CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GROUP DECISION MAKING IN CONFLICT From Groupthink to Polythink in the War in Iraq

Alex Mintz

Carly Wayne

Political leaders around the globe routinely make critical decisions concerning war and peace. As citizens, we hope and believe that these leaders are engaging in thorough, careful, systematic and thoughtful decision-making processes, rationally weighing the costs and benefits of each potential action. However, as Irving Janis demonstrated in his famed book, Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes (1982), group decision-making dynamics and processes at the highest level of government are prone to suboptimal, defective decision making. Whether the extreme cohesiveness of Janis’s groupthink, or the pluralism of group members’ opinions and the rampant divisiveness of decision-making groups, a dynamic Mintz, Mishal, and Morag (2005) and Mintz and DeRouen (2010) term polythink , such “defective” processes can lead to foreign policy and national security fiascos. These fiascos can severely damage U.S. credibility, interests and security. Clearly, the divisiveness triggered by polythink or the extreme cohesive decision dynamics caused by groupthink can be costly and prevent the governmental responsiveness required to stave off or appropriately prepare for impending conflicts.

In this chapter, we analyze the implications of groupthink and polythink on war and peace decisions made by the U.S. government regarding Iraq. Specifically, we analyze the group dynamics in the Bush and Obama administrations and their effect on the decisions to initiate the war, execute a war strategy and, ultimately, withdraw from Iraq.

GROUPTHINK AND POLYTHINK

Groupthink

The well-known concept of groupthink, as described by Janis (1982), is “a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action” (Janis, 1982 p. 9). At the national level, this means that cohesive policymaking groups, such as the advisors to the president, intelligence and enforcement agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, often make suboptimal decisions due to their conscious or unconscious desire for uniformity over dissent. Decision-making groups ignore important limitations of chosen policies, overestimate the odds for success, and fail to consider other relevant policy options or possibilities. In this way, groupthink can lead to suboptimal decision-making processes that result in unnecessary or ill-planned conflict and resultant violence and loss of life.

According to Janis (1982, p. 10) the policy discussions of groups characterized by groupthink contain seven major defects that will have a negative impact on the decision-making process:

1. Limited review of alternatives . The group’s discussion will be limited to a few potential courses of action and will therefore lack a survey of the full range of alternatives.
2. Limited discussion of objectives . The group will not adequately answer the questions, “What are the key objectives?” and, “What values are implicated by the chosen strategy?”
3. Failure to examine the risks of the preferred policy . The group will consistently fail to reexamine the course of action that the majority of members initially preferred. They will thus fail to look for nonobvious risks and drawbacks that may not have been considered when a policy was originally evaluated.
4. Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives . Group members will neglect courses of action that were initially evaluated as unsatisfactory by the majority of the group, failing to see the nonobvious benefits of these actions.
5. Poor information search . The members of the group will make little or no attempt to obtain information from external experts who can supply important estimates or projections of the potential gains and losses of a particular strategy.
6. Selective bias in information processing . Selective bias will be exhibited in the way the group reacts to factual information and relevant judgments from experts, the mass media, and outside critics. They will process only information that confirms their preexisting beliefs and ignore information that challenges those beliefs.
7. Failure to consider contingency plans . The group members will spend very little time deliberating about how “the best-laid plans” could be derailed. Consequently, they will fail to develop contingency plans to cope with potentially foreseeable setbacks, thereby endangering the overall success of the chosen course of action.

Since Janis introduced the concept of groupthink, much emphasis has been placed in foreign policy decision-making circles on the processes that can be used to prevent it from occurring and produce optimal decisions. However, many of the same policy prescriptions recommended by theorists and practitioners for addressing groupthink may leave decision makers at risk of swinging too far in the other direction, contributing to a very different, but no less detrimental, phenomenon, which we term polythink .

Polythink

Polythink characterizes a decision-making unit that has a large plurality of opinions, views, and perceptions among group members. Whereas groupthink tends toward overwhelming conformity and unanimity, polythink leads to the equally problematic extreme of disagreement, myriad opinions, interpretations of reality, and policy prescriptions (Mintz and DeRouen, 2010; Mintz et al., 2005). This may lead to a situation where it becomes virtually impossible for group members to reach a common interpretation of reality and achieve common policy goals.

