The United States vs Germany in the Context of Operation Iraqi Freedom - Essay Example

? ………………….. ………………….. …………………... The Process of Foreign Policy Decision Making: the United s vs Germany in the Context of Operation Iraqi Freedom Abstract This paper is aimed to examine the process of foreign policy decision making in the United States and Germany, as determined by the constitutional conditions, participating institutions, as well as the different interests and players of each of the two countries involved. Comparing their approaches to foreign policy decision making, which is considered to reflect not only peculiar features of the particular constitutional situation, political system and nations’ self-image, but also the country’s position within the international environment, the paper advocates the idea that the differences have contributed, to a varying degree, to the split between the two countries over Operation Iraqi Freedom. 1. Foreign Policy Decision Making of the US 1.1 Constitutional Conditions By virtue of his constitutional prerogatives, as set up in Article II, Section 1 and 2 of the US Constitution, the President of the United States is the nation’s chief executive and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, as well as is granted the power to make treaties with foreign nations, “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate… provided two thirds of the Senators concur” (Clause 2). This postulate not only outlines the presidential powers in regard to foreign policy decision making, but also gives the Senate quite a passable share in that process by requiring Senate approval and confirmation of any treaty before it comes into effect. However, the President is allowed to enter into “presidential or sole executive agreements” concluded on the basis of his constitutional authority in regard to Article II, Section 1, Section 2, Clause 1 and Clause 2, as well as Section 3 of the Constitution (Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress 4). In addition to his control over the military forces, the President has the authority to deploy them at his discretion – in other words to wage war – while the Congress is empowered to declare war, and to raise and support armies, as well as to provide and maintain navy, which alongside the control of funding the military provides another way of keeping the executive branch in check (Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 8, Clauses 11, 12, 13). Under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, the Congress is additionally empowered to “make all Laws which shell be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers” (Clause 18), which clause enables the legislature to use any reasonable means to put the powers in question into action, and authorizes the Congress to enact legislation necessary to carry out the powers of the other branches as well (Constitution of the US, Article I, Section 8, Explanation). This division of the war powers had repeatedly been put to the test in Korea, Vietnam and other places, where the US were involved in a number of intense conflicts without any declaration of war. That had provoked congressmen’s concern and a national argument over the meaning of these powers and the erosion of congressional authority to decide whether and when the United States should be involved in a war. As a consequence, both the House of Representatives and Senate passed the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148) which, although being vetoed by the President Nixon, was enacted in 1973. The resolution has been intended to guarantee “that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities” (War Powers Resolution, Sec. 2a), as well as to stipulate the procedures of consultation, reporting, congressional action, etc. in regard to the US involvement into such situations. 1.2. Participating Institutions As seen from above, the institutions all-important in the process of creation (decision making) and implementation of U.S. foreign policy are determined by the American Constitution. These are the executive branch in the person of the President of the United States, with his broad powers to direct foreign policy, and the Congress of the US, mainly represented by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. There are key departments within the executive branch, commonly typified as the Bureaucracy, which play a substantial role in developing and carrying out foreign policy. The Department of State headed by the Secretary of State – nominally the President’s most important foreign policy adviser - is tackling a vast number of foreign policy issues, from international security, nonproliferation and arms control to democracy, human rights and environmental affairs (U. S. Department of State). Much of the information that goes into foreign policy decision-making is provided by American diplomats serving in and/or heading US embassies and missions around the world, working as part of the State Department (the U.S. Foreign Service), which makes them another key element of foreign policy machinery. Within the Executive Office of the President, The National Security Council (NSC) advises and assists the President on national security and foreign policy issues, serving as the President’s principal arm “for coordinating these policies among various government agencies” (The White House, NSC). Being chaired by the President, the NSC comprises the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, as well as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a statutory military advisor, and the Director of National Intelligence as the intelligence advisor to the Council (The White House, NSC). The Defense Department is engaged in carrying out the U.S. foreign policy via directing, coordinating and administering the activities of the armed forces in war, peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, etc. