ABSTRACT
Foreign policy evaluation involves two different intellectual exercises, one analytic and the other normative. In the analytic mode, the evaluator proceeds from the goals and objectives enunciated by the authoritative decision-makers of State A and then proceeds to evaluate whether the mix of strategies and tactics chosen was the most appropriate to achieve these objectives. This involves not only an assessment of the behavior designed by the actions (and inactions) chosen to achieve the objectives, but also an assessment of the unintended consequences of these actions. A quite different intellectual task, often not made clear by the analyst, is a judgement on the proper choice of the goals and objectives of State A. In a subject area as value-laden as the conduct of foreign policy, particularly by a great power whose actions affect the fate of many beyond the citizens of that state, the two processes are often inextricably tied together. The analyst's own policy preferences can easily influence his discussion of the goals, strategies, and outcomes, dramatizing successes and minimizing problems where he agrees with the objectives, and dramatizing failures and maximizing problems where he disagrees. With a President as consciously ideological in his foreign policy rhetoric as Ronald Reagan, it is not surprising that so much of the evaluation will evoke the value preferences of the analyst as well.