Polythink is essentially the opposite of groupthink on a continuum of decision making from “completely cohesive” (groupthink) to “completely fragmented” (polythink). Polythink can thus be seen as a mode of thinking that results from membership in a highly disjointed group rather than a highly cohesive one (Mintz et al., 2005)

Polythink is also a generic phenomenon; that is to say, it is a horizontal concept that can be applied to myriad different realms and has far-reaching implications for decision makers in the arena of foreign policy, domestic policy, business decisions, national security considerations, and any other small group decision in individuals’ daily lives. ¹

Not surprisingly, many of the consequences of polythink are similar to those of groupthink. However, this is the case “not because the group is thinking alike or sharing the same views but because the group is actually failing to carry out any significant collective thinking” (Mintz et al., 2005, p. 17). As is the case with groupthink, polythink is likely to lead to defective, suboptimal decisions; limited review of alternatives, objectives, and risks; and selective use of information. However, a number of important consequences are unique to polythink due to the broad cacophony of viewpoints and policy prescriptions the group espouses—for example (Mintz et al., 2005):

1. Greater likelihood for group conflict . Because group members have different, sometimes even opposing views of the situation and of potential solutions, there is a greater likelihood of group conflict due to polythink.
2. Greater likelihood for leaks . Since group members do not hold uniform views of the situation under polythink, they are more likely to leak information (e.g., to undermine positions that they oppose) than in a groupthink situation.
3. Less likelihood for the group to speak with one voice . Under polythink, there is a greater likelihood that group members will talk to their counterparts, constituencies, and even the media espousing different views and opinions, leading to confusion over policy direction.
4. More likelihood for framing effects . Under polythink, some members may frame offers, proposals, counterproposals, and even disagreements in different ways: some may give it a positive spin and others a negative spin.
5. Confusion and lack of communication . The myriad viewpoints and actors represented in the decision-making unit may lead to confusion over potential policy options and the failure to communicate all relevant information among the bureaucracies represented by the decision-making group. This reduces the ability of the group to make the most educated decision possible given the information available at the time.
6. Decision paralysis or adoption of positions with the lowest common denominator . Polythink may create decision situations in which the lowest common denominator becomes the dominant product of the group. This is the case because each member of the group needs to make concessions in his or her normative worldview and organizational and political agendas in order to reach an accommodation with other members of the group. Group divisiveness and discord may also severely limit the ability of the group to develop any policy at all. This can lead to perhaps the most destructive symptom of polythink, complete decision paralysis, which results in missed opportunities at best and catastrophic policy failures at worst.

These many symptoms of polythink are particularly detrimental to long-term policy planning, essentially forcing decision makers to make satisficing short-term compromises for which they can achieve group approval and to put off more far-reaching long-term policy plans for which it would be even more problematic to gain group consensus. Because war and peace decisions typically require long-term policy planning in order to achieve sustainability and minimize violence and bloodshed, polythink can be particularly problematic in these contexts.

The Groupthink-Polythink Continuum

Both polythink and groupthink should be considered pure types. In real-world decision-making situations, there is rarely a case of pure or extreme polythink or groupthink. It is therefore more useful to think of these two processes as extremes on a continuum in which good decision-making processes typically lie toward the middle, whereas defective decision-making processes lean closer to one of two extremes: the group conformity of groupthink or the group disunity of polythink (figure 14.1 ).

Figure 14.1 The Groupthink-Polythink Continuum

In this groupthink-polythink continuum, the midpoint can be viewed as a balanced group process in which neither groupthink nor polythink dominates. We call this point or area on the continuum the con-div group dynamic , the point at which convergence and divergence of group members’ viewpoints are more or less in equilibrium. In this situation, all group members do not share the same viewpoints, yet neither do they possess highly diverse or divisive opinions. In this scenario, the group is most likely to benefit from thorough yet productive decision-making processes that consider a multitude of options and are ultimately able to reach agreement and execute well-formulated policies and actions.

In many ways, the con-div group dynamic can be thought of as a type of group-based integrative complexity that results in a more nuanced understanding of policy issues and can therefore promote balanced and successful policymaking. ² Thus while traditional literature on integrative complexity focuses on the degree of integration of multiple perspectives and possibilities at the individual level, integrative complexity may also function at the group level (Erisen and Erisen, 2012; Conway et al., 2012; Suedfeld, Cross, and Brcic, 2011).

In this chapter, the groupthink, polythink, and con-div dynamics are applied to the realm of U.S. national security decision making on Iraq, demonstrating how the detrimental consequences of defective group decision-making processes can be particularly problematic and destructive in the context of conflict, war, and peace.

THE IRAQ WAR—FROM GROUPTHINK TO POLYTHINK

On December 18, 2011, all U.S. combat troops officially left Iraq. After almost nine years of war, the American combat role in Iraq had come to a close. However, the full legacy of what many label a mismanaged decision-making process in a “war of choice” has yet to be fully determined.

As this chapter demonstrates, after a near universally criticized groupthink decision-making dynamic regarding the entrance to the war, the successful decision-making surrounding the surge orchestrated by General David Petraeus was characterized by a more balanced con-div decision-group dynamic. In 2008, the new administration of Barack Obama, a staunch critic of the war, exhibited polythink as competing voices within the administration diverged on the wisdom, pace, and number of troop drawdown levels in Iraq.