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has jurisdiction over: the relations of the United States with foreign nations; treaties and executive agreements; the United Nations and its affiliated organizations; diplomatic service - in terms of approving nominations to key foreign policy appointments; the international law as it relates to foreign policy; and probably the most important of them all – intervention abroad and declarations of war (U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations). The House Committee on Foreign Affairs, aka House Committee on International Relations, is considered to play a relatively minor but still important role, being responsible for oversight and legislation in regard to foreign assistance; the Peace Corps; national security developments affecting foreign policy; strategic planning and agreements; war powers, treaties, executive agreements, the deployment and use of United States Armed Forces; peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and enforcement of United Nations or other international sanctions; the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), etc. (U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs). A number of other institutions, including international ones like NATO and the United Nations (UN Security Council), more or less exert influence on, or contribute to shaping U.S. foreign policy. These are mainly think tanks and Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) and comprise the Brookings Institution, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) – one of America’s leading institutions for analyzing international affairs, the Center for American Progress, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), RAND Corporation, the Heritage Foundation, etc. 1.3. Interests and Players Stein writes that states take particular actions because people in the governments choose those actions as appropriate (292). Though as simple as true, this explanation shrouds the real scale and intensity of the multi-faceted struggle between multifarious players and interests on the direction of state’s actions in the international arena. Generally there are domestic and international factors (actors) that set up the context, within which foreign policy decision making goes off. The domestic actors could be divided into state and non-state, whose specific interests, to a degree or another, are incorporated into the formally announced state/national interests. In turn, the state actors could be divided into professional politicians –the political parties and coalitions; bureaucracies – including various agencies and services, like intelligence, diplomatic, and overseas-aid ones; as well as the Military-Industrial complex, which, as an intertwined network of industrial corporations, governmental agencies, research institutions, etc., holds a lot of influence on foreign policy decision making in most developed countries of the world. The non-state actors include various interest groups, like private capital, environmental, religious and ethnic groups, social movements, professional and trade associations, etc., which exert their influence on state’s officials via the process of lobbying. Somewhere between the state and non-state actors appeared the think tanks – commonly university- or foundation-based groups and institutions delivering academic and expert’s point of view to the holistic process of foreign policy decision making. The main state actors in foreign policy decision making of the United States are the represented by the two major political parties – the Democratic and the Republican – and their configurations within the U.S. Congress and the Foreign Relations Committees of both chambers; the Executive Branch (the White House) along with a number of state departments and agencies – the National Security Council, the State Department, the Defense Department, the CIA, and the Military-Industrial Complex represented by its political lobby, etc. The interests of these players are considered to mainly clash on three levels – between politicians and foreign policy bureaucrats (career officials) for the control of an agency, between different units within the agencies, and the interagency tensions, with the latter determined by their proximity to the President. Insofar as the Military-Industrial Complex comprises various governmental agencies, private capital, public figures and institutions, etc., each particularly interested in and benefiting from military spending, its capabilities to influence both legislature and the executive branch are remarkably big, varying from generous contributions to political campaigns to open bribery. Among the domestic non-state actors, the ethnic interest groups are those who are considered to exert a powerful foreign policy influence, whether by virtue of their electoral capacity or due to socioeconomic factors. While the Congress is too often targeted by interest groups due to the easier access, the executive branch is definitely not immune from such a pressure (Paul, D. and Paul, R.A. 7). Within the domestic actors, last but not least, should be mentioned the role of the printed and electronic media, with its potential to influence and form the public opinion, to provide correctives, and sometimes to predetermine either the success or failure of a policy, both as formulation and implementation. The interests and goals of the domestic constituents (including state and non-state actors) however, either coinciding with the national interest as a whole or not, as the case might be, are believed to hold a huge share in shaping US foreign policy decision making. The external (international and supranational) actors could influence the foreign policy decision making of the US in two patterns – using the lobbyist’s methods or conceding a network for policy implementation, such as the UN Security Council, NATO, World Trade Organization, etc. 2. Foreign Policy Decision Making of Germany 2.1. Constitutional Conditions According to the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, the Federation (through its legislative organ – the Bundestag) has exclusive power to legislate in regard to foreign affairs and defense (Basic Law, Chapter 7, Article 73 (1) – Subjects of exclusive legislative power). The Federation is responsible for conducting the relations with foreign states as well, with the stipulation that a Land should be timely consulted – before the conclusion of a treaty - in cases of special circumstances affecting that Land (Chapter 2, Article 32 – Foreign Relations). Given the Lander (Bundesrat) powers to legislate, Article 32 also provides for the possibility of concluding treaties with foreign states by the Lander, with the consent of the Federal Government (Section 3). Article 24 admits certain transfer of sovereign powers by law from both Federation and the Lander to international organizations, as well as entering into a system of collective security with respect to maintaining peace in Europe and other nations of the world (Section 1, 1a, 2 and 3). In regard to the relationship with the European Union, when legislative powers exclusive to the Lander are primarily affected, Article 23 provides for delegation of rights from the Federal Republic of Germany to a representative of the Lander designated by the Bundesrat (Section 6). The Federal Government - in the person of the Federal Chancellor when the general guidelines of policy is concerned, as well as the Federal Minister for the respective department (the Federal Foreign Office) - is responsible for maintaining the relations with other states, international and supranational organizations (the Basic Law, Chapter 6, Article 65), as well as runs the German Missions abroad. The Federal Government (the Federal Minister of Defense) is also entrusted with the command of the armed forces (Basic Law, Chapter 6, Article 65a). Due to peculiarities of Germany’s post-World War Two status, acts “tending to and undertaken with intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations, especially to prepare for a war of aggression” are defined as criminal offense and this formulation is enshrined in the Basic Law, along with the obligation to comply with the general rules of international law (Basic Law, Chapter 2, Article 25, 26). The deployment of military forces outside German and NATO territory is not explicitly spelled out in the Basic Law, and therefore is open to interpretation. Such an interpretation might be considered the Federal Constitutional Court’s 1994 decision concerning the deployment of AWACS surveillance aircraft over the Adriatic Sea; which, according to some authors, has become one of the German constitutional law cornerstones, insofar as the Bundestag’s “constitutive approval” for each case of external use of German Armed Forces is concerned (Nolte 234). Schmidt-Radefeldt, as cited in Aust and Vashakmadze, writes that the increasing involvement of Germany in international military structures presents a challenge to parliamentary control, as far as the envisaged Response Force operations would be difficult to subject to previous scrutiny (2224); while another Constitutional Court’s decision from 2001, in regard the 1999 NATO Strategic Concept allowing so-called “non-Article-5 missions” beyond its boundaries, a renewal of parliamentary approval of the NATO Treaty is not required (qtd. in Aust and Vashakmadze 2224). 2.2 Participating Institutions The key institutions that take part in foreign policy decision making of Germany are the Federal Government, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. While the executive power is personified by the Chancellor, whose prerogatives are confirmed in Article 64 of the Basic Law, the importance of foreign policy within the governmental structure and hierarchy is underlined by the fact that the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs usually performs the duty of Deputy Chancellor (Die Bundesregierung). The Federal Ministers are empowered by the Basic Law to conduct their affairs independently and on their own responsibility – the command of the armed forces of the country is vested in the Federal Minister of Defense, who has sole responsibility for them in peacetime (Basic Law, Article 65, 65a). As mentioned above, the maintenance of relations with foreign states, as well as international and supranational organizations, comes under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, being performed via the Federal Foreign Office and the German Missions Abroad. The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is the only foreign intelligence service of the Federal Republic and is also placed under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. BND contributes to the process of foreign policy decision making as a provider of information to the Federal Government and Parliament (Bundesnachrichtendienst). The role of the Bundestag – the organ through which the Federation carries into effect its constitutional prerogatives - consists in participation in the conclusion of treaties under international law, legislative acts of the European Union and parliamentary scrutiny of the government, as well as deciding on federal budget and deployments of the Federal Armed Forces outside the country (Deutscher Bundestag). There are three permanent committees within the Bundestag, which are enshrined in the Basic Law, dealing with foreign policy issues – the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union representing the central forum for the Bundestag’s participation in European affairs, the Defense Committee dealing with Germany’s role in international security policy, parliamentary oversight of the armed forces, etc., and the Committee on Foreign Affairs tackling important foreign and security policy decisions, as well as overseeing the government’s foreign policy (Deutscher Bundestag). The Bundesrat participates in foreign affairs decision making via defending the interests of the Lander “indirectly vis-a-vis the European Union” and pursuant to Articles 23 and 24 of the Basic Law (Bundesrat). Major foreign policy think tanks, like the Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) advising both government and parliament, German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) which is more oriented toward the public and similar to the Council for Foreign Relations in New York, and the Center for Applied Policy Research (CAP) focusing on foreign and security policy, European policies, along with other think tanks, including party ones like Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) are considered to have considerable impact on the process of foreign policy decision making of the Federal Republic (OSC Media Aid). The country associations of businesses and institutions, like the German-African Business Association, German Near and Middle East Association, Eastern and Central Europe Association, German Asia-Pacific Business Association, Australia and New Zealand Association, etc. are yet another participants in foreign policy decision making, dealing with external economic promotion (Federal Foreign Office). Outside the domestic influences, in the case of Germany there are others of regional, international and supranational institutions and organizations, including NATO, the European Parliament, the European Commission, the General Affairs Council and the Foreign Affairs Council within the Council of the European Union, the United Nations, etc. 2.3. Interests and Players The key domestic state actors in the process of foreign policy decision making of Germany are the political parties/coalitions forming the Federal Government and represented in the two legislative bodies – the Bundestag and Bundesrat respectively, the permanent committees within the Bundestag dealing with foreign policy issues, as well as the Federal Government departments and agencies, like the Foreign Service, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the Federal Ministry of Defense, BND, etc. The classic clash of interests between bureaucracies and professional politicians over the control of departments, agencies and units within the state machinery is present here as well; moreover, given the constitutionally guaranteed independence in conducting departmental affairs, the conflict of interests between different agencies/departments is by definition a bit more likely. The domestic non-state actors with strong interest in policy issues are represented by a core of four large national associations which comprise the labor unions, religious, cultural and business organizations, as well as the agricultural lobbying organizations, whose origins might be sought in a tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages – the corporate guild system (German Culture). These associations are formally registered as lobbyists with the Federal Government, active at both Land (Bundesrat) and Federation level (Bundestag). What is interesting here is their quasi-official, institutionalized status - though claiming to remain above a party or politics, they maintain well-developed relationship with political parties and formal affiliations with members of the legislative bodies (German Culture). The country business associations, along with the Federation of German Industries and the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce are among the important players with interest in external economic promotion, which is a substantial line of Germany’s foreign policy (Federal Foreign Office). Just as in the other democracies of the developed world, the mass media in Germany, along with the electronic media and Internet, holds considerable sway over public opinion, and therefore appears a significant player, with its own specific interests (and tasks), in the process of foreign policy decision making. The public opinion – whether being modeled by media publications and campaigns or by the politicians and governments through the mass media – is an important player itself (in terms of raising or toppling governments and political leaders), though without specific and well-defined interests in foreign policy issues, which alongside the different perceptions would explain the varying views on such matters. The interests of think tanks, as deliverers of academic notion and expert’s point of view in the decision-making process, generally coincide with those of the governments using their services. That is particularly true in the case of German think tanks which in order to avoid being connected with corporate interest, mainly rely on governmental funding. Another peculiarity of German think tanks according to Braml is their close ties with universities and a narrow focus on the government elite (qtd. in OSC Media Aid). The external players that influence foreign policy decision-making of Germany are too much to be listed here in detail, given the increasing number of German’s foreign policy objectives. However, there ought to be mentioned NATO, the European Union, OSCE, France (the Franco-German cooperation), Russia (strong bilateral economic ties and certain level of policy coordination), China, the developing countries, and last but not least, the UN Security Council. 