Leaders Perspectives, Personality, and Ideology Shaped State Foreign Policy.

A leader’s personality is likely to affect how she or he organizes the executive, Some leaders gain insight from hearing their advisors debate issues  in their presence, while others like to ponder the policy options their advisors provide to them in solitude. Some leaders are intent that their preferences shape policy, whereas others want policy choices to reflect a consensus among various viewpoints. It also matters whether a leader wishes to be actively involved in foreign policy making, actively seeking out information and shaping the policy options, or, conversely, prefers to rely on the expertise of trusted advisors who help define issues and gather information. Leaders are more likely to actively seek out information when they feel knowledgeable about (and comfortable with) foreign affairs and when they trust the bureaucracy.

How we perceive our world is not only dependent on context but also  quite resistant to change. Perceptions that may have been accurate at one time endure. They become the perspective from which we view the world—the image we have of the world—even if the circumstances have changed. That image guides our interpretation of new information about  our environment and the actors in it.

For instance, why would the leaders of Argentina decide to invade a  group of small islands off their coast in 1982 and risk a war with Britain?Argentina was at the time led by a three-person junta (or military dictatorship), consisting of the President and Commander in chief of the Army,  General Leopoldo F. Galtieri, the Commander in chief of the Navy,  Admiral Jorge I. Anaya, and the Commander in chief of the Air Force,  Brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo.

A focus on the personality or character of leaders is often motivated by  questions such as these: What sort of personality makes a good leader? What sort of leader will this person make? What sort of personality is the leader of that country?  it is not easy to define the qualities that make a good leader. It is easier to determine the personality of a leader and predict what sort of leadership we might expect from that individual.

Leaders decision are so important to foreign act of a country’s it solely determines the country actions and inaction, for instance Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq, invaded Kuwait in the early 1990s only to find that the United States, under President George H. W. Bush put together a coalition to push him back out. Saddam Hussein knew that the United States was more powerful and much better armed than Iraq.

Although Iraq had, in those days, one of the stronger militaries in the region, it was no match for a superpower. Saddam Hussein may have calculated that the United States was too preoccupied with the demise of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the latter’s economy to worry about his invasion of a small neighboring state. A meeting with the American ambassador to Iraq, career diplomat April Glaspie, reinforced his assessment. She  made the now-famous statement that “we have no opinion on the Arab - Arab conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait.”1 Sadam Hussein may have interpreted this to mean that the United States would not take action if his military attacked Kuwait. Should he have realized that the United States, no matter how much it appeared to be otherwise  engaged, could not accept his seizure of the small, but oil-rich Kuwait?.

Or is Why Trump Is Getting Away With Foreign-Policy Insanity

the world saw was a U.S. president Trump on U.S.-Russian  rejecting the findings of his own intelligence services—now headed by his own appointees, by the way—and accepting at face value Putin’s entirely predictable denials. Trump also tossed in a word salad of discredited conspiracy theories about former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email server and other irrelevant nonsense, and he said that the legitimate investigation into possible Russian interference was utterly baseless and bad for the country. (That very last claim might be true—i.e., the suspicion that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia is bad for the country—but whether it is without foundation remains to be seen.) (sources Foreignpolicy.com)

Hence, when seeking to explain foreign policy  decisions, it is more fruitful to start with the assumption that the leaders  who made these puzzling decisions were rational human beings trying their best to make “good” foreign policy decisions for their countries.

Materials and references 

A Comparetive introduction foreign policy analysis Marijki B