By contrasting the early groupthink decision-making processes regarding the entrance to the war with the later con-div decision-making processes over the surge and then with the polythink that characterized the withdrawal, we demonstrate the detrimental effects of extreme groupthink or polythink in the U.S. national security apparatus. These three decisions—the groupthink decision to invade, the con-div balanced surge, and the managed polythink decision to withdraw—also demonstrate the ways in which decision-making processes can be placed at different points on the groupthink-polythink continuum and applied to decisions regarding war and peace.

The Decision to Invade Iraq in 2003: A Classic Groupthink Dynamic

In the months leading to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the small group of decision makers in the administration of George W. Bush exhibited a pattern of groupthink (Badie, 2010; Schafer and Crichlow, 2010; Cairo, 2009; Scheeringa, 2010; Houghton, 2008). There was a consensus within the decision-making unit that American forces would be greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people. Though the backgrounds, worldviews, beliefs, and mind-sets of members of the group could clearly be divided in three distinct categories—assertive nationalists (Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld), neoconservatives (neo-con; Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Richard Perle), and pragmatic internationalists (Colin Powell, Richard Haass)—pragmatic internationalists quickly found themselves frozen out of most foreign policy discussions as the like-minded nationalists and neoconservatives dominated the cabinet debate (Daalder and Lindsay, 2005, cited in Caldwell, 2011). The universal opinion of the so-called neoconservatives in the post-9/11 environment with respect to removing Saddam Hussein from power represents a typical groupthink syndrome in which “the decision processes and norms within that structure (or lack of structure) worked to reinforce existing biases and stereotypes more than to raise questions about how workable the strategies and tactics stemming from those stereotypes really were” (Schafer and Crichlow, 2010, p. 235).

Other symptoms of groupthink were also evident in this phase; for example, the administration often focused on the short-term results of the military campaign while ignoring the longer-term problems of insurgency and political violence in Iraq (Mintz and DeRouen, 2010). Whereas the Shock and Awe air campaign at the start of the war was well planned and successful, the occupation of Iraq was a nightmare, leading to 4,485 Americans killed and tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties over the course of the war (News Research Center Iraq War Casualties Database, 2009). Just as in the classic groupthink syndrome, group members:

1. Locked in on their preferred alternative course of action, ignoring the risks of this chosen policy and failing to focus on what could go wrong in Iraq, only on what could go right (Hersh, 2004)
2. Did not seriously evaluate different alternatives or contingency plans for dealing with Iraq (Yetiv, 2004) and failed to reevaluate policy options that had previously been rejected
3. Engaged in biased, selective information processing, ignoring critical information that contradicted their views and preferences
4. Engaged in poor information search, overestimating the group’s ability to correctly estimate their rival’s capabilities on weapons of mass destruction and failing to trust or seek out external counsel or intelligence
5. Framed and portrayed their views, goals, and the invasion in a way that supported their position and overall preference, while discounting competing assessments and descriptions
6. Rejected the advice of those who did not share the same worldview as the majority of the group, for example Secretary of State Colin Powell, leading to a near unanimous group recommendation to attack Iraq

A review of these classic symptoms of groupthink that were present in the Iraq invasion decision makes it clear that the groupthink dynamic of the decision-making unit was a contributor to the faulty policy planning that characterized the invasion and early war years.

The Surge: The Con-Div Group Dynamic

Beginning in 2006, the administration began discussing a possible troop surge in Iraq to stem the rampant violence that was quickly leading Iraq down the path to civil war. During this period, the decision-making processes inside and outside Washington became much more balanced, careful, and comprehensive, perhaps due to the lessons learned from the calamitous first three years of the war.

The so-called surge in Iraq, often referred to as a New Way Forward in Iraq, was a reinforcement of U.S. forces by thirty thousand troops that began in spring 2007 (Council on Foreign Relations, 2008). President Bush announced the surge in January 2007 during a television speech in which he outlined the U.S. strategy in Iraq and articulated the goals of the surge and its key objectives:

America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I have committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq. The vast majority of them—five brigades—will be deployed to Baghdad. These troops will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations. Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs. . . . A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced. (“Transcript of President Bush’s Speech,” 2007)

Some saw the surge as a dramatic policy change from that of a small footprint to a more public embrace of the counterinsurgency strategy championed by General Petraeus. However, others claimed that it was simply a continuation of the path-dependent, U.S. strategy in Iraq. These opposing voices claimed that the administration had no clear exit strategy from the war. Whereas the military campaign at the beginning of the war was successful, once the United States actually invaded Iraq and became embroiled in the war, with all the sunk costs incurred in terms of casualties, money, and reputation, this led to a path-dependence process to stay the course in Iraq, a process that was extremely difficult to reverse. This often led to post hoc rationalization of the invasion, its causes and explanations. Not surprisingly, considerable debate preceded the surge decision in 2006–2007.