3. Comparison of the decision-making processes of the United States and Germany in OIF 3.1 Comparison of the decision-making process The decision-making is a complex and sophisticated process, whose major determinants are considered the constitutional situation (including the political system with its peculiarities, limitations and participating institutions) and the specific position of a country within the global political, economic, and geopolitical realities at a certain point or period of time. Therefore, the comparison of different countries’ decision making approach should take into account those determinants as a sine qua non. Although being the bases for functioning of two modern, pluralistic and industrially advanced societies, the Constitution of the United States and the Basic Law of Germany reflect the different realities of both countries’ historical fate – while the US Constitution is a result of the expectations and intentions of a newly born nation, having emerged victorious after independence war against the then greatest world power, the Basic Law of Germany is more or less the consequence of the crushing defeat suffered by Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Being translated into practical policy terms (war powers), that would explain why the former is mainly concerned about who is empowered to declare war, the control over military deployment and operations abroad, etc., while the latter has laid particular stress on the ban of such activities as a general rule. Though the world realities have significantly changed ever since, considering the increased involvement of Germany in international affairs and hot spot missions abroad, the limitations set by the rule remain. Another difference emerges from the political systems of both countries and ensuing institutional conditions – on the one hand, the U.S. presidential system is based on the principle of relatively sharp separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches, whereas in the German parliamentary system (like every parliamentary system, though bearing some similarities to the U.S. one in terms of federalism and judicial review) this separation is not that clear since the federal chancellor is elected by the parliament (Basic Law, Chapter VI, Article 63); moreover, the integration of executive and legislature is reinforced by the normal necessity of agreement. On the other hand, the U.S. electoral system (two major parties which compete for political power) has embedded the winner-takes-all electoral principle, which in fact prevents other – new and smaller parties – to enter the power corridors, while the principle of proportional representation in the case of Germany – though limited to the parties that could achieve the required percentage of the general vote – allows smaller political players to take part in the decision-making process. All that combined with the different terms in office, in regard to the U.S. President and Congress, would explain the greater freedom of choice and action allowed to the U.S. executive as against its German counterpart. The second major determinant of decision-making of both Germany and the US normally produces greater differences in their approach to foreign policy decision-making. Laura Neack makes interesting point writing on foreign policy scholarship – whether “states act the way they act in the world because of who they are (as defined within the state)” or due to “where they sit in the world (as defined by their relationships with other states in the international system)”(Neack 131). The true answer of those fundamental questions, perhaps, as in most cases, lies between the two. The unique position of the United States as the single world superpower, combined with the incomparable military and economic (yet) capabilities, provides another perspective in terms of strategic goals and strategies for achieving them as stated. This perspective is inevitably projected onto the entangled set of domestic and external relationships and environments within which the foreign policy decision-making is being forged. NATO for instance, have been seen by European states as guarantee against the Soviet threat, while for the US it was (and still is) a powerful foreign policy instrument which among other uses is intended to constrain the European states from pursuing unilateral foreign policies (Neack 144). Whereas current Germany’s foreign policy, and therefore foreign policy decision-making, is more narrowly focused on European Union in order to achieve greater power status within the combined power of the member states, as well as on the Eurasian axis. The pattern of domestic influences, including interest groups, media, public opinion, etc., on foreign policy decision making of both Germany and the US is similar rather than exposing some striking differences, yet the institutionalized status of the large German interest groups. 3.2 The different approaches to foreign policy decision-making of the US and Germany in the context of Operation Iraqi Freedom: consequences and lessons Two camps within President George W. Bush’s administration are considered to have heavily influenced the foreign policy decision-making after the 9/11 terrorists attacks on the United States – the neoconservatives with their claim for “new right in the world” pursuing U.S. global leadership, democracy promotion and change of regimes that support or harbor terrorists; and that of the traditional conservatives, closer to the “political realism” of Ronald Reagan, personified by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld and the Vice President Dick Cheney, which are considered more focused on enhancing US superiority and securing access to the region with the world’s greatest oil reserves (Neack 149). The merger of both camps