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6.7: Conclusion

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    Vocabulary

    1. Bay of Pigs Invasion: A failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by Cuban exiles sponsored by the U.S. government in April 1961, aimed at overthrowing Fidel Castro's regime.
    2. Cuban Missile Crisis: A 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in October 1962, triggered by the discovery of Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba. The crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
    3. Graham Allison: An American political scientist and author, best known for his work on decision-making in international relations. His 1971 book The Essence of Decision analyzed the Cuban Missile Crisis using three distinct models of decision-making.
    4. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD): A doctrine of military strategy in which the use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would result in the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender, serving as a deterrent to nuclear war.
    5. Naval Blockade: A military strategy used to prevent ships from entering or leaving enemy ports. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. imposed a naval blockade around Cuba to stop the delivery of Soviet nuclear missiles.
    6. The Bureaucratic Politics Model (BPM): A model viewing foreign policy decisions as the result of bargaining and compromise among government officials.
    7. The Essence of Decision: A 1971 book by Graham Allison that analyzes decision-making during the Cuban Missile Crisis, using three distinct models.
    8. The Organizational Process Model (OPM): A model explaining foreign policy decisions as outcomes of established procedures and routines within bureaucracies, rather than deliberate rational choices.
    9. The Rational Actor Model (RAM): A model that assumes states act as unitary, rational actors, evaluating options and selecting the one that maximizes national interests.
    10. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): Established routines used by bureaucracies to handle tasks, which can constrain decision-making, especially during crises.

    Additional Resources

    Allison, Graham. 1969. “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” American Political Science Review, Vol 63, No. 3: 689-718.

    Allison, Graham, Zelikow, Philip. 1999. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (2nd ed.). New York: Longman.

    Putnam, Robert. 1988. “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization, Vol. 42, No. 3: 427-460.


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