Unlike in the preinvasion period, however, the administration’s decision makers strongly benefited from the diverse and conflicting points of view regarding the best strategy for moving forward with the Iraq war. The administration took into account various viewpoints when considering the surge, such as the one presented by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which recommended a steady reduction in troop levels (Baker and Hamilton, 2006). Nancy Pelosi, Speaker-elect of the U.S. House, also very publicly opposed the surge proposal in an article entitled “Bringing the War to an End Is My Highest Priority as Speaker” (Pelosi, 2006). Following the 2006 U.S. midterm elections when the Republicans lost control of the House and Senate, a Heritage Foundation conference chaired by Republican whip Roy Blunt (R. Missouri) under the title “The New Way Forward: Refocusing the Conservative Agenda” (Blunt, 2006) supported a surge in U.S. forces in Iraq, albeit not exactly in the way in which it was ultimately carried out.

President Bush recognized these many conflicting viewpoints in his speech, claiming that “many are concerned that the Iraqis are becoming too dependent on the United States and, therefore, our policy should focus on protecting Iraq’s borders and hunting down Al Qaida. Their solution is to scale back America’s efforts in Baghdad or announce the phased withdrawal of our combat forces. . . . We carefully considered these proposals . And we concluded that to step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear that country apart, and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale” (“Transcript of President Bush’s Speech,” 2007, emphasis added).

Thus, the decision on the surge exhibited strong characteristics of a quality (balanced) decision that took into account the views of many players: experts; think tanks; opposing groups (e.g., Democrats in Congress); policy groups such as the ten-person bipartisan Iraq Study Group; military leaders; Senator John McCain (R. Arizona), a strong advocate of the surge; the Iraqi government; and many others.

The surge decision was not rushed or conducted with shortcuts concerning information review and assessment of policy alternatives. In fact, President Bush waited for three other studies, conducted at the Pentagon, State Department, and National Security Council, before making the decision. The president echoed this idea, claiming, “My national security team, military commanders and diplomats conducted a comprehensive review. We consulted members of Congress from both parties, allies abroad, and distinguished outside experts. We benefited from the thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. . . . In our discussions, we all agreed that there is no magic formula for success in Iraq. And one message came through loud and clear: Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States” (“Transcript of President Bush’s Speech,” 2007).

Overall, the surge has been largely credited as a success by many experts, as evidenced by a New York Times report that claims “the surge, clearly, has worked, at least for now . . . The result, now visible in the streets, is a calm unlike any the country has seen since the American invasion” (Filkins, 2008). Clearly, the balanced con-div group dynamic of President Bush and his national security team at the time benefited the decision-making process, leading to a carefully considered policy review process. Despite this, many have continued to criticize the surge for the damage it brought to Iraq and for not ending the war sooner and more decisively.

The Withdrawal from Iraq: A Polythink Process

The withdrawal from Iraq, unlike the early periods of the war and the surge, was characterized by polythink. There was a plurality of views and opinions on this critical decision. There was also divergence of policy opinions on the speed and character of the withdrawal process. However, the decision to withdraw from Iraq is also an example of a polythink dynamic that was, relatively speaking, effectively managed and controlled by the president, and it largely resulted in productive decision-making processes. In the following we will review the many symptoms of Polythink present in the Iraq troop withdrawal.

Group Conflict: Infighting, Turf Wars, and the Fear of Leaks.

Internal group conflict often results from polythink decisions. The many competing viewpoints, interpretations of the situation at hand, and potential courses of action available are all hotly debated among group members, which increase the likelihood of destructive group conflict and chronic disagreement, particularly if this process is not effectively managed by the leader. This divisive conflict in turn impedes optimal decision making. Group conflict retards the ability of group members to overcome personal animosity, concede refuted ideas, and successfully collaborate in developing optimal policies. In this way, group conflict both causes and is caused by the polythink syndrome.

During the Obama administration, group conflict remained an important problem to be overcome. This was not due to the ostracizing of one discordant group member or institution, as was done to Colin Powell in the Bush administration, but rather to the large plurality of viewpoints throughout the decision-making group regarding the Iraq troop drawdown. One foreign policy analyst goes as far as to claim that “a man who advertised himself as ‘No Drama Obama’, in reality . . . presides over an administration pulsing with internecine conflict and policy disarray” (Karl, 2012). While Obama’s administration was not necessarily as fractious as this comment suggests, many battles did indeed take place between Obama’s inner circle of political staffers and his military advisors. ³ For example, the deputy assistant to the president, Mark Lippert, was forced out of his position amid internal friction with the national security advisor, General James Jones. Jones had accused Lippert of “leaking negative stories about him” that were eventually reported in Bob Woodward’s book Obama’s Wars (2010).

