Episode 1: Analytic Perspectives of Foreign Policy Decision-Making

How do foreign policy decisions get made in Washington? How do individual leaders, organizations, and domestic political processes influence the choices officials make in shaping national security policy? To help professionals make sense of this landscape, The Debrief surveys a range of analytic perspectives that inform these processes with Dr. Jessica Blankshain, associate professor of national security affairs and Foreign Policy Analysis subcourse director at the U.S. Naval War College, as well as coauthor of Decision-Making in American Foreign Policy: Translating Theory into Practice.About the Speaker:Dr. Jessica Blankshain joined the National Security Affairs department in 2014 with a doctorate in political economy & government. She teaches the Leadership Concepts and Policy Analysis sub-courses, as well as electives on Central Challenges of American National Security and Civil-Military Relations. Dr. Blankshain is a former graduate fellow with the Rumsfeld Foundation and a former research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Her research interests include civil-military relations, bureaucratic politics, and organizational economics. She also worked for two years as an associate consultant in the Chicago office of the Boston Consulting Group.The views presented by the faculty or other guest speakers do not reflect official positions of the Naval War College, DON or DOD.