is thought to have created the “Bush Doctrine” whose principles were embedded in 2002 National Security Strategy and became cornerstone of US foreign policy (Neack 150). Insofar as the public opinion had been prepared to endorse the slogans of the doctrine, due to the heavy losses in human lives and national dignity after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the administration was facilitated to proceed with its policy objectives, though the criticism from official and other sources both inside and outside the US. Following George W. Bush’s statement before the United Nations General Assembly on September 12, 2002, asking for Security Council sanction for the enforcement of the resolutions against Iraq, H.J.Res. 114 has been introduced in the Congress and passed the House of Representatives and the Senate on October 10 and 11, 2002, respectively. The Bill was signed by the President on October 16, 2002, and became Public Law 107-243, providing support for the US diplomatic efforts to enforce all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq and authorizing the President to use the US armed forces “as he determines to be necessary and appropriate” (Public Law 107-243, Section 2; Section 3). At the other end of the spectrum were the German popular and official attitudes towards the preparation for invasion in Iraq. Despite the increasingly proactive stance on international affairs pursued by German politics ever since the 1990s, the cornerstone of Germany’s foreign policy remained the commitment to pacifism, multilateral diplomacy and standards of international law, with the European Union and NATO as focal points (Belkin 2-4). The balance between Germany’s support for stronger and more capable Europe as a way to be enhanced the international status of Germany itself, and the traditional allegiance to NATO as the guarantor of the European security, is considered the most salient feature of country’s foreign policy (Belkin 4). Insofar as the traditional allegiance to NATO presupposes and as a rule narrowly corresponds to close enough transatlantic relations, the German opposition to OIF appeared a bit of surprise. Karp writes that Schroder’s decision not to support the US-led military intervention intended to disarm Iraq and topple Hussein’s regime, though being considered a mistake, represented a “hasty but effective compromise between the election woes of an incumbent government and an unpopular war waged by an equally unpopular U.S.” (65). Other possible explanations of Germany’s non-cooperation are a shift in the foreign policy direction - from a moderator between France and the US towards more self-serving and confident behavior on the international scene (Karp 65-66). Perhaps both explanations ring true, as far as Gerhard Schroder and his Social Democratic party (along with the Green Party) had run and won their 2002 election campaign under the banner of “German Way” referring to the decision to avoid any involvement in the looming conflict “independently, of what the UN decides” (Hooper 2002); and after being re-elected they didn’t change the policy course. The Franco–German axis of European cooperation, along with the close bilateral relations with Russia, might have been another important factor that weighed with the then German decision to oppose the U.S. Apart from the far-reaching implications for the foreign policy of both Germany and the United States due to their decisions on this particular issue, in terms of gains and losses, achieved strategic goals and objectives, or policy failures, there are two important lessons to be learned. The first is that foreign policy issues could be, and constantly are used in achieving certain objectives which are high on the agenda of domestic political actors. The second lesson is associated with the understanding that the politicians in any country are neither free nor willing to take decisions on foreign policy alone, therefore the whole array of domestic and external factors/actors is considered important for shaping foreign policy decision-making. Conclusion Each and every one of the mentioned above domestic and external factors/actors is seen as to have relative weight in the process of foreign policy decision-making. The differences between the US and German decision-making processes are mainly thought to stem from both countries’ different status and policy objectives, rather than the differing frameworks for decision-making themselves. However, the “right” or “wrong” decision-making is determined by striking a balance between the interests of all the players, combined with careful determination of what the national interests might consist in. References 1. Aust, Helmut P. and Mindia Vashakmadze, Parliamentary Consent to the Use of German Armed Forces Abroad: The 2008 Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in the AWACS/Turkey Case, German Law Journal, Vol. 09 No. 12, 2008, 2224 < http://www.germanlawjournal.com/pdfs/Vol09No12/PDF_Vol_09_No_12_ 2223-2236_Dev_Aust_Vashakmadze.pdf> 2. 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In Carlsnaes, Walter, Thomas Risse, and Beth A. Simmons, eds. Handbook of International Relations. Sage, 2002, pp. 292–308 24. The White House Washington, the Administration - National Security Council. < http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/nsc> 25. U.S. Department of State, Policy Issues. < http://www.state.gov/policy/> 26. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Jurisdiction of the Committee. < http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/about.asp?sec=jurisdiction> 27. U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Rules of the Committee on Foreign Relations, February 2011, Rule 1 – Jurisdiction. < http://foreign.senate.gov/about /rules/> Read More