General Stanley McChrystal’s famed Rolling Stone interview demonstrates this troubled relationship among Obama’s various advisors, each representing different agencies and interests. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mike Mullen, was also concerned with the positions of many advisors who were not in favor of maintaining a residual force in Iraq after the end of combat operations (Hastings, 2010). He voiced his concerns in a confidential letter to Thomas Donilon, head of the National Security Administration that upset many of Obama’s political advisors who felt that the military was boxing in the White House and creating a potential political liability if it leaked (Gordon and Trainor, 2012). Thus, the polythink atmosphere of the Obama administration, composed of Obama’s inner circle of political advisors, who were very against the war; Democratic holdovers from the Clinton administration, who were moderate in their advocacy for a troop drawdown; and military leaders, who had previously served under George Bush’s Republican administration and supported continuing the war effort, created ample ground for intergroup conflict that at least partially impeded the close cooperation necessary to ensure not just a stable drawdown of troops but also a lasting plan for ensuring the survival of Iraq’s fledgling democracy.

Lack of Communication and Confusion.

A lack of communication and subsequent confusion within the decision-making apparatus often relates directly back to the polythink phenomenon; the large, heterogeneous group of policymakers and advisors who compose the federal security and defense apparatus can naturally lead to interagency competition and concerns regarding security leaks and subsequently heightened bureaucratic issues of access to information. This issue is particularly problematic in situations of group conflict within the decision unit.

In the Obama administration during the 2009–2011 withdrawal from Iraq, communication between agencies was much stronger than during the early Bush years, largely due to the bureaucratic changes implemented following the interagency communication failures of 9/11. However, communication between civilian advisors and the military remained problematic. This confusion and lack of communication between the channels was not due to simple bureaucratic challenges or a lack of technological ability. Rather, it was the result of completely conflicting worldviews that at times built a wall between the two groups of advisors. For example, Obama and his close political advisors generally saw America’s involvement in Iraq as a potential mine field rather than an opportunity and thus sought to chart a way out of Iraq as quickly as possible, a view that was at odds with many military commanders’ desire to preserve hard-fought gains in the field (Gordon and Trainor, 2012).

The reasons for these institutional battles may have their root in Graham Allison’s (1971) famed observation that “where you stand depends on where you sit.” Thus, members of the military have their own institutional goals and agendas that may not meld well with the goals and agendas of political advisors or White House staff. Institutional considerations therefore often exacerbate polythink in the decision-making processes of the federal government. This problem is particularly pronounced when the decision group is made up of representatives of various agencies; each representative feels that he or she needs to staunchly defend the interests, perspectives, and worldview of his or her respective agency and therefore may make more extreme policy recommendations than if he or she were not acting as an official representative of his or her respective group.

In the withdrawal from Iraq, these institutional considerations clearly contributed to the communication barriers and growing sense of policy confusion regarding the plans for the troop withdrawal. What’s more, communication with the Iraqi government, a key player in the ultimate decision surrounding a U.S. troop presence in Iraq, still remained incredibly problematic. This symptom of interstate polythink was a critical factor in the Obama administration’s failure to secure a second Status of Forces Agreement that would have enabled a small contingent of U.S. troops to remain in Iraq following the 2011 withdrawal. For example, whereas President Bush held a weekly teleconference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Obama spoke to Maliki only a handful of times during his entire first term in office. This greatly hampered communication between the two sides at a very sensitive period.

Moreover, in their negotiations with the Iraqis, Kenneth Pollack (2011) explains, the Obama administration often “negotiated against themselves more than it negotiated with the Iraqis,” demonstrating the competing viewpoints and perspectives within the administration itself. This confusion and lack of communication within and between the American and Iraqi administrations severely hampered efforts to work out a long-term solution to the issue of U.S. troop levels in Iraq that would have enabled a sustained U.S. presence to support Iraq’s democracy and temper the influence of Iran over the long-term.

Limited Review of Alternatives, Objectives, Risks, and Contingencies.

As in groupthink, polythink can also contribute to a limited review of alternatives, as there is typically lack of consensus among group members concerning which options will enter the choice set. In order to reduce prolonged and potentially costly and divisive debate, decision makers may preemptively limit the choice sets under discussion. This effort to act quickly and decisively while still considering a diverse range of policy options is a central challenge of decision-making units characterized by polythink.

