usually operate simultaneously, the application of a single model will usually result in an incomplete understanding of the decision. Accordingly, a new integrated model of decision-making is proposed.; After each decision and case is analyzed, each individual model is applied, the model which provides the majority of explanatory power for the decision is identified and the decision is than analyzed using the integrated model. In every case the integrated provided significantly greater explanatory power than did any single model alone.; A conclusion of this study confirms what practitioners have long felt naturally, that the process by which national security decisions are reached is complex one and multiple forces impact the decision-making process simultaneously. Sometimes these forces propel the process to a single alternative, while at other times these forces act in opposition to each other. Using the integrated model of decision-making gives both scholars and practitioners an improved ability to recognize and explain the singular and synergistic impact of these forces.