This dilemma is clearly demonstrated in the Obama administration’s decision-making processes surrounding the Iraq troop withdrawal. Almost immediately after President Obama was elected on a campaign promise to bring troops home from Iraq, a debate began between key decision makers within the national security apparatus regarding the alternatives, objectives, and risks moving forward in Iraq. However, this debate was mainly limited to the speed of the withdrawal, rather than the overall wisdom of the withdrawal. On the one hand, the Iraq Study Group advocated that U.S. troops be shifted from combat to training and that combat troops be withdrawn from Iraq over a relatively short period of time. Obama and his political advisors had also made a campaign promise that all troops would leave Iraq within sixteen months. In contrast, the military, including Iraq commander Ray Odierno, generally advocated a withdrawal plan of twenty-three months, stressing the importance of not withdrawing many troops in the early months, before the Iraqi elections scheduled for January 2010—much longer than Obama’s campaign promise.

To bridge this divide, Defense Secretary Robert Gates advocated a nineteen-month timetable that would enable the White House to say that the combat mission in Iraq had come to a close at the politically opportune moment—right before the midterm elections (Gordon and Trainor, 2012). What’s more, Obama would specify a date for ending the American “combat mission” in Iraq, but would not remove all of the brigades at that point; those that remained would simply be renamed “advise-and-assist units” (Gordon and Trainor, 2012). This plan enabled Obama to keep his campaign promise while also incorporating advice from the military and is also a key example of lowest-common-denominator decision making.

Failure to Reappraise Previously Rejected Alternatives.

Another important consequence of polythink in decision-making processes is the permanent removal of key options from the table. Because arriving at consensus is so arduous when there is such a large plurality of conflicting perspectives and policy prescriptions, decision makers are often reluctant to reopen discussion on a previously rejected alternative, for fear of near endless debate on a potentially time-sensitive decision. Combined with the already limited review of alternatives caused by polythink, this means that alternatives that were not given a full airing at the outset will most likely not return to the table to be reconsidered later.

The Obama administration’s very public, steadfast commitment to the policy of speedily withdrawing from Iraq was never fully reconsidered: the administration maintained its pledge to draw down troop forces and shift resources to domestic concerns and the war in Afghanistan. Though this policy was perhaps warranted, the administration’s singular focus on withdrawal did hamper U.S. efforts to ensure political stability in addition to security in Iraq. By publicly signaling a pivot toward Afghanistan, domestic concerns, or even the Far East, many felt that the administration had taken irreversible steps that sent Iraq “beyond America’s influence” (Pollack, 2011). According to Iraq expert Kenneth Pollack in his testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, “There is no turning back the clock, even if Washington suddenly had a change of heart. The decisions that have been made are now virtually set in stone. There will not be a significant American military presence in Iraq in the future. That train has left the station and it cannot be recalled or reboarded at some later stop” (Pollack, 2011).

Thus, the government’s public commitment to one course of action, troop drawdown, hindered U.S. goals of providing long-term political stability and security in Iraq, a major criticism levied by the president’s political opponents. However, in contrast to the Bush administration, the Obama administration did reconsider many of the specific details of its war plans, particularly its sixteen-month troop drawdown policy in Iraq, limiting this negative aspect of polythink to some extent.

Biased Information Processing: Selective Use and Framing.

Policymakers and elite decision makers inherently have strong time constraints placed on them by the sheer enormity of pressing political issues they are tasked with addressing. In situations of polythink, decision makers are bombarded with information and intelligence from a variety of individuals and organizations suggesting seemingly innumerable and perhaps even contradictory policy prescriptions. This combination of severe time constraints and near unlimited wells of information can cause decision makers to selectively process information, relying on heuristics and personal predispositions in order to make crucial decisions about, for example, war and national security.

Although this wealth of information and analysis was indeed voraciously, and less selectively, consumed by both administrations in the later years of the war, the availability of information and intelligence remained a stubborn key problem, particularly as the number of forces in Iraq shrunk from 2009 onward. Political scientist Michael Gordon explains how a key consequence of the military’s departure from Iraq was that the United States had a vastly diminished capacity to monitor violent incidents in a critically strategic country, undermining claims that violence had diminished (Gordon and Trainor, 2012). Indeed, an analysis conducted by Michael Knights at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has shown that Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence has increased in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal:

Analysis of general incident levels across the country is a better means of tracking these trends, but it is precisely this kind of data that the U.S. government no longer receives due to its military disengagement in Iraq. In effect, the U.S. government is slowly going blind in Iraq due to the military drawdown and the U.S. embassy’s inability to get out and about. According to Washington Institute for Near East Policy metrics derived from ongoing security-liaison relationships in Iraq, there were 561 reported attacks in January 2012, an increase from the 494 in December 2011 and well above the 302 incidents in November. (Knights, 2012)

Polythink often also results in the development of competing frames to present the same issues, clearly demonstrated by the Bush and Obama administrations’ fundamentally different framing of the Iraq war. It is safe to say that while the Bush administration focused on the potential benefits of nation building in Iraq for the spread of democracy in the Arab world, President Obama introduced a loss aversion framework that portrayed the decision to continue the war as a potential loss on numerous dimensions (e.g., economic, reputation costs, and loss of life).

However, even within the Obama administration, the decision to end the war was framed in several ways. Instead of talking about a lack of success in establishing democracy in Iraq and about the numerous casualties of the war, or even the growing influence of Iran in Iraq, the administration often framed the decision to exit the war as an economic decision and as a fear of overstretching U.S. commitments abroad. However, often the decision to exit Iraq was also framed as a redoubling of the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan: in order to do a better job in Afghanistan, we must withdraw from Iraq. Thus, both a thematic framing strategy and evaluative framing mechanisms were advanced by the Obama administration, demonstrating the competing worldviews of the decision unit in shaping the withdrawal policy (Geva and Mintz, 1997).

Lowest-Common-Denominator Decisions and Decision Paralysis.

Finally, and perhaps most important, polythink can lead to paralysis of the decision-making unit, resulting in a failure to implement policy or the implementation of short-term satisficing policies for which approval can be gained. The postwar planning and withdrawal plans in Iraq are a key example of this phenomenon as the withdrawal plan was tailored to fit lowest-common-denominator compromises that could achieve the broadest coalition of support from the discordant national security, diplomatic, and political teams.

A key example of this type of satisficing decision making can be seen in the decisions on troop levels and withdrawal pace in the early stage of the Obama administration. In essence, there were two main plans on the table for withdrawing troops from Iraq: the twenty-three-month drawdown plan from the military that Obama had inherited and his sixteen-month campaign promise. The nineteen-month time line for troop withdrawals that was eventually chosen essentially “split the difference between the sixteen months he promised as a candidate and the twenty-three-month timeline favored by his commanders” rather than as the optimal military strategy” (Bruno, 2009). The search for balance between various viewpoints has characterized much of the Obama administration, and this “sometimes awkward attempt to accommodate both sides of the political spectrum, deemed insufficient by critics and infuriating by allies” has also included “his plans to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan” (Parsons and Hennessey, 2012).

Summary: Managed Polythink in the Iraq Troop Withdrawal

To sum up, by reviewing these many key symptoms of polythink in the final stages of the Iraq war, we can clearly see in what ways polythink was detrimental to the decision-making process and in what ways President Obama successfully managed to benefit from polythink in the decision-making process.

And indeed, these many concerns and problems notwithstanding, the decision-making process surrounding the withdrawal succeeded in managing many aspects of these polythink symptoms so that the diversity of policy opinions and viewpoints could contribute to positive decision making. While there was an important and helpful divergence of opinions on the exact details of the time frame of the drawdown (a dynamic we term productive polythink ), the decision-making unit was unified in its goal of ending the Iraq war in order to turn its attention to the still-struggling war in Afghanistan. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the “once-ardent opponent of a firm departure date from Iraq,” announced in 2008 that a bridge had been crossed” and the “debate in Iraq was no longer over when to leave, but rather how to do this in a responsible way” (Bruno, 2009).

CONCLUSION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The Iraq war has been the most divisive US military conflict since the Vietnam War. With an estimated 110,991 to 121,182 Iraqis (Iraq Body Count, 2013) and 4,485 Americans killed (News Research Center Iraq War Casualties Database, 2009), and at a cost of more than $800 billion (an astounding 3,000 dollars per second) as of 2011 (Francis, 2011), the costs of this conflict in blood and treasure have been immense. They underscore the critical importance of understanding and optimizing foreign policy decision-making processes before, during, and after the conflict.

This chapter analyzed three such decision-making processes in Iraq: the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, the surge of 2007, and the decision to end the war in 2011–2012. The chapter demonstrates the ways in which these decisions characterized a dynamic (and often suboptimal) group decision-making process ranging from groupthink in the decision to invade Iraq, to the con-div balanced decision on the surge, to the polythink decision on exiting the war.

The concept of polythink is also relevant to the current developments in Iraq. Due to the multireligious, multiethnic makeup of Iraq and competition among rival groups for power, a newly elected Iraqi government is likely to exhibit more symptoms of polythink than of groupthink. The concept of polythink has broad theoretical and policy applications for many countries and can serve, with further development, as a useful tool to help explain and predict conflict processes and outcomes.

Remedies to Polythink

The key to overcoming polythink and groupthink lies in the concept of the decision unit. Decisions are shaped and influenced by the composition of the decision unit. As such, executives in business, politics, public policy, foreign policy, national security decision making, and other domains need to carefully compose the decision unit. Among the recommendations we provide is to focus on the decision unit architecture or engineering in forming advisory units to the president and other executives. In other words, policymakers should try to think in advance of the policies and solutions they want to achieve and build the decision unit accordingly, preferably in a con-div mode, where there are divergent perspectives among group members but a general consensus on policy goals and overall worldviews. One example of decision unit engineering can be found in the deliberate construction of President Obama’s second-term team. The advisory group of this second Obama administration seems to be more unified in its worldviews and conception and limitation of American military power than the more diverse “team of rivals” group in Obama’s first term (Ignatius, 2013). Many analysts view this as a deliberate move on Obama’s part, a result of the discord he faced in his first term in office among his cabinet members. This is likely to have implications for U.S. foreign policy and national security decisions.

Another method of countering unbalanced decision-making units is through the use of analytical tools including a decision support system such as the decision board system (Mintz et al., 1997). The use of an objective, computerized system may be one way of assisting the president to avoid polythink and groupthink in his decision unit for the following reasons:

• It displays a wide range of policy alternatives, including those that the president may not ultimately use and policy alternatives that can be viewed as representing new ideas.
• It lists a large set of criteria for selecting the right policy for the president. The human mind cannot comprehend and calculate so many dimensions of a decision without a computerized system that aids policymakers in formulating their decisions.
• It enables the president and his advisors to do if-then analysis, based on various assumptions and scenarios.
• It leads to a careful evaluation of alternatives and dimensions in a comprehensive and systematic way, thus overcoming many of the biases in information processing, group dynamics, and individual decision making. It can also assist policymakers in organizing alternatives in a clearer, more controlled manner.

For example, the use of a decision support system for President Obama on the Iran nuclear issue may help the president determine policy options even in the dynamic and chaotic environment of the Middle East.

Polythink, Groupthink, and the Con-Div Dynamic in Conflict Management Processes

When applied to conflict management and conflict resolution, one can expect polythink, groupthink, and the con-div processes to affect conflict initiation decisions, conflict escalation or deescalation decisions, and conflict termination decisions as a function of the group decision-making composition and dynamic. For example, the neo-con group that dominated the Bush administration in the lead-up to the Iraq war may have made very different policy choices than a more diverse group would have made. The challenge for the policymaker is to build a decision unit that reflects various opinions in a balanced way. In cases of polythink in an advisory group, the policymaker should strive to leverage the plurality of inputs into a successful and balanced conflict management and resolution decision.

We have focused on the effect of polythink on conflict management and resolution. Our analysis has several policy implications:

• The composition of the decision unit making war and peace decisions and the group dynamic affects the ultimate choice.
• Decision units can exhibit groupthink, polythink and various con-div configurations.
• Whereas sunk costs affect most national security and foreign policy decision, leaders should avoid falling into a path-dependence trap that is likely to lead them to decisions that are then difficult to reverse. Many foreign policy conflicts are a result of following such path-dependence processes.
• Polythink can be beneficial to leaders who can successfully manage and use the plurality of views as important input into decision making. It can even unfreeze the close-mindedness of group members.
• Groupthink can lead to defective, shortsighted decisions, as evident by the problematic planning of postwar Iraq in the administration. Another characteristic of groupthink that was evident in the decision to enter the war was the failure to consider the complexity of the adversary and its multifaceted composition, including tribal and religious factions.
• Polythink can have a negative effect on long-term planning in war and in peace, as conflicting opinions within the decision unit and advisory group lead to some satisficing incremental decisions rather than to carefully planned long-term objectives. This can impede long-term policy planning and policy implementation.

We showed that the polythink, groupthink, and con-div processes have wide-ranging implications for war initiation decisions, escalation, and termination decisions. The composition of the decision unit making war and peace decisions and the group dynamics within this unit affect the choices it makes. Understanding these dynamics is key to understanding, predicting, and improving national security and foreign policy decisions.

Notes

1 . Consider, for example, the effect of polythink, groupthink, and con-div on budgetary decisions at the local, state, or federal level. It is clear that such group processes affect the ultimate choice and allocation and distribution of resources, for example, to national security versus social programs—what is known as the guns-and-butter dilemma in budgeting.

2 . Indeed, there has been much research on the important role of higher levels of integrative complexity (an iterative process of divergent and convergent thinking) on constructive decision making by political leaders (see Suedfeld, Tetlock, and Ramirez, 1977). In the War on Terrorism project, Suedfeld and colleagues expand on previous work (see Suedfeld and Leighton, 2002) seeking to analyze changes in the integrative complexity of world leaders prior to 9/11 and up until the end of the Iraq war. Specifically, the authors examined the integrative complexity of world leaders during the war on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the war on the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and U.S leaders during the broader War on Terrorism.

3 . This group conflict is perhaps best represented in the high turnover of staff in the Obama administration. By the end of Obama’s third year in office, only one of the top eight officials in the government’s foreign policy apparatus was in the same job as at the start of the administration: Hillary Clinton (Mann, 